National Magazine Places Seward
In Strategical Area
From "Time" Magazine, Nov. 6
Just ahead of the winter
freeze-up, the broad-bottomed
barges cast off from Nome’s
weather-beaten docks and tagged
southward behind their tugs
toward the Bering Sea. Towns
men ashore watched the cargoes
of Air Force trucks, black oil
drums and crated airplane parts
disappear into the blue distance.
The Air Force was leaving
Nome, lock, stock and barrel.
On the plains east of the city,
Marks Air Force Base — once
the hub of several satellite fields
and home for 10,000 World War
II troops—was deserted save for
its housekeepers and the solitary
comings and goings of commer
cial airliners. The little (pop.
1,852) Alaskan coastal city, just
30 jet-driven minutes from Si
berian fighter outposts, last
week found herself 500 miles
out in front of the new U.S.
defensive position.
Nome had company in her
shivery loneliness. All the way
across the Aleutian chain, most
of the old World War II air
bases were deserted, their torn
Quonsets flaping and creaking
before the storms. South toward
the States, on the foggy, moun
tainous coastal strip — never
much good for air bases—the
last detachments of troops had
been moved out of Ketchikan
and Sitka, and out of Juneau,
the capital of the territory. Un
der the armed forces’ new strat
egy for defending Alaska, the
U. S. was coiling its strength—
its winterized jet fighters, its
cadres of weather-wise pilots and
its supporting Army troops—
into one tight defense net in
the Alaskan heart.
Road Fed and Ice Free.
The heartland is a 500-mile
long loop of sea, plain and
jagged mountain, notable be
cause—in Alaska’s trackless cen
tral land mass—it is stitched
together by year-round trans
portation. It begins in the south
west at the island naval base
01 Kodiak, encompasses the ice
free ports of Seward and Whit
tier, fans up along the 471-mile
Alaska Railroad, and there
hooks on to the Alaska (Alcan)
Highway, last segment of the
2.350-mile overland route from
the U.S.
Here, and only here, the Joint
Chiefs of Staff had decided,
could the U.S. build a base that
1) could be supplied through
the paralyzing winters, 2) would
be strong enough to defend it
self, 3) would be central enough
to defend Alaska against attack.
In any future world war, Alaska
would be a prize in transpolar
air warfare. Here the U.S. would
first intercept Russian planes
curving eastward out of the
Chukotsk bases (where the So
viets have been building up fuel
supplies), bound for such atom
worthy targets as the Hanford
plutonium plant in eastern Wash
ington, or the West Coast air
craft plants—or possibly indus
trial targets in the upper Mid
west. Offensively, Alaska was a
strategic refueling point for
transpolar B-36s.
Mon-Global War.
Why, then, was the U.S. fall
ing back to Alaska’s inner core?
It had been different in World
War II. The Japanese, landing
on Attu and Kiska, had tied up
ten U. S. divisions. The Navy,
hard-pressed at the crucial battle
of Midway, had nonetheless
spared five cruisers, 13 destroy
ers and six submarines to defend
the big peninsula against a di
versionary ra,d. Air bases were
strewn along the coast and down
the Aleutians at enormous cosi.
in 1942 the Army diverted
desert-camouflaged planes in
tended for Africa to defend the
very areas where the U.S. was
now closing out bases.
The answer was that the Joint
Chiefs had taken a second look
at Alaska and this time had seen
it through airmen’s eyes. To
fireside strategists, equipped
with an armchair and a globe,
the Aleutians might look like
neat steppingstones from Asia
up to the North American con
tinent’s front door, islands to be
defended one by one. But the
steppingstoncs had to be seen
The globe, for instance, did not
show the masses of empty tundra
stretching inland from the west
ern coast like sloshy, moldy pud
ding. No map could hint the
subzero temperatures that could
cripple an army, taunt it with
frostbite, hold it to a mile-a-day
advance through roadless moun
tains and plains.
Alaska is a battleground for
airmen, the Joint Chiefs de
cided; in 1947, it turned com
mand of the theater over to the
Air Force. The primary enemy
thus became enemy airplanes,
the primary defensive position,
U.S. air bases. Let Russia or
anyone else slip ground troops
— airborne or seaborne — into
such “islands of tundra” as Nome
or Point Barrow, said the air
men, and you could isolate them
like the mighty Japanese bases
of Truk and Rabaul were iso
lated in the Pacific war. You
would bomb the planes and
shelters and leave them all shiv
ering in the cold with no place
to march to. Don’t make U.S.
airplanes vulnerable by scatter
ing them through the wilderness,
they said. Let them range from
bases in the heartland.
Man of Practice.
The theory seemed bold and
simple. The complexities in car
rying it out fell to a wiry,
weather-beaten Air Force Lieu
tenant General named William
E. Kepner, commander in chief
of Alaska (CINCAL). Bill Kep
ner ran his taut command from
a birch-walled office on the first
floor of a thick concrete com
mand center at Anchorage.
Around town it was known as
“The Kremlin,” much to his
distaste (“There is nothing Rus
sian in my command: I know
of no Kremlin in it,” says he
gruffly).
remarkably well fitted to be
top boss in a crucial tri-service
operation. As a youngster he
had done a hitch in the Marines,
later had marched with the
Army infantry on the Mexican
border. In 1917. he was com
missioned a 2nd lieutenant in
the cavalry, fought through the
toughest land battles of World
War I in France and won a
DSC. for leading a patrol into
a German machine-gun nest Be
tween wars he beeamb an Army
expert in ballooning (in 1934
got to 60.613 feet iln the “Ex
plorer I” before she ripped
apart), was subsequently trained
in airships by the Navy. Also a
topflight airplane pilot, in World
War II he first commanded a
fighter outfit in Europe, then
became boss of a bombardment
division. Even his knowledge of
the atom bomb is intimate: he
was deputy commander for all
Army and Navy aviation at
Operation Crossroads, the Bi
kini bomb test.
