The Alaska-Siberia Connection

The Alaska-Siberia Connection

Author: Otis Hays

Publisher:

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13:

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American Lend-Lease generosity helped to join Russia and America in a wartime alliance against Germany. However, Russia, suspicious of American sincerity, delayed the establishment of an Alaska-Siberia delivery route (known throughout the war as ALSIB) to the German war front. Instead, other routes via the North Atlantic and the Persian Gulf were employed for the delivery of urgently needed aircraft in 1941-42. Eventually, recognizing that an ALSIB route would allow the delivery of American-made aircraft in days, not weeks or months, the Russians agreed to the ALSIB route in late 1942. The ALSIB route became the fastest and most productive means of moving combat aircraft to the Russian-German front. Additionally, although it was primitive and dangerous, it established a direct and time-saving artery between Moscow and Washington, and it was heavily used by diplomats, politicians, and countless military officials, both Soviet and American. Declassified official U.S. military records and selected Russian sources, as well as reminiscences from former American liaison officers who were stationed at ALSIB posts in Alaska between 1943 and 1945, serve as the basis for this intriguing story.


Book Synopsis The Alaska-Siberia Connection by : Otis Hays

Download or read book The Alaska-Siberia Connection written by Otis Hays and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American Lend-Lease generosity helped to join Russia and America in a wartime alliance against Germany. However, Russia, suspicious of American sincerity, delayed the establishment of an Alaska-Siberia delivery route (known throughout the war as ALSIB) to the German war front. Instead, other routes via the North Atlantic and the Persian Gulf were employed for the delivery of urgently needed aircraft in 1941-42. Eventually, recognizing that an ALSIB route would allow the delivery of American-made aircraft in days, not weeks or months, the Russians agreed to the ALSIB route in late 1942. The ALSIB route became the fastest and most productive means of moving combat aircraft to the Russian-German front. Additionally, although it was primitive and dangerous, it established a direct and time-saving artery between Moscow and Washington, and it was heavily used by diplomats, politicians, and countless military officials, both Soviet and American. Declassified official U.S. military records and selected Russian sources, as well as reminiscences from former American liaison officers who were stationed at ALSIB posts in Alaska between 1943 and 1945, serve as the basis for this intriguing story.


History of Alaska , Volume II

History of Alaska , Volume II

Author: Jonathan M. Nielson, Ph.D.

Publisher: Academica Press

Published: 2018-03-01

Total Pages: 398

ISBN-13: 1680530593

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The most significant military development to touch Alaska during the interwar years was the advent of air power, an innovation that completely altered Alaska's strategic position. Suddenly the world became smaller as areas once thought safely distant from potential enemies became vulnerable. Nowhere was this more evident than in the Pacific, whose countless islands became potential advanced air bases. As air technology improved, the ability of long-range bombers and, by the 1930s, of carrier aircraft, to penetrate American airspace was a development of far reaching significance. While such warnings were largely limited to a handful of air-power advocates their vocal advocacy constituted nothing less than an “insurrection”, a revolution in military thinking fought against entrenched military conservatism, cultural aversion to change, fears of budget cuts, and War Department lethargy. Indeed it was the air power crusader General Billy Mitchell who aggressively fought to convince the War and Navy Departments to embrace the new doctrine of offensive air power. Mitchell came to understand Alaska's strategic importance early on. Consequently, he saw the Aleutians as a vulnerability: if left unguarded Japan could “creep up” and, by establishing air dominance, take Alaska and Canada’s West Coast. But he also saw Alaska as a strategic base from which American planes could “reduce Tokyo to powder.” Prophetically, in 1923 Mitchell forecast precisely the military threat and strategic arguments that would shape military thinking almost twenty years later: “I am thinking of Alaska. In an air war, if we were unprepared Japan could take it away from us, first by dominating the sky and creeping up the Aleutians." By the mid-to late 1930s military and civilian advocates of air power and more visionary strategists were beginning to make their voices heard in Congress and elsewhere, decrying Alaska’s military vulnerability. Between 1933 and 1944 no one was more adamant than Alaska’s Delegate in Congress, Anthony Joseph “Tony” Dimond, who challenged the nation to defend itself by defending Alaska. To Dimond, it seemed poor strategy to fortify one pacific base, Hawaii, while ignoring another, Alaska. Dimond’s campaign was strengthened by passage of the Wilcox Bill, sponsored by Representative J. Mark Wilcox (D-Florida), officially known as the National Air Defense Act. This truly significant legislation authorized the location and construction of military airfields throughout the United States as a general defense preparedness measure. Alaska was recognized as one of the nation’s six strategic regions, and two bases, one at Anchorage, the other at Fairbanks, were recommended in part, “because Alaska was closer to Japan than it is to the center of [the] continental United States.” Fortuitously for Alaska defense advocates, General Douglas MacArthur stepped down as Chief of Staff of the Army and was replaced by Major General Malin Craig in October 1935. Craig and Brigadier General Stanley D. Embick advocated a substantial reconfiguration of Plan Orange arguing that the Philippines presented an invitation to attack and should be “neutralized” in favor defending the “Alaska-Hawaii-Panama Triangle.” Both the Army and Navy were charged with defending Alaska as far west as Dutch Harbor, and the army pledged to mobilize 6,600 troops in Alaska within a month of attack by Japan. In contemplating the defense of Alaska the Army General Staff formulated five priority objectives: first, increase the Alaska garrison; second, establish a major base for Army operations near Anchorage; third, develop a network of air bases within Alaska; fourth, garrison these bases with combat troops; and fifth, protect the naval installations at Sitka, Kodiak, and Dutch Harbor. Alaska was about to go to war.


