Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1943-06-25
Land Bridge
Across Pacific
(WNU Featme-Through special arrangement
with Golfers WeekIy)
By Corey Ford


Toward the middle of August last
year, our American pilots in the
Aleutians began bringing back re-
ports of sudden and furious Japa-
nese activity on Kiska island. Road
construction had been started there,
two seaplane hangers and ramps
were built, huts and camp buildings
were hastily thrown up, sandbagged
and reverted, submarine base was
constructed west of Salmon Lagoon.
Telegraph poles, brought all the
way from Japan, lined the company
streets. New gun emplacements
were dug on North and South Heads,
underground passages were chan
neled beneath the rocks, and anti
aircraft grew steadily more intense.
With Oriental thoroughness they
even gave Kiska Island a new name
-Narukima, which means Bringing
of the Gods" What that means is
anybody's guess.
U. S. Army Engineers Busy.
But while the Japs were develop
ing their base, our army engineers
were not idle. On an island in the
Andreanof group, only a fighter
plane hop from Kiska, intelligence
scouts had secretly surveyed a site
for new landing field. Now, as
August drew to a close, one of the
most remarkable armadas of the
war set sail from the Alaska main
land under the protecting cover of
navy convoy and the ever vigilant
Phys. There were numbering trans
ports, few old freighters, fishing
scow or two, several converted
barges, side-paddle river boat,
even a little tug hauling four
masted schooner loaded to the gun
wales with gasoline. Every hold was
damned with guns, crates, construc-
ton gear. Every inch of deck space
was damned with men.
U. S. FlotiIla Heads West.
Curtained by dense fog-and for
once everyone gave devout thanks
for the foul weather-the strange
fiotilla headed westward. No Jap
patrol plane marred the murky
skies, no prowling submarine spot
ted them from the sea, as the convoy
crept at snail's pace past the dam
gerous reefs and shoals that mark
the shores of the Andreanofs, breast
ed the mountainous tides and an
chored safely at last in the shelter
of the island.
The rattle of chains in the hawse-
pipes had hardly died away before
our troops under full field equip
ment had clambered down the rope
nets into the landing barges. Driving
rain and icy seas soaked them to
the skin, but at least the storm in
sured the landing operations against
air attack. Artillery protection was
quickly established. Jeeps, COM
mand cars, caterpillar tractors,
trucks splashed toward the beach.
New Base Takes Shape.
The members of the ground crews
pitched in and carried on their backs
the equipment for the base that was
fast taking shape under the noisy
activity of bulldozers and caterpil-
lars. For ten days, they worked in
sopping clothes, ate out of tin cans
and snatched occasional hours of
sleep in the mud and rain.
The expedition landed on Sunday,
August 80. On Friday, September
II, the vanguard of a squadron of
fighter planes dropped out of the
gray skies onto finished runway.
At last with a base only a couple
of hundred miles from the enemy,
we were able to cut down the worst
of our weather losses and to put a
striking force of fighters and me-
dunn bombers over Kiska.
Our initial visit was in the nature
of a celebration. The mediums went
in over Kiska at so feet-believed to
be the first deck-level mission ever
conducted by American bombers-
and destroyed three large trans
ports. Fighter planes swarmed over
the target like small boys raiding
an apple orchard, shot up everything
on the water, and shot down every
thing in the air.
Week after week, month after
month, the aerial slugging match
went on All fall and winter and
spring, amid the foulest flying con-
ditions anywhere in the world, the
navy patrol planes would scout the
lonely seas. Now and then, when
the skies opened up, army bombers
and fighters would take off to drop
another lethal load.
They knew the staggering toll the
weather was taking in ships and
men; they knew the hopelessness of
dislodging the enemy by intermit-
tent bombing raids alone. But they
knew that slowly, ever so slowly, we
were inching westward closer and
closer to the Kiska guns, and our
forces were readying themselves
during the spring for that about Of
fensive which would drive the in
vader forever from our islands.
"There are many roads which
lead right to Tokyo" President