Two Follies: The History of Beringia and the Fiftieth State

Saw the link in your signature, started reading, and what can I say? I love it.

I am really looking forward to an update on this. :D
 
The Military in Kamchatka

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American marines marching down central Petropavlovsk circa 1926. Old Russian Orthodox Church visible in background.

Upon the United States’ acquisition of Kamchatka in 1921, the Department of the Navy assumed responsibility for the region’s security. The first American soldiers, marines under the command of Captain George Van Orden, arrived later that spring. Officially considered to be serving in the territory of Alaska, these men would soon find themselves leaving the relative comfort of Petropavlovsk and sent into the countryside to hunt down criminals and deserters that were plaguing local villages. Captain Van Orden, a veteran of the Occupation of Haiti, was experienced with conducting operations like this. In order to prevent antagonism of the sort the Japanese had created when they commandeered quarters, American soldiers were ordered to encamp temporarily in tents outside of towns while more permanent winter barracks were constructed. Individual platoons were broken off to hunt down larger bands of bushwackers while smaller groups of soldiers were assigned to guard vulnerable villages. It soon became clear that more men were needed, and by the summer of 1923 the American military commitment had grown to over six companies of soldiers, with an attached squadron of biplanes. Poor weather conditions handicapped aerial operations, but the marine pilots persevered, flying reconnaissance missions and serving as liaisons between distant military units. By the year’s end, the advantage of aircraft had proven to be decisive - most bandits had been hunted down or repatriated to the Soviet government. The marines would soon find themselves assuming a new role - with so few Federal Marshals or other government officials, especially in the northernmost reaches of Anadyr, soldiers were increasingly assuming the responsibility of keeping the peace, protecting native peoples, and patrolling the lengthy Kamchatkan border.

***
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General William "Billy" Mitchell

The Air Force had a far more checkered history of aviation in Kamchatka than the Marine Corps. With the far-off territory falling under the Department of the Navy, the Army Air Service had no presence in the region. That would change in 1922 when General Billy Mitchell arrived at Petropavlovsk. An American pilot in the First World War, Mitchell had returned to America a hero, and one of the top men in the young Air Service. An advocate of aerial bombing and fearing a coming war with Japan, the aviator believed that airpower would be key in any future conflict. After the successful sinking of the German battleship Ostfriesland in a 1921 experiment, Mitchell publicly argued that from American bases in Kamchatka, bombers could be used to create an aerial blockade across the western Pacific, and the halt Japanese offensives in the north. In a Congressional hearing, Mitchell declared: ”Japan is our dangerous enemy in the Pacific. They won’t attack Panama. They won’t attack Hawaii. They will strike across Kamchatka, and on through Alaska. The Bering Straits region is the keystone of the Pacific Ocean, and an aerial campaign against Japan can be conducted to our best advantage from there. It is the most central place in the world for aircraft, and that holds true either in Europe, Asia, or North America. I believe that in the future, he who holds ‘Beringia’ will hold the world.

Critics said that the poor weather conditions of the northern Pacific, lack of navigational aids on the ground, and perils of long-distance flight over water made such proposals impossible. Irregardless of this resistance, Mitchell forged ahead, and managed to get the necessary support to create an experimental squadron. In 1920, the general had assembled the Black Wolf Squadron, which flew from New York to Nome to demonstrate transcontinental flight. Now, a new squadron would be created to showcase the ability of planes to operate in the far north in adverse conditions. The 3rd Provisional Squadron, flying modified Handley-Page bombers, was to depart Seattle, Washington, flying through British Columbia into Alaska. From there, a series of hops across the Aleutian Islands would take the aircraft through the Bering Sea and onto the Kamchatka peninsula, where the squadron would winter over and conduct flight exercises in the spring.

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Handley-Page bomber laying in a farmers field outside of Seattle, Washington, September 6, 1922.

The squadron, six bombers strong, departed Seattle in September and quickly had its first disaster - DB-2525 lost power minutes after taking off and crashed while making an emergency landing. The remaining airplanes continued north towards Sitka, only to suffer another loss when DB-2456 was struck by a freak gale when coming in to land. The crew survived, but the plane was a total loss.

After a stopover in Kiska, the remaining four bombers soldiered on, swinging westward for a daunting 300 mile flight across the open waters of the Gulf of Alaska towards Kodiak. In an incredible act of navigation, the entire squadron successfully made it across the Gulf. However, the crude runway constructed by the inhabitants of Kodiak proved inadequate, and one aircraft was wrecked while attempting to land. In an increasingly foul mood, the squadron received word that DB-2525 had been repaired and was on its way to rejoin the other aircraft. The subsequent delay cost precious time, and by the time the 3rd Provisional took off for the Aleutians, the infamous north Pacific weather had set in. During the stops on Unalaska and Kiska, another two bombers were lost - one had become separated from the flight and was presumed lost over the Bering Sea, and the other crashed while attempting to land in foggy conditions. The remnants of the squadron arrived in Petropavlovsk in mid-September, landing at the Navy air-strip east of the town. The runway, hastily lengthened to accommodate the large bombers, would claim the final victim of the endeavour when DB-2525’s left landing gear struck a depression, causing the bomber to cartwheel, killing the co-pilot.

