The Daily Alaska empire Newspaper, March 31, 1940, Page 3

= L PROGRESS AND DEVELOPMENT EDITION ~ AERONAUTICS AUTHORITY BUSY MAKING ALASKA'S AIRWAYS Busy making the airways of Alaska safe for the planes of today and tomorrow, the Civil Aeronautics Authority is engaged in a rapidly ex- panding program of organization and construction in the Territory. From CAA headquarters in An- chorage, Superintendent of Airways Marshall C. Hoppin and his staff are directing the work of establishing Alaska air navigation facilities, radio range and communication stations and emergency landing fields. The present administration and construction personnel of 15 men is described as a “nucleus” of the or- ganization which is expected to grow into one of the most extensive and important in Alaska. Skeleton Airway The current appropriation for the CAA in Alaska authorizes the con- struction of a skeleton airway ex- tending from Ketchikan to Anchor- age to Fairbanks to Nome. Directional radio alds are to be established at Ketchikan, Sitka, Ju- neau, Yakutat, Cordova, Anchorage, Fairbanks, Ruby and Nome. Intermediate type stations, equlpAl ped for communication with aircraft | and adjacent stations for the pur-| pose of exchanging weather infor- mation, are to be located at Peters- burg, Haines, Yakataga, Talkeetna | and Summit. Intermediate landing fields will | be constructed in the vicinity of | Yakataga, Talkeetna, Summit, Tolo- vana and Koyuk. Present indications are that this original airway will be extended considerably in the next few years as additional appropriations become available. AACC Stations Absorbed On Janury 1 the Civil Aeronautics Authority took over adminsitration and operation of former Alaska Aeronautics and Communications Commission stations located at Nome, Fairbanks, Anchorage, Cor- dova, Juneau and Ketchikan. Hours of operation for communication and weather reporting services at these stations were increased by the Au- thority from eight to 12 hours daily. Recently the Ketchikan equip- ment was moved from Gravina Is- SAFER T0 FLY to the terrain. At present, pending further alignment and adjustment, this facility is not being operated. | Local Station The station in Juneau, located on | the second floor of the Commercial Dock Building at the foot of Main Street, operates from 5 o'clock in the morning until 9 at night broad- casting weather information at Ju- | neau, Juneau winds aloft, Juneau to | Ketchikan, Juneau to Skagway, Ju- |nea to Sitka and Chatham Strait and Southeast Alaska forecasts. Flight checking and final course | alignment began recently on a new | station at Ruby. Survey and pre-| | liminary construction is under way | |for a facility at Sitka, with com- | missioning date estimated as June | 1. Stations at Summit, Talkeetna and Yakutat are scheduled for com- pletion about April 1. | In all its work in Alaska the Civil THE DAILY ALASKA EMPIRE, SUNDAY, MARCH 31, 1940. Plane at Juneau Airport One of the sleek Lockheed Trevor Davis photo Electra 10-passenger planes operated by Pacific Alaska Airways on the popular Juneau-to-Fairbanks route port. is shown at the local air- AIRFIELD AT Aeronautics Authority cooperates closely with offices of the U. S.| Weather Bureau, ENOUGH TIMBER FOR SEVEN PULP MILLS AVAILABLE Southeast Alaska Hemlock and Spruce Woud Feed Big Paper Industry Enough pulp timber to keep seven big mills running continuously and forever, with new growth to per- petuate the supply as older trees are logged off, now exists in Southeast Alaska. | This fact was given publicity re- cently in the annual report of the Chief of the Forest Service, the late F. A. Silcox, who wrote: “Of our oWwn reserves, Southeast Alaska has enough soft pulpable woods, mainly hemlock and spruce, to provide continuous production | for seven mills with a daily capac-| ity of 500 tons each.” land to Pennock Island because a flight check of this facility indi-| cated the course structure to con- tain numerous spurious signals due - by about 150 Russians. FAIRBANKS IS BUSY PLACE Facilities Bei_ng Improved by CAA-Terminal for Airmail Line Alaska’s unique distinction of be- | | Alaska. Twenty-one main concerns | ing the most air-minded of all American possessions finds Fair- banks sharing largely in the honors. Her large commercial airfield, with runways suitable for landings and take-off by ships of the largest type, is gradually being improved. Most important of the installa- tions to serve the traffic is the new range or beam station, now nearing completion under direction of the|Soon this line will begin regular | Civil Aeronautics Authority. This 'ALASKA SERVED BY 21 AIRLINES AND 175 PLANES Fliers of IeTriory Recog- nized as Best in En- tire World Airplanes are a commonplace in operate airlines over the faf-flung Territory, where