Book Synopsis History of Alaska , Volume II by : Jonathan M. Nielson, Ph.D.

Download or read book History of Alaska , Volume II written by Jonathan M. Nielson, Ph.D. and published by Academica Press. This book was released on 2018-03-01 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most significant military development to touch Alaska during the interwar years was the advent of air power, an innovation that completely altered Alaska's strategic position. Suddenly the world became smaller as areas once thought safely distant from potential enemies became vulnerable. Nowhere was this more evident than in the Pacific, whose countless islands became potential advanced air bases. As air technology improved, the ability of long-range bombers and, by the 1930s, of carrier aircraft, to penetrate American airspace was a development of far reaching significance. While such warnings were largely limited to a handful of air-power advocates their vocal advocacy constituted nothing less than an “insurrection”, a revolution in military thinking fought against entrenched military conservatism, cultural aversion to change, fears of budget cuts, and War Department lethargy. Indeed it was the air power crusader General Billy Mitchell who aggressively fought to convince the War and Navy Departments to embrace the new doctrine of offensive air power. Mitchell came to understand Alaska's strategic importance early on. Consequently, he saw the Aleutians as a vulnerability: if left unguarded Japan could “creep up” and, by establishing air dominance, take Alaska and Canada’s West Coast. But he also saw Alaska as a strategic base from which American planes could “reduce Tokyo to powder.” Prophetically, in 1923 Mitchell forecast precisely the military threat and strategic arguments that would shape military thinking almost twenty years later: “I am thinking of Alaska. In an air war, if we were unprepared Japan could take it away from us, first by dominating the sky and creeping up the Aleutians." By the mid-to late 1930s military and civilian advocates of air power and more visionary strategists were beginning to make their voices heard in Congress and elsewhere, decrying Alaska’s military vulnerability. Between 1933 and 1944 no one was more adamant than Alaska’s Delegate in Congress, Anthony Joseph “Tony” Dimond, who challenged the nation to defend itself by defending Alaska. To Dimond, it seemed poor strategy to fortify one pacific base, Hawaii, while ignoring another, Alaska. Dimond’s campaign was strengthened by passage of the Wilcox Bill, sponsored by Representative J. Mark Wilcox (D-Florida), officially known as the National Air Defense Act. This truly significant legislation authorized the location and construction of military airfields throughout the United States as a general defense preparedness measure. Alaska was recognized as one of the nation’s six strategic regions, and two bases, one at Anchorage, the other at Fairbanks, were recommended in part, “because Alaska was closer to Japan than it is to the center of [the] continental United States.” Fortuitously for Alaska defense advocates, General Douglas MacArthur stepped down as Chief of Staff of the Army and was replaced by Major General Malin Craig in October 1935. Craig and Brigadier General Stanley D. Embick advocated a substantial reconfiguration of Plan Orange arguing that the Philippines presented an invitation to attack and should be “neutralized” in favor defending the “Alaska-Hawaii-Panama Triangle.” Both the Army and Navy were charged with defending Alaska as far west as Dutch Harbor, and the army pledged to mobilize 6,600 troops in Alaska within a month of attack by Japan. In contemplating the defense of Alaska the Army General Staff formulated five priority objectives: first, increase the Alaska garrison; second, establish a major base for Army operations near Anchorage; third, develop a network of air bases within Alaska; fourth, garrison these bases with combat troops; and fifth, protect the naval installations at Sitka, Kodiak, and Dutch Harbor. Alaska was about to go to war.


