northwards... to alaska!!!

[el cid again]

Now, you tell me -- and cite and quote your source -- where Stalin would have any say in any plan for the Aleutians and the Kuriles IF there had been one?

You have cited a somewhat intelligent discussion (except for the part about the weather) about secondary campaigns. The discussion is NOT about the plan to build a RAILROAD to NOME from Calgery, Alberta, Canada - then to extend that railroad from the Soviet side down Siberia - so that always isolated bases and towns in places like Kamchatka become properly supplied. The biggest problem with winter operations of a rail line in Alaska (or Siberia at the latitude of Alaska) is moose! [We kill as many as 800 on a run of medium distance in winter - because they like to get on the road bed which has been cleared of most of the snow. It provides a great deal of meat - more than we can use - but possibly not more than an army could use.] Roads made of gravel are repairable by roadgraders (from the effects of frost heaving) - and we run them regularly 500 miles farther north of the route in question all the year around. The ideas about weather in Alaska are amazing - universal ideas - based wholly on ignorance - and all Alaskans get used to what amounts to dumb questions or statements or shipments or whatever - because everyone not actually familiar with Alaska "knows" the weather is a big problem. I am from Michigan - and I have NEVER seen in Alaska the 108 inches of snow we got EVERY YEAR in Grand Marais - nor have I met even one Alaskan who knows how to cope with really deep snow using things like screens. Because it is not part of life in Alaska. You are confusing the campaign as it happened with the campaign contemplated in 1941 and 1942.

[el cid again]

Seas were mountainous, measured at sixty feet, which would render WWII era combat (even most modern era) operations impossible.

Only one navy in the world routinely trained then to fight in bad weather - and only one navy in the world to day does. Interestingly, the nation with both navies is the same - although it isn't the same navy. That nation is Japan. Japan routinely loses more men dead in peacetime to training accidents than any other because it thinks knowing HOW to fight at night and in bad weather is worth paying that price. We certainly learned about the night part in the Solomans.

[el cid again]

Flying weather in some parts of Alaska, especially pre GCA and radar altimeter, is legendarily bad. The storms in the Gulf of Alaska would render naval operations difficult, particularly in winter.

This is true. But I grew up in Michigan, and storms on Lake Superior, particularly in winter, can be amazing experiences. I went from there to serving in the North Atlantic, and we went up to places like the Barents Sea to play Cold War games with the Soviets. So I come from a background where operating in winter in hostile seas is more or less routine. Dangerous it is - only coal mining is more dangerous than working on a fishing boat in Alaskan waters. But when an antenna had to be fixed during Hurricane Faith in 1965, it was I that had to go up the second tallest kingpost in the Navy to do it - three times. Few modern sailors go aloft any more - and one of only two ratings that still do are Electronics Technicians. Imagine - if you can - needing to fix something with tiny screws so small you cannot pick them up with gloves on - in wind conditions so bad you cannot feel if you take your gloves off! So bad that if you are not tied to the mast by a safety line, you cannot use your hands to work at all! But there is a breed of seamen who actually like heavy weather, and I will confess to belonging to it. When they announce every few minutes "all hands stand clear of all weather decks due to high winds and heavy seas" I go outside - for fun! And when an 80 ton boat breaks loose - and the deck hands are afraid to even try to secure it - I am the sort to volunteer to catch it and lash it down - because it is just a "speed time distance" problem if you have enough experience judging motion in heavy seas. [I also never have to hold on when standing while riding a bus - no matter how hard it stops - old timers call that "sea legs"]. The biggest naval training base complex in the world is on Lake Michigan - because from about 1900 USN learned to recruit Great Lakes men in numbers. From my point of view the idea that it would be hard to do anything in SOUTHERN Alaska (not up on the Arctic Ocean) is very hard to believe - even though you can read it in lots of books and hear it from lots of people. But they have not been to Adak, nor to the much more difficult environments I cut my teeth in. If you think bombers cannot operate from the Aleutians, take a look at Shimya - a gigantic B-52 base - built on a tiny island - so that virtually the only thing on the island is runways, taxiways and aircraft pads. OUTDOOR aircraft pads.

[Dereck]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

Now, you tell me -- and cite and quote your source -- where Stalin would have any say in any plan for the Aleutians and the Kuriles IF there had been one?