Thus ended the unfortunate Trans-Bering Flight of 1922. Five bombers and eight lives had been lost in the effort. The Air Service Board declared that “reliable long-distance flight over water [by airplanes] is not possible in the climate of the Bering-Straits.” In the aftermath, General Mitchell, who had already possessed many enemies before the flight, was demoted to Colonel and relegated to a minor post in the Philippines. Retiring in 1931, he died a broken man, his vision of airpower in the Pacific dismissed. But in the years to come, the wisdom of his proposals would become increasingly clear. The very Air Force that had turned its back on him began to adopt ideas on strategic bombing that he had proposed years before.

***
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PBY Catalina flying boat at navy air-station, circa 1937.

Despite Kamchatkan defense theoretically being a responsibility of the Navy, the service would remain largely absent in the early years of Kamchatka. In an attempt to smooth out worsening relations with Japan, The United States signed the Washington Naval Treaty in 1922, which prohibited the United States from developing naval facilities in Kamchatka and the Aleutians. Furthermore, the Navy rapidly came to the conclusion that the peninsula was too exposed to attack. War Plan ORANGE, the American doctrine for a war in the Pacific, called for the US to withdraw to the eastern Pacific while an overwhelming naval force was assembled to crush Japan. Vulnerable territories like the Philippines and Kamchatka, mere hundreds of miles from Japanese fleet bases, were to abandoned. Starting in 1922, a small squadron of destroyers was stationed at Petropavlovsk to enforce fishery rights and show the American flag, but these duties were rapidly transferred to the Coast Guard, and the ships withdrawn. For most of the interwar period, the Navy’s presence was limited to an air-strip shared with the Marine Corps and a seaplane base on the south side of Avacha Bay. However, this would change as the situation in China began to deteriorate.

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Newspaper advertisement by the Bechtel-Price-Callahan syndicate. Along with Morrison-Knudsen, they would conduct the majority of military construction work in Kamchatka. The KDC was deliberately left out of the government bidding process due to political reasons.

In the aftermath of the sinking of the gunboat Guam in 1937, the Navy, on the orders of President Roosevelt, dispatched a squadron of destroyers to Kamchatka, and the wake of the Shumshu Incident, the service began to maintain a constant naval presence in Petropavlovsk. The subsequent demise of the Washington Treaty also lead to the construction of improved aviation facilities capable of handling modern patrol aircraft. But the dictates of Plan ORANGE halted any significant buildup of American forces in Kamchatka. In late 1939, Major George O. Van Orden, son of Captain Van Orden, arrived to take command of the Marine forces stationed at Petropavlovsk, and was dismayed by what he found. To defend an area nearly one-sixth the size of the continental United States, O. Van Orden had at his disposal little more than an understrength Marine Defense Battalion, with many of its troops widely dispersed across the frontiers. Little had been established in the way of dispersed depots, and the military was reliant in the KDC’s civilian system of field telephones for communication. There were no official plans for the rapid reinforcement of the peninsula, and it was estimated that in the event of war with Japan, Petropavlovsk would fall within the first week. Appeals to the Navy Department for greater manpower and material had been made for many years, but rejected by the naval staff and a stingy Congress. O. Van Orden fervently campaigned for greater military support in Kamchatka, to little avail. Under his own initiative, steps were taken to try and improve the situation. The Kamchatkan Rangers were formed - civilian volunteers willing serve as coastal observers and spotters, who would relay observations of enemy ships or aircraft to the military in the event of war. Limited stocks of ammunition were also moved to Saratoga, a more defensible point where his men had established several temporary field-fortifications. But the major knew that the territory was still incredibly vulnerable to a surprise attack and that reinforcements were desperately needed.

However, in a fortuitous turn of events, over the course of several months in 1941, there would be near complete reversal in the Navy's policy on Kamchatka - due to changes in leadership and pressure from President Roosevelt, the United States would reinforce the territory. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox publicly stated that “...it is the policy of this United States government to defend Kamchatka and its people from any attacks.” Decade old defense proposals were dusted off and updated, and a joint Army-Navy planning board was established to lay out the garrisoning of the territory, to be conducted simultaneously with a similar military buildup in Alaska. Rough plans of merely holding Petropavlovsk and the surrounding area had grown to turning Kamchatka into a shield, capable of halting any attack across the northern Pacific, and from behind which bombers and ships could harass Japanese shipping. At long last, the vision of Billy Mitchell was to be fulfilled.