The Red Warrior: U.S. Perceptions of Stalin’s Strategic Role in the Allied Journey to Victory in The Second World War

The Red Warrior: U.S. Perceptions of Stalin’s Strategic Role in the Allied Journey to Victory in The Second World War

Author: Reagan Fancher

Publisher: Vernon Press

Published: 2024-09-24

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13:

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Through U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease program, American leaders sought to keep Joseph Stalin’s Red Army in the field and fighting Adolf Hitler’s forces in the Second World War from 1941 forward. Delivered by the Anglo-American Arctic naval convoys, overland through the Iranian deserts and mountains, and through the skies from Alaska to Siberia, this much-needed material aid helped Stalin’s Red Army to continue fighting and thereby prevented a separate peace with Hitler’s Germany and a mechanized repeat of the First World War’s Brest-Litovsk fiasco. Yet Roosevelt and other U.S. officials, due to their severe underestimation of Stalin’s character and his rigid and fanatical devotion to exporting Communism at gunpoint, gambled incorrectly that they could win the Soviet premier’s heart and mind through several excessive wartime aid gestures, including the furnishing of atomic bomb materials to the Soviet regime. By 1945, American leaders had succeeded in their strategic goal of keeping Stalin and his Red Army in the war and hastening victory but failed in their efforts to purchase the Soviet premier’s goodwill and commitment to postwar peace, heralding the global Cold War, and setting the stage for later U.S. martial aid programs to those resisting aggression abroad. In addition to its primary focus on the American leadership’s perceptions of Stalin’s strategic importance to the Allied war effort in the Second World War, this work also includes a detailed assessment of Roosevelt’s Soviet Lend-Lease program alongside U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s later support for the Afghan Islamic guerrillas resisting Soviet occupation during the Soviet-Afghan War of the 1980s and a comparison of both martial aid programs with Washington’s recent revival of Lend-Lease aid for the Ukrainian war effort. It offers today’s American leaders and policymakers a chance to consult the lessons of history and apply them in the present.


Book Synopsis The Red Warrior: U.S. Perceptions of Stalin’s Strategic Role in the Allied Journey to Victory in The Second World War by : Reagan Fancher

Download or read book The Red Warrior: U.S. Perceptions of Stalin’s Strategic Role in the Allied Journey to Victory in The Second World War written by Reagan Fancher and published by Vernon Press. This book was released on 2024-09-24 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease program, American leaders sought to keep Joseph Stalin’s Red Army in the field and fighting Adolf Hitler’s forces in the Second World War from 1941 forward. Delivered by the Anglo-American Arctic naval convoys, overland through the Iranian deserts and mountains, and through the skies from Alaska to Siberia, this much-needed material aid helped Stalin’s Red Army to continue fighting and thereby prevented a separate peace with Hitler’s Germany and a mechanized repeat of the First World War’s Brest-Litovsk fiasco. Yet Roosevelt and other U.S. officials, due to their severe underestimation of Stalin’s character and his rigid and fanatical devotion to exporting Communism at gunpoint, gambled incorrectly that they could win the Soviet premier’s heart and mind through several excessive wartime aid gestures, including the furnishing of atomic bomb materials to the Soviet regime. By 1945, American leaders had succeeded in their strategic goal of keeping Stalin and his Red Army in the war and hastening victory but failed in their efforts to purchase the Soviet premier’s goodwill and commitment to postwar peace, heralding the global Cold War, and setting the stage for later U.S. martial aid programs to those resisting aggression abroad. In addition to its primary focus on the American leadership’s perceptions of Stalin’s strategic importance to the Allied war effort in the Second World War, this work also includes a detailed assessment of Roosevelt’s Soviet Lend-Lease program alongside U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s later support for the Afghan Islamic guerrillas resisting Soviet occupation during the Soviet-Afghan War of the 1980s and a comparison of both martial aid programs with Washington’s recent revival of Lend-Lease aid for the Ukrainian war effort. It offers today’s American leaders and policymakers a chance to consult the lessons of history and apply them in the present.


Bering Bridge

Bering Bridge

Author: Paul Schurke

Publisher: University of Minnesota Press

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13:

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High adventure in this account of a group of Russians and Americans (some of whom were Eskimos) and their Arctic expedition from Siberia to Alaska.


