The stated mission of the Navy at Dutch Harbor was to project naval power and that of the Army was to protect the Navy, mainly from air attack and/or amphibious invasion; in either case, Army air cover would play a major role in the defense. The problem was that there was no site for an airfield in the Dutch Harbor vicinity. Seaplane facilities were built and a runway was being blasted out of the slopes of Mount Ballyhoo, but it was expected to be inadequate to support serious aerial activity. In the summer of 1941, Gen Buckner ordered an intensive recon of potential airfield sites in the Aleutians. The Charleston, with its Curtiss SOC-1 Seagull floatplane, was sent out as far as Kiska, with aerial surveys being conducted of Unalaska, Umnak, Adak, Tanaga, Amchitka, and Kiska. Lt-Cmdr William Miller of the Navy and Lt Frank L. O’Brien of the Army recommended Otter Point on Umnak as the only feasible site in the Dutch Harbor area. Col Everett Davis and Maj B. B. Talley made a recon by an OA-5 Pelican in the fall of 1941 and came to the same conclusion. Despite the initial objections of both the Navy and the Army command, Buckner and his commander, Gen DeWitt, continued to press for the airfield, which was approved in late November 1941. Actual construction for the facility, named Fort Glenn, began in early 1942. Surveys at the same time suggested that backup facilities be built at Cold Bay, Port Heiden, and Sand Point. Cold Bay (Fort Randall), the site of a CAA field already under construction, and Port Heiden (Fort Morrow) were approved, while Sand Point was dropped, though the Navy subsequently built facilities there.
Cold Bay lies some 200 miles ENE of Dutch Harbor, with the 9000-foot Shishaldin Volcano on intervening Unimak Island providing a navigational hazard. Otter Point lies about 60 direct air miles SSW of Dutch Harbor, though the effective distance is closer to 80 miles since aircraft generally follow the sinuous coastline to avoid the almost 7000-foot Makushin Volcano. Both locations would present supply problems, with the nearest port to Cold Bay at King Cove and to Otter Point at Chernofski across turbulent Umnak Pass. The Navy argued that it could not provide necessary logistic support, that the locations were too far away to provide effective defense of its installations, and, finally, that the basic patrol functions could better be performed by Navy seaplanes serviced by tenders. This last issue became a sticking point. Buckner had instituted coastal patrols between Naknek and Nome, with attempts being made to cover the coast north to Point Barrow as well in October 1941.
The Navy objected to this usurpation of the naval offshore patrol mission and demanded that Buckner stop the flights. Buckner countered that the Navy had no aircraft to substitute for his B-18s, which ultimately led the Navy to station six PBY-5A Catalinas in Alaska. Backed by Gen DeWitt, he not only held out against the attempt to cut off his aerial responsibilities but fought for his airfields at Forts Glenn and Randall. Not only was the former site the only feasible one for an air facility for Dutch Harbor, but it could also serve as a forward base to carry the war to Japan along the Chain, a dream held by both DeWitt and Buckner (who described the Aleutians as a spear pointing straight at the heart of Japan.
Buckner had considered that the situation justified extraordinary measures (the irregular and informal procedure was common in Alaska, especially during the buildup) and had begun the projects using funds diverted from CAA projects. To conceal his machinations from the Navy and the War Department, it is said, as much as from the Japanese, he disguised the military construction at Otter Point, Cold Bay, and Port Heiden as private construction of commercial canneries. Supplies for Fort Glenn were shipped to the Blair Fish Packing Company and those to Fort Randall to Saxton & Co., with the return address listed as the Consolidated Packing Company, Anchorage (the ADC headquarters). Internally, Fort Glenn was Project A while Port Heiden was Project Y; Cold Bay was considered to need somewhat less cover since it was already authorized as a CAA, though not as a military field. Port Heiden (Fort Morrow) was also prepared, with the planned CAA facility being upgraded as a backup military field; it was disguised as Bering Fisheries.
On the eve of the attack on Pearl Harbor, there was approximately 20.000 ADC personnel in Alaska. Fort Richardson was essentially complete, as were the staging fields at Annette Island, Yakutat, Elmendorf, and Ladd. Army garrisons existed at Sitka, Kodiak, Dutch Harbor, Seward, Nome, and Chilkoot Barracks. Five airfields along the Northwest Staging route in Canada (Grand Prairie, Fort St. John, Fort Nelson, Wataon Lake, and Whitehorse) were provisionally usable, with the refurbished Edmonton Municipal Airport providing a sixth. However, only eighteen obsolete combat aircraft were airworthy on December 7, 1941, the AWS was not operable and there was little in the way of transport, armor, artillery, or ordnance (Kodiak, the main naval base, had 17 minutes worth of ammunition for its batteries) and materiel for active defense of the Territory.
