Plates

■ Americans behind Stalin’s lines: The first thing that was constructed in the war-ravaged Poltava upon its recapture by the Soviets in the fall of 1943 was the monument to Joseph Stalin. (Library of Congress)

■ Frantic I: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses of the Fifteenth Air Force overflying the fields of Eastern Europe on the way to Poltava, June 2, 1944. (Library of Congress)

■ The Ambassador: Averell Harriman, before his appointment as the US Ambassador to Moscow, London, 1942. (Library of Congress)

■ The Man in Charge: General John R. Deane, the head of the US Military Mission in Moscow, and the man ultimately responsible for opening, running, and closing US air bases in the USSR. Here he enters the residence of Averell Harriman, the US Ambassador to Moscow, July 1945. (US National Archives and Records Administration)

■ The Hosts: Joseph Stalin and Viacheslav Molotov, awaiting members of Western delegations at Yalta, February 1945. The two Soviet leaders agreed to the American request to open US air bases on Soviet territory, but barely tolerated their presence behind the Soviet lines. (State Archive of the Russian Federation)

■ The Counterparts: (left) Chief Air Marshal Aleksandr Novikov. (right) Novikov and his deputy in charge of the formation of new units, Colonel General Aleksei Nikitin, pictured with the US award of the Legion of Merit for his role in setting up US air bases in the USSR. Both Novikov and Nikitin did their best to help their American allies. (Library of Congress)

■ Poltava airfield: Pictured at center is the apartment building mined by the retreated Germans in the fall of 1944. The bombs in the basement of the building were discovered in preparation for the American arrival to the base in April 1944. The airplanes are visible at the airfield beyond the building. (Poltava Museum of Long-Range and Strategic Aviation)

■ The Poltava women: Dressed in embroidered blouses and Ukrainian folk costumes for what seems to be a market day, summer 1944. The war created a gender disbalance in Poltava and other places in Ukraine with women and children constituting the majority of the population, while the men were drafted in the Red Army. (Franklyn Holzman Collection, Davis Center, Harvard University)

■ The air bases come to life: The Soviet commander of the bases, Major General Aleksandr Perminov, with Soviet commanders to his right and American officers to his left. Second from his left is Major General Robert L. Walsh, the commanding officer of the Eastern Command of the US Strategic Air Forces in the USSR, the official name for the US shuttle operation in the Soviet Union, June 1944. (Library of Congress)

■ Getting to know each other: A Soviet mechanic gets familiar with the Flying Fortresses, June 1944. (Library of Congress)

■ Tasting Ukrainian borshch: Local women were employed at the American canteens. GIs picked up some Ukrainian and Russian words and in return taught kitchen staff some American words. Not all of them could be used in a polite society. (Ukrainian Museum-Archives, Cleveland, OH)

■ Welcoming US pilots to Poltava: Second from left is General Perminov. Next to him on his left, translating for the general, is Second Lieutenant Igor Reverditto. Second from the right is the US commander of the base Colonel (later Brigadier General) Arthur Kessler. (Courtesy of Tony Reverditto)

■ Enjoying a concert at the base: From left to right: Major General Ira Eaker, General Perminov, Moscow Mission Interpreter Captain Henry Ware, General Walsh, Colonel Kessler, and a Soviet interpreter. (Library of Congress)

■ The Americans were impressed by the number of medals the Soviets wore on holidays and festive occasions. Here, a GI tries to break the language barrier by making medals the subject of conversation. The Soviets prohibited GI liaisons with the Red Army women. June 1944. (Library of Congress)

■ Volleyball at the base: The teams are mixed, consisting of the US and Red Army servicemen. Fifth from the right is General Ira Eaker. (Library of Congress)

■ Comrades in arms: Soviet pilots and their US counterpart next to the US built P-39 Airacobra fighter aircraft, supplied to the USSR through the Lend Lease and highly valued by the Soviet pilots. (US Air force)

■ Getting ready for the flight back home: While on the way back to their British and Italian bases, the Flying Fortresses refueled and reloaded at Ukrainian bases before embarking on another bomb run on their German targets. (FORTEPAN/National Archives)

■ Chewing gum or “zhvachka” became the best-known American import at Poltava. The Americans were shocked by the number of orphans on the streets of Ukrainian cities and villages, and were originally giving out food and supplies for free. (Library of Congress)

■ The Ukrainian market: The place where the Americans would learn to sell army merchandise to get rubles and buy Soviet-made cameras, Ukrainian embroidery, and last but not least local, alcohol. (Library of Congress)

■ Pearl Harbor on the Steppes: On June 22, 1944, as the Luftwaffe made a night attack on the Poltava air base, the US Air Force suffered the largest losses on the ground since Pearl Harbor. As the Americans assessed the damage, the Soviets tried to blame the losses on the American’s reluctance to disperse the planes on the airfield, as recommended by the Soviet commanders. The Soviet-American relationship began to deteriorate. They never again reached the level of trust they had before June 22, 1944. (American Air Museum in Britain)

