Few U.S. military operations were as fundamental to the outcome of World War II – and at the same time as little-known – as those conducted by the Persian Gulf Command, which supplied arms and materiel to the Soviet Union through Iran from 1942 to 1945. “We were supposed to have a secret operation,” said John Wills, of Spokane, who arrived in Iran in December 1942, “but the Germans knew all about us. In fact, the night I landed in Abadan, the German radio greeted us by unit number.”
