[snippy_about_it]

The Lost Frontier
Aleutian Islands: World War II secret bases
key to defending the mainland



A VISIONS article series on the The Centennial of Flight
by Capt. Carie A. Seydel
opening photo courtesy Air Force Alaskan Command

When Stuart Faber enlisted in the Army Air Corps shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, he wasn’t quite sure what he’d be doing.

Once assigned to the 404th Bomb Squadron at Elmendorf Field, Alaska, he not only maintained bombers, but was also sent on temporary duty to perform a variety of tasks at a remote Aleutian island town called Umnak.



He arrived in August 1942, just two months after the covert base there became operational. Few people knew the base existed. And, sometimes Faber wished it didn’t.

“The weather was bad all the time, and supplies were hard to get,” Faber said. “After living on Spam for a few months, one of the guys caught a mess of fish, and the cook told us whoever cleaned them could eat them.”



Bare bones base

The base was the brainchild of Brig. Gen. Simon Buckner, commander of the Alaska Defense Command. Because the Navy dominated the Aleutians, it supposedly opposed Army involvement in the area. So in 1941, Buckner proposed a covert construction project to build two Army Air Forces bases on the islands of Cold Bay and Umnak.

Alaska was strategic territory. Buckner realized that if the Japanese took these islands, they could easily be within bombing range of Seattle. If they took Alaska, they’d have an ideal staging location to attack the continental United States.



He devised defense strategies with what limited resources were at his disposal. He stockpiled as many construction supplies as he could, but knew it wouldn’t be enough. Once established, the Aleutian locations would protect Dutch Harbor [located approximately 60 miles northeast of Umnak] and serve as forward operating bases to launch attacks against northern Japan.

Since Umnak is mountainous and has no trees, it was doubtful a runway could be constructed. But Buckner solved that problem. He imported perforated steel matting, and within the first month, a 3,000- by 100-foot portable runway was waiting for the first P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft to land. But the matting wasn’t a perfect solution in the harsh Alaskan environment.

“Every once in a while the gusting wind rolled it up like a carpet,” Faber said.

Since this was before the Pearl Harbor attack, leadership wasn’t convinced the Japanese posed an immediate threat, so Buckner wasn’t given permission to build the two airfields. This could have cost Buckner a court-martial if caught, but he felt he was right so he decided to divert resources from other Alaska projects for construction. Ironically Buckner’s idea was eventually approved just before the Pearl Harbor attack, Faber said.



Buckner put forces on alert Dec. 1, 1941. But he only had about two dozen P-38 Lightning and P-40 aircraft. After the Pearl Harbor attack, Gen. Henry “Hap” Arnold sent additional aircraft to Buckner in Alaska. Buckner was due to receive additional resources because Washington realized the possible problems the Japanese could pose to the mainland.

In March 1942, the 807th Army Engineers in civilian clothes — so even the locals didn’t suspect the buildup — started working on the airfields on Umnak Island and Cold Bay. Buckner made up the name of a fictitious factory called “Blair Fish Packing Company” to disguise the project. Supplies sent from other operating locations were marked to reflect the fake name.

Cold and foggy in the summer and bitterly cold in the winter, the Alaskan climate was harsh on man and machine. The winter of 1942 to 1943 had Faber and the thousands of other soldiers stationed at remote locations along the chain of islands huddling to stay warm while 18 inches of snow fell. Then the wind blew and covered the snow with dirt. They winterized tents with anything they could find, from canvas tarps to plywood, and small coal burners kept the insides warm.



“We learned to improvise and make due with what we had,” Faber said.

When spring finally came, roads made of ice melted, leaving vehicles axle-deep in mud.

“We relied on the frozen roads,” Faber said. “So when the thaw got there, transportation came to a standstill until we could get things built back up. It was a real mess.”

He was originally sent to the island with three others to prepare for the arriving flying units. But once that job was done, he wondered if he would ever see the U.S. mainland again.

“I guess they forgot us ’cause we sat there for about two months,” he said. “We weren’t sure that we’d ever get home.”

So, to keep busy, the beach at Umnak became a makeshift target shooting area.

“We made the best of it by working hard and trying to entertain ourselves when we weren’t working,” Faber said. “There wasn’t much else to do out there.”