You have cited a somewhat intelligent discussion (except for the part about the weather) about secondary campaigns. The discussion is NOT about the plan to build a RAILROAD to NOME from Calgery, Alberta, Canada - then to extend that railroad from the Soviet side down Siberia - so that always isolated bases and towns in places like Kamchatka become properly supplied. The biggest problem with winter operations of a rail line in Alaska (or Siberia at the latitude of Alaska) is moose! [We kill as many as 800 on a run of medium distance in winter - because they like to get on the road bed which has been cleared of most of the snow. It provides a great deal of meat - more than we can use - but possibly not more than an army could use.] Roads made of gravel are repairable by roadgraders (from the effects of frost heaving) - and we run them regularly 500 miles farther north of the route in question all the year around. The ideas about weather in Alaska are amazing - universal ideas - based wholly on ignorance - and all Alaskans get used to what amounts to dumb questions or statements or shipments or whatever - because everyone not actually familiar with Alaska "knows" the weather is a big problem. I am from Michigan - and I have NEVER seen in Alaska the 108 inches of snow we got EVERY YEAR in Grand Marais - nor have I met even one Alaskan who knows how to cope with really deep snow using things like screens. Because it is not part of life in Alaska. You are confusing the campaign as it happened with the campaign contemplated in 1941 and 1942.

No El Cid I have stated a valid point which NONE OF PURE RHETORIC has refuted. There was never a serious American plan to invade Japan through the northern Alaska route and it had NOTHING TO DO WITH STALIN at all despite your delusions.

I've stated facts - all you state is rhetoric. Neither side had any plans to invade the other through the Alaska route though they feared the other side might.

You can post your usual multiple posts trying to get people to believe you unsupported rhetoric but until I personally read something which states differently from what I've already read in my books I'm standing by what I posted above. In the source I have the Soviets and Siberia ARE NOT EVEN MENTIONED so you bringing them into the picture is just trying to muddy the waters and obscure the point of no serious American invasion plans.

And also El Cid, you are good at pointing out how things work NOW (like with the B-52 bases) but that is immaterial talking about something NOW when we're talking about something happening in 1941-1945 when they didn't know what we know now or have the technology we have now. Once again you muddying the water.

The facts are facts and rhetoric is just rhetoric. I'm sorry but I have the facts on my side and all you have is empty rhetoric on this one.

[dtravel]

I hereby declare this thread to be a danger zone for marshmellows.

[panda124c]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

Stalin had nothing to do with it because he didn't own Alaska.

Curiously, a majority of members of the CURRENT Duma think Russia STILL owns Alaska - legally. But that aside, I didn't say Stalin owned Alaska. What Stalin "owned" was Siberia. He was unwilling to contemplate US bases on Soviet soil, nor a significantly built up rail line of communications - even along a route Russia long had contemplated and has since began to build (from the other end - one of the last "hero projects" of the USSR was to build a rail line NE from the Trans-Siberian). There is not much point building our end of the line of communications if it leads to no where. Stalin wanted his cake and eat it too so to speak - he wanted to be on the Allied side WITHOUT having to fight Japan - and WITHOUT having to contemplate behaving like an ally in the sense that would require. If WE had problems with no close bases - well that was OUR problem - not his. That HE had territory very close to Japan was not germane - from his point of view.

Evidence in secondary sources is not as good as evidence in primary sources. Gen Buckners reports and papers are much better than official US and Soviet histories which are written to justify the policy actually adopted - not to criticize it. [When did you read a history critical of the bombing of cities - even if we condemned it as a war crime at Nuremberg? When did you read a history critical of Guadalcanal as a campaign - even if it clearly violates what USN and USMC teach as doctrine about not landing out of range of land based air? What about the Turkey Shoot - do the official histories credit the Japanese with operational victory ruined only by a tactical defeat? Or Palau? A battle that had no identifiable strategic purpose? If you will only read official history, you will only learn why everything we did was the best that could be done. Being a Viet Nam vet makes it easier to be skeptical we always get it right.

Ah yes one of the lest understood "Spoils of War" the winner and the loser get to rewrite history to their satisfaction.[:-]

[John 3rd]

Enough of the historical and hysterical conversation! [:D][:D] I am about to land in Anchorage with 125,000 troops and find out what might happen!

BANZAI!

John III vs. Wolfpack: The Japanese Version