A hunter discovers three gray whales trapped under the ice near Alaska; the situation becomes a multinational effort to free the whales.

Operation Breakthrough

1988 US–Soviet gray whale rescue in northern Alaska

Operation Breakthrough was a US-Soviet effort to free three gray whales from pack ice in the Beaufort Sea near Point Barrow in the U.S. state of Alaska in 1988. The whales' plight generated media attention that led to the collaboration of multiple governments and organizations…