Daily Sitka Sentinel

Historical Society Tells WWII Naval Air Station Story

By KLAS STOLPE
Sentinel Staff Writer
    Sitka’s location along the Southeast Alaska coast has always been an attraction for locals while offering a breathtaking vista for visitors flying in.
     It was also a factor in the U.S. military’s strategic defense coordinations before and during World War II.
    Sitka Naval Operating Base was the U.S. Navy’s first air station in Alaska, playing a key role in the defense of North America at the outset of World War II. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Sitka was the only major military base on the west coast north of Puget Sound in northwest Washington.
    The Sitka Historical Society will present a program hosted by Matt Hunter and Sabra (Ellis) Jenkins, entitled “A View From The Skies: The Story Of Aviation at Sitka Naval Air Station During WWII” at 6:30 p.m. Monday in Harrigan Centennial Hall.
    Hunter, born and raised in Sitka, said his interest in Sitka’s World War II history came at an early age.
    “When I was young, my father talked about the “Underground Hospital” on the causeway,” he said. “I envisioned a multistory bunker that was full of old equipment. Our family bought a kayak when I was in middle school, and my dad and I made our first trip to the Causeway shortly thereafter. We found foundations, a fire hydrant, and a telephone pole in the jungle of alders. Discovering something for the first time is extremely exciting, especially when your imagination can run wild.”
    Hunter started a website, www.sitkaww2.com, as his imagination and interest continued to grow.
    “I made my website in 1997,” he said. “I was a freshman in high school and my buddy Jonas Parker and I taught ourselves some basic HTML using the source code of web pages with cool features. I have made small updates ever since, but the last complete rebuild was in 2004.”

TOP: A sinking PBY at NAS Sitka. BOTTOM: This clearly shows the causeway between Japonski and Harbor Islands. Note that the Millerville houses are at the far left, and the NAS tarmac is visible at the right. (Photos from www.SitkaWW2.com)