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Above: Submarine berthed in floating drydock. Below: Mitchell Air Field under construction, September, 1941.
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In the following spring, an army of construction contractors and military personnel descended on the peninsula. The Navy plans were ambitious - the main naval airfield was to be significantly expanded, and a series of auxiliary facilities would be established along the eastern and southern coast of the Kamchatka peninsula. Bombproof aircraft shelters, repair shops, and ammunition depots would house and support a composite flying group of dive-bombers, fighters, and patrol aircraft. Avacha Bay was to be dredged, allowing the admittance of large warships, and a modern naval complex constructed near the village of Primorsky. Here, across the bay from Petropavlovsk, submarine and fleet bases were to be erected. Complete with concrete submarine pens, floating drydocks capable of overhauling destroyers and other light vessels, and ammunition magazines, this ambitious project was estimated to cost in excess of forty-six million dollars. It was to be the most developed naval anchorage in the northern Pacific - the largest pier was to be over 1,800 feet in length once completed.

Due to the small size of the Marine Corps, and other obligations of that service in the Pacific, the Army was called on to work in conjunction with the Navy to plan out the defense of these bases. A garrison of over 25,000 men was proposed, with Army soldiers manning anti-air defenses, shore artillery, and providing for a strong mobile reaction force capable of crushing any attempts by the Japanese to land troops. Furthermore, the Army Air Corps, now a fervent advocate of land-based airpower, was called on to contribute men and aircraft for Kamchatka security. The Army Corps of Engineers soon began work at Fort White, laying out a new airbase south of Avacha Bay, away from the old naval airstrip. From the long runways under construction, B-17 bombers would have the range to strike as far south as Tokyo. The Civil Aeronautics Administration, along with the Army, began to construct a series of radio-direction finders and emergency airfields along the eastern coast. In late 1941, several of these airfields would find a new use, becoming part of the Trans-Pacific Staging Route, through which aircraft were flown to Russia as part of Lend-Lease.

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Above: Freshly arrived American troops parade through downtown Petropavlovsk on the Fourth of July, and exhibit their weapons before interested townsfolk. Below: Life was often rough for soldiers sent to Kamchatka in 1941. Without prepared barracks, many were forced to live in tents as more permanent quarters were constructed.
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As winter approached, Kamchatka still lay in a vulnerable state. A great deal had been accomplished in such a short amount of time, but even the ambitious and increasingly optimistic construction schedule that had been laid out didn’t expect most of the key projects to be completed until the summer of 1942 at the earliest. While the number of American troops in the territory had increased from less than 700 in 1940 to more than 5,000, most of these men were from support and construction arms, and many of the limited number of combat soldiers were green, recently recruited conscripts that had been pulled into service building field fortifications, and hadn't had the opportunity to undergo additional training. The military command in Kamchatka had no jurisdiction over the civilian contractors, and couldn't order them to prioritize defensive emplacements, leaving them to try and establish field works using little more than hand-tools and what pieces of equipment they could beg off the KDC. Very little in the way of heavy weapons or combat aircraft had been delivered to the territory, and the naval force stationed to Petropavlovsk only consisted of a destroyer flotilla, two obsolete S-Type submarines, and a handful of light craft.

Despite this, as the month of December started, the Navy Department was pleased with the progress that had been made, and unconcerned about the possibility of an attack. American military intelligence felt that there was little chance of war breaking out in the near future, and in any event, potential Japanese strikes would be aimed at holdings in the southern Pacific. With the territory in the grip of winter, the earliest the Japanese could ever hope to do anything beyond the occasional bombing raid would be sometime in May. At least for now, Kamchatka was safe.


The People of West Beringia

As a new year approached, an older resident of Petropavlovsk might have looked back upon the last two decades and marveled at the changes. Once a sleepy fishing town of 2,500, now his hometown was a bustling port through which the natural wealth of an entire region flowed. Its permanent population had doubled to more than 5,000, and the work-camps and military bases around the city boasted another 10,000 souls. The filthy, rutted mud paths passing for roads had increasingly been replaced by new beds of macadam or corduroy. Electricity had first come to the port in 1922, when the KDC imported a steam-generator for its workshops - now, the town had its own municipally owned plant that generated steam and electricity for the public, and there was even talk of constructing a hydroelectric plant north of Saratoga to power the entire region. And the new docks saw as much traffic in a day as the town had once seen in a month during the time of the Tsars. In the dark days of the Revolution, with trade all but gone, work was scarce - now, their own children had no shortage of jobs available, be it working for the KDC, the Japanese canneries, the American government, or a multitude of independent firms that had begun to enter Kamchatka.

