Alaska at War, 1941-1945: The Forgotten War Remembered
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Alaska at War, 1941-1945: The Forgotten War Remembered
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| ISBN-13: | 9781602230132 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Alaska Press |
| Publication date: | 09/15/2007 |
| Pages: | 474 |
| Sales rank: | 1,066,033 |
| Product dimensions: | 8.48(w) x 10.80(h) x 1.11(d) |
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Alaska at War 1941-1945
The Forgotten War RememberedUniversity of Alaska Press
Copyright © 2008 University of Alaska PressAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60223-013-2
Chapter One
The North Pacific Campaign in Perspective
Dean C. Allard
From the earliest years of this century, American military planners focused their attention on the possibility of a conflict with Japan. It was primarily within that context that Alaska and the North Pacific region in general became important elements in the nation's strategic thinking.
The American scenario for a war with Japan anticipated that Japan would open hostilities with an attack on the U.S. territory of the Philippines. Our response would be an American counteroffensive featuring either a slow or rapid advance across the Pacific, followed by a decisive fleet action in which the main force of the Imperial Japanese Navy, it was hoped, would be defeated. Finally, the U.S. fleet would impose a crushing maritime blockade on Japan's home islands. The focus of these operations was the Central Pacific. But military doctrine demanded that the vital flanks of that region, including the North Pacific, be defended or used to the maximum extent possible to further American war aims.
Interest in the North Pacific was heightened by other considerations. One was geography. The shortest distance between the United States and Japan, via the great circle route, lay astride the Aleutian Chain. The westernmost island in that chain, Attu, was only 650 miles from the major Japanese military base at Paramushiro at the northern end of the Kurile Islands. But it also was recognized that naval operations in Alaska, particularly in the strategic Aleutians, would be impacted by the incredibly bad weather found in that region. There was one further restraint. Although Japan's Kurile Islands were within easy striking range from the Aleutians, the Kuriles themselves were far removed from Japan's all-important economic areas in Honshu. The distance from Paramushiro to Tokyo, for example, was almost 1,300 miles. The vital sea lanes used to bring oil, iron ore, and other essential commodities to Japan from the resource-rich areas in south Asia were even more remote.
If it is essential to stress that any war with Imperial Japan was likely to include operations in the North Pacific, then it must also be acknowledged that additional strategic considerations were involved. I have pointed out the proximity of the Japanese Kurile Islands to the Aleutians. But the other major power in the North Pacific, the Soviet Union, was equally close to Alaska. If the Soviets were allied with the United States, the vital Pacific route across which supplies and American military forces could reach Russia's maritime provinces was in the northern sea lanes terminating at Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka Peninsula or farther south at the port of Vladivostok. In the event of Soviet-American enmity, such as the cold war that occupied the world's attention for four decades after World War II, the proximity to the Soviet Union demanded that strenuous defense efforts be made in the Alaska region.
One further factor deserves mention. To a considerable extent, the thinking of our Pacific strategists was dominated by the need to defend the U.S. territory in the Philippines.
Obviously, the same requirement existed for the Territory of Alaska. That task was reflected in the concept of a defense triangle demarcated by lines connecting Alaska, Hawaii, and the Panama Canal that the army's planners advanced in the 1930s as the basis for the nation's strategy in the Pacific. For the navy, the need to defend Alaska was underscored by its rich natural resources, including the coal and, later, the petroleum required by American warships.
To return to the connection between the North Pacific and a possible conflict with Japan, it is interesting to note that as early as 1911 Alfred Thayer Mahan argued that the best chance for a speedy American victory lay in concentrating the U.S. fleet at Kiska. Mahan felt that the simple presence of this force on the northern flank would lead the Japanese fleet to withdraw from their presumed conquest of Hawaii at the outset of a war with the United States. From Kiska our fleet also could fall upon Japanese positions located to the west of Hawaii.
