The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 1 (archived PDF)

T H E A R M Y A I R F O R C E S I N W O R L D W A R I 1
the “Consolidated Packing Company,” in whose name the Alaska
Defense Command issued its directives. Prospects for completing the
work in advance of an anticipated spring attack on Dutch Harbor
were greatly improved when news was received in Alaska at the end
of January that 3,000,000 square feet of pierced steel-plank matting
suitable for use over unstable ground would be shipped from the
United States at once. The original plan to lay paved runways was
accordingly abandoned and completion of the task at Umnak and
Cold Bay was greatly ac~e1erated.l~~
Even so, the work was carried forward under heart-breaking condi-
t i o n ~ . ~ ? ?The first troops, the 807th Engineers (Aviation), arrived in
the Umnak area on 17 January, but in the absence of a suitable harbor
on Umnak it was necessary to land them a t Chernofski on Unalaska
Island a t a point separated from the site selected for the airfield by
eleven miles of very rough water. After a full month had passed, only
half of the company had been transferred, in barges, to Umnak. The
arrival a t Chernofski of a transport early in March with 5,000 tons of
cargo, approximately half of which was steel matting, permitted a start
on the main construction. On I I March the rest of the troops were
transferred from Chernofski to Umnak, and the next day work began
on stripping the field in preparation for the laying of steel mats.
Despite bad weather, rapid progress was made. There were some
80,000 mats, each of them weighing approximately 65 pounds, which
had to be unloaded from the hold of the transport in Chernofski har-
bor, ferried across the treacherous waters of Umnak Pass by barge,
transferred piece by piece and by hand from the barge to the beach,
and then loaded on “cat-trains” to be hauled to the runway. Excep-
tionally vicious winds and several inches of snow impeded the effort,
and some of the men worked without the protection of heavy gloves;
but they kept at it in eight-hour shifts with three shifts per day for
seven days a week, and by 3 0 March all the mats had been brought to
Umnak. Meanwhile, laying of the mats had been begun on 23 March,
and by 5 April a runway 5,000 feet long and IOO feet wide had been
completed. Indeed, the first plane, a transport, landed on the new run-
way as early as 3 1 March, but much remained to be done before the
field could be made ready for combat. Additional engineer troops and
some civilian workmen, who arrived on I I April, speeded up the effort
to widen the runway, to build hardstands and revetments, and to un-
dertake other necessary construction. The first combat planes flew in
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