The people had changed as well. Kamchatka had always possessed a polyglot population - some had come seeking a new life on the fringe of the Russian Empire, or had been forcibly exiled here for past misdeeds. Others had called this home for thousands of years, or were the descendants of Asian laborers brought in by the Tsar in past generations. Now, new arrivals joined them, and while the relationships between the various groups could be temptuous, even, at times, hostile, a sort of equilibrium had been reached and an easy degree of civility was entering society.

The most obvious were the Americans. They had come by the thousands during the 1920s, drawn by the promise of work on this fresh frontier and the high wages offered by the KDC. With the demise of the original syndicate in 1924, many KDC jobs evaporated, and the population of Yankees plummeted to less than 2,000. But as the territory slowly recovered, the American population rose once more. Furthermore, the proportion of transitory laborers was dropping - more and more of the Americans living in Kamchatka intended to stay. The most prominent among them were the Alaskans - Alaskan workers had been highly sought during the early days of the KDC due to their experience working in harsh conditions similar to those in Kamchatka. While outnumbered by other Americans, many of them quickly acquired prominent positions in their new communities. Men like Daniel Sutherland, an ex-Alaskan representative to Congress and founder of the Pacific Star, Earl Wallace, father of Saratoga, and George Grigsby, first President of the University of Kamchatka, left indelible marks upon their new home.

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Above: "Bluejackets" at work in Petropavlovsk during a September storm. Painting by Lieutenant William F. Draper. Below: Chinese laborers working on railway, date unkown.
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After the Americans had come the Chinese. In the 19th century, the Russians had brought in Korean laborers to work at the mines across the province - now, with that nation under Japanese control, the KDC set their eyes further south. From the southern port cities, Chinese contract workers were brought north to work on construction and mining projects in the wilds of Kamchatka. Most of these laborers returned home after their three-year contracts were up - only a handful decided to remain in Siberia. Furthermore, the number of contract-labors shrunk dramatically after 1925, due to the decline of the KDC. Even so, by 1941, 2,900 Chinese workers resided in the territory.

And then, there was the the most recent group to arrive, who also had the most unusual origin. In 1938, the Evian Conference was held to deal with the matter of German Jews trying to seek safety in other nations. It was a failure - with two minor exceptions, no countries agreed to take in significant numbers of Jewish refugees. However, in the aftermath, the President of the KDC, Harold F. Linder, was approached by a philanthropist by the name of William Rosenwald who had an interesting proposal. The KDC had hopes of developing the rough plains of southern Kamchatka, where it owned vast tracts of land, but other concerns had forced the firm to focus its resources elsewhere. Why not instead offer to resettle Jewish refugees onto company land? With little more than modest support, and cooperation from various Jewish relief organizations, a productive colony might be formed.

As an unincorporated territory, Kamchatka lacked many of the strict immigration quotas enforced in the continental United States, Furthermore, due to the unique history of the syndicate in Kamchatka, when the region became a government-administered territory, the KDC had been granted a great deal of leeway in regard to importing foreign workers and personnel. Linder, who was a trustee for the Jewish-American Joint Distribution Committee and had overseen settlement schemes for Jews in Bolivia and British Guyana, found the idea intriguing. In January, 1939, the Kamchatka Development Corp. announced that in conjunction with the newly-formed Pacific Settlement Association, it was allowing entrance to up to 2,000 families per year. They were to live on a quarter-million acres of land that had been transferred to the Bolshaya River Corporation, where aid and developmental assistance would be provided by several Jewish relief organizations.

The project was initially widely admired internationally - James Rosenberg of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies declared: “...this project, fully consummated, shall do more for the Resettlement of Refugees than any of which I have knowledge...it is entitled to the support of organized Jewry, National and Local.” Morris Lazaron, a prominent American rabbi, also spoke in favor of the project: “This thrilling drama of human reclamation, begun perhaps with some hesitation, certainly as an experiment, must not only grant joy to all those who have sponsored it, and carried it thus far, but it must strengthen the determination of all who are interested in the salvage of human beings to build further on the foundations already established. The Bolshaya development must go on!

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Sousa family in front of homestead in Bolshya, July, 1941.

However, despite such adulation, few Jews took the offer. Most German and Austrian Jews were city-dwellers, skilled workers or craftsman, and the idea of settling down in a barren, uninhabited wilderness was unappealing - many Jews chose to wait and try to obtain entry-visas to the mainland United States or to other nations. And the families that did arrive soon began to dwindle in number - of the roughly 6,000 Jews who participated in the project, less than 4,000 remained by 1941.

***

The 1940 Territorial Census had just been released - if our resident had read it, he might have been amused by the figures. While the recorded growth was significant - from approximately 45,000 in 1921 to 71,164 in 1940 - an experienced local would know of those who hadn’t been listed.