The Heartbeat.
The beat of Bill Kepner’s
heartland is the take-off roar
of his F-80 Shooting Stars, F-82s
and his all-weather F-94s based
at his three key airfields. Big,
sprawling Elmendorf Air Force
Base lies next to Kepner’s
“Kremlin” at Anchorage. Ladd’s
runways mark the flat, far
northern Tanana plain just south
of the Yukon River. Lonely,
bleak Eielson, 26 miles south
' east of Fairbanks, is the home
of the weather reconnaissance
B-29s that regularly fly the
“Ptarmigan hops” to the pole.
Eielson, with the world’s longest |
(14,600 feet) runways may one
day have another chore: han
dling B-36s shunting over the
pole on short notice.
Concentration in A 1 a s k a’s
heartland carries one big risk:
any potential enemy could more
easily hit and wipe out the entire
U.S. strength on one darting
surprise raid. “Alaska is a one
shot deal,” said Kepner’s prede
cessor as CINCAL, Lieut. Gen
eral Nathan Twining. “We have
to be prepared to meet a sur
prise attack the first time or
not at all. We won’t have a
second chance.”
The Defensive.
Bill Kepner counts on a thin
forward net of Eskimo fisher
men and coast watchers, advance
weather stations, his own scat
tered auxiliary bases, and his
sketchy radar outposts to give
him a few minutes warning. His
ready-duty fighters can scramble
to take off in as little as three
minutes—no easy feat in the
heavy cold of Alaskan winter,
where both plane and fuel must
be carefully preheated. (Accord
ing to legend, the best Arctic
ground crewman is the one who
warms a blowtorch in his hut
so he can light the torch to warm
the preheater, which preheats
the plane.)
Once warned, Bill Kepner’s
jet fighters can range well out
over the Alaskan coast. But
warnings are far from certain.
In a mock attack last September,
“aggressor” aircraft swept thru
gaping radar holes with little
difficulty, theoretically strafed
Alaskan bases for 20 minutes
before the air raid sirens went
off.
On the Ground.
The Armys prime job in Alas
ka is to defend airfields, not
land masses. Kepner has the
tough, trained 4th Infantry Regi
ment as the nucleus of his
ground strength, and a meager
assortment of quadruple .50
caliber machine guns, 40- and
90-mm. antiaircraft batteries. In
any or all of its aspects ground
fighting is a brutal, fearful busi
ness in the winter cold.
Trucks, guns and tanks can
be winterized to work at 50 de
grees below zero, although some
times a sound-looking tire will
collapse with a frozen crunch
as the truck begins to roll. The
bursts of ordinary bombs and
shells are smothered in the deep
snow. (The Army will soon try
out proximity fuses for sub
arctic use.) At 50 below, a sol
dier is only 10 per cent efficient.
At minus 52, he behaves like ?
battle shock case: his eyes glaze
and he wanders in aimless
circles.
Cold Facts.
Kopner needs more soldiers,
more planes, more guns and
more radar to fend off any “one
shot deal.” That, like every
thing else in Alaska, is more
difficult than it sounds. The
Pentagon can’t send more people
until there is more housing. Al
ready at lonely Eielson, troops
are living in portable Fiberglas
and canvas shelters. At Fort
Richardson, 1,100 men are cram
med into a new 500-man bar
racks; officers and noncoms with
families live in squalid hovels,
pay extortionate rents. The Air
Force had long to beg Congress
for its Alaskan housing money.
Now costs are enormous: a pre
fab house that would cost $9,800
in the U.S. costs $50,000 by the
time it is freighted to Alaska
from Seattle and erected at the
going wages of the territory’s
h i g h-p r 1 c e d carpenters and
plumbers.
Last spring, Ike Eisenhower
told Congress that Alaskan de
fenses were in no shape to meet
the potentialities of war. Kep
ner, for all of his awareness
of what his command lacks, pro
fesses not to be so gloomy. “If
the enemy invades, we’ll hand
him quite a jolt,” he says la
conically.
Those who live the fastest
are the first to reach the finish
line.
Tip to motorists: Four wheel
brakes are useless without a]
fore-sighted driver.
WERNER APARTMENTS SOLD
The Werner Apartment build
ing on Sixth Avenue was sold
last week by Henry (Hinie)
Werner for the sum of $25,000.
It was purchased by Hans Fur
sureth and Oliver Backlund.
Mr. Werner remodeled the
building about two years ago,
and it has been occupied ever
since. The new owner’s plans
for the house have not been
revealed.
BARNETT-MORGAN
WEDDING SUNDAY
The wedding of Mrs. Mary
Ann Barnett and Mr. Percy
Morgan of Anchorage is set for
Sunday afternoon, Nov. 12, at
the Assembly of God Church. A
reception will be held at the
Chop Suey House on Sixth Ave
nue at 5 p.m.
Mrs. Barnett is the widow of
“Whitey” Barnett who was lost
in his plane off Yakutat two
years ago. They had lived for
several years in and around
Seward.
LUTHERAN LADIES AID
The regular meeting of the
Lutheran Ladies Aid will be
held Tuesday, November 14, at
7:30 in the basement of the
Lutheran Church. All those in
terested are cordially invited to
attend.
It seems futile to preach
highway safety, but we often
wonder what the slaughter
would be if there were no
preaching at all.
i_
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i
. HAMILTON'S GARAGE
PHONE MADISON 66 SEWARD. ALASKA
You'll do better on a used truck with your GMC dealer