Not a secret anymore

The Japanese attacked Dutch Harbor in June 1942. Forty-three Americans died — 33 military and 10 civilians — and 11 planes from Umnak were lost. Dutch Harbor was the only land in North America, besides Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, that was bombed by Japanese Zeros during World War II. Few Americans knew any of this because military officials restricted the media from covering operations in Alaska.


Japanese Zero, A6M2 - Crashed on Akutan Island on 4 June 1942, killing the Pilot. The Zero was discovered by a PBY patrol plane one month after the crash. The plane is pictured at Dutch Harbor.
Photo Courtesy of Army Air Corps

“Once the Japanese saw it was there, there was no point in keeping it a secret anymore,” Faber said.

Japanese troops occupied two Aleutian islands — Kiska and Attu, just a few hundred miles from Umnak. The Alaska conflict was brief. It was a little-known segment of a larger war, with the weather proving to be the most powerful enemy. But some historians say it marked the turning point of the Pacific war.

Faber keeps the experience in perspective.

“That was tough duty, and when it was my time I was ready to head home,” he said. “But I have some pretty good memories of my times in the Aleutians.”

---

Today's Educational Sources and suggestions for further reading:

www.centennialofflight.af.mil/

[snippy_about_it]

The Air Force is running a wonderful series of stories commemorating the centennial of flight and periodically I plan to bring some of those stories to the Foxhole. I hope you enjoy them.

[Samwise]

Cool new Aleutians info, snippy. Thanks! I have never heard anyone call it the turning point before.

Dad talked and talked about guarding planes up there. (Please note that Dad was in the Aleutians/Alaska for a long time so he wore many hats.) But there was one plane that he wondered about until the day he died. The whole base was abuzz about it. Dad's orders were to shoot anybody who got close to it--anybody, no questions. Before he died, I tried to figure out what the plane was. I found a weather plane I thought might be it. He recognized it. But he decided it wasn't the "one special plane."

[GATOR NAVY]

100 years of flight. Pretty soon there won't be anyone left alive who remembers life before airplanes. I know there's no one now alive in my family that old.

[Professional Engineer]

But the moment that truly captured the world’s attention came in July 1969. Two American astronauts realized one of man’s oldest dreams – voyaging to another world. Late on the night of July 20, Armstrong stepped onto the powdery surface of the moon’s Sea of Tranquility and radioed back to earth, “That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.”

These are the kind of Heroes kid need.

Here I am, in 1970, looking at an Apollo 11 Moon rock.

[Valin]

On This Day In History


Birthdates which occurred on December 19:
1036 Su Tung-p'o China, poet/essayist/painter/calligrapher
1683 Philip V, Versailles France, King of Spain (1700-24, 24-46)
1790 Sir William Parry England, Arctic explorer
1814 Edwin M[cMasters] Stanton, Ohio, US Secretary of War (1861-65)
1817 James Jay Archer Brigadier-General (Confederate Army) died in 1864
1819 James Clifford Veatch Brevet Major General (Union volunteers), died in 1895
1849 Henry Clay Frick, Penn, built world's largest coke & steel operation
1868 Novelist Eleanor Porter ("Pollyanna")
1888 Fritz Reiner, Budapest Hungary, US conductor (Chicago Symphony Orch)
1894 Ford Frick (baseball: Commissioner of Baseball)
1902 Sir Ralph Richardson (Actor)
1906 H Allen Smith, Ill, humorist/author (Low Man on Totem Pole)
1906 Leonid I Brezhnev, Ukraine, 1st Secretary of USSR (1964-82)
1910 French dramatist Jean Genet, criminal/novelist/dramatist)
1915 Edith Piaf, [E Giovanna Gassion], Paris, chanteuse
1920 David Susskind (TV producer)
1925 'Little' Jimmy Dickens (Country Music Hall of Famer)
1926 Jeanne Kirkpatrick US ambassador to UN
1934 Al Kaline (baseball: Detroit Tigers)
1935 Tony Taylor (baseball: Philadelphia Phillies)
1939 Cicely Tyson (actress)
1940 Phil Ochs (folk singer, songwriter)
1944 Alvin Lee (musician: group: Ten Years After)
1944 Richard Leakey, anthropologist
1944 Tim Reid (actor)
1946 Robert Urich (actor)
1946 Stan Smith (tennis: Men's Singles Wimbledon Champion [1972] and Amateur U.S. Open Champion [1969])
1949 Claudia Kolb (U.S. Olympic Gold swimmer)
1966 Alberto "La Bomba" Tomba, Italian skier (Olympic-gold-1988, 92)

