History Of Alaska Volume Ii

The most significant military development to touch Alaska during the interwar years was the advent of air power, an innovation that completely altered Alaska's strategic position. Suddenly the world became smaller as areas once thought safely distant from potential enemies became vulnerable. Nowhere was this more evident than in the Pacific, whose countless islands became potential advanced air bases. As air technology improved, the ability of long-range bombers and, by the 1930s, of carrier aircraft, to penetrate American airspace was a development of far reaching significance. While such warnings were largely limited to a handful of air-power advocates their vocal advocacy constituted nothing less than an “insurrection”, a revolution in military thinking fought against entrenched military conservatism, cultural aversion to change, fears of budget cuts, and War Department lethargy. Indeed it was the air power crusader General Billy Mitchell who aggressively fought to convince the War and Navy Departments to embrace the new doctrine of offensive air power. Mitchell came to understand Alaska's strategic importance early on. Consequently, he saw the Aleutians as a vulnerability: if left unguarded Japan could “creep up” and, by establishing air dominance, take Alaska and Canada’s West Coast. But he also saw Alaska as a strategic base from which American planes could “reduce Tokyo to powder.” Prophetically, in 1923 Mitchell forecast precisely the military threat and strategic arguments that would shape military thinking almost twenty years later: “I am thinking of Alaska. In an air war, if we were unprepared Japan could take it away from us, first by dominating the sky and creeping up the Aleutians." By the mid-to late 1930s military and civilian advocates of air power and more visionary strategists were beginning to make their voices heard in Congress and elsewhere, decrying Alaska’s military vulnerability. Between 1933 and 1944 no one was more adamant than Alaska’s Delegate in Congress, Anthony Joseph “Tony” Dimond, who challenged the nation to defend itself by defending Alaska. To Dimond, it seemed poor strategy to fortify one pacific base, Hawaii, while ignoring another, Alaska. Dimond’s campaign was strengthened by passage of the Wilcox Bill, sponsored by Representative J. Mark Wilcox (D-Florida), officially known as the National Air Defense Act. This truly significant legislation authorized the location and construction of military airfields throughout the United States as a general defense preparedness measure. Alaska was recognized as one of the nation’s six strategic regions, and two bases, one at Anchorage, the other at Fairbanks, were recommended in part, “because Alaska was closer to Japan than it is to the center of [the] continental United States.” Fortuitously for Alaska defense advocates, General Douglas MacArthur stepped down as Chief of Staff of the Army and was replaced by Major General Malin Craig in October 1935. Craig and Brigadier General Stanley D. Embick advocated a substantial reconfiguration of Plan Orange arguing that the Philippines presented an invitation to attack and should be “neutralized” in favor defending the “Alaska-Hawaii-Panama Triangle.” Both the Army and Navy were charged with defending Alaska as far west as Dutch Harbor, and the army pledged to mobilize 6,600 troops in Alaska within a month of attack by Japan. In contemplating the defense of Alaska the Army General Staff formulated five priority objectives: first, increase the Alaska garrison; second, establish a major base for Army operations near Anchorage; third, develop a network of air bases within Alaska; fourth, garrison these bases with combat troops; and fifth, protect the naval installations at Sitka, Kodiak, and Dutch Harbor. Alaska was about to go to war.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

As a unique, distant geographical region of the United States, Alaska has evolved from military insignificance to high strategic priority in the 142 years since its purchase from Russia in 1867. The reasons for this dramatic shift derive from a correlation of geography, foreign policy, domestic politics, and military technology. Historically the role of the armed forces in Alaska has been large and diverse. Alaska was one of the two principal territorial purchases made by the United States between 1803 and 1867 adding nearly 1.5 million square miles to America’s national domain. Smaller by the size of Texas than Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase, Alaska, unlike all of the territories and states carved out of the former, languished in obscurity and isolation, and was administered as a colonial dependency by the military and other branches of the federal government, its official ‘territorial status’ and government notwithstanding. While sharing many common aspects of frontier settlement and Western history with territories such as Montana, the Dakotas, Wyoming, and Colorado, Alaska presented special challenges peculiar to a non-contiguous arctic and sub-Arctic environment, separated from the United States by a foreign power. Indeed, only the defeated South under Reconstruction experienced the same degree of military occupation and martial law. Alaska also has the unique distinction in the American experience of belonging to Imperial Russia before it became of interest to American expansionists. Still others found Alaska tempting and pursued their own designs North of '53. The Spanish, British, Canadians, and even the French plied Alaska’s waters and made their claims to Alyeska- the Great Land. And it is with these clashing imperial ambitions that this three-volume history begins.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

In 1899, one of America's wealthiest men assembled an interdisciplinary team of experts--many of whom would become legendary in their fields--to join him, entirely at his expense, on a voyage to the largely unknown territory of Alaska. The Harriman Expedition remains unparalleled in its conception and execution. This book follows the team closely: where they went, what they did, and what they learned--including finding early evidence of glacial retreat, assessing the nature and future of Alaska's natural resources, making important scientific discoveries, and collecting an astonishing collection of specimens. A second thread involves the lives and accomplishments of the members of the party, weaving biographical strands into the narrative of the journey and the personal experiences they shared. This is the first comprehensive, scholarly treatment of the Harriman Alaska Expedition since the 1980s. It features the diaries, letters home, and post-Expedition writings, including unpublished autobiographies, generated by the members of the party.

The Thousand-Mile War, a powerful story of the battles of the United States and Japan on the bitter rim of the North Pacific, has been acclaimed as one of the great accounts of World War II. Brian Garfield, a novelist and screenwriter whose works have sold some 20 million copies, was searching for a new subject when he came upon the story of this "forgotten war" in Alaska. He found the history of the brave men who had served in the Aleutians so compelling and so little known that he wrote the first full-length history of the Aleutian campaign, and the book remains a favorite among Alaskans. The war in the Aleutians was fought in some of the worst climatic conditions on earth for men, ships, and airplanes. The sea was rough, the islands craggy and unwelcoming, and enemy number one was always the weather--the savage wind, fog, and rain of the Aleutian chain. The fog seemed to reach even into the minds of the military commanders on both sides, as they directed men into situations that so often had tragic results. Frustrating, befuddling, and still the subject of debate, the Aleutian campaign nevertheless marked an important turn of the war in favor of the United States. Now, half a century after the war ended, more of the fog has been lifted. In the updated University of Alaska Press edition, Garfield supplements his original account, which was drawn from statistics, personal interviews, letters, and diaries, with more recently declassified photographs and many more illustrations.