Uncle Sam's Men

They didn't have no time in over Japanese structure of 77. My father were involved in it and not a fact. No excuse, I'm too old to be in no carry. I see there was no do lie in there, there was no absolutely nothing in between Japan and an anchorage except a bunch of estimates out there with a 30-odd six. And now we take your direct to Washington, the nation's capital. Good evening ladies and gentlemen, this is Drew Kirkland and this is Bob Allen. The United States has been attacked by Japan.

In Japan, a fleet of Japanese airplanes appeared over time. It can feel the Army Air Base and the city of Honolulu. Three American battleships were hit and the battleship West Virginia was reported, so the battleship Oklahoma has been set on fire. The older miners were very interested in what was going on in the world and they'd have these shortwave radios and every night they made the kids go out and play because they wanted to listen to what the news was so they wouldn't be disturbed and I can remember one of the old timers coming out from the roadhouse and said that the United States had entered the war, that Pearl Harbor had been struck. When America went to war against Japan, I'm December 8th, 1941. Nowhere was this vulnerability more apparent than in the territory of Alaska. In fact, Japanese patrol boats cited in the Northern Barring Sea shortly before the Pearl Harbor attack

had gone unreported until March 1942. Anthony Diamond, Tony Diamond, who was the delegate to Congress in 1939, claimed Alaska was America's Achilles heel. And it was almost completely undefended following the attack on Pearl Harbor, on December 1941. The army decided almost instantly to build the highway and to rush troops in and to fortify Alaska or to build up the fortification. In the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack, Alaska's National Guard, the 297th Infantry, was mobilized into federal servants leaving territorial governor Ernest Greening without an organized military force under his jurisdiction. The United States Congress authorized a creation of volunteer civilian militia to assist in the defense of Alaska. The Alaska Territorial Guard, or ATG, as it was more commonly called, would be composed of able-bodied male lifcons, not subject to the draft

or engaged in the central war war. Among the recruits for the ATG, Greening included Alaska's indigenous peoples. My kids, how youths have the best, and then particularly the Eskimo, living along the territory of the western or articles. That's the ATG's commander chief. Greening saw native Lasans as they made it. Reding made real real of works. And the New Deal reformer and civil rights advocate, Greening had another reason for wanting to act in a participation in Alaska's native people in a territorial defense. He became a strong supporter of equal rights for natives, culminating in the passage of the Alaska Equal Rights Act in 1945. That was the political side. But he was also a strong supporter of the Alaska Territorial Guard of native is becoming involved in the defense effort directly. The Alaska command for the most part left a native population of these plans for territorial defense. Some officers were uncertain as the Army's authority

to provide any military training at all to civilian natives. But contact with the inhabitants of a remote island in the Bering Sea had convinced one officer of the value of the Alaska natives, particularly Eskimos for territorial defense. That officer was Marvin Marston, an air corps major in charge of morale and recreation at Fort Richardson and Anchorage, Alaska. Marston was a brash direct man in patient with a military protocol and bureaucracy. With the threat of a Japanese attack on Alaska imminent, he sent unsolicited proposals to his superiors, urging them to permit them to organize a guerrilla force comprised of trappers, bush pilots, prospectors and natives with the skills to survive and fight in the back country. In March of 1942, Marston escorted Hollywood comedian Joe E. Brown on a 30-day tour of Alaskan military bases where Brown entertained the troops. If Brown's request, Marston flew in from gnome 170 miles across the Bering Sea to the Eskimos village of Gamble on St. Lawrence Island.

They spent several days there. The scale and resourcefulness of the islanders to thrive in such a remote and harsh place impressed Marston and greatly. We landed on a frozen lake near the village. Some of the Eskimos helped me cut ice bridges to which we anchored the plane against the strong wind. We needed several gallons of water to freeze the ropes, but there's very little water in an Eskimos village at 30 below zero. My astonishment, the villagers saw the shortage of water in a matter of minutes. They simply zippered down and soaked the ropes with urine until they froze. These fellas know everything, and I knew then and there that a successful defense of the Arctic could best be accomplished by Eskimos. Major Marvin Marston. When are we trying to Fort Richardson? Marston submitted another proposal to his superiors at the Alaska Command Headquarters. It was a plan to train Eskimos as scouts alone to remote-bearing sea and Arctic coastlines. He argued that the Eskimos complete adaptation to the harsh conditions of the Arctic

was an asset the Army should not ignore. These people are loyal citizens, wrote Marston, but so far as defense measures are concerned they've represented forgotten portion of our population. They were not to be forgotten much longer. On June 3rd and 4th, 1942, Japanese planes bombed the naval base at Dutch Harbor. A few days later, Japanese troops captured the islands of Atu and Kiskith, the extreme edge of the illusion train. For the first time since 1812, the United States territory had been occupied by a foreign power. The full attention of the Alaska Command now focused on an illusion offensive to drive the Japanese from Atu and Kiskith. With few troops to spare for defensive operations, the security of much of mainland Alaska was left in the hands of Governor Greeny as territorial guard. The magnitude of the task required every available man, including natives. Two Army officers were assigned as military aides

