<p>June also saw an abortive attempt at American cooperation with the Russians in Operation Frantic, which was aptly named. It was conceived as a shuttle-bombing program, with the heavies hitting targets in eastern Germany and then continuing onward to recover at Russian bases. It was one of those ideas that seemed good at the time, particularly since the Allies were concerned about keeping the Russians in the war and preventing them from making a separate peace with the Germans.
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<p>Today, Frantic is not remembered for its frustrations, which were many, or its successes, which were minimal. It is celebrated as the best bit of bombing the Luftwaffe ever did. On 21 June, a lone Heinkel 177, an otherwise undistinguished airplane, tracked a large formation of B-17s headed in a generally easterly direction. It shadowed the bombers and got a fix on their destination. That night, the Luftwaffe bombed the Russian airfield at Poltava, destroying 43 dispersed B-17s and 15 Mustangs. German bombs hit an ammunition dump and a fuel dump, and almost half a million gallons of aviation gasoline brightened the night sky.
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<p>Frantic was short-lived, and strategically was of zero value. In theory, it was to have some diplomatic advantages, which have long since proved useless and forgotten.
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<p>The concept of carpet bombing—saturating an area ahead of a battle line with concentrated bomb drops—was an appealing one to ground commanders. Often, their air counterparts argued against it, as Eaker had done at Cassino. Plowing the battlefield, they pointed out, often made it impossible for armor and troops to advance at a normal pace, and gave the surviving defences too much time to reorganize. But a commanders' conference decided to try it to aid the breakout of the Allied forces from the beachhead area. Operation Cobra called in all Eighth AF heavies, and all Ninth AF fighters and medium bombers. The fighters, loaded with bombs, rockets and full ammunition, hit an area 250 x 7,500 yd (229 x 6858 m) just ahead of Allied troops outside St-Lo. Medium and heavy bombers saturated a 1 x 5-mile (1.6 x 8-km) area just beyond the fighter-bombers' target.
