One of the seldom remembered lend-lease programs of the Second world War was run out of Fairbanks, Alaska, where American fighter planes were flown across the Berring Sea by Soviet pilots:
"Since 1942 these Russian airmen, picking up planes like batons sticks from pilots of the U.S. Army Air Forces, have flown more than 5,000 combat aircraft across the Arctic wastes to strike against the Luftwaffe on the distant Eastern Front... Indians and Mounties look into the heavens and see a parade of bombers and fighters with the red star winging across the Northern sky. In the flickering glow of the aura-borealis our Lend-Lease planes, with Russian pilots at the controls, take off from Nome for a short hop across the Bering Strait to Siberia."
Click here to read more about the Lend-Lease program.
