Cold Bay Airport

This remote airfield near the tip of the Alaska Peninsula once held one of the longest runways in the territory, and it was built in secret. In the winter of nineteen forty-one and forty-two, with war reaching the North Pacific, the Army rushed to fortify Alaska. To hide the buildup, soldiers arrived here disguised as workers for a fish canning company. They raised an airfield first called Fort Randall, ready for action by the spring of nineteen forty-two.

Cold Bay became a vital link in the air route that ferried thousands of Lend-Lease warplanes toward the Soviet Union. In the closing months of the war it hosted Project Hula, a secret program that handed over nearly one hundred fifty ships to the Soviets and trained thousands of their sailors. Today its long main runway still serves as an emergency landing site for trans Pacific flights.