"failed due mostly to the intransigence of the contemporary favourite uncle"
Favourite Uncle?? I have many Uncle's but the Favourite Uncle is shown below?
If so, and he frustrated it, we're talking Operation Frantic perhaps - the USAAF plan to base bombers in the USSR in WW2.
This of course takes us to Poltava in the Ukraine which was one of 3 bases the USAAF used.