---

Deaths which occurred on December 19:
0401 Anastasius I Bishop of Rome (399-401), dies
1370 Urban V [Guillaume de Grimoard] 1st Avignon Pope (1362-70), dies
1915 Alvis Alzheimer, German neurologist (Alzheimer Disease), dies at 51
1953 Robert A Millikan, US physicist (Nobel 1923), dies at 85
1959 Walter Williams, claimed to be last survivor of Civil War, dies at 117
1968 Norman Thomas, founder (ACLU)/Socialist Party (1926-55), dies at 84
1996 Actor Marcello Mastroianni died in Paris at age 72.
1997 Masaru Ibuka, co-founder (Sony Corp), dies at 89
1998 Mel Fisher underwater film maker, dies from bladder cancer at 76
2000 Jazz bassist Milt Hinton at age 90;
2000 Gospel singer Roebuck "Pops" Staples at age 85;
2000 Former New York City Mayor John V. Lindsay at age 79;

---

Reported: MISSING in ACTION
1968 PAYNE NORMAN---CLEVELAND OH.
1971 FORAME PETER C.---MC LEAN VA.
1971 JOHNSON KENNETH R.---MINNEAPOLIS MN.
[03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE IN 98
1971 POYNOR DANIEL R.---ENID OK.
[REMAINS IDENTIFIED 06/27/95]
1971 SKILES THOMAS W.---BUFFALO WY.
1971 THOMAS LEO T. JR.---GEORGETOWN KY.
[REMAINS IDENTIFIED 06/27/95]
1971 VAUGHAN SAMUEL R.---ST. GEORGE SC.
[03/28/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE AND WELL 98]
1972 ALEXANDER FERNANDO---DALLAS TX.
[03/29/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE AND WELL 98]
1972 BARROWS HENRY C.---WESTFIELD NJ.
[03/29/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE AND WELL 98]
1972 BROWN CHARLES A. JR.---BOSTON MA.
[03/29/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE IN 1998]
1972 COOPER RICHARD W. JR.---SALISBURY MD.
1972 POOLE CHARLIE S.---GIBSLAND LA.
1972 WILSON HAL K.---HAMBURG NY.
[03/29/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE AND WELL 98]

POW / MIA Data & Bios supplied by
the P.O.W. NETWORK. Skidmore, MO. USA.