planes are the fas est and cheapest means of trans | portation. Juneau is the terminus of the most important system in Alaska, the $2,000,000 Pacific Alaska Air- ways, a subsidiary of America’s fore | most airline, Pan American Airways, service over a Seattle - to - Juneau will supplement the service of the|route, giving Alaska its long-sought U. S. Weather Bureau and two pri- |air link with the States. vate aviation radio stations, servic- The combined Marine Airways ing various air lines, not the least and Alaska Air Transport lines fly of which is the Fairbanks-Juneau | out of Juneau over all of Southeast AVIATION IN ALASKA } ] \ 3 ] ) s ) ; ) DEFENSE (Continued from Page One) in Alaska have been so long delayed. | The reason is not far to seek. It| lies in our character as a people. | Americans “Too Civilized” Traditionally and from the very | beginning we have always shut our eyes to the possibility that we might ever be engaged in war and have | consistently and continuously re- | fused to make any preparation. As a result when war came we just | had to muddle through. We enter- led the World War deficient in ev- 'erytmng except manpower and al- most up to the last we had to bor- row most of the arms that our sol- diers used. In the 1920’s we joined with other nations in making a lot of treaties that were calculated to bring about universal peace. All of the nations having interests there agreed to maintain the in- tegrity of China and pledged them- selves solemnly to that effect. We entered with others into the Wash- | ington treaty for the limitation of ‘iarmam(‘an and scrapped hundreds |of thousands of tons_of shipping while the others scrapped mostly blueprints. Later we led the way, with the highest and best of mo- | tives, in entering into the Kellogg | Pact, whereby the nations denoun- |ced war as an instrument of na- | tional policy. It was all admirable jand sensible and civilized, as we | believed, and so we continued to let | our national defenses go to pot 1 | | Conditions Change Present conditions are so start- | lingly different that if our memor- ies were not good we would think |all of these peaceful gestures were | made at least a century ago, and ALASKA USE § AIRPLANES Statistics Show teady Gain Mail and Year Planes Number Number Number of Freight ending in passengers of plane passenger carried June 30 Service carried miles miles (Pounds) 1930 24 3,654 338,422 684,361 120,733 1931 26 7,947 381,234 947,605 161,718 1932 31 6,637 742,854 942,176 496,680 1933 42 7,743 1,059,155 1,222,510 785,586 1934 56 10,194 1,126,610 1,533.311 994,370 1935 5 13,318 1,685,654 2,148,692 1,722,767 1936 9 16,982 2,130,929 3,035,018 2,418,616 1937 101 20,958 2,200,209 4,021,798 3,184,263 1938 155 26,885 2,829,258 5,634,461 3,758,495 175 29,699 3,282,931 5,260,524 4,719,398 1939 3 EMPIRE IS READ ALL OVER ALASKA Cities outside Juneau regularly covered by Daily Alaska Empire cir- culation include Sitka, Skagway, Haines, Petersburg, Wrangell, | Hoonah, Kimshan Cove, Chichagof, | Taku Harbor, Tulsequah, B. C,, Ten- | akee, Funter, Gustavus, Hawk Inlet, | Port Althorp, Todd, Port Alexander, | Kake, Angoon, Port Walter, Douglas |and Thane. | Other Alaska cities partially cev- | ered are Ketchikan, Hyder, Valdez, Cordova, Anchorage, Fairbanks, | Eagle, Flat, Seldovia, Kodlak, Dutch | Harbor, Neme, Candle, Kotzebue, ‘Sewnrd, Palmer, Tanana, Nenana, | Ruby and Nulato. | The Alaska circulation of The | Empire is guaranteed to be larger yet within less than 20 years every | ternatives, one of them terrible. We |than that of any other publication. treaty so made has been s of paper of which we heard so much in the last World War. We know now that we must face | the world in arms and it is folly to| believe that any nation as a nation has any friends who can be de- pended upon to stick through thick and thin. We must be prepared to defend ourselves, not in the yeari 2000 or in 1950 or in 1941, but in this year of grace 1940 Unless we are stupid beyond be- lief, we must realize that armies, and arms, be provided overnight. Months are required to equip even a division of troops and put it into the field. We must be ready at all times Arming For Peace People may say, “Against whom are we arming?” That question in itself shows a startling lack of com- prehension of what is blazened be- fore our eyes daily. The answer is that we are arming for peace, be- cause it seems almost infallibly cer- tain if we are at all times ready to protect ourselves and our own, no one will attack us. But if at any time it is certain that we are weak and not able to defend our- selves, we will suffer the same fate which has overtaken Austria, Poland and Czechoslovakia, and which, even today, despite one of the most val- iant defenses in the history of hu- man kind may