It is in many ways ironic that a desolate land such as Kamchatka in the early 1900s, once a near-prison intended for political enemies of the Tsar, would become a place of refuge. But for many, the only thing that mattered was that the Bolsheviks weren't there. The early history of asylum-seekers in Beringia was overlooked for much of the past century - territorial records were often non-existent, many having been destroyed in the Japanese occupation, and for years, the word refugee brought to mind images of anti-Communists trying to sneak their way across the Mekhlis Line during the 1950s. But people have sought refuge in Kamchatka since its earliest days as a concession.

The first significant wave came in 1924, as Yakut tribesman sought safety in Anadyr in the aftermath of a failed uprising. At first, the KDC was unsure of how to respond - the sparsely inhabited western lands of Anadyr were of little importance to the corporation. However, allowing anti-Soviet groups to establish themselves in the concession could lead to an armed Soviet intervention, possibly even a forced takeover. Captain Van Orden was ordered to dispatch a company of his marines to Yewgar, to try and turn back natives taking the southern coastal route into Anadyr. Though of limited effectiveness in actually policing the border-region, it was believed that this would demonstrate the good-faith that the KDC was exercising, and assuage the Soviets in this matter. But as the decade wore on, what had been hoped to be a temporary trickle soon became a torrent. In 1928, collectivization came to Siberia - farmers were to be “de-Kulakized” and tribal reindeer herds seized by the State. In response, the fiercely independent farmers and natives of the region rose up in rebellion. Over the next three years, the Soviets would brutally crush these uprisings. However, in the Far East, a significant number of Siberians fled towards Kamchatka, seeking sanctuary from the Communists. In response, additional soldiers were deployed north to halt the flow. The futility of this task soon became apparent - while a small number of farmers and townsfolk following the coast and inland rivers were caught, nomadic tribes like the Evenki and Chukchi were easily able to evade the small number of American soldiers stationed along the concession boundary. Many of the natives would remain in Anadyr and northern parts of the Kamchatka Peninsula - some who had fellow tribesmen already living in the area would join them, while others tried to establish themselves anew away from prying eyes. Russian settlers tended to head south, hoping to blend in with the local population there, getting what work they could at the Japanese-owned canneries, or among the construction and mining gangs of the KDC.

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Above: Yakut family, 1930? Below: Prisoners at Kolyma, circa 1935.
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The third, and first politically notable wave began in 1932 - the year the GULAG arrived in Kolyma. A long overlooked backwater, the broad region of Kolyma came to the attention of the Soviets in 1925 when deposits of gold and platinum were discovered. For the next seven years, attempts were made to colonize the area with volunteers, but it soon became apparent that a new approach was needed. In 1932, a ship carrying a group of 600 prisoners arrived at a desolate site where the city of Magadan now stands. Within a year, tens of thousands of of men and women had been shipped east, forced to work in the unimaginable conditions of the Kolyma labor camps. Most died - to be sent to Kolyma meant a slow and agonizing end through starvation and exposure. But some, a fortunate few, managed to escape. And unlike their comrades at GULAG camps in central Russia, in Kolyma, they had someplace to run.

At first they came from Magadan, making a grueling 370 mile trek across the desolate and undeveloped wilderness of Kolyma, to the fishing village of Yewgar just across the concession boundary. Later on they came from other camps scattered across the region - Duoat, Topky, Usholny. One fortunate soul was recorded as having made it all the way from Norilsk on foot. But not all were able to make it past the concession boundary guards, be they Russian or American. As the Navy Department took over the administration of Kamchatka in 1933, there were hopes that the government, not as concerned as the KDC at drawing the ire of the Soviet Union, would relax boundary transit controls. However, this was not to be - the Roosevelt Administration was adopting a conciliatory approach towards to the Soviet Union, and guards continued to be posted to the border. However, it was generally accepted that if a person could make it past the boundary, to the towns and villages of the south, there was little the Americans would do so long as one remained low. In the early years, many escapees did manage to make it into Kamchatka. But even then they found themselves trapped. Men and women without a nation, other countries would not allow them entry and they could not travel to the US mainland. Historians have estimated that in 1941, almost 1,000 GULAG escapees lived in Kamchatka, effectively stuck there, along with another 2,600 Siberian settlers and 8,000 natives. Fearful of census takers, refugees tried to avoid official registration of their presence, lowering the population numbers of the territory.

***

Assignment to Yewgar and the boundary was becoming one of the most loathed of all duties of the American garrison. Horrific stories of conditions across the 160th Meridian spread and morale among the men rapidly dropped. One Marine Corporal would later write of a typical encounter along the “One-Six-Oh”. “It was something that always gnawed at you, made you sick. One time, in a September storm, a woman came out of the woods, crawling on her hands and knees to the sod hut we were laid out in. She was a pitiful creature, face blackened and cracked with icicles hanging from lashes, wrapped only in a few sorry rags that may have once passed for a cloak. Her feet looked like little more than bricks of ice. It was a miracle that she had made it this far, and she was moaning in a weak fashion. She survived - Doc Walters did more for her than anyone thought possible. But as soon as she had recovered enough to be safely moved, it was time for her to be handed over. I’ll never forget the shrieks that wreck of a human made when her stretcher was taken up by the Bolshevik soldiers and they brought her aboard their docked steamer.

