Havoc Red: Surviving the Alaska-Siberia Route, 1943

When Russia was pushed to the brink by Germany’s war machine, President Franklin Roosevelt agreed to an uncomfortable alliance with Joseph Stalin and sent thousands of aircraft to the battered Soviet nation by way of the Alaska-Siberia Route.

Lend-Lease pilots braved blinding arctic storms and primitive navigation delivering planes to Fairbanks. There, Russian pilots flew them on to the Eastern Front.

The Soviets demanded more and more from the White House. Fearing the loss of Russia’s loyalty, top-level deals were made, with Faustian consequences.

One man agreed to a secret delivery mission. During the severe winter of 1943 he and a pilot took off from Great Falls, Montana with black suitcases marked Diplomatic Immunity - Havoc Red.

Rather than becoming celebrated heroes, they were forgotten in the Yukon’s rugged terrain. One commits a desperate act and has to find a different kind of heroism on his return from the ice-bound north.