overtake one of the most heroic people in the world, the Finns. Of course, all the money which and armaments cannot often | must either arm, arm in earnest, | - deliberately broken and cynically [arm almost literally to the teeth,gand 1pl 2 W | abandoned that they are even more | or else be in grave danger of going |, ‘:‘: z’:"la“;‘e un:z":’:::‘um worthless than the traditional scraps [ under, or being one of the subject think that thers 14 Yo' QHGNE peoples of the world, the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, | the serfs of the masters of the lands | —the same sort of serfdom that has | Russia, the inhabitants of Poland, the inhabitants of Czecho-Slovakia. | 1f serfdom is admirable then we | ought not arm to defend ourselves, | but if freedom is admirable and de- | sirable then we ought to strain ev- “ery effort to be ready to maintain peace. Oceans Narrowed Every change will be rung upon the argument that the Atlantic and the Paacific Oceans are too wide to cross and that no enemy can come | against us. We all wish that were | true, but, unfortunately, such talk |is utterly lacking in foundation of | reason and of fact. We all will hope |and trust and pray that no enemy | will come against us. But there is | nothing in the present condition of the world to indicate that we have any such assurance; and we must remember always that the continu- ous development of the airplane is | daily narrowing those oceans until tomorrow they may be figuratively no wider than Cross Sound or Cha- tham Straits. Moreover, if we are half as in- telligent as we claim to be, we will not forget that on the other side of the Pacific we are faced with | two ruthless and warlike nations, bent upon conquest, and absolutely | reckless of any civilized human val- |ues which may stand in the path overtaken the inhabitants of Soviet airmail line. Auxiliary to this and all other federal and public enter- prises of the region is the U. S. Army’s Signal Communications System’s fine ser- vice, to be improved with extensive Kodiak was first settled in 1784 |new installations at Fairbanks this!Lavery, Pollock and Wien Alrways‘Nom\em Cross Airways of Deering year, Corps and Alaska | Alaska. J ' Other airlines of the Territory in- |of Cantwell; Cordova Airways of clude Bob Ellis and Herb Munter | Cordova; Bob Reeves of Valdez; Star of Ketchikan; Tony Schwamm of | Airways and Woodley Airways of ‘Pewrsburg: White Pass and Yukon | Anchorage; Bristol Bay Airways of of Skagway; Barr, Dodson, Gillam,|Nushagak, Hans Mirow of Nome; of Fairbanks; Christensen Airways and Ferguson Airways of Kotzebue. Frequent sailings the year round . . . service geared 1o the sharp seasonal trends inherent to Alaska traffic . . . national advertising to spread the story of this great vaca- tionland . . . all these are part of the Alaska Steamship Company’s program for a greater Alaska. we spend on arms, armaments and | of their lust for power. As long the training of soldiers is an econo- |as those two countries were opposed mic waste. Were it not for the great | to each other the hazard to us was exigency brought upon us by no,not so great; but now that they ap- act of our own, it would be an in- pear to be joining forces to accom- sane and inexcusable waste. But |plish their common aim of the con- we are now faced with two grave al- | quest and subjection of peaceable, iour peace in the Pacific. Only the Beginning | The defense works now authorized |for Alaska are only a fraction of | what they should be, and I believe |they are only a fraction of what |they will be within the next five years. Surely Congress will not be so remiss in its duty as to fail te provide adequate defense for Al- aska, not only for the Territory It- self but because the defenses of Alaska defend even more strongly the western coast of the United States. The President and the War De- partment are now asking that a sum in excess of $12,000,000 be grant- ed to establish an air base near Anchorage. That with the others now being constructed will make a$ least a fair beginning; but at the time this is written the appropria- tion bill is still in the House Com- mittee on Appropriations and so no one can confidently guarantee the outcome. With many others who have a far deeper and more intimate know- ledge of military strategy than I possess, I am insisting that some- where near Kodiak or in the Aleu- tians, perhaps at Dutch Harbor, we should have a duplication in strength of the Pearl Harbor base. Of course, that means the expen- diture of vast sums of money, but money will be of no account to us if our defenses are insufficient. It is an evasion to say that we are unable to afford it. The only thing that we are unable to afford is in« adequate defense. 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