2-1 Armaments in Alaska
2.1.1 US military command lines in the North Pacific
As the command line of the US Navy in the North Pacific, there was the Joint Chiefs of Staff under the president. Below that was the Navy and the Pacific Fleet (US Pacific Fleet: Commander-in-Chief General Chester Nimitz), and below that was the North Pacific Force (Commander-in-Chief Major General Robert Theobald). On the other hand, the Army had the Western Defense Command (Commander-in-Chief Major General John Dewitt) under the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States, and the Alaska Defense Command (Commander-in-Chief Major General Simon Buckner, Jr.) under it, and US Eleventh Air Force was subordinate [5, p9].2.1.2 US Army Ground force
Although Alaska and the Aleutian Islands were United States territories, they were vast remote areas inhabited by the Aleut people, and there were few traffic routes inland. As for the air routes that began to develop at that time, Charles Lindbergh made the first successful adventurous flight from Alaska's Nome to Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka in 1931, and there were no established air routes or large airfields [4, p19]. Tensions between Japan and the United States just before World War II shed light on this remote region. The US Army felt the threat of Japanese occupation of Alaska from around 1940, so it established IX Corps Area under the command of Lieutenant General John DeWitt. He founded the Alaska Defense Command in June 1940, under the command of Maj. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner. By September 30, 1941, the Alaskan Defense Force, founded in Anchorage, had grown to 21,565, four infantry regiments, 3.5 anti-aircraft artillery regiments, a mobile coast artillery regiment, and a tank company [2, p9]. However, in the undeveloped land of Alaska, the proportion of engineers and logistics units for infrastructure development was inevitably high for both the Army and Navy.
Photo of Lieutenant General John Dewitt
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/John_Lesene_Dewitt_copy.PNG
2.1.3 US Army Air Force
In the United States at that time, carrier-based planes and seaplanes belonged to the Navy, but all others belonged to the Army Air Corps (Army Air Force from June 1941). Maj. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, appointed Commander-in-Chief of Alaska Defense Force, was from a pilot trained during World War I [2, p8] and was aware of the importance of air force.Recognizing that air forces are essential to defending the vast Alaska, he first prioritized the establishment of aviation units in the Alaska Defense Forces. The fact that the pilots during World War I were in the commander-in-chief class in this period had been a great advantage for US air combat, which required unique operations based on the characteristics of aircraft, unlike other military departments.
Photo of Maj. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Bolivar_Buckner_Jr.#/media/File:General_Simon_B._Buckner,_Jr.jpg
As a result of his strenuous efforts, an aviation unit was established in the Alaska Defense Force on October 17, 1941, just before the beginning of the war. It became US Eleventh Air Force on February 5, the following year after the war began [2, p9], and Brigadier General William Butler was appointed the commander. In Alaska some people used aircraft for daily travel, and there were local pilots familiar with the geography and weather. Buckner trained US pilots newly arrived by local pilots to adapt to the Alaskan weather [2, p19]. As a result, the pilots acquired maneuvering skills that enabled them to carry out air attacks even in weather conditions that the Japanese thought impossible.
With a fierce fighting spirit and outstanding execution ability, Buckner himself went to investigate the geography and weather of the Aleutian Islands and found a suitable airfield site. Despising bureaucracy, he set up a fictitious fish processing company in Cold Bay, west of the Alaska Peninsula, in the summer of 1941, secretly building an airfield in the name of a canning factory. War Department also allowed the construction of Fort Glenn base at Cape Otter on Umnak Island in November [2, p9]. These bases would play major roles in the later invasion of Aleutian by the Japanese.
2.1.4 US Navy
The US Navy left Alaska's defense to the US Coast Guard. The Coast Guard consisted of eight World War I old-fashioned destroyers, six old-fashioned submarines called S-boats, five guard boats, and the flagship 2000-ton gunboat "Charleston". In 1940, three seaplane tenders, "Casco," "Gillis," and "Williamson," and 20 Catalina flying boats were deployed. In May 1941, when the war with Japan was imminent, five cruisers and four destroyers were added [2, p19].Construction of a military port proceeded at Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island in the Aleutian Islands and on Kojiak Island south of Anchorage. Dutch Harbor has one of the few important bays in the Aleutian Islands that is suitable for fleet and airship harbors, and by September 1941 the Naval Air Corps had built air-boat and submarine bases there. [4, p36]. After the beginning of the war with Japan, the North Pacific Force was established as described later, and the North Pacific Fleet originated from the Coast Guard was established in it.
