|
Showing 1 - 9 of
9 matches in All Departments
A splendid account of the final voyage of explorer Vitus Bering and
of the life of naturalist Georg Stellar (1709-1746), who
accompanied Bering on his 1741 crossing into the uncharted North
Pacific. Originally published in 1966 by Little, Brown. Annotation
copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.
This is a new release of the original 1931 edition.
Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of
rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for
everyone!
Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of
rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for
everyone!
Ctft For JIM HUDELSON Grateful acknowledgment is made to The
Crcnvell-Collier Publishing Company for permission to reprint
certain sections of this book, which first appeared in Colliers
Magazine. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I The Invasion That Failed
i II Our Unknown Front 31 III Mission Over Kiska 44 IV Three
Stories 55 V Landbridge 88 VI Mummies, Volcanoes, Sea-Otters 102
VII They Came to Attu 1 22 VIII We Even Had a Tree ... 130 IX A
Postscript 137 Cut . Jke MtVadion, Jkai halted History can turn on
a very small hinge. The history of Alaska, and perhaps the history
of the American continent, swung last June on a little handful of
land based fighter-planes and bombers, appearing out of nowhere in
the swirling Aleutian fog. . . . For the Japs were planning more
than the capture o Dutch Harbor, on that fateful third of June.
There is little doubt now that their grandiose scheme envisioned an
actual assault, by way of Alaska, on our Pacific north west. The
Japs wanted and, make no mistake about it, they still want to set
foot on United States soil some day. It is more than a matter of
military strategy it is an emotional desire, a deep-seated and
fanatic ambition that colors all their national thinking. And our
appar ently undefended Aleutians, which had served in pre historic
times as a land-bridge for invading hordes from Asia, offered once
again a logical avenue of invasion for these modern barbarians
striking at our shores. It was to be part of a full-scale offensive
in the Pacific. The Japs had devised a two-pronged attack a sort of
one-two punch, a left jab at the Aleutians and a right cross to
Midway. The blow in the north would fall first on Dutch Harbor. The
Japs knewtheyhad not been SHORT CUT TO TOKYO poaching in the
Aleutians all these years for nothing that our only shipping-route
to Nome, to Bethel, to the whole west coast of Alaska, was through
narrow Unimak Pass, between Unimak and Unalaska Islands. By taking
Dutch Harbor, which dominated the pass, they could effectively
bottle up half of Alaska. They could drive a thousand-mile wedge
between the United States and Russia, thus cutting off any possible
sea-lane for shipping supplies to Siberia, and at the same time
protecting their own right flank from attack in the event of a
Siberian offensive. Last but not least, they could operate against
Midway and die Hawaiian Archipelago, as well as against the Gulf of
Alaska to the east. It looked easy absurdly easy. They had been
told that Dutch Harbor was our only fortified position in the whole
thousand-mile Aleutian chain. The base was still partly under
construction, garrisoned at the time by not more than a couple of
regiments of ill-equipped and winter-weary troops and a few gallant
Marines, de fended by a meager battery of guns After knocking this
ripe plum from the tree, they were confident they could seize the
Pribilofs to the north, attempt a mass landing on the Seward
Peninsula and a penetra tion into the heart of Alaska. Or they
could pick off Kodiak and then Sitka and Ketchikan and from Alaskas
southeastern tip it was only six hundred miles, 1 L if u., mi
Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of
rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for
everyone!
Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of
rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for
everyone!
|
You may like...
LSD
Labrinth, Sia, …
CD
R213
R71
Discovery Miles 710
|