Hi, all! I’m researching a late WW2 Lend-Lease arrangement between the US and Russia. It was a program called Project Zebra, in which the US trained Russian pilots to fly Catalina-style planes and sent them back to the Western front. I’m in desperate need of primary sources. Any help is appreciated.

This is a pretty specific topic, and it seems that the records were only declassified very recently. I doubt that you will be able to find someone here that can give you a very detailed answer but would love to be proved wrong.

Going by what little information there is online about this project, it seems that it was administered by the U.S. Navy? I imagine your best bet for acquiring primary sources in the U.S. for your research will be the National Archives. However, Naval records span a number of records groups, and there is no one better equipped to help you narrow down the search than an archivist who works with the records.

This manual describes how the Navy filed their records for a few years starting in 1941, and this page sorts records groups by clusters and might help you start to narrow your search. A keyword search in NARA's catalog probably will not produce results, but it's worth a shot. I wouldn't spend too much time there though.

History Hub is NARA's crowd-sourcing engine where you can post questions about your research. I'd recommend starting there.

Another good place to start is with your secondary sources. Do they say where their primary sources came from? A good historian will be clear about where they got their info, and that can serve as a great place to start your own research.

If you are looking for Russian sources, hopefully someone else will have some tips. Best of luck with your research!