(2 of 3)
Attack. Lying in flank of the sea routes from Yokohama and the far Pacific Islands to continental U. S., Alaska is much more likely to be attacked by an Oriental invader than the U. S.'s great sea fortress at Hawaii. If an enemy reduced the $400,000,000 defenses of Hawaii—a man-sized job for any Navy—he would still be 2,400 miles from San Francisco, would face serious obstacles to supply in an attack on the Pacific Coast. But a success ful attack on Alaska would bring him closer to his goal. Sitka is only 800 miles from Seattle, and an enemy once positioned in the fjords and deep bays of the Inland Passage would be a tough customer for the U. S. Navy to dislodge. Now that the U. S. has made a start by putting $45,000,000 into Alaskan defenses, Alaskans are talking hopefully of the possibility of ten or 20 times as much.
Fortnight ago Major General Henry H. Arnold, Chief of the Army Air Corps, left Washington in his Lockheed, landed at Fairbanks in 39 hours (including a twelve-hour rest at Spokane), for Seattle is already closer by air to Alaska than to St. Louis or Chicago. Along the Inland Passage Pan American Airways operates a twice-weekly passenger service, and a few days before General Arnold's arrival Lieut. General John Lesesne DeWitt of the Fourth Army had dropped in at Anchorage from his San Francisco headquarters as easily as he might have dropped in on Minneapolis.
"Hap" Arnold's mission was to see how the Army's new defenses were getting along. At Fairbanks he saw the work of ruddy, grey-templed Major Edward M. George of the Quartermaster Corps, whose crew had plugged through the Arctic winter, readying the frozen ground for spring building, whipping the Army's great base into shape. Hangars were already springing up and General DeWitt's two big B-18s had landed on the field with no more trouble than "Hap" Arnold's smaller Lockheed. Laid out for the Army's biggest ships, Fairbanks' Ladd Field will have 10,000-foot runways, will be garrisoned this winter by Army airmen learning Arctic flying. Farther south in Anchorage another field is being built, and there fortnight ago landed 700 U. S. troops, first big detachment sent to Alaska in 40 years.
Operating from Fairbanks and Anchlorage Army airmen will need more and bigger fields than the lines of Pacific Alaska Airways (Pan Am subsidiary) can supply. Last week they were busy laying them out. Below Point Barrow emergency fields (against the possibility of a transPolar invasion from Europe) will be set up on the tundra, to be used as advance fields for the Anchorage and Fairbanks commands. Other advance fields will dot the Seward Peninsula back of Nome against a thrust from Siberia, still others in southwest Alaska for operations against invasion from the south.