Other naval strategists, however, vigorously rebutted Mahan's view. They agreed that it was important to safeguard the Northern Pacific. But, in their view, major fleet operations in the Aleutians were not feasible because of that area's severe climatic conditions and poorly charted waters, the inadequacy of Kiska's harbor, and the remoteness of the Aleutian island chain from Japan's most important economic targets. In the face of these arguments Mahan soon abandoned his advocacy of a northern strategy.
In the years leading up to World War II, American war planners generally did not see the North Pacific as a major theater of war. There was one notable exception. General Billy Mitchell, the famed prophet of air power, emphasized in the 1920s the value of using the Aleutians as a base for a bombing campaign against Japan. Despite the meteorological problems involved in air operations in the area, Mitchell was impressed by the strategic significance of the North Pacific as the area where the spheres of interest of Japan, Russia, and the United States intersected. He was convinced that an American bombing capability in that area could deter war with Japan, or, if necessary, win a quick and decisive American victory.
More typical of military thinking in this period were plans for relatively minor military activities typical of warfare on the flanks of a major battlefield. In this tradition, planners recognized the possibility that the Japanese might seize positions in the Aleutians for use as bases for raiders, other light naval forces, or for intelligence-gathering purposes. In response to that threat and in order to allow our own use of this strategic area, American planners recommended that bases for smaller naval units be established in the area. These facilities offered an opportunity for strategic diversions that might force the enemy to withdraw units from the more important areas in the Central Pacific. Another indication of U.S. interest in the North Pacific came in 1935 and 1937 when the American Navy's annual fleet problems were conducted, in part, in Alaska waters. These exercises involved simulations of major fleet engagements as well as the capture or defense of advanced bases.
Almost two decades earlier, the U.S. Navy's attention also was drawn to the need to operate in another area of the Northern Pacific when it provided support through the port of Vladivostok for U.S. Army operations in Siberia. The purpose of America's military intervention in Russia from 1918 to 1920 was to thwart any effort by the Japanese, whose forces also were in Siberia, from permanently seizing territory at a time when the Russians were locked in a bloody civil war. This operation was a reminder that Asia's North Pacific coast was a potential area of operations for the United States. That possibility was echoed in 1937 when naval strategists, including Admiral Harry Yarnell, the commander of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet, recognized the desirability of enlisting the Soviet Union in an alliance opposed to Japanese aggression in Asia.
In the 1930s, as the United States began to prepare for possible involvement in another world war, and as the Washington arms limitation treaty restraints on the construction of bases in the Aleutians expired, naval leaders gave increasing attention to the need for facilities that would allow the permanent stationing of forces in the Alaska region. In 1932 and 1933, surveys by the navy identified potential base sites in the Aleutians at Dutch Harbor and Adak for seaplanes and ships. In the event of war with Japan, according to a 1936 proposal by the commandant of the Thirteenth Naval District (the Seattle-based command that had naval jurisdiction over Alaska), the navy should deploy four seaplane squadrons, ten submarines, and fifteen patrol vessels as a first step in defending the region. In 1937, Ernest J. King, then the commander of the air component of the fleet's Base Force, and later the navy's senior uniformed leader during World War II, urged that Sitka be developed as a seaplane base. By this time King and other leaders concluded that Kodiak should be another major base area. In the first part of 1938, temporary deployments to Kodiak of submarines and amphibian patrol aircraft tested its suitability.
These activities culminated in the worldwide study of naval base needs that Admiral Arthur J. Hepburn submitted to Congress in December 1938. Consistent with the flank strategy that was typical of naval thinking with regard to the North Pacific, Hepburn did not recommend a major fleet base for this area. But he did call for three aviation facilities from which amphibious patrol aircraft could aid in the defense of Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. One of these was at Dutch Harbor, which, because of its location in the Aleutians, was considered to have the greatest strategic value. Nevertheless, because of the severe weather in the Aleutians, Hepburn chose Kodiak instead of Dutch Harbor as the site for the largest seaplane base in Alaska. The third facility chosen as an airdrome was Sitka, in Alaska's Southeast. Admiral Hepburn's committee also recommended that Kodiak and Dutch Harbor be developed for use by submarines. Once again, due to Dutch Harbor's advanced location in the Aleutians, the admiral especially identified that location as having "vital importance in time of war...." By the fall of 1941, work was completed at Dutch Harbor, Kodiak, and Sitka and these sites became capable of supporting operations by seaplanes and smaller combatant ships.