■ Ready to go home: The evacuation of the Pyriatyn and Myrhrod bases and the downsizing of the Poltava base came as a result of changes in the front lines in Europe, and rapid deterioration of US-Soviet relations. Stalin refused to allow US and British Air Forces to use Ukrainian bases to resupply during the anti-Nazi uprising in Warsaw, October 1944. (Poltava Museum of Long-Range and Strategic Aviation)

■ Forgotten bastards of Ukraine: Americans, with Soviet assistance, building winter quarters at Poltava. Stalin allowed a small contingent of GIs to stay in Poltava to help with American air traffic in the Soviet Union. (Franklyn Holzman Collection, Davis Center, Harvard University)

■ Averell Harriman on one of his visits to the Poltava base. Apart from being a stopover for American diplomats during their flights from Moscow to Southern Europe and the Middle East, Poltava became a major intelligence gathering point. It’s one of the very few places where information was exchanged about Soviet policies in being overtaken by the Red Army, Eastern Europe, fall 1944. (Poltava Museum of Long-Range and Strategic Aviation)

■ Kathleen Harriman on her return visit to Poltava in the fall of 1944. She gave a detailed description of her initial visit there on June 1-2 when she came to greet the first wave of the Flying Fortresses to arrive in Ukraine. To the left of Kathleen is the new Soviet commander of the base, General Stepan Kovalev. (Poltava Museum of Long-Range and Strategic Aviation)

■ President Roosevelt arrives at the Saki airfield in the Crimea on his way to Yalta, February 3, 1945. He confers here with his closest advisor, Harry Hopkins. Viacheslav Molotov is third from left. The American operations at Saki were run by the Poltava air base personnel. (FDR Library)

■ Viacheslav Molotov confers with British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden after signing an agreement on the exchange of prisoners of war. The Soviet treatment of the American POWs in their custody became one of the most contested issues in Soviet-American relations after the Yalta Conference. This put Poltava pilots and ground crews at the center of US efforts to bring the POWs back to the United States. (State Archive of the Russian Federation)

■ As Soviet-American relations deteriorated, the Soviet security apparatus (in particular, SMERSH - the Red Army counterintelligence service), stepped up its surveillance of the Americans. Here is a report on the American activities at the Saki airfield, signed by the head of the Poltava SMERSH Major Anatoly Zorin. The photo of the US commander of the Poltava base Colonel Thomas Hampton is attached to the report. (Archives of the Security Service of Ukraine)

■ One of the Americans who flew to the Crimea with Colonel Thomas Hampton was his adjutant Russian-speaking and Moscow-raised First Lieutenant George Fischer, pictured here in a 1945 photo. (Courtesy of Vic Fischer)

■ Sergeant Franklyn Holzman, whose letters home tell a day-to-day story of American life in Ukraine. His stay first at Myrhorod and later at Poltava instilled in him an appreciation of the Soviet war effort and set him on the path of becoming a lifelong student of Soviet society and economics. He received graduate training in Soviet affairs at Harvard, where he crossed paths with another aspiring academic with Poltava roots, George Fischer. (Franklyn Holzman Collection, Davis Center, Harvard University)

■ Here, Holzman is pictured with one of his Ukrainian girlfriends, Nina Mozhaeva, in Myrhorod. Holzman’s liaison with another woman in Poltava was broken by the Soviet secret police, who tried to recruit women into spying on the Americans. (Franklyn Holzman Collection, Davis Center, Harvard University)

■ Second Lieutenant Igor Reverditto, a Russian-speaking officer and friend of George Fischer, was shipped back to the US in September 1944 after a quarrel with Soviet officers. With his outgoing personality and fluent Russian-speaking abilities, Reverditto was considered to be a spy by the Soviets, and was fed up with SMERSH and secret police surveillance and harassment. (Courtesy of Tony Reverditto)

■ In this 1945 photo, Igor Reverditto is portrayed with his first-born son, Michael. He and his family settled in California after the war, while the KGB kept harassing the women he had previously dated or had acquaintances with at Poltava trying to get information on Reverditto’s whereabouts in the United States. (Courtesy of Tony Reverditto)

■ First Lieutenant William Kaluta became extremely skeptical of the Soviet regime when he was asked to use his knowledge of Russian to help fellow officers protect their Ukrainian girlfriends from the secret police harassment. Here, Kaluta is portrayed playing the accordion at one of the Soviet-American social gatherings at Poltava. On the far left is the US commander of the base Colonel Hampton, immediately behind Kaluta is another Russian-speaking officer Major Michael Kowal. Sitting to the left of Kaluta is the commander of the Poltava SMERSH, Major Anatoly Zorin. (Poltava Museum of Long-Range and Strategic Aviation)

■ US officers and nurses dressed for the 1944 Christmas party. William Kaluta is on the far right, sitting next to his future wife, Second Lieutenant Clotilde Govoni. Their marriage was registered in Poltava in May 1945. (Poltava Museum of Long-Range and Strategic Aviation)

■ Disheartened, disoriented, defiant: The US troops march for the memorial service for President Roosevelt, Poltava, April 1945. (Poltava Museum of Long-Range and Strategic Aviation)

■ Americans made many memories in Poltava and the region. Stalin’s secret police tried its best to preclude GI contacts with the locals. For decades to come, they harassed women who had the “misfortune” of meeting Americans. (Library of Congress)