The stories told by soldiers and business travelers returning home began to multiply as the 1930s wore on. Several prominent newspapers and wire-services sent reporters to Petropavlovsk in 1934 to try and verify these accounts. However, little came of this - whether, as it has been alleged, this was due to reporters conspiring to conceal evidence of Soviet misdeeds or general recalcitrance on the behalf of refugees to draw attention to themselves is still controversial, with modern discoveries such as the Louis Fischer letters simply adding fuel to the fire. However, some personal stories were published by west-coast newspapers such as the Seattle Post and Oregon Journal, attracting public interest. In 1940, a paperback collection of anonymous accounts was published, and sold more than 25,000 copies. The following year, Collier’s Magazine conducted an extensive investigation, interviewing over 200 individuals. Intending to publish a multi-issue series of articles on their findings, American entry into World War Two halted this - with the Soviet Union as an official ally, newspapers and periodicals were pressured to stop publishing anti-Soviet works. However, that such a project had been undertaken at all demonstrated the concerns about the Soviet Union that had started being raised in Kamchatka.



Author's Notes: It's still alive! Sorry for the delay - my plan of trying to get out a segment every two weeks was a bit... ambitious. Work and such preoccupied me, but in any case, here's the third, and final, segment before the start of WW2 (or rather, the start of the war in the Pacific). In the "war years" segments we'll also get a chance to see the Japanese and Soviet reactions to American administration of Kamchatka - how this is effecting them and so on.

A few things - first, if you try to google some of the town names in Kamchatka that I list, you probably won't find much. Standardized spellings didn't exist for towns in the region back then, and I've often been unable to find many of the major towns listed in contemporary books of the area. In addition, many of the current settlements in the Russian Far East didn't even exist as of the POD, and were founded by the Soviets in the 1920s and 1930s, and thus have alternate names TTL, such as Saratoga. I may have to draw up a map to try and sketch a few things out for you, but I should probably clear something else up as well. Anadyr refers to the landmass of the concession north of the peninsula, and is the older name for that region. Kamchatka can refer to either the peninsula proper or of the concession as a whole. One of those quirks of language.

The Van Orden family really did exist. I initially just selected a random Marine officer of the period, but as I learned about Orden and his son, I decided to make them more central figures. Van Orden (junior) in particular will play an important role in Beringan history.

Billy Mitchell has something of a different fate TTL, a fact that has a bit of an effect on the Philippine campaign. He is widely credited with coining the name "Beringia".


As ever, feedback and questions are desirable!
 
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Glad to see this back, it's a really fun update. I think the slow pace of development is reasonable, as the polyglot nature of the growing community is interesting (if another plank in my theory that Beringia should be a separate state from Alaska ;) ). The development of ports and bases there with the growing threat of Japan makes some sense. However, I'm wondering if those plans are slightly too ambitious.

Either way, they're a threat Japan cannot ignore, even incomplete. If the first strike of the war must be the fleet-in-being at Pearl, then the next has to be at Beringia, to secure the airspace over the home islands. Only then can resources be devoted to the southern push. This is interesting, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes--and the effects of Beringia and its fate on the post-war world.
 
Have you thought about including the White Russians as refugees in Kamchatka? Large numbers left the country to settle in Europe or China in the 1920s way before the Gulag or collectivization. I think some of those in China would be willing to move to Kamchatka once port cities developed to an extent.

You would probably have three major immigrations of White Russians from China. The first being shortly after the territory becomes part of the US or shortly thereafter as settlements expand. The second being the Harbian Russians in Manchura after Japan took over Manchuria in 1931. The third would be once the Sino-Japanese War starts. There were some 25,000 Russians in Shanghai. and Harbin had between 100,000 to 200,00 right after the Russian Civil War. I think a lot of those would try to make it to Kamchatka as things got more difficult for them in China.

It'd be hard to set yourself up, but it still has a lot of advantages for the emigre. There is a labor shortage which means you have work if you're willing to do it. It provides a politically stable place to live. It provides a likely fast track to US citizenship. You won't be heavily discriminated against compared to the Soviet Union, Japan, or China. And besides hard physical labor, there is still a need for managers and administrators which the old officer corps and intelligentsia could provide.

It would be attractive to female White Russians especially since they would have a better chance at marrying an American and getting citizenship. And having the availability of White Russian women there would be an additional inducement for hardy young men from the States to move there to work.
 