---

On this day...
0401 St Anastasius I ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1055 Seldjuken under Toghril Beg occupy Baghdad
1154 King Henry II of England crowned
1551 Dutch west coast hit by hurricane
1562 Battle at Dreux: Anne de Montmorency & huguenots under Condé captured
1686 Robinson Crusoe leaves his island after 28 years (as per Defoe)
1688 King James II's wife & son flee to France
1732 Benjamin Franklin (under the name Richard Saunders) begins publication of "Poor Richard's Almanack"
1776 Thomas Paine published his 1st "American Crisis" essay, in which he wrote, "These are the times that try men's souls"
1777 Washington settles his troops at Valley Forge PA for the winter
1783 English government of Pitt Jr forms
1788 Chinese troops occupy capital Thang Long Vietnam
1795 1st state appropriation of money for road building, Kentucky
1823 Georgia passes 1st US state birth registration law
1828 South Carolina declares the right of states to nullify federal laws
1842 US recognizes independence of Hawaii
1843 Charles Dickens publishes "A Christmas Carol" in England
1854 Allen Wilson of Connecticut patents sewing machine to sew curving seams
1861 Battle of Black Water
1862 Skirmish at Jackson/Salem Church TN (80 casualties)
1871 Albert L Jones (New York NY), patents corrugated paper
1884 Italy recognizes King Leopold II's Congo Free State
1887 Jake Kilrain & Jem Smith fight 106 round bare knuckle draw
1888 Stanley's expedition reaches Fort Bodo, East-Africa
1889 Bishop Museum founded in Hawaii
1890 Start of Sherlock Holmes "The Adventure of The Beryl Coronet" (BG)
1891 1st Negro Catholic priest ordained in US, Charles Uncles, Baltimore
1891 Canadian Rugby Union forms
1903 Williamsburg suspension bridge opens between Brooklyn & Manhattan
1904 The Dawson City (Yukon) hockey team begins 9 day walk to get a boat to Seattle to catch a train to Ottawa to play in the Stanley Cup on January 13 1905
1907 239 workers die in a coal mine explosion in Jacobs Creek PA
1910 1st city ordinance requiring white & black residential areas (Baltimore)
1910 Rayon 1st commercially produced, Marcus Hook PA
1913 Jack Johnson fights Jim Johnson to a draw in 10 for hw boxing title
1916 Suriname Bauxite Company forms in Paramaribo
1917 1st NHL game played on artificial ice (Toronto)
1917 Québec Bulldogs play their 1st professional hockey game
1918 Robert Ripley began his "Believe It or Not" column (New York Globe)
1919 American Meteorological Society found
1920 1st US indoor curling rink opens (Brookline MA)
1922 Mrs Theres Vaughn, 24, confessed in court to being married 62 times
1932 British Broadcasting Corp begins transmitting overseas
1933 Electric Home & Farm Authority Inc, authorized
1934 Japan agress to fleet treaty of 1922 & 1930
1939 Russian air & ground attack against Finnish positions near Summa
1941 Hitler takes complete command of German Army
1941 US Office of Censorship created to control info pertaining to WWII
1943 Military coup in Bolivia
1945 Austrian Republic re-establishes
1946 War breaks out in Indochina as Ho Chi Minh attacks French in Hanoi
1948 8th largest snowfall in NYC history (15.3")
1948 Cleveland Browns beats Buffalo Bills 49-7 in AAFC championship game
1948 Philadelphia Eagles shutout Chicago Cardinals 7-0 in NFL championship game
1948 2nd political action of Java/Sumatra
1949 Luxury passenger ship Aquitania demolished in Garelock Scotland
1949 WJW TV channel 8 in Cleveland OH (CBS) begins broadcasting
1950 General Eisenhower named NATO commander
1950 Tibet's Dalai Lama flees Chinese invasion
1951 Nazi General Christiansen leaves Netherlands
1953 KFYR TV channel 5 in Bismarck ND (NBC/ABC) begins broadcasting
1955 Carl Perkins records "Blue Suede Shoes"
1957 "The Music Man", starring Robert Preston, opens at Majestic Theater NYC for 1375 performances
1958 1st radio broadcast from space (recorded Christmas message by President Eisenhower: "To all mankind, America's wish for Peace on Earth & Good Will to Men Everywhere")
1959 1st Liberty Bowl game-Penn State beats Alabama 7-0
1960 Fire aboard USS Constellation, under construction in Brooklyn (50 die)
1960 Mercury-Redstone 1A reaches 210 km in test flight
1961 British government begins decimal coin system
1961 Indonesian President Sukarno proclaims general mobilization
1962 Nyasaland secedes from Rhodesia & Nyasaland
1962 Transit 5A1, 1st operational navigational satellite, launched
1963 Zanzibar becomes independent from UK
1965 French President De Gaulle re-elected (Mitterrand gets 45%)
1971 NASA launches Intelsat 4 F-3 for COMSAT Corp
1971 "Inner City" opens at Barrymore Theater NYC for 97 performances
1971 CBS airs "Homecoming - A Christmas Story" (introducing the Waltons)
1971 Stanley Kubrick's X-rated "A Clockwork Orange" premieres
1972 Apollo 17 (last of Apollo Moon landing series) returns to Earth
1973 Grenada adopts constitution
1974 Dave Kryskow scores Washington Capitals 1st NHL shorthanded goal
1974 Nelson A Rockefeller sworn-in as the 41st Vice-President
1974 "The Man With the Golden Gun" premieres in US
1975 John Paul Stevens becomes a Supreme Court Justice
1975 Ron Wood joined the Rolling Stones
1976 Piper Cherokee crashes into Baltimore Memorial Stadium upper stands, 10 minutes after Colts lose 40-14 to Steelers; No one seriously hurt
1976 President Brezhnev receives his 5th Lenin order
1978 France performs nuclear test
1978 Indira Gandhi ambushed in India
1980 Anguilla becomes a British dependency separate from St Kitts
1980 Iran requests $24 billion in US guarantees to free hostages
1984 Scotty Bowman becomes NHL's all time winningest coach
1984 China People's Republic performs nuclear test at Lop Nor People's Rebublic of China
1984 China People's Republic Premier Zhao Ziyang & Margaret Thatcher sign Hong Kong Treaty
1984 Wayne Gretzky, 23, is 18th & youngest NHL-er to score 1,000 points
1986 USSR frees dissident Andrei Sakharov from internal exile
1987 Gari Kasparov becomes world chess champion
1988 NASA unveils plans for lunar colony & manned missions to Mars
1988 Oklahoma's College football team gets 3 year probation
1988 Unexploded WWII bomb found in Frankfurt, Germany-5,000 evacuated
1989 American Airlines purchases Eastern Airline's Latin American route
1989 Larry Bird (Celtics) begins NBA free throw streak of 71 games
1991 Boris Yeltsin takes control of Kremlin
1991 New York Yankee pitcher Steve Howe arrested for cocaine possession
1995 Queen Elizabeth askes Prince Charles & Diana to divorce
1998 - House Speaker-designate Bob Livingston, R-La, announced he would not be a candidate and would be leaving Congress. Two days earlier, Livingston admitted he'd had extra-marital affairs "on occasion."

