Eleventh Air Force
The Eleventh Air Force is a Numbered Air Force of the United States Air Force Pacific Air Forces. It is headquartered at Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson, Alaska.
11 AF plans, conducts, controls and coordinates air operations in accordance with the tasks assigned by the commander, Pacific Air Forces, and is the force provider for Alaskan Command, the Alaska North American Aerospace Defense Command Region and other unified commanders. The Commander, Eleventh Air Force, also serves as Commander, Alaskan Command, and as commander of the Alaskan North American Aerospace Defense Command Region. The NORAD mission is accomplished largely through the PACAF Regional Support Center, the 611th Air and Space Operations Center, and units of the Alaska Air National Guard. Together, they carry out air surveillance, and command and control forces that provide tactical warning and attack assessment in defense of Alaska.
Established on 28 December 1941 as the Alaskan Air Force at Elmendorf Field, Alaska Territory. it was initially part of the United States Army Air Forces. It provided air defense of Alaska during World War II and fought in the Aleutian Islands Campaign. It was re-designated as the Alaskan Air Command in late 1945, and became responsible for the air defense of Alaska. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was transferred to the control of PACAF in 1990 and reduced to the status of a Numbered Air Force.
History
Military aircraft began flying in Alaska in 1920 when the Black Wolf Squadron, or The Alaska Flying Expedition, made The New York to Nome Flight. Capt. St. Clair Streett commanded 7 men in 4 DH-4s as they took off from Mitchel Field on 17 July 1920. Each plane had a black profile of a Wolf's head painted on their sides. The trip organizer, Billy Mitchell wanted to establish an airway to Alaska and Asia. The 9349 mile round trip route included flying west to North Dakota, then north through Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, the Yukon, and onwards to Fairbanks on 19 Aug. and finally Nome on the 23rd. They started their return trip on the 31st, landing Mitchel Field on 20 Oct. 1920 after 112 flying hours.In 1924, the around the world flight by the Army using Douglas "World Cruiser"s also transited though Alaska. However, the first permanently based military aircraft began to deploy to Alaska during the last half of 1940 after the breakout of World War II in Europe and tensions began to deteriorate with Japan. To coordinate air activities there, the Alaskan Defense Command established the Air Field Forces, Alaskan Defense Command on 29 May 1941.
Origins
Early in 1940, the question of air defense of the Alaska Territory came into the limelight when President Roosevelt pointed out in his message to Congress requesting funds for fortification of Guam and Wake Islands and other strategic points in the Pacific that airfields were needed in Alaska. The original request for $12,000,000 to be appropriated for the construction of Alaskan defenses was cut to $600,000, but still was sufficient to begin the construction of an air base at Anchorage, Alaska. Thus was begun the construction of Elmendorf Field, primary fourth-echelon base for all future Eleventh Air Force operations. Construction of the airfield began on 8 June when 25 locally hired men began clearing brush, the Army intending it to be a permanent airfield.The first "troops" of the Alaskan Air Force advance echelon to arrive in Alaska included a six-year-old Martin B-10 on 12 August 1940. On 12 December the Army designated the base Fort Richardson and flying field Elmendorf Field. The post was named for Brig Gen Wilds P. Richardson, former head of the Alaska Road Commission; the airfield and flying facilities were named Elmendorf Field in honor of Captain Hugh M. Elmendorf, killed in 1933 while flight testing an experimental fighter near Wright Field, Ohio.
The first Air Corps unit to be assigned to Alaska was the 18th Pursuit Squadron, which transferred to Elmendorf from Hamilton Army Airfield, California on 21 February 1941 with Curtiss P-40 Warhawks. The 23d Air Base Group was assigned shortly afterwards to provide base support. The 36th Bombardment Squadron arrived less than a month later from Lowry Field, Colorado, equipped with Douglas B-18 Bolo medium bombers.
A major problem was the training of personnel and the preparing of equipment for operation in the cold Alaskan climate. Mechanical things showed unusual behavior at 40 degrees below zero. Oil became almost solid, metal and rubber brittle and fractured easily. At the same time, Texas-trained pilots had to learn to fly in a country where sudden fogs could close out airports in less than 10 minutes and high-velocity "williwaws" could tear the wings off combat planes.
The first months activities of the new command were spent in reconnaissance for a rim of defense bases. The hub of this defense "wheel" was to be at Elmendorf Field near Anchorage. In the meantime, plans for the establishment of bases were moving slowly. Certain planned fields had to be constructed in summer, because the severe Alaskan frost in winter made construction impossible, but equipment for the construction of fields north of Nome and around Anchorage failed to arrive, and construction was postponed until the following summer. Construction had been completed, however, on two important coastal fields in southeastern Alaska, Annette Army Airfield at Annette Island and Yakutat Army Airfield at Yakutat, and the first direct all-weather air route to Alaska from Seattle was open.