Another thing to consider is that even with the decision that Kamchatka should be held, everyone would know that in actuality the penninsula is not defensible at this point. Defense plans for the short term would take that into account.

There would probably be instructions that in face of determined Japanese attack that the armed forces were to withdraw into the mountains and forests and adopt guerilla tactics to harass the enemy. Food, medicine, and arms would be stockpiled in predetermined locations to allow the armed forces to conduct a guerilla campaign. In addition, a local militia - these Kamchatkan Rangers in your account - would also receive training on how to conduct themselves.

There would probably be some redoubt north of the penninsula away from the coasts that would be used to centralize the resistance, and this would be able to receive air supplies from Alaska and radio instructions from Washington. Areas where supplies and reinforcements could be landed along the northern coast would also be identified.

The main interest of the Japanese would be to prevent air and naval bases being used, so it is unlikely they will leave many troops to occupy the entire penninsula - just crucial ports. Most of the penninsula will unlikely be occupied although they will have occassional raids.

After the Winter War, the US Army identified the need for mountain/arctic troops. This would eventually lead to the creation of the 10th Mountain Division. Debates about the usefulness and need of such a large unit trained in mountain warfare lasted well into 1941. Ten were originally planned, revised down to three, and then eventually just the one. In light of needing to defend Kamchatka, I don't think it will take so long to debate and the US will probably raise more than one mountain unit. The US will have greater ski/mountain troops ready by the time the war starts, or soon after. And the army soldiers in Kamchatka will likely have been one of the first so trained.

Other important things to imagine is that while War Plan Orange knew the US Navy would need to fight slowly across the Central Pacific and take key Japanese held islands before the Philippines could be relieved/liberated, that this is not the case with Kamchatka. The US controls the coast from Seattle Washington to Alaska to Kamchatka. There would be significant investment in air bases and coastal defenses in order to support an American relief movement to Kamchatka. At some point early in the war, there is bound to be a major naval battle along this arc. Given the weather, there is a much likelier chance that it will not be a carrier combat, but old fashioned surface battle perhaps with land based bombers unless it occurs during the summer months.
 

Glad that you liked it!

Well, I'm basing a lot of the plans for Beringia on the OTL military construction made in Alaska and several of the larger Pacific islands. I don't think it seems all that unreasonable in scale considering its strategic importance. Dutch Harbor had a sizable military base constructed on it before the start of the war, complete with sub pens, 1,000+ foot piers, and lengthy runways.


I did consider that for a while, but there were also a few things which ultimately lead me to scrapping that. For starters, timeline difficulties - the period of "corporate rule" in the 1920s would be the ideal time for many Whites to try and move there - but due to the shaking independence the region has from the Sovietsr, few would have been willing to do so. Many other concession had been taken back by the Soviets, so moving there would be risky. You might have a few Whites winding up there as contract workers, but not very many. In addition, quite a few Whites would rather not leave civilized places like Harbin only to move to the rough and desolate frontier of Kamchatka. Petropavlovsk was a dreary, underdeveloped fishing town at the time - its wasn't until the late 1930s that it had become something of a reasonably well built-up place - and even then, we're talking about "Anchorage Alaska in 1940" built-up.

The 1930s would be more appealing - Kamchatka is now more secure against Soviet invasion, and is more developed. But that's also when the high demand for imported labor of the early '20s had shrunk quite a bit. And by then, many Whites had found semi-permanent refuge in various places around the world, be it in Paris, Shanghai, or Belgrade. In addition, the Japanese treatment of Whites in Manchuria during the interwar period is going to be a bit different than OTL. I'll elaborate on that in later posts, but there won't be quite as much of a drive for Whites to try and get away from China, no matter the destination, as in OTL.

Regarding citizenship - it wouldn't have been apparent to most Whites that living in Kamchatka would help in obtaining American citizenship. Congress had made itself quite clear throughout the 1930s that there would be no granting of citizenship to the pre-existing population of Kamchatka. It was a temporarily leased territory, and while its people were under the jurisdiction of the US, they were not citizens. Now, after the war, the non-American population of Kamchatka will all be granted US citizenship due to their "courage and conduct" in the conflict, but there wouldn't have been any way Whites could have known this.

That said, I do like the idea of some White women trying to get in during the 1920s and 1930s for the reason you explained. That concept hadn't really occurred to me, but it does make sense and certainly has precedent. Mind if I borrow it? I might want to try and work it in.

Another thing to consider is that even with the decision that Kamchatka should be held, everyone would know that in actuality the penninsula is not defensible at this point. Defense plans for the short term would take that into account.

There would probably be instructions that in face of determined Japanese attack that the armed forces were to withdraw into the mountains and forests and adopt guerilla tactics to harass the enemy. Food, medicine, and arms would be stockpiled in predetermined locations to allow the armed forces to conduct a guerilla campaign. In addition, a local militia - these Kamchatkan Rangers in your account - would also receive training on how to conduct themselves.