Strategic developments during the more than two years between 1939 and 1941, before the United States became directly engaged in World War II, continued earlier trends. The possible use of the North Pacific for diversionary operations was revealed once again in a scheme put forth by President Roosevelt in August 1939. At that time it seemed virtually certain that German aggression would lead to a general European war. In order to deter the Japanese from aiding Hitler by attacking European possessions in Asia, FDR called for deploying a major naval force in the western Aleutians. Through its presence and radio deception techniques, that squadron could suggest to the Japanese that major American operations were in the offing. Roosevelt hoped this threat would make the Japanese "jittery" and "keep them guessing." The President's naval advisors cautioned against such a provocative course of action, however, and it did not materialize.
In this short-of-war period, there also were reminders of the Soviet Union's status as a major North Pacific power. Within a few months of the outbreak of the Russian-German war in June 1941, the Soviets became the recipients of American lend-lease supplies and equipment. One of the principal routes used was in the North Pacific, where Vladivostok was the main receiving port and American-built ships operating under Soviet flags provided most of the lift. In addition, under the lend-lease program almost 8,000 U.S. aircraft were flown to Fairbanks, Alaska, where they were transferred to Soviet crews for the long ferry flight across Russia to the Eastern Front. In comparison to other lend-lease routes, the North Pacific area was relatively safe. In fact, throughout the rest of the war the Japanese honored the nonaggression treaty they had signed with Russia in April 1941. But, despite that situation, the United States consistently sought to achieve a fundamental shift in the balance of Pacific power by enlisting the USSR in an anti-Japanese coalition. Joseph Stalin, however, was embroiled in a life-and-death struggle with Germany and was no more willing than Japan to expand hostilities by opening a new front in the North Pacific.
These prewar preparations were indispensable when war actually came to the shores of Alaska after December 1941. Nevertheless, despite the existence of a base structure and of well-developed strategic plans, the navy had only minuscule forces in the area when the Japanese launched their attack on Pearl Harbor. In comparison to the 22,000 army personnel in Alaska, the navy could count fewer than 600 personnel at its main bases in Dutch Harbor, Kodiak, and Sitka. In terms of units, the navy operated only six PBY aircraft, a 2,000-ton gunboat, two old destroyers, two large Coast Guard cutters, plus minor patrol and yard craft. Fortunately, in case of an emergency, the United States could count on the assistance of a Canadian Pacific naval squadron comprised of three cruisers, seven corvettes, and a number of smaller ships.
Early in the war, Admiral King and other American strategists explored the possibility of obtaining Soviet bases in Siberia to support an aerial assault on Japan's home islands or amphibious operations against the Kuriles. But the Soviet Union, which was fighting for its life against Hitler's Germany, continued to reject involvement in a war with Japan. Since there was no prospect of opening a major front in the North Pacific in 1942, the hard-pressed U.S. Navy sent only minor reinforcements to the North Pacific during the initial months of that year. But this situation changed in May 1942 when American intelligence picked up information on Japanese plans for an operation to seize the island of Midway, from which location the enemy could threaten Hawaii. More fundamentally, Admiral Yamamoto, the Japanese fleet commander, hoped that an invasion of Midway would force the United States Navy to accept a major naval engagement that would inflict ruinous American losses. The stratagem of seeking to divert the United States from the main point of attack by launching a lesser operation on its flank also was part of Yamamoto's plan. It is not surprising that Japan chose the Aleutians as the site for this diversionary operation.
