ALASKA

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 221, 18 September 1942, Page 2

ALASKA

ARCTIC SPEARHEAD

SWORD POINT TO JAPAN

Alaska, the United States' outpost on the north-west corner of the American continent, is being transformed as swiftly as possible from a defensive into an offensive base for the war against Japan. War is opening up and bringing development to this wild sprawling semi-Arctic territory—one-fifth the size of the United States—in a wav that has not been known in this part of the world since the rush to the Klondike goldfields of the Yukon. Millions are being spent on roads, airports, naval liases and military establishments. Thousands of men are toiling to-day where none has lived before. World's Worst For Alaska is an unfriendly land, most of it a treeless waste of jagged mountains and icy marshes. Before the war fewer than 100.000 people lived there, and halt of them were Eskimos. They, and the newcomers who are pouring in new, suffer the world's worst weather. Blizzard, fog and rain—they follow each other in swift succession, sometimes several times a ll a - v —l'ain, fog and blizzard. The men who are arriving and working there are under army or navy discipline. Few of them would stay of their own free will. In peacetime any firm doing construction work in Alaska had to maintain a constant stream of workers going there to take the place of those who were leaving. The average time any man would stick it was three months. Many returned on the first boat going back to the United States. But now the United States Army has taken over the territorv and is driving highways through" it and levelling great patches of the rocky tundra into first-class aerodromes. Alaska was already "air-minded An American writer, Maxine Davis who visited the State reeentlv, savs: "Alaskans travel by plane. Alaskan mothers ride planes to the hospitals when they are in labour. Thev take planes to weddings and funerals and to the hairdresser's. "The planes carry all sorts of freight, from celery to cows, from spring hats to tractors. "The Alaskan pilot will do anything from buying nipples for the baby s bottle to taking a corpse to the undertaker. "One pilot flying some vital defence materials to a remote post broke one of his skis while landing. He tied his rifle in its place and went on. "These remarkable pilots have not had a single crash in more than IS months, though many of their planes are ancient crates." Even more unfriendly than the mainland are Alaska's Aleutian Islands, sweeping out towards Japan across the North Pacific like a 1200-mile-long scythe.

Warm water currents from Japan wash their southern coasts. Icy currents sweep down on their northern coasts from the Arctic. The of the two currents causes the fog that envelops the islands almost perpetually. 1 The fog is thicker in summer than in winter, but winter has the more violent snow, hail and rainstorms. Barren Isles On the 150 islands, in normal times fewer than 1000 people live. These Aleuts—short, plump and swarthy, a branch of the Eskimo family—live bv fishing and catching seafowl. The islands are barren volcanic peaks of a chain of undersea mountains. Some of them are submerged at times, and then reappear according to the tides. Between the islands are treacherous swirling waters whose dangers lor ships are heightened by the frequent gales. Were it not for strategic uses the Aleutians might be called the worlds most worthless islands. But on one of them, at Dutch Harbour, Lnalaska. the United States has built a strong naval base, and is spending £50,000,000 on makine it stronger. Three years ago it was looked on as necessary for the defence of Alaska. To-day it is wanted for the coming offensive against Japan It lies 2500 miles from Tokyo, 2000 from San Francisco. It can'menace Japan from the north just as Midway Island does from the Central Pacific. And Japan knows that—so at the same time as her navy attacked and was beaten off from Midway she Aleutians 3Xpedltlon a Sainst the The fate—or progress—of that } expedition is shrouded in as thick a fog as the islands themselves. . apan claims that some of the westerly of the isles are in her possession now. The United States authorities have said little. iCan ~n aval an( l military experts on the spot express contilence in their ability to defend Dutch H arbour and the Alaskan mainland. * are u scorn ful of armchair strategists who express the fear that Japan can use this part of the world as a base for an attack on the United Mates proper. But they insist that it is invaluable sis a base for the offensive against Japan.