The Wrangell sentinel., 1943-11-26

story of the Army Engineer forti- ficatiOn of Alaska, where the out posts of defense grew into theater of operations offenses. This would be the story behind all stories with Alaska date lines telling of the at tacks on Attu and Kiska and the bombing of the Kuriles for this would be the story of the construc- l tion of the arc of American bases I that rise from Seattle to Attu.
 By the time the complete story of the names and locations of the AL askan installations can be given out i generally for public and one-time enemy alike the Engineers will doubtless have built a new volume of contsrction history. From now as roads and warehouses replace Jap battle stations on Kiska, back to the fall of 194O when the runways of Annette Island began the base l by-base stretch of American forces l toward Tokyo, the Engineers have been making history in Alaska. They have raised historical military centers and they have pioneered construction operations. Every bomber that rises against Japan takes off from an Engineer-built runway, every soldier needing medi- cal attention goes into an Engineer built hospital every Army man sta toned in Alaska is barracked at an Engineer-built post.
 Work In All Weather
 The outline of the Engineers Al aska story would cover thawing the perpetual snOws and deeply frozen ground to get footings down for the defenses, facing the eternal rains, working in the 90 to 120- mile-an-hour "williwaws," blasting away stone mountains and shore lines, sledding construction equip ment and supplies over melting riv- CTS of ice, surveying uncharted is lands and sending troops to combat when necessary.
 Motto of the 168-year-old Engin- ger Corps is Essayons, -"Let us TRY!" and Engineer tradition is to pay no mind to any obstacle. The Alaskan result is the more than $500, GOO 900 program of pioneer air bases and installations, despite the griefs of weather, terrain, trans portation, and supply.
 The Engineer job in Alaska took several armies, still on the job; the army of Engineer officers and tech nlcal troop units, tthe army of civ ilian engineers, the army of civilian clerical workers, and the army of thousands of skilled civilian con- structioA workers. This four-wayI partnership has worked side by side. with high morale, at cities and iso- lated localities as well. From the Army Engineer installations at hetchikan out to Attu the civil ian Engineer army of workers is on the job on this building mission.
 If the Engineer story in the north is tremendous, Alaska is a big and unbelievable land. The most popular post card in the Territory reveals that map of Alaska superimposed on map of the States is as large as One-fifth of the U. S. A, with the last of the Aleutians over Cali fornia. southeast Alaska ending in Georgia and Point Barrow over Du- luth.
 This is a pioneer story, with the Engineer units coming in ahead to an undeveloped, often uninhabited land, to hack out the timber, haul a. way the muck, thaW out the nor aine to make way for the rest. It was well indeed that the enemy thought of American bases as late as June 1942, as being only at Dutch Harbor, Sitka and perhaps something near Juneau. It was the then secret base" of Umnak that is credited with saving Alaska and perhaps the Pacific Northwest, as the land-based planes from that is- land turned back the Japanese in- vasion fleet.
 The beginning of this story, briefly, is August 194O, when the Seattle District of the U. S. Army Engineers began swift move from peacetime operations into national | S~AoC oJ AhAbAdtAuB lAe DulIutnE or
 two air bases, Annette Island and Yakutat. Into the Tongass National Forest of mountained, marshy Southeast Alaska, through muskee
 formation of matted vegetation
 roots, and moss 3 to 20 feet deep the Engineers carved down and laid out Annette Island. There is more
 to any air base than merely a run. } way, from troop housing and a cha. pei to electrical and plumbing sys- ? tems and from payrolls of civilian
 construction workers to shipping UT supplies. So skillfully was Annette } done that the Air Corps recon, !, mended to the War Department thai g the Engineers be entrusted with Ali Force construction.
 Then there was Yakutat, no sim. :, pie job, either. With 120 to 16(
 inches of annual rain, with abund.
 ant snow, often a foot in 24 hours K with the draglines operating or
 timber mats to keep from mirinf