Book Synopsis Bering Bridge by : Paul Schurke

Download or read book Bering Bridge written by Paul Schurke and published by University of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: High adventure in this account of a group of Russians and Americans (some of whom were Eskimos) and their Arctic expedition from Siberia to Alaska.


Arctic Alaska and Siberia, Or, Eight Months with the Arctic Whalemen

Arctic Alaska and Siberia, Or, Eight Months with the Arctic Whalemen

Author: Herbert Lincoln Aldrich

Publisher:

Published: 1889

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13:

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Arctic Alaska and Siberia, or, Eight Months with the Arctic Whalemen is an account of the 1887 Arctic whaling season by journalist Herbert L. Aldrich (1860-1948). Between March and October of 1887, Aldrich spent time on eight New Bedford whaling vessels, documenting the whaling industry and the native peoples of Arctic Alaska. Aldrich was a young reporter for the New Bedford Evening Standard who resolved to accompany the Arctic whaling fleet after he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and told he had less than a year to live. He received the support of the leaders of New Bedford's whaling industry, who wanted him to document what they knew to be a dying industry. During his time in the Arctic, Aldrich took more than 700 photographs documenting all aspects of the whale hunt. Many of his photographs are now preserved in New Bedford Whaling Museum in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Upon his return to New Bedford, Aldrich lectured extensively on his experiences and published this book in 1889. The book includes illustrations and a map of the Arctic whaling grounds north of Alaska. Defying predictions of an early death, Aldrich lived into his late eighties. He went on to become managing editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Jacksonville Florida Citizen and in 1897 founded the Aldrich Publishing Company of New York.


Book Synopsis Arctic Alaska and Siberia, Or, Eight Months with the Arctic Whalemen by : Herbert Lincoln Aldrich

Download or read book Arctic Alaska and Siberia, Or, Eight Months with the Arctic Whalemen written by Herbert Lincoln Aldrich and published by . This book was released on 1889 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arctic Alaska and Siberia, or, Eight Months with the Arctic Whalemen is an account of the 1887 Arctic whaling season by journalist Herbert L. Aldrich (1860-1948). Between March and October of 1887, Aldrich spent time on eight New Bedford whaling vessels, documenting the whaling industry and the native peoples of Arctic Alaska. Aldrich was a young reporter for the New Bedford Evening Standard who resolved to accompany the Arctic whaling fleet after he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and told he had less than a year to live. He received the support of the leaders of New Bedford's whaling industry, who wanted him to document what they knew to be a dying industry. During his time in the Arctic, Aldrich took more than 700 photographs documenting all aspects of the whale hunt. Many of his photographs are now preserved in New Bedford Whaling Museum in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Upon his return to New Bedford, Aldrich lectured extensively on his experiences and published this book in 1889. The book includes illustrations and a map of the Arctic whaling grounds north of Alaska. Defying predictions of an early death, Aldrich lived into his late eighties. He went on to become managing editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Jacksonville Florida Citizen and in 1897 founded the Aldrich Publishing Company of New York.


Allies in Wartime

Allies in Wartime

Author: Alexander B. Dolitsky

Publisher:

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13:

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This book is a collection of articles, essays and speeches that together illuminate a remarkable chapter in human history: the Alaska-Siberia Airway during World War II.


Book Synopsis Allies in Wartime by : Alexander B. Dolitsky

Download or read book Allies in Wartime written by Alexander B. Dolitsky and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a collection of articles, essays and speeches that together illuminate a remarkable chapter in human history: the Alaska-Siberia Airway during World War II.


Alaska

Alaska

Author: Claus M. Naske

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

Published: 2014-10-22

Total Pages: 519

ISBN-13: 0806186135

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The largest by far of the fifty states, Alaska is also the state of greatest mystery and diversity. And, as Claus-M. Naske and Herman E. Slotnick show in this comprehensive survey, the history of Alaska’s peoples and the development of its economy have matched the diversity of its land- and seascapes. Alaska: A History begins by examining the region’s geography and the Native peoples who inhabited it for thousands of years before the first Europeans arrived. The Russians claimed northern North America by right of discovery in 1741. During their occupation of “Russian America” the region was little more than an outpost for fur hunters and traders. When the czar sold the territory to the United States in 1867, nobody knew what to do with “Seward’s Folly.” Mainland America paid little attention to the new acquisition until a rush of gold seekers flooded into the Yukon Territory. In 1906 Congress granted Alaska Territory a voteless delegate and in 1912 gave it a territorial legislature. Not until 1959, however, was Alaska’s long-sought goal of statehood realized. During World War II, Alaska’s place along the great circle route from the United States to Asia firmly established its military importance, which was underscored during the Cold War. The developing military garrison brought federal money and many new residents. Then the discovery of huge oil and natural-gas deposits gave a measure of economic security to the state. Alaska: A History provides a full chronological survey of the region’s and state’s history, including the precedent-setting Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, which compensated Native Americans for their losses; the effect of the oil industry and the trans-Alaska pipeline on the economy; the Exxon Valdez oil spill; and Alaska politics through the early 2000s.