    The National Park Service says the extensive World War II facilities had their origins in the 1902 U.S. Navy coaling station on Japonski Island across from Sitka. The buildup of the base was well under way by the time the U.S. declared war against Japan in 1941.  In 1942 it was designated a Naval Operating Base to reflect its expanded World War II mission. To defend the base, a U.S. Army Coastal Defense network was established. Seven islands offshore from Japonski were linked up to form an 8,100-foot causeway ending at an artillery emplacement called Fort Rousseau on Makhnati Island, which became the Army’s headquarters here when it was completed in 1943. Two other artillery sites were Fort Pierce, 18 miles southwest of Sitka on Biorka Island, and Fort Babcock 12 miles west of Sitka on the southern tip of Kruzof Island.
    After the attack on Pearl Harbor, when it wasn’t known where the enemy might strike next, planes from Sitka Naval Operating Base patrolled all of Southeast Alaska and far out into the Gulf of Alaska. With the establishment of naval air stations farther west, at Kodiak and Dutch Harbor, Sitka became an intermediate point between them and Navy Yard Puget Sound, the primary repair yard for battle-damaged ships of the Pacific Fleet. When the Japanese Imperial Fleet sailed east, attacked Dutch Harbor and landed troops in the Aleutians in June 1942, the Sitka base was on high alert for a potential attack on the Alaskan mainland.
    Naval Operating Base Sitka is one of eight National Historic Landmarks in Alaska that commemorate World War II history in Alaska.
    That base location connects Hunter in another way.
    “I teach math, physics, and EMT classes at Mt. Edgecumbe High School,” he said. “My classroom is in a former hangar of the Naval Air Station. I have always loved aviation, and WWII in Alaska is another fascination of mine. Sitka played a strategic role in Alaska’s WWII defense. WWII aircraft in Alaska flew with no GPS, spotty radio communications, very few navigation aids of any kind, and in terrible weather. More aircraft were lost to weather than to the enemy, and this is certainly true in Sitka, where the Japanese never came, yet a dozen servicemen still lost their lives in air crashes.”
    Hunter also noted that there was a German prisoner of war camp at Excursion Inlet.
    He said he has also enjoyed traveling out the causeway in search of history and dispelling myths.
    “Locals have created many stories to explain remains of the WWII buildup in Sitka,” he said. “The rumor that the magazine for the six-inch gun battery (Battery 292) on the causeway was an ‘underground hospital’ is by far the most commonly heard and I still have people ask me if I knew about it.”
    It was one of the reasons Hunter and his father took their initial kayak trip. Other rumors of a road across Baranof Island and a secret submarine base at Starrigavan have no documentation or physical remains to justify those distinctions.
    During the upheaval of WWII, the majority of the world’s countries, including the major powers, formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. Over 85 million fatalities were attributed to the war, most of whom were civilians, from massacres, genocide, strategic bombing, starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.
    Others who will be on the Monday historical program are local residents Chris Mattingly, who will display various WWII artifacts, and and historic weapons expert David Lamb.
    Mattingly said he began collecting at age 9.
    “My grandfather (Christopher Davis) was an Army Air Corps vet and served in China,” Mattingly said. “He brought back some Japanese swords and gave them to me. It piqued my interest in history and then he started telling me stories and that turned me into being a prolific reader of history. The items gave me a tangible aspect of history and I have been doing it ever since.”
    Mattingly will have on display Alaskan WWII militaria covering all aspects, from Allied to Axis powers.
    “I’m basically going to concentrate on the bigger picture,” he said. “What was going on around the microcosm of Sitka’s experience in the war.”
    Sabra Jenkins, the daughter of Robert Ellis, founder of Ellis Air Transport in Ketchikan, who served as an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserves during the war, will share some stories her father passed down.
    After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Ellis Air Transport became part of the war effort. Ellis Air sold two Wacos, one Bellanca, and one Stinson to the Navy for military use. Ellis also consulted while in the Navy during the war years.
    Jenkins said her favorite story was when war was declared while her mother and two brothers were in Sitka.
    “As my mother said, ‘they shipped all the dependents out and brought in the nurses and it was one big party after that,” Jenkins said.
    The ship with her mother and brothers aboard stopped in Ketchikan and her mother marched off against military orders telling her she had to continue on to Seattle.
    “No, this is my home,” her mother said.
    “But then she had to stay in Alaska for the duration of the war,” Jenkins said, because in those days the Navy controlled the territory.”
    World WarII had a major impact on Alaska. At the height of the war more than 100,000 American and Canadian soldiers were stationed in Alaska, and the infrastructure grew immensely as a result. Roads, ports, and airfields were improved or constructed to facilitate the transportation of troops and supplies. An impact many are unaware of is the forced evacuation of the Native population of the Aleutian Islands.
    Hunter said he’s learned much about that historic time: the strategic errors Japan made, not knowing that U.S. forces had cracked the Japanese military code; how the Sitka population of 2,000 grew with the influx of servicemen; how the planes that flew from Sitka to various floating fuel stations on their way to Kodiak and the Aleutians; and of the out-of-state soldiers who fell in love here and returned after the war.
    “I hope everyone who attends learns something new about Sitka’s past,” Hunter said. “I know I will. All residents of Sitka owe a debt to those who have served their country, and I hope those who attend can gain even greater appreciation for the sailors, soldiers, and marines who defended Sitka, and all veterans of Alaska’s war.”
    The National Historic Landmark encompassing the Sitka Naval Operating Base and U.S. Army Coastal Defenses is in good condition because of a number of preservation and rehabilitation efforts since 2000. In 2001 the Sitka Maritime Heritage Society began rehabilitation of the U.S. Navy boat shop with the goal of turning it into an interpretive center for the landmark. Infrastructure and utility upgrades, new construction, and building rehabilitation in 2005 and 2006 by the Alaska Department of Transportation, Alaska Department of Education, and U.S. Coast Guard were all completed with consideration of the landmark’s historic design and setting.
    In 2005, Sitka Trail Works began the process of cleaning up, documenting Fort Rousseau, the U.S. Army Coastal Defenses portion of the landmark, with plans to develop a hiking trail. In 2007, with encouragement from Sitka Trail Works, the State of Alaska designated Fort Rousseau a State Historical Park.
    The program at 6:30 p.m. Monday at Harrigan Centennial Hall will allow Sitkans a chance to revisit a time that shaped Sitka in ways that extend to the present day.