For the North Pacific phase of his campaign, Yamamoto organized an attack force formed around two light carriers, under the overall command of Admiral Boshiro Hosogaya, with orders to attack U.S. bases in the Aleutians and to seize positions in the western Aleutians. In addition to drawing away U.S. forces from the critical Midway area, the Japanese goal was to preempt an anticipated invasion of the Kurile Islands by the United States, a course of action that we now know was rejected by American military leaders in 1942. Professor Takahashi points out that the Japanese also were motivated by fears that we would use the Aleutians to launch a bombing campaign against their home islands.
Admiral Nimitz, well aware of Japanese strategic intentions from his intelligence sources, did not send his major strength to Alaska waters. Instead he concentrated the three U.S. carrier task forces then available in the Pacific for the famous ambush of Japan's attack force off Midway on the morning of June 4, 1942. The eventual loss of four of the enemy's first-line carriers at Midway changed the entire course of the Pacific War. But, at the same time, Nimitz was able to spare some naval reinforcements for Alaska. Under the command of Rear Admiral Robert A. Theobald, the North Pacific Force included five cruisers, fourteen destroyers, and six submarines by early June 1942. Theobald also controlled more than a hundred army air force and navy aircraft based in Alaska. The Admiral did not command American ground forces, but he was expected to establish a cooperative relationship with his army counterpart, Brigadier General Simon B. Buckner. Unfortunately, from the time Theobald arrived at his headquarters at Kodiak in late May 1942, he displayed a capacity to create discord rather than good will in the navy's relationship with its sister service.
During the enemy's offensive in June 1942, Theobald largely ignored the enemy's capabilities and made an assumption that proved to be mistaken when he concluded that Japan's intent was to seize Dutch Harbor. He also has been faulted by historians for deciding to establish his headquarters afloat where, because of the need for radio silence, he was unable to exercise effective command of his assigned naval and army air force units.
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Table of Contents
ALASKA AT WAR Georgeanne L Reynolds Introduction and AcknowledgmentsKEYNOTE ADDRESSES
Dean C. Allard Naval Views on the North Pacific before and during the World War IIWilliam A. Jacobs American National Strategy in the Asian and Pacific WarM.V. BezeauStrategic Cooperation: The Canadian Commitment to the Defense of Alaska in the Second World War
Brian Garfield The Thousand-Mile War: World War II in Alaska and the AleutiansHisashi Takahashi The Japanese Campaign in AlaskaAlvin D. Coox Reflecting on the Alaska Theater in Pacific War Operations, 1942-1945Buck Delkettie An Alaskan Scout RemembersWilliam Draper A Brush with WarGeorge F. Earle Painting with the Tenth MountainWAR IN THE NORTH PACIFIC
B.B. Talley and Virginia M. Talley Building Alaska’s Defenses in World War IIAdmiral James Russell Recollections of Dutch Harbor, Attu, and Kiska in World War IIWilliam S. Hanable Theobald RevisitedFern Chandonnet The Recapture of AttuAlastair Neely The First Special Service Force and Canadian Involvement at KiskaGalen R. PerrasCanada’s Greenlight force and the Invasion of Kiska, 1943
