Strategic Map: Northwest Frontier

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Most populous section of Alaska is the island-fringed panhandle, extending south from the grandeur of Mt. St. Elias (18,024 ft.) to a point 23 miles below the peaceful, prosperous Indian village of Metlakatla on Annette Island. Alaska's panhandle is a bony spine formed by continuations of the U. S.-Canada coast range. Partly submerged by the sea, the outer range is the panhandle's islands. The inner range rises sheer from the water to heights of 7,000 to 9,000 feet. Glaciers have deepened the river valleys into fjords like Norway's coastal indentations and there are no natural locations for flying fields.

To an invader this panhandle would be a prize. Once established in the vast network of its mainland and island harbors he would be hard to dislodge, and its climate would be an advantage. Warmed by the Japan Current, the panhandle has a milder winter climate than New York City or Washington, D. C., is an ideal natural base for naval operations. To airplane pilots its No. 1 winter grief is fog, but fog is no grief that good instruments and smart weather flying cannot cure.

In the panhandle both the U. S. Army and Navy are busy. A few weeks ago 400 CCC boys, directed by Army technical experts, landed at Metlakatla, promptly set to work clearing and draining Annette Island's swampy seaward front for an Army flying field. Impressed by the urgency of Alaskan defense, the thrifty Indians of Metlakatla had readily voted permission for the Air Corps to build a field on their reservation, are now hosts to more white men than most of them have ever seen at one time. Farther north at Sitka a naval air base is already building, will eventually be home for submarines, as well as aircraft. Planned by the U. S. at Juneau and Ketchikan are other bases hard by Pan American flying fields.

North of the panhandle the mountains reach their cloud-piercing apex in Mt. McKinley, highest (20,300 ft.) peak in North America. The range swings southwest to form the Aleutians, where much of it is submerged and active volcanoes still spit fire & brimstone.

To the U. S. Navy has gone the job of building defenses in Alaska's island chain. On Kodiak Island (2,795 miles directly north of Hawaii) its $12,730,000 sea and air base is already under construction, will be completed within two years. A newer establishment is at Dutch Harbor (Un-alaska), where Navy building is going on in secret, with the area restricted from visitors. And far out in the Pacific, 1,242 miles west of Kodiak, is the Navy's outmost listening post, Kiska Island, which can be used as an advance base for U. S. Navy operations.

Alaska's mainland belongs to the Army. Across the international date line lie Russian bases, and many a sourdough airplane pilot has long observed that Alaska's western beaches, stretching northward from Nome across the shortest sea gap from Asia, are big enough and smooth enough for the landing of any bombers or troop transports now flying. North of the Aleutians—beyond which the southern limit of drift ice (shown by ice cakes on the map) does not extend— Alaska's nine-month winter is bitter cold.