Alexander Dolitsky: When we were allies

Lessons of the of Alaska–Siberia Air Route

By ALEXANDER DOLITSKY

One of the decisive factors leading to the victory of the world’s peace-seeking nations in the Second World War was the effective cooperation of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition.

Today, after the passage of 80 years, it is vital once again to recall this unique episode, when the Allied countries, despite sharply divergent governing structures and ideologies, managed to reach agreement on a shared global imperative—to present a unified front against the powers that promulgated fascism and militarism.

A great example of the war cooperation between two great nations is the wartime Lend-Lease Agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union, signed in Washington, DC on June 11, 1942, allowed the two countries to provide mutual assistance in fighting a war against aggression. One of the unique examples of such cooperation was the establishment of the Alaska–Siberia Air Route (ALSIB), on which approximately 8,000 combat and transport aircraft were delivered from the United States of America to the Soviet–German warfronts between September 1942 and October 1945. 

Soviet and American pilots flew the Alaska–Siberia Air Route to deliver combat planes halfway around the world, traversing more than 12 time zones, from Great Falls, Montana, to the Russian warfronts. Much of the route lay over remote and roadless wilderness where pilots made their way in stages from the safety of one hastily built airfield to the next. Alaska served as the exchange location for transferring the planes to the Soviet Union.

United States Army Air Corps pilots from the 7^th Ferrying Group and Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) flew combat planes from their points of manufacture in the U.S. to Great Falls, Montana, where male pilots of the 7^th Ferrying Group flew them across Canada to Ladd Army Airfield, now Fort Wainwright, near Fairbanks, Alaska.

From there, pilots of the USSR’s Air Force flew the planes over western Alaska and across Siberia to the warfronts. Due to severe weather conditions, mechanical problems, and other adverse circumstances, 133 of these airplanes crashed in North America and 44 went down in Siberia along the Alaska–Siberia Air Route. During their time of service, 38 WASPs died and many more were wounded in the line of duty in the United States while delivering planes to Great Falls.

In the process of transferring aircraft in Alaska, Soviets and Americans got acquainted, and many became sincere friends, carrying on in friendship for the rest of their lives what had begun as a purely strategic alliance. The friendship and cooperation between the two nations during this period of history is now little remembered in the wake of 45 years of ill will fostered during the Cold War (1946 to 1991), and recent resurging tensions between Russia and the United States.

Yet, in many ways, our two countries continue to rediscover the benefits of cooperation, as the rebuilding of economic and social bridges continues. Today, therefore, it is important to remind Alaskans and other peace-seeking citizens of the U.S. Lend-Lease Program and Soviet­–American war cooperation of the 1940s. Beyond the achievement of victory in World War II, the Alaska–Siberia Lend-Lease Program established a tradition of cooperation across the Bering Strait that continues to this day in the form of various intergovernmental agreements, including the Shared Beringian Heritage Program of the U.S. National Park Service, and numerous ongoing people-to-people cultural and economic exchanges. 

At the present time, both in Russia and the United States, much research has been conducted and many documentary films, books, scholarly works, and popular articles have been released that shed light on the U.S. Lend-Lease Program, including the unique Alaska–Siberia Air ferry route, which was unprecedented in world history prior to World War II and has not been duplicated since.

Undoubtedly, the program played a vital part in the defeat of Nazi Germany and its Axis powers. The architects of the hallmark Lend-Lease Agreement and Protocols and conceived the ALSIB route deserve modern-