An extremely fortunate accident took place in October 1941, which possibly changed the whole course of World War II in Alaska. Equipment for the construction of a CAA-DLA airfield at McGrath, on the mainland, arrived too late to begin construction of the field, since the ground already had become frozen, and General Buckner requested and received permission to divert the equipment and men to Cold Bay on the Alaskan Peninsula and Otter Point on Umnak Island, to build two airfields for the defense of the Naval Base at Dutch Harbor. To conceal their purpose, both fields were organized as ostensible business enterprises concerned with fishing and canning. The two cover names were: "Blair Packing Company" and "Saxton & Company", whose peculiar canning equipment consisted of bulldozers, power shovels and similar construction equipment. The top holding-company for these enterprises was the "Consolidated Packing Company" of Anchorage, known in military circles as the Alaskan Defense Command. Security was complete. Japanese intelligence never learned of the existence of these airfields and the Japanese tactical decisions were based on the assumption that their attack on Dutch Harbor would not be opposed by land-based aircraft.
All through the winter of 1941–1942, men worked at the construction of these two air bases, and by spring, two 5,000-foot airstrips were completed, one at Cold Bay, the other at Otter Point on Umnak. Another vital factor in the construction of the Umnak field was the use of perforated steel matting. No other medium could have been used to build that runway in the time required, since Umnak has no natural construction material. The matting was laid over a graded gash in the tundra and set the pattern for the construction of future Aleutian runways.
Administratively speaking, the Eleventh Air Force also was born in that winter of 1941–1942. First conceived as the Air Force, Alaskan Defense Command, it emerged as an integral unit as the Alaskan Air Force on 15 January 1942, and was redesignated the Eleventh Air Force on 5 February. In May 1942, a field headquarters was established at Fort Morrow Army Airfield, Port Heiden, Alaska, and planes of the 73d Bombardment Squadron were deployed at Fort Randall Army Airfield, Cold Bay and the 21st Bombardment Squadron at Fort Glenn Army Airfield, Umnak.
Ladd Field near Fairbanks became a secondary major air base in Alaska. It was named after Major Arthur K. Ladd, killed in a flying accident near Dale, South Carolina on 13 December 1935. Unlike Elmendorf, Ladd Field came the jurisdiction of Ferrying Command, which was a part of the Lend-Lease Program. Through Lend-Lease, the United States transferred nearly 8,000 aircraft to the Soviet Union though Ladd Field during the course of World War II. The aircraft were flown into Ladd from Great Falls Airfield, Montana by American civilian aircrews; Soviet crews then flew the planes west through Nome and on to Siberia. The pilots leaving Great Falls flew along a route of small airfields that became known as the Northwest Staging Route. One of those airfields, Big Delta Army Airfield, southeast of Fairbanks, became Fort Greely.
Aleutian Campaign 1942
In mid-1942 the Imperial Japanese Navy laid plans to attack Alaska in conjunction with an attack on Midway Island in the central Pacific. The Japanese Northern Area Fleet's attacks on Dutch Harbor and Adak Island resulted in the Aleutian Islands Campaign. But because United States Naval intelligence had broken the Japanese naval cypher code, Admiral Nimitz, Commander-in-Chief Pacific Ocean Areas in Hawaii, learned of Japanese plans by 21 May 1942. As of 1 June 1942, United States military strength in Alaska stood at 45,000 men. On that day the XI Intercepter Command, activated earlier, in March, was redesignated the XI Fighter Command. However, Eleventh Air Force operational strength was small. It consisted of 10 B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers and 34 B-18 Bolo medium bombers at Elmendorf Airfield, and 95 P-40 Warhawk fighters divided between Fort Randall AAF at Cold Bay and Fort Glenn AAF on Umnak.When the first inklings of a possible Japanese attack on the Aleutian Islands were known, the Eleventh Air Force was ordered to send out reconnaissance aircraft to locate the Japanese fleet reported heading toward Dutch Harbor and attack it with bombers, concentrating on sinking Hosogaya's two aircraft carriers. Once the enemy planes were removed, Task Force 8/North Pacific Force of the Navy, under Rear-Admiral Robert A. Theobald, would engage the enemy fleet and destroy it. On the afternoon of 2 June a naval patrol plane spotted the approaching Japanese fleet, reporting its location as 800 miles southwest of Dutch Harbor. Eleventh Air Force was placed on full alert. Shortly thereafter bad weather set in, and no further sightings of the fleet were made that day.