to the governor. Their task was to get the ATG organized armed and trained. Captain Carl Schibner would work in the southeast, south central, interior, and Alaska Peninsula regions. The territory west of the 156 parallel from Bristol Bay and the south to Maryland the Arctic Coast was assigned to Major Marston. For the rest of the war, Marston devoted all his energy to building his Tundra Army. He came to be known as Muktuk because of his taste of the whale skin and fat delicacy of the same name prized by coastal Eskimals. Muktuk Marston became a well-known figure throughout the Alaskan Arctic. We arrived at Nelson Island, called a meeting of the village and explained that the president of the United States who was Franklin Roosevelt at that time wanted some eyes and some ears out along the bearing sea coast.

That he didn't want to send soldiers from Florida or Texas or Louisiana up into the Arctic where they had no knowledge of conditions. But wanted people who were familiar with the country, who could stop the head of the sea against an ice floor and a thousand yards to act as the eyes and ears of the military. Because of the importance of the territorial garden, I felt it essential to go to each village in person. Up until then, I had had very little contact with Eskimals. I was aware that in some cases they had been badly treated by whites and I did not know what resentment might lurk behind their smiling faces. I encountered none. Only the greatest willingness to serve their country earned a screening, territorial governor. Everywhere we stopped, natives and whites turned out in mass. This was the first time a governor

had ever toured the Eskimal country. Indeed, it was the first time that these natives were regarded as bona fide citizens. They were honored by his call and listened attentively to his message. Invariable, every Eskimal, to a man moved forward to sign a mark the simple enrollment that they do muck tuck marshmallows. With you, you would try something to go with. Thanks. You have better have to in order to tend to They made all these starkeepers and whoever could read and how they didn't care, they just made them captain to do tenants at the time.

By November 1942, reading the Marston had organized AT units at the Bristol-based famine canaries, the platinum-minor Good News Bay, and the Eskimo villages along the Kuskakwam and Yukon rivers and the Bering Sea coast. From his newly established headquarters at Nome, Marston turned his attention to the villages of the northwestern Arctic coast, with winter setting and the rivers were freezing, the days were short in the flying weather unpredictable, so it chose a more reliable form of transportation. The dog team. In early December, Marston left known with Sam Mogg, his Nopiuk guide interpreter and dog handler, two sled loads of supplies and 20 dogs to organize ATG units in the Sewer Peninsula area. The trip would take 35 days in temperatures that often exceeded 60 below zero. Towards the end of 42, after school had started, all Nopiuk Marston came along with Sam Mogg, his dog was sure, and enlisted all of us in the territorial guards.

That's when I first became aware of them taking women, because Laura Wright had been added on. They said, I was gay in two, and Governor Greening says that, give her a gun, and it pointed at me. And I looked at him and I thought, oh, no, I don't think I can shoot anybody. And they said, well, the whispered killer be killed or something like that, he said. We would be in the school in a large room, this size of a gymnasium, a large gymnasium. We would all stand up and learn and take commands from the subject. We learned how to turn right, turn left back, attention, you know, the drills. Well, you say, right fashion says, some guys couldn't understand at all, they didn't

know what right face was, and some of them are pretty old. And you see that mix up some will turn right, some turn left, right, focusing each other. Either that's what you thought. Tell me, you gotta say, don't let twist. I want to play too. You were marching, and that little pond instructor was dumped there for a while, and the men were killed marching and into the lake, then they don't even stop for it, they just

keep on going. You were trained a lot, all those rifles were heavy, I mean they were for me, how many hours may be an hour or so, I would like this, and them again, and yes. By the early summer of 1943, more than 3,000 Alaska natives, mostly Eskimos, had joined the ATG's Tundra Army. Amongst ranks were boys as young as 15, elderly men, their 70s, and women. They were the eyes and ears of the regular army in western Alaska, their orders were something. Control the immediate coastline, report any unusual person, objects, aircraft, or ships to the nearest military authority, maintain community wide blackouts at night, and some communities, grills were held as often as twice a week. Many units had only a single rifle and a copy of an army training manual to guide them.

