Alaska Veterans
Suellyn Wright Novak Colonel, USAF, RET
Copyright 2020 by Suellyn Wright Novak Colonel, USAF, Ret
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Table of Contents
To those favored few who know the sacred privilege of protecting our heavenblessed nation, to those who know the true meaning of love, I, too, am blessed and honored to be one of you!
Acknowledgments
I want to thank Alaska Veterans Museum (AVM) historian extraordinaire, board member, and newsletter editor, George Darrow, for his invaluable sleuthing skills at finding needed photos for this book. I also wish to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of AVMs superlative secretary, Jann Sherrill, for making copies of documents and for taking photos this book required. Jann always goes two extra miles for you! Thanks also to Bruce Abele for proofing the chapter on the USS GRUNION SS-216, as he was one of the sons of the skipper who found the sub and crews final resting place. Persistence was richly rewarded! Thank you also to F.T. Tom Findtner, Army Corps of Engineers for the Alcan Highway photo and caption. And where would I be without the technical expertise of Art Williams, of ACW Productions, who scanned my collected photos, and cleaned up digital photo files? Thank you is also due the Army, Navy, and Coast Guard who made photos available. A final thank you to my beloved husband, Larry Baumgartner, for his artistic sketches.
Introduction : A Short History of the Alaska Veterans Museum
A Short History of the Alaska Veterans Museum (AVM)
We began in 2001 with a dream, a few VFW brothers and sisters and other concerned citizens. They wanted a museum to tell the stories of individual servicemen and servicewomen, as well as showcase the militarys contributions to Alaska, using weapons, uniforms, artifacts, photos, posters, models, dioramas, and more. Forest and Cathy Brooks had helped form a similar museum in Centralia then Chehalis, Washington, and were ready to help start one here.
AVM became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation in 2002, and thats also when we were awarded our Alaska business license. It took ten years to build support and name recognition, advertising on holidays, marching in parades, supporting local community events to get the name out there, briefing over 212 various community groups. Finally, in spring and summer 2008 we built our first public exhibit on Castners Cutthroats: Forgotten Heroes at the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center. We debuted it with a panel discussion featuring the last three living Alaska Scouts, Lieutenant Earl Acuff, Sergeant Ed Walker, Technician Fifth Grade (T/5) addressed as Corporal Billy Buck, and author Jim Rearden. We also paid tribute to T/5 (Corporal) Buck Delkettie who had passed away prior to our exhibit but whose oral history we had collected (playing at our museum are clips from all four of the Scouts we interviewed). Buck Delketties stories were what gave rise to the idea of setting up an exhibit in a museum to call attention to our quest. The exhibit was to be up six months but remained there for nineteen months, and the Anchorage Museums historian, Marilyn Knapp, said it was the most popular local exhibit the museum had had. She said when it was taken down, I miss my old friend there in the atriumit was a great exhibit. School students loved it.
We followed that success with exhibits at the Alaska Aviation Museum on the Aleutian Tigers (the 11 th Fighter Squadron), AVM assistance on the 11 th Air Force Warbirds exhibit, one on the USS Grunion (SS-216), which featured photos and submarine artifacts, a large model of the submarine and more, plus a movie about finding her after sixty-five years and a Skype session with the skippers eldest son. At the Native Heritage Center, we had an exhibit on the Alaska Territorial Guard (ATG) and Major Marvin Muktuk Marston, with many of his items on loan from the Anchorage Museum. We also put up displays on the Aleutian Campaign: A Forgotten War at the Chugiak-Eagle River Library and at the Loussac Library. We placed and dedicated the ATG statue on November 11, 2011, in front of AVM. Winter hours: open Wednesday to Saturday 10 to 5; summer Monday to Saturday 10 to 5.
On April 17, 2011, we opened in a 1,433 square-foot storefront at the Fourth Avenue Market Place, 333 W Fourth Avenue, Ste 227, Anchorage; 907-677-8802. We have now welcomed over 8,100 visitors, and were waiting to greet you ! We need shakers and movers and folks with power, prestige, and money to help us grow our museum. We are always searching for board members who can help staff a shift or two a week (3.57 hours), raise funds, and find volunteers for us, as well as other opportunities.
Images
CSS Shenandoah
US Navy Sketch NR&L (old) 2084 , US Naval History and Heritage Command
Revenue Cutter Bear
US Coast Guard photo
Alaskas Arctic Coastthe patrol area of the Revenue Cutter Bear
Sketch by Larry Baumgartner
Captain Michael Healy, RMS (US Coast Guard photo)
Lieutenant Billy Mitchell on Snowshoes, 1903 Anchorage Museum , Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center (AMRC-1981.19.009 )
Teikhell [sic] Telegraph Station Anchorage Museum AMRC-662-1-a-447 Crary-Henderson Collection
Eskimos of the tundra defending the shores of Alaska. Alaska Army National Guard, AN117.
Photo sketch by Larry Baumgartner of Japanese incendiary balloon (authors collection)
Alaska Scout Billy Buck feeding pups at Fish Camp (authors collection)
Alaska Scout Buck Delkettie (authors collection)
ALCAN Highway: Meeting of Bulldozers at Contact Creek, Yukon Territory (USACE photo)
The only combat photo of the Alaska Scouts (authors collection)
11 th Fighter Squadron Aleutian Tiger (US Army photo)
USS Grunion (SS-216) stern view at rest (US Navy photo)
US Submarine Grunion (SS-216) being towed to the dock (US Navy photo)
Attu Village Memorial by Alaska Veterans Museum (authors collection)
USS Worden (DD-352) Memorial by Alaska Veterans Museum (authors collection)
PBY-5A Aleutian Fleet Air Wing Four (US Navy Photo)
Map of Attu Invasion (US Army photo)
Parachute robe and nightie (photo by Jann Sherrill)
Figure 1. CSS Shenandoah . (US Navy sketch)
One
The Last Shot of the American Civil War Was Fired in Alaskan Waters
While the American Civil War raged, England and Europe watched. Their sympathies lay with the Confederacy, as did monetary interests by the name of King Cotton. The Union blockaded Southern ports from which was shipped 80 percent of Englands demand for her huge textile industry. Loss of that cotton threw thousands of textile workers out of a job, and the mills slowed to a snails crawl. France, too, was in a similar fix. Within months, the looms of England and Europe ground to a near halt. Exports of cotton, which in 1860 was valued at nearly a billion dollars, were almost strangled. This disrupting of the market also choked off funds for the fledgling Confederate States of America (CSA).
