Project Coldfeet Snatched Arctic Operatives

On May 28, 1962, Project Coldfeet parachuted an Air Force major named James Smith and a Navy lieutenant named Leonard A. LeSchack onto the abandoned Soviet Arctic station NP 8. The drifting station lay beyond practical helicopter and icebreaker range, so the men gathered Soviet documents and equipment on the ice. On June 1, a converted CIA B-17 used the Fulton Skyhook to lift the equipment and both men off the ice without landing. The recovered material revealed Soviet research into detecting American submarines beneath the Arctic ice.

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