A new book by the famous historian Sergei Plokhiy is dedicated to a little-known page of World War II - the history of the creation and activities of three US Air Force bases in the Poltava region, "where Soviet and American soldiers lived and fought shoulder to shoulder" and from which shuttle bombing of objects in the countries of the Axis was carried out. There are heroes of great politics who played important roles in the embodiment of the ambitious plan of shuttle bombing: Franklin Roosevelt, US Ambassador to the USSR Averell Harriman, General Dean, from the Soviet side - Joseph Stalin, People's Commissar Vyacheslav Molotov, General Alexei Novikov, but also many thousands of people involved in the daily activities of the bases. During this short time, they received a colossal experience of interaction and communication, which will affect their entire future life. The uniqueness of the work is given by the use of extensive archival materials of the KGB of the Ukrainian SSR (counterintelligence Smersh), previously inaccessible to researchers. This is a microhistory, in which, like in a drop of water, the deliberate doom of an initially brilliant plan was reflected.