Book Synopsis Alaska by : Claus M. Naske

Download or read book Alaska written by Claus M. Naske and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2014-10-22 with total page 519 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The largest by far of the fifty states, Alaska is also the state of greatest mystery and diversity. And, as Claus-M. Naske and Herman E. Slotnick show in this comprehensive survey, the history of Alaska’s peoples and the development of its economy have matched the diversity of its land- and seascapes. Alaska: A History begins by examining the region’s geography and the Native peoples who inhabited it for thousands of years before the first Europeans arrived. The Russians claimed northern North America by right of discovery in 1741. During their occupation of “Russian America” the region was little more than an outpost for fur hunters and traders. When the czar sold the territory to the United States in 1867, nobody knew what to do with “Seward’s Folly.” Mainland America paid little attention to the new acquisition until a rush of gold seekers flooded into the Yukon Territory. In 1906 Congress granted Alaska Territory a voteless delegate and in 1912 gave it a territorial legislature. Not until 1959, however, was Alaska’s long-sought goal of statehood realized. During World War II, Alaska’s place along the great circle route from the United States to Asia firmly established its military importance, which was underscored during the Cold War. The developing military garrison brought federal money and many new residents. Then the discovery of huge oil and natural-gas deposits gave a measure of economic security to the state. Alaska: A History provides a full chronological survey of the region’s and state’s history, including the precedent-setting Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, which compensated Native Americans for their losses; the effect of the oil industry and the trans-Alaska pipeline on the economy; the Exxon Valdez oil spill; and Alaska politics through the early 2000s.


Connecting Alaskans

Connecting Alaskans

Author: Heather E. Hudson

Publisher: University of Alaska Press

Published: 2015-09-15

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 1602232687

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Introduction -- Alaska's first information highway -- Expansion after World War II and "the talking lady of the North"--Early broadcasting -- Privatizing the Alaska communications system -- The beginning of the satellite era -- The NASA experiments -- From satellite experiments to commercial service -- Telephone service for every village -- Broadcasting and teleconferencing for rural Alaska -- Rural television : from RATNET to ARCS -- Deregulation and disruption -- State planning and policy -- Alaska's local telephone companies -- The phone wars -- Distance learning : from satellites to the internet -- Telemedicine in Alaska -- A new century : the growth of mobile and broadband -- Past and future connections


Book Synopsis Connecting Alaskans by : Heather E. Hudson

Download or read book Connecting Alaskans written by Heather E. Hudson and published by University of Alaska Press. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction -- Alaska's first information highway -- Expansion after World War II and "the talking lady of the North"--Early broadcasting -- Privatizing the Alaska communications system -- The beginning of the satellite era -- The NASA experiments -- From satellite experiments to commercial service -- Telephone service for every village -- Broadcasting and teleconferencing for rural Alaska -- Rural television : from RATNET to ARCS -- Deregulation and disruption -- State planning and policy -- Alaska's local telephone companies -- The phone wars -- Distance learning : from satellites to the internet -- Telemedicine in Alaska -- A new century : the growth of mobile and broadband -- Past and future connections


Asia Pacific in the Age of Globalization

Asia Pacific in the Age of Globalization

Author: R. Johnson

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2014-11-18

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1137455381

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The essays in this volume examine United States-East Asian relations in the framework of global history, incorporating fresh insights that have been offered by scholars on such topics as globalization, human rights, historical memory, and trans-cultural relations.


Book Synopsis Asia Pacific in the Age of Globalization by : R. Johnson

Download or read book Asia Pacific in the Age of Globalization written by R. Johnson and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-11-18 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this volume examine United States-East Asian relations in the framework of global history, incorporating fresh insights that have been offered by scholars on such topics as globalization, human rights, historical memory, and trans-cultural relations.


The United States Geological Survey in Alaska

The United States Geological Survey in Alaska

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 1981

Total Pages: 164

ISBN-13:

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Book Synopsis The United States Geological Survey in Alaska by :

Download or read book The United States Geological Survey in Alaska written by and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: