ALASKA’S DEFENCE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 12 June 1942, Page 1

ALASKA’S DEFENCE

AIR FORCE BASES PREPARATIONS L~-’ U.S.A. BEFORE WAR Alaska, which, in the words of Lieu-tenant-General H. H. Arnold, Chief of the Air Forces of the United States Army, “leaped almost overnight from the Stone Age to aviation,” was not neglected by the German and Japanese staffs in their vast preparations for the war, General Arnold remarks in a description of a visit he made to Alaska in 1940 that German and Japanese walking parties had recently been touring the country. General Arnold Hew 10,000 miles on this tour, the purpose of which was to see what developments aviation had made, especially those under the wing of the Army Air Corps. There is little doubt that in anticipation of the entry of Japan into the war the work on air bases under way or planned was by that time being expedited. ARMY AIR BASES “In addition to Fairbanks the Army Air Corps defence plans include Anchorage, 260 miles to the south, near the coast at the head of Cook Inlet,” says General Arnold. "There we have just begun to scratch the surface of the largest air base in Alaska. Construction of this type in Alaska is of necessity slow. All material and much of the labour must be brought in from Seattle and other outside points. Shelter must be built for the labour. Transportation is slow, but in spite of these handicaps within a year we should be flying aeroplanes from this new air base which guards the south-central coast of the territory. “Already a battalion of infantry has arrived to garrison the area and to help erect structures. During the winter these infantrymen will be introduced to the life of a foot-soldier up by the Arctic Circle.” WINTER FLYING CONDITIONS Regarding weather, he mentions that in the summer aeroplanes land on the few fields or sand bars on wheels or on the lakes and rivers on pontoons, in the winter they all land on skis. The Civil Aeronautics Authority had been busy for more than a year prior! tc General Arnold’s visit, laying out emergency fields which were vital to any scheme of defence. He selected sites for five weather stations to belt j the perimeter of Alaska and studied the broad aspects of defence, especially co-ordination between the Army bases; and the Navy’s stations at Sitka and| Kodiak, which is an island south of the entrance to Cook Inlet. General Arnold concludes in the following words:—“Air bases and air- | ways facilities, emergency landing fields, radio beacons, weather stations and other air improvements which the Federal Government is introducing in AUska are equally usable by civil air commerce. They lie along the logicali air routes from the Far Last to the industrial centres of the United States. 1 They are the airways of the future, j There is no gainsaying that Alaska will j play a vital part in the scheme of na- J tional defence. The responsibility that I goes along with that realisation de-i mands that our air frontiers be made secure.”