2.1.5 Canadian Force
Canada informally established the Permanent Joint Board on Defense with the United States in August 1940 to jointly develop defense programs for the Pacific coast with the United States [2, p14]. Therefore, here, the combined army of the US and Canadian forces is referred to as the Allied Forces.2-2 The Japanese activities on Aleutian Islands and Krils Islands
2.2.1 Aleutian Islands
In Japan, military attachés staying in San Francisco and Seattle gathered information on the Alaska area in 1932, when tensions with the United States increased due to the Manchurian Incident. In Seattle, they sometimes asked Japanese fishermen who set sail for Alaska to investigate the weather there [4, p27]. At the same time, the Japanese Army sent about 10 Japanese-American spies to Alaska. However, shortly after the beginning of the war, Japanese Americans were detained in the facility at the suggestion of Commander-in-Chief of the Western Army, Dewitt, and they were completely incapacitated after the beginning of the war. [2, p23] On the other hand, the Japanese military also requested the North Sea fishermen in Japan to investigate the weather and sea conditions in the Aleutian area, but information on the natural geography of the area was completely insufficient.2.2.2 Kuril Islands
At that time, there were residents who engaged in fishing in Southern Kurils. In Middle Kurils, only officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry were stationed, and the government operated the protection of marine mammals and a fox farming project to obtain fur. The visit of vessels to the islands was prohibited. Paramushir Island was the largest island in the northern-Kuril Islands with a length of 100 km and a width of 28 km. In some bays, including Kashiwabara Bay, there were fishing bases and canning factories. There are large-scale fishing grounds around the northern-Kuril Islands, and many fishermen were engaged in fishing in Paramushir Island in summer, but only a few remained in winter.The construction of a Navy air base was decided in 1934 on Paramushir Island, and it was completed around 1938. As of August 1940, the airbase had two 1000 m runways and a barracks with a capacity of 200 people. However, because there was no aircraft hangar, the base was only a facility that was for a crash landing. It was difficult to moor airplanes at the base if a strong wind blew due to a passage of a low-pressure system [4, p30]. There is no record of the airfield being used as the military base until Allies Forces landed on Attu Island. In the Army, the fortress command of North Army Forces was set up in Kashiwabara in Paramushir Island in November 1940.
2.2.3 Meteorological observations of Aleutian Islands and Kuril Islands
Since the need for meteorological observations in northern Japan was recognized from 1933 to 1934, a meteorological station was established in Paramushir. At the beginning of the war, there were about 40 meteorological stations north of Japan. These observatories were incorporated into the Fifth Meteorological Corps, which was established in May 1942 in Akkeshi, Hokkaido, in conjunction with Aleutian Operation (AL Operation) to occupy Attu and Kiska islands [4, 240].On May 1, 1942, when the AL Operation was determined, the Japanese Army General Staff compiled and published the "Aleutian Islands Circumstances" for the operation units to refer to their mission in the Aleutian Islands. It included the history, location, area, terrain, weather, industry, transportation, communications, camp and food, hygiene, and inhabitant status of the Aleutian Islands. Among them was the "Aeronautical Meteorological Map" surveyed by the Army Meteorology Department. According to the report, the air route over Aleutian has heavy fog in June and July, heavy storms from October to February. It was estimated in it that the number of possible flight days from October to March was 9-12 days a month, and from November to January, the number of possible flight days was less than 9 days a month [3, p103].
I think these numbers were inferred from the observations of several surface meteorological stations in the area. In the Aleutian region, where the weather changes rapidly, even if the weather at the airport is good and you can take off, the weather when you arrive at your destination is not always suitable. Regarding the activities of later US military aircraft, there were about half of the number of sorties that actually sortied but turned back due to bad weather at the destination or on the way, or could not be bombed visually. From this, it is estimated that the actual number of days that aircraft could operate was about half the number of "Aeronautical Meteorological Maps" by the Army Meteorology Department.
(To be continued)
References are listed in "Reference" in the upper right-hand side.