George F. Earle Kiska: Birth of a DivisionTeruo Nishijima Recalling the Battle of AttuGary J. Candelaria Tin Can at War: The USS “Monaghan” and the War in AlaskaKarl Kaoru Kasukabe The Escape of the Japanese Garrison from KiskaM. Joseph Leahy The Coast Guard at War in AlaskaRalph M. Bartholomew The Tenth Emergency Rescue Boat Squadron, Eleventh Army Air ForceJoseph M. May and Harold Steinhoff Life of Adak, 1942-1944Steven M Morrisette The Story of Three B-24s, Fairbanks, 1942 The Man who Walked out of Charley RiverDEFENDING THE TERRITORY
Zachary Irwin Search and Rescue in the Air Transport Command, 1943-1945Chris Wooley and Mike Martz The Tundra Army: Patriots of Arctic AlaskaRay Hudson Aleuts in Defense of their HomelandTHE ALASKA HIGHWAY
Heath Twichell The Wartime Alaska Highway: Boon or Boondoggle?William R. Hunt and Alex Hunt The Wrong Route: Donald MacDonald and the Alaska HighwayNorman Bush The Alcan Saga, 1942-1943Harry Yost Snapshots from a Soldier’s ScrapbookJane HaighRoadside Development along the Alaska Highway: The Impact of World War II on Military Construction on the Alaska Highway Corridor
WAR’S IMPACT ON THE HOME FRONT
David A. Hales World War II in Alaska: A View from the Diaries of Ernest GrueningStephen W. Haycox Mining the Federal Government: The War and the All-American CityBob King The Salmon Industry at WarMichael Burwell The SS “Northwestern”: The Ship that Always Came BackFrank NorrisHollywood, Alaska, and Politics: The Impact of World War II on Films about the North Country
W. Connor Sorensen The Civilian Conservation Corp in Alaska and National PreparednessHelen Butcher My Alaska War Years, 1941-1946Gaye L. Goerig The Civilian Population—SeldoviaTimothy Rawson World War II through “The Alaska Sportsman” MagazineRonald K. InouyeFor Immediate Sale: Tokyo Bathhouse—How World War II Affected Alaska’s Japanese Civilians
Nancy Yaw Davis Childhood Memories of the War: SitkaMINORITIES IN ALASKA’S MILITARY
Lael Morgan Race Relations and the Contributions of Minority Troops in AlaskaCharles Hendricks A Challenge to the Status Quo?Sylvia K. Kobayashi I Remember What I Want to ForgetALEUT RELOCATION AND RESTITUTION
Dean Kohlhoff ‘It Only Makes My Heart Want to Cry’: How Aleuts Faced the Pain of Evacuation The Politics of RestitutionHenry Steward Aleuts in Japan, 1942-1945Marie Matsuno Nash, Office of Sen. Stevens An Alaskan Who Was Interned Introduces Remarks by Senator Ted StevensFlore Lekanof Sr. Aleut Evacuation: Effect on the PeopleLEND-LEASE
Baker B. Beard The Bradley Mission: The Evolution of the Alaska-Siberia Air RouteDaniel L. Haulman The Northwest Staging RouteTat’iana Kosheleva The Construction and Use of the Fairanks-Kranoiarsk Air Route, 1942-1945Alexander B. Dolitsky Alaska-Siberia Lend Lease to RussiaDavid S. Raisman The Alaska-Siberia Friendship RouteRichard A. Russell The Hula OperationHISTORIC PRESERVATION
Larry Murphy and Daniel Lenihan Underwater Archeology of the World War II Aleutian CampaignCharles E. DitersAttu and Kiska, 2043: How Much of the Past Can the Present Save for the Future?
Linda Cook The Landscape of a Landmark: Strategies for PreservationBarbara S. Smith Making it Right: Restitution for Aleut Churches Damaged in World War IIJack E. SinclairTurning the Forgotten into the Remembered: The making of Caines Head State Recreation Area
R. Bruce ParhamRight Before your Eyes: Finding Alaska’s World War II Records in the National Archives
THE WAR’S AFTERMATH
John H. Cloe The Legacy of the WarJohn T. FarquharNorthern Shield and Drawn Arrow: Alaska’s Role in Air ForceReconnaissance Efforts, 1946-1948
Janice Reeve Ogle The Air Route Nobody Wanted: Reeve Aleutian AirwaysLeo J. HannanA Legacy of World Warf II: Alaska Territorial Guard/Alaska State Guard
Gwynneth Gminder Wilson A Well-Kept SecretJohn Cloe, Elmer Freeman, and Lael Morgan Writing about the War R. Bruce Parham Selected bibliography Index