THE SECRET FLEET FOR STALIN: Project Hula: How America Armed the Soviet Navy for the Final War Against Japan In WW2 (Unknown WW2 Campaigns)
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THE SECRET FLEET FOR STALIN Project Hula: How America Armed the Soviet Navy for the Final War Against Japan In the final months of World War II, the United States carried out one of the strangest and least-known military operations of the entire conflict. At a remote naval base in Cold Bay, Alaska, American sailors secretly trained thousands of Soviet naval personnel to operate U.S.-built warships. Patrol frigates, minesweepers, submarine chasers, landing craft, and support vessels were handed over to Stalin’s navy in preparation for the Soviet Union’s entry into the war against Japan. The operation was called Project Hula. By the time it ended, approximately 12,000 Soviet sailors had been trained and 149 American ships and craft transferred. For a brief moment, two nations that would soon become Cold War enemies worked side by side. American instructors taught Soviet crews how to operate radar, sonar, communications equipment, weapons, engines, and minesweeping gear. Soviet sailors learned to handle unfamiliar ships in the fog, wind, and cold of the North Pacific. Then the American flag came down, the Soviet naval ensign went up, and the ships sailed west toward war. Their destination was the Soviet Far East. Their enemy was Japan. In August 1945, Stalin finally struck. Soviet armies poured into Manchuria. Forces moved into northern Korea and southern Sakhalin. Amphibious troops attacked the Kuril Islands, where American-built landing craft participated in one of the final battles of World War II at Shumshu. But almost as soon as Project Hula accomplished its purpose, the alliance that created it began to collapse. Japan surrendered. The Cold War began. And Washington soon found itself asking Stalin to return the very warships it had so urgently given him. The Secret Fleet for Stalin tells the remarkable story of this forgotten American-Soviet naval partnership, including: Why Roosevelt desperately wanted Stalin to enter the war against Japan The secret agreements that led to Project Hula Why isolated Cold Bay, Alaska, became the center of the operation Captain William S. Maxwell and Naval Detachment 3294 The extraordinary challenge of training Soviet sailors through interpreters American radar, sonar, weapons, and naval technology transferred to Soviet crews The 149 ships and craft handed over to the Soviet Navy Patrol frigates, minesweepers, submarine chasers, and landing craft The Soviet invasion of Manchuria Operations in Korea and southern Sakhalin The bloody Battle of Shumshu What happened to the American ships after the war How wartime allies became Cold War enemies almost overnight Project Hula was created to help finish World War II. Instead, it became one of the clearest examples of how quickly one war could end and another struggle begin. American ships. Soviet crews. A secret base in Alaska. And a fleet built for Stalin just as the wartime alliance was falling apart. For readers interested in World War II naval history, forgotten military operations, the Pacific War, Soviet military history, Lend-Lease, Alaska in World War II, and the origins of the Cold War, The Secret Fleet for Stalin reveals a remarkable chapter of history that deserves to be remembered.
