I just finished Forgotten Bastards of the Eastern Front: American Airmen Behind Soviet Lines and the Collapse of the Grand Alliance by Plokhy. I loved it! It focuses on the American airbases in Poltava in what is now Ukraine, which were originally established so that the British and Americans could do bombing runs straight across Germany and land in Ukraine to refuel. Stalin wasn’t thrilled about it but he ended up giving in.

Most of the Americans who were sent to staff the airbases were picked because they spoke Russian (although they were screened for anti-Soviet sentiment). The Soviets, of course, immediately assumed all these guys were spies (they weren’t). Drama ensued.

It should’ve been a relatively small moment in the larger war but he makes a really strong argument that it had outsized influence, >!partly because Harriman was involved, partly because a lot of the Americans (and Soviets) who worked at Poltava were posted to Berlin after the war, and partly because near the end of the war Poltava became central to the disputes over what was going to happen to the American POWs who were being freed from German camps by the Red Army!<

I also really liked the way that he got into the Soviet archives to follow up on how the locals around Poltava, especially the woman who dated American GIs, were treated in the Cold War. I felt like that easily could’ve been overlooked and I’m glad that he included that really personal level as well as the overarching strategic and political impact.

Highly recommend!