Alaska, including the military, learned of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor by commercial radio. The Japanese task force which hit Pearl Harbor had set out from bases in the Kurile Islands, in the Northern Pacific sector, and passed just south of the Aleutians before heading for Hawaii, slipping between patrol coverage zones. Its whereabouts were unknown, and Alaska might be targeted as well. All leaves were canceled, civilian road and aviation traffic were banned, and civilian radio stations were ordered off the air. Many Canadians, unable to contact Alaska, reported that it had fallen, which was broadcast on Canadian radio, causing increased panic. Radio Tokyo broadcast that Dutch Harbor, Kodiak, and Fairbanks were bombed and that Anchorage and Sitka had been captured. Anchorage was blacked out, with much of the populace preparing to head for the bush to escape and/or wage guerilla warfare. The panic extended down the Pacific Coast, with incidents in Seattle and San Francisco. After 48 hours, a semblance of calm was restored and the civilian population began to adjust to the new situation. Draft Boards swung into action, including those in remote areas, and Buckner ordered the evacuation of all military and contract construction dependents who were not previous residents. Travel to and from the Territory was strictly controlled and monitored. Military censorship was also imposed, with direct radiotelephone contact being limited to military traffic and mail and news being heavily censored. The initial untrained and overzealous attempts to conceal information of military importance left a virtually complete news vacuum both inside and outside the Territory. This led to rumors which became so prevalent that the commander of Fort Richardson vowed to prosecute anyone spreading rumors.
The Territorial and military governments made plans to evacuate all civilians from military areas; plans were even discussed for the evacuation of the whole civilian population. Fears of sabotage, spies, and Fifth Columnists led to investigations; reports that a small German spy network was uncovered, but that little in the way of subversion, especially by Japanese agents, was discovered well as the role of intelligence gathering by enemy agents or sympathizers. In fact, the Japanese would prove to have very poor intelligence concerning the US war effort and Alaska in particular.
Within Alaska, there were shortages of such basic commodities as food and fuels – coal and gasoline – in the latter case due largely to the lack of adequate storage which prevented stockpiling. Military projects received renewed emphasis, especially forward posts and airfields. Two Army Air Forces squadrons were immediately ordered to Alaska for tactical deployment, but those assigned had to traverse the US and Canada to get to Alaska. By late January 1942, only 13 of the 24 Curtiss P-40E Warhawk P-40Es assigned had been able to reach Alaska; six were delayed and five had crashed en route.
The bomber squadron of Martin B-26 Marauders arrived with only seven of its 13 aircraft. After this initial disastrous experience in ferrying aircraft to Alaska, a plan was devised whereby aircraft would be ferried from their point of origin to Spokane, WA, where they would be turned over to veteran Alaskan pilots for the northern leg up the staging route. The attrition rate of the initial operation was the deciding factor in Roosevelt’s call for the construction of the ALCAN Highway in February 1942. More P-40s and B-26s would be sent to Alaska so that by the end of March, one fighter squadron and one bomber squadron would have a full complement of planes. In the meantime, one Boeing B-17E Flying Fortress and three Consolidated LB-30 (B-24A) Liberators (Lend Lease version of the B-24) were assigned for offshore patrol. Five Douglas C-53 Skytrooper cargo planes arriving in early May 1942, were the first military transports assigned to Alaska. Three Canadian squadrons were also assigned. One bomber squadron with 14 Bristol Bolingbroke Mk. IVT was assigned to Annette Island in May 1942, and two fighter squadrons flying Curtiss P-40 Kittyhawks would eventually arrive at Kodiak. The organization charts coming out from Washington kept ahead of reality. Buckner had earlier been given a promotion to Brigadier General, but not the troops and funds he had wanted. 
In January 1942, the air arms were officially designated the Alaskan Air Force and, less than a month later, in February, became the 11-AAF which, in September, became the Eleventh Air Force). There were two fighter and three bomber squadrons, plus a ground support unit for a total of just over 3000 men. In March, Col William 0. Butler, who as chief of staff of the 4-AAF had worked out the arrangements for ferrying aircraft to Alaska, was appointed to command the 11-AAF. Butler was a cautious administrator rather than an operations pilot. Buckner clashed with him and attempted to circumvent him by dealing with his bolder subordinates whenever possible. The force level present was inadequate to defend Alaska, but when viewed in light of the fact that in April 1942, the Army Air Forces had a total of seven bomber groups and seven and a half fighter groups that were combat-ready, the allocation of a full bomber group and half a fighter group to Alaska represented a major commitment of forces to the Territory.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Japanese launched an attack on a wide front throughout Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Guam and Wake Island fell shortly after Pearl Harbor, Hong Kong fell on Christmas Day 1941, and Manila fell on January 2, 1942, followed by Singapore Eastern Gibraltar on February 15. Some of the guns the Japanese emplaced on Kiska are thought to have come from British batteries at Singapore though in fact all but three of the Singapore guns were destroyed in the battle with those three being kept in place for defense. The oil fields of the Dutch East Indies fell in March. The Japanese had also sunk or seriously damaged ten battleships, including the USS-West Virginia (BB-48), torpedoed and sunk but later refloated; the USS-Arizona (BB-39), several times torpedoed but didn’t overcome being hit with 
armor piercing air bomb penetrating her deck and detonating inside and ammunition magazine; the USS Oklahoma (BB-37), which also torpedoed capsized and had to be salvaged later; the USS California (BB-44), she was hit several times and moored herself without electrical power to run her water pumps, she quietly sank. The British HMS Repulse and the HMS Prince of Wales (Force Z) were both sunk by Japanese aircraft on December 10, 1941, and additional, eight cruisers, two aircraft carriers, fifteen destroyers, and various other shipping, at little cost to themselves. Allied forces proved to be unable to halt or even slow the Japanese advance. With the stunning successes to the south, it seemed to be only a question of time before the Japanese attacked Alaska.