To keep up with the demands for training and supplying his Tundra Army, Marston acquired the use of the ATG, the leaky, dilapidated 40-foot fishing ball. In June 1943, the ATG left gnome on its first supply run to the islands and villages along the northern coastline. Every available inches space was crammed with cases of supplies, rifles, ammunition, and equipment. Along for the ride was artist Henry Barnum-Pour, a member of the Army War Art Unit, a war and four other artists, and then sent to the territory by the War Department to document the war in Alaska on sketch pad and candles. At each village on the eighties route, Marston, with poor's help, distributed rifles and ammunition, and enlisted more eager volunteers for the Tundra Army. The Eskimo people left the lasting impression on Henry Pour's. Some told me their names he wrote later, and I took their hands and guided them to form

the letters. They were hard, thick, scarred working man fans, and these eager faces, to one questioning and single-hearted and good cut me deeply. I got the gun, and then they had to practice out the field on the snow. I hit every target, but one, right in the bullseye, and I shot the other bullseye. One side twice, and left that one vacant, but I hit it right in the bullseye. So that is the reason I got the 49 out of 50, and so I won the target shooting practice. I shot nothing, nothing made a noise, and I looked over my other partner. He marched with there, mine wasn't there. This target had given me a dead in front of all these men, or boy if I had, if there were

women I'd have made a big noise, but I would so only one day. After he got through laughing, he hit that hair, not in a nice way, he just tossed it. I grabbed it, and if I did it in there and just shot in the air, I said, that's from getting too new from the previous shot, and this thing, two years left over here, I am here with him. After 1943, when the Japanese were driven out of Atu and abandoned Kiska, the military situation Alaska changed dramatically. Now it was cleared at the war front and passed Alaska by, and it quickly became relatively a military backwater.

The ATG among the Eskimos, guarantees at all times their loyalty and patriotism to discover that. They live along the shores of the Bering Sea and Arctic Ocean, facing two foreign countries, one now and enemy. It is important, the ATG being maintained at all times, it was demanding, it was really demanding, especially for the only men like Dan Orton, he was in his 60s, late 60s, he couldn't write, he couldn't understand English, but he was protecting his own people. Early in 1945, 10 enlisted men from the 208th Infantry were signed to the Tundra Army as Grillens started.

Seven were themselves Eskimos, returning home to work among family and friends. A few weeks of intensive training produced impressive results, morale was high. Many Tundra Army guards have been now had more than two years in military training. The confidence and the old abilities grew, those with leadership potential promoted to command position, what's held exclusively by school teachers and missionaries. Well, at the age of 16, 15 getting into the ATG and then 16 getting at Sargent's commission, and sure, that makes any kid feel good, you know, you had to sew on your emblem on the side and you put your stripes on and you strut around with a rifle, sure. In a desperate attempt to retaliate against the mass of American air bomb bardman of its own cities, Japan launched a balloon attack against the North American mainland.

More than 9,000 balloons, 32 feet in diameter, were released from secret bases along the Japanese coast between December 1944 and April 1945. They were armed with incendiary or high explosive bombs fitted with ingenious altimeters, timing devices that control ballast and delayed fuses. The balloons were intended to drift across the Pacific Ocean to the United States, then striking indiscriminately, terrorized American civilian population. Most were lost at sea of the 38 Japanese balloons for each Alaska. Humans were made, were recovered by units of the Kundra army. People in this call to arms, people did really feel like they were making a contribution

and felt good about making that contribution to the war effort, either if they were working in the factory making tanks, or if they were native Alaskans defending their home village and their community. A lot of us, I mean, the men felt more responsible and part of us, just because we were watching out for our own interests, our own territory. If it happened again, I'd do the same thing I did, I just tried to help my country. So I was very proud of it, too, and I was ready to fight, and I wouldn't, too. All the gamut to Nuna, Charlie a Kinga, diameter, Victor Adams, no attack, Kurt Bell,

who forbade, Kurt will grits BB, Keith, Lieutenant David Brower, Darrell, Nick Charles, Deathl, Charlie Coffee, Stebans, Truman Cleveland, Trumner, Corporal Moses Crowe, Winhock, Corporal Charlie A. Edwardson, Earl, Isaac, Ethan, White Mountain, Tom Miss Melton, Nulato, Harry E. Vaughn, Eunalykley, Johnny Foster, Delaware, Kate Green, Cotsubu, Albert Eric Hagberg, Acom, Corporal John A. Hensley, Cotsubu, Miles Eter, Earl, Larry Jones, Eglubu, Oliver James, Winwright, Daniel Jones, Nul, Carl Quagli, Bethel, George Lake, Pitt

Kiss Point, Daniel Mann, who Gilliner, David Martin, Kitna, Sergeant Charles Mendelow, No, Peter Mike, Magnus, Corporal Dason, Agorac, Coyar, Tommy Nierca, Point Lay, Wilson, McPowell, Fishmoret, Dick Pete, Marshall, Wilford Ryan, Eunalykley, Louis Segan, King Island, Tom Mitchell, Damana, Chuck Island, Will not try to give you one to check you, Tom

Hoon, Hoon, Hoon, Hoon, Hoon, Hoon, Hoon, Hoon, Hoon, Hoon, Hoon, Hoon, Hoon, Hoon, Hoon, Hoon, Hoon, Hoon, Hoon, Hoon. Would you please understand my forgiveness?

But you. Is it true? Yes, not true, but a life fulfilled thing? So, I wonder why? Sure. Of course we are we husband, that for salvation we will see what happens at this time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.