In an ideal world, that would be true. But the more research I did on the state of military garrisons in Alaska, the Philippines, Wake Island, and other locations in the Pacific, the more shocked I became. The sad truth is, the military wasn't ready for a war with Japan, nor was it expecting one anytime soon. The military was often quite lackadaisical in its preparations in the Pacific, so I could easily see a similar lack of adequate preparation existing in Kamchatka. In the above segment, it does state that some preparations had been made (moving supplies to a more defensible location in the mountains of the interior, with the general intent of troops making a fighting withdrawal to Saratoga in the event on invasion), but once the war actually starts, it will soon become clear that these plans were generally inadequate.

As for training a native militia, there was quite a bit of resistance to forming similar groups OTL in Alaska and the Philippines. The Alaska National Guard was only formed in 1940, the Territorial Guard in '42, despite military officers stationed to Alaska campaigning for similar organizations for years previously. And the less said about the US dragging its feet when building up the Philippine army and its reserves, the better. The unique legal status of Kamchtka would also create further problems.

The Rangers were something of a tepid first step towards forming a local military force, and while given another year or two, they might have been turned into a proper military auxiliary, time simply ran out before that could happen.

There would probably be some redoubt north of the penninsula away from the coasts that would be used to centralize the resistance, and this would be able to receive air supplies from Alaska and radio instructions from Washington. Areas where supplies and reinforcements could be landed along the northern coast would also be identified.

That's basically what I have planned out. There will be a widespread resistance movement, composed of locals, natives, and American soldiers that made it into the hills, supported by the US, with supplies and men brought in covertly by submarines, later on by aircraft. American troops in the north (Anadyr and Yewgar in particular) will also play a role.

The main interest of the Japanese would be to prevent air and naval bases being used, so it is unlikely they will leave many troops to occupy the entire peninsula - just crucial ports. Most of the penninsula will unlikely be occupied although they will have occasional raids.

Well, yes and no. The Japanese are going to try and get away with as small a garrison as they can, mostly confining themselves to the ports, with the occasional reprisal raid into the country, like you said. But Japan has other interests there than simply denying bases to the Americans. For starters, some of the natural resources in Kamchatka are seen as being strategically important - a platinum mine that had just opened before the start of the war being the most notable. In addition, the fisheries off of the coast are also significant to Japan. That means the canneries on the coast need to stay in operation.

After the Winter War, the US Army identified the need for mountain/arctic troops. This would eventually lead to the creation of the 10th Mountain Division. Debates about the usefulness and need of such a large unit trained in mountain warfare lasted well into 1941. Ten were originally planned, revised down to three, and then eventually just the one. In light of needing to defend Kamchatka, I don't think it will take so long to debate and the US will probably raise more than one mountain unit. The US will have greater ski/mountain troops ready by the time the war starts, or soon after. And the army soldiers in Kamchatka will likely have been one of the first so trained.

Yes, the US will have a stronger force of mountaineers than OTL, though I'm still hashing out the details. However, none of the troops in Kamchatka are from any of these units, which are still forming up and undergoing training stateside. The Army did send some equipment to be tested in Kamchatka in late 1940, but the troops there simply aren't prepared for winter combat. Again, I'm basing this on the general lack of preparedness that existed in many of the Pacific garrisons. Wake Island is probably the best example of this - many soldiers stationed there were green, right out of boot camp and they were immediately put to work on construction projects, so they didn't receive additional combat training once deployed - but similar problems existed in the Philippines. The garrison there wasn't trained for tropical warfare, despite the fact that Army troops in Panama were.

Other important things to imagine is that while War Plan Orange knew the US Navy would need to fight slowly across the Central Pacific and take key Japanese held islands before the Philippines could be relieved/liberated, that this is not the case with Kamchatka. The US controls the coast from Seattle Washington to Alaska to Kamchatka. There would be significant investment in air bases and coastal defenses in order to support an American relief movement to Kamchatka. At some point early in the war, there is bound to be a major naval battle along this arc. Given the weather, there is a much likelier chance that it will not be a carrier combat, but old fashioned surface battle perhaps with land based bombers unless it occurs during the summer months.

The Alaska situation will be covered later on. I don't want to give away too many details, and I'm still working out a few others, but yes, Alaska and bases along the western parts of that territory will play an important role in the Northern Front.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Interesting TL.

The offer to allow Jews to resettle is a good touch, matches some plans to settle Serbs in Alaska in OTL in WW1. It was always hard to get labor in Alaska. Also, the agriculture part is a good match. While I doubt Beringia will ever produce much grain, they also always overestimated agricultural production in Alaska.
 
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