In January 1942, Gen Buckner and Capt Parker proposed that the US undertake negotiations with the Soviets to develop and use Siberian air bases, offering to help select the sites. They also recommended that the US forces plan for aggressive action against Japan to be launched through the Aleutians. In between these two modest proposals, they urgently requested more men and materiel for rapid completion of the advanced airfields, reinforcement of Alaska with the ground, sea, and particularly air troops, and more land-sea based planes.
The requests for more were standard operating procedure and received the standard reply that there were other critical areas that had a prior claim on the scarce resources. The remaining proposals impinged on high-level strategic issues. Roosevelt had already proposed that the Soviets allow the US to operate from Siberian bases. The Soviets, however, were losing the war in Europe, although, by late 1941, the Eastern Front had stabilized, with the Russians regaining some of their lost ground, had a nonaggression pact with Japan, and could not afford to open a two-front war. As it turned out, the Japanese were the main beneficiaries of Russian neutrality, since they had all along feared the Russians and were now involved in areas far from home. The US was to remain frustrated throughout the war since without mainland bases in Siberia, the logistics of opening a northern front with Japan made it prohibitive. The request for the consideration of a plan for going on the offensive from Alaska was likewise doomed.
First, the strategic policy was one of defense in the Pacific and offense in Europe, and given that policy allocations would continue to be denied to Alaska. Second, as Marshall recognized, Alaska was far too difficult to get around in, much less wage war in, to be acceptable as a major theater of elective operations. Third, as Adm Ernest J. King, Chief of Naval Operations and Commander of the US Fleet, pointed out, the facilities in Alaska already outstripped the ability of the military to staff, use and defend them, and that it was tactically unsound to develop facilities which could be used against US forces if seized by the enemy, which Japan would most likely do if provoked by an ill-advised advance. Buckner himself recognized the truth of this viewpoint when he stated of Fort Glenn, the airfield is for use either by ourselves or the enemy, whichever gets there first.
Buckner’s approach in Alaska can be assessed as that of a commanding personality (his father was a Confederate general and US Senator, and he styled himself as the Silver Stallion of Alaska who was out to show that he personally could handle a tough job. He did not suffer fools kindly and was impatient with anything which got in the way of getting the job done as he saw it. He was very narrowly focused on the advocacy role for his own sector to the exclusion of the broader strategic view. While identification with and espousal of one’s area of responsibility is a positive trait insuring maximumr effort on its behalf, many of Buckner’s actions bordered on presenting the War Department with fait accompli which would require that Alaska become a major area of operations whether such was justifiable or not. In this he was abetted by General DeWitt. It may be argued that these commanders were trying to aggrandize the importance of their own spheres of responsibility. Such was not uncommon, as witnessed by the actions of MacArthur in the Southwest Pacific.
Now that the Eleventh Air Force finally had some planes, the problem became where to station them. If they were moved west to Aleutian or Alaska Peninsula bases, the core area would be left defenseless, but if they remained around Anchorage and Kodiak, they would be in no position to react to aggression elsewhere. The decision had essentially already been made to leave the Panhandle and Bering Sea on their own until it was demonstrated that they needed further protection. It was finally decided that if bases could be readied, fighters should be based in forward areas, with bombers staying in Kodiak. The completion of Cold Bay and Otter Point received the highest priority. Originally, the runways were to have been paved. By this time, however, paving would delay the operation of Otter Point too long, so the ACOE began installing the first examples of Marsden matting. The first plane to land was a C-53 carrying Col Talley and Gen Butler on an inspection tour. Butler argued against the surface as inadequate for combat aircraft but was overruled by Buckner. The last of the runway was laid on Apr 5, 1942, after round-the-clock shift work beginning in early March. Cold Bay was also barely operational by the end of Apr 1942, with an asphalt runway surface. By the end of May, Fort Glenn had a garrison of about 4000, Cold Bay one of about 2500, and Fort Mears one of over 6000; most were engineering and support troops, but combat troops were present in significant numbers.
The Navy meanwhile had been at work trying to complete its main bases. It also set up two small outposts as weather stations and observation posts on Kanaga and Kiska. The weather in the Aleutians generally moves from west to east, so reports from farther out along the Chain should have allowed more accurate prediction. However, the warm Japanese Current meets the cold Bering Sea, complicated by the turbulence of upwelling from the Aleutian Trench, making Aleutian weather highly variable and localized. The weather prediction was not an art that did very much to help in the battle against the main enemy, the elements. COMALSEC was also building up its fleet, which had consisted of only the Captain’s flagship and the YP, or Yippee, boats: fishing boats painted gray, manned by Navy crews, and lightly armed.
