page_title: Umnak
section_title: Transport
hierarchical_section_title: Umnak / Transport
caption_attribution_description: English: Author: Eric Wuttke Source: Digital Camera Photo from Airplane Fair Use: Photo taken by author flying into Nikolski, December 2006
context_page_description: Umnak is one of the Fox Islands of the Aleutian Islands. With 686.01 square miles of land area, it is the third largest island in the Aleutian archipelago and the 19th largest island in the United States. The island is home to a large volcanic caldera on Mount Okmok and the only field of geysers in Alaska. It is separated from Unalaska Island by Umnak Pass. In 2000, Umnak was permanently inhabited by only 39 people.
context_section_description: Umnak does not have a harbor. It does, however, have an airstrip, Nikolski Airport. Building an airport runway in the hilly terrain was a unique engineering achievement of the Army Engineers, commanded by Colonel Benjamin B. Talley. The construction work of the runway was proposed at Otter Point on the northeastern end of Umnak. Construction was started in the middle of January 1942 and was commissioned by April of the same year, being given the name Fort Glenn. Three hundred thousand square feet (28,000 square metres) of Marston Matting, a perforated-steel plating (PSP), was assembled along with other steel plates and created a flat surface for aircraft to take off and land. The runway was completed on March 31, 1942 by the 807th Unit of the Army Engineers. It was 3,000 feet (910 m) long with a width of 100 feet (30 m) sufficient for Capt. John S. Chennault's P-40 fighter aircraft in the 11th Fighter Squadron to land.
  The Navy's Otter Point Naval Air Facility was built next to Fort Glenn.
  After the war ended, Fort Glenn remained open as a refueling stop for transient aircraft in the Aleutians along with Military Air Transport Service flights using the Great Circle Route from Japan to the United States.  The main runway was extended to 8,300 feet long to accommodate large, long range aircraft.  By 1946, the base was manned only by skeleton staff due to the rapid demobilization of the Army Air Forces. The last AAF personnel were withdrawn by 30 September 1947, and the base was put on inactive status and was effectively abandoned.  It was decommissioned in 1950 and the site was excessed between 1952-55 to the Bureau of Land Management. Many years later the airfield was added to the National Register of Historic Places as Cape Field at Fort Glenn.
caption: Nikolski
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