1998 President Clinton became only the second U.S. president to be impeached when the House of Representatives approved two articles of impeachment, charging him with perjury and obstruction of justice. The allegations stemmed from the actions he took to conceal his relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. (he was later acquitted by the Senate).

2000 President-elect Bush met with President Clinton in Washington.
2000 The U.N. Security Council voted to impose broad sanctions on Afghanistan's Taliban rulers unless they closed "terrorist" training camps and surrender U.S. embassy bombing suspect Osama bin Laden.

---

Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

Hawaii : Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop's Birthday
World : Underdog Day (Friday)
US : Underdog Day. People in the 2nd position: eg. Ed McMahon, Robin, Tonto, etc
US : Can't Get Up Day
National Indigestion Season-Jewish Book Month

---

Religious Observances
Orthodox : Feast of St Nicholas the Wonderworker

---

Religious History
1808 Birth of Horatius Bonar, Scottish clergyman and poet. He authored several missionary biographies and penned over 600 hymns, including "I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say."
1855 Birth of William Henry Draper, Anglican clergyman and hymnwriter. His words to "All Creatures of Our God and King" are an English translation of a Latin text believed to have been penned by St. Francis of Assisi.
1860 Birth of Frank E. Graeff, American Methodist clergyman. Well_known for his interest in children's ministry and for his storytelling abilities, Graeff also authored over 200 hymns, including "Does Jesus Care?"
1944 Birth of Andrew Robert Culverwell, American sacred music songwriter. This contemporary music artist has written such popular Christian songs as "Born Again" and "Come On, Ring Those Bells."
1965 American missionary and apologist Francis Schaeffer wrote in a letter: 'God has given us rules not because He is arbitrary, but because the rules...are fixed in His own character... Thus, when we sin we break the law of God...in the direction of destroying what we really are.'

Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.

---

Thought for the day :
"The reluctance to put away childish things may be a requirement of genius."

---

Question of the day...
Whatever happened to preparations A through G?

---

Murphys Law of the day...(Love Laws)
Money can't buy love, but it sure gets you a great bargaining position.

---

Astonishing Fact #591...
The world population of chickens is about equal to the number of people.

[Light Speed]

On the theme of **Frontiers...2 movies which give great coverage of a low and high point in British Military history concerning the Zulu wars .

**Zulu Dawn..with Burt Lancaster ,Peter O'Toole covers the massacre of the 24th regiment on the slopes of Isandlawana.

* Zulu the 1964 version covers the famous stand of the 24th at Rorke's Drift.

Zulu is available now on DVD...what makes this a great choice is the color enhancement over the VHS..aswell as the soundtrack which highlights the drama .

Vidcaps from Zulu:

Damn the levies man... Cowardly blacks! (Bromhead)

What the hell do you you mean, cowardly blacks? They died on your side didn't they? And who do you think is coming to wipe out your little command? The grenadier guards!? (Adendorff)

He's right! Why's it us eh? Why us? (Pte. Cole)

Because we're 'ere lad! Nobody else. Just us. (CS Bourne)

Mr. Chard Sir! Patrol has come back, Zulus have gone, all of 'em. It's a miracle! (Bourne to Chard)

If it's a miracle Colour Sergeant, it's a short chamber Boxer Henry, point 4-5 caliber miracle. (Chard)

[tomkow6]

Good morning, Snippy! I just got this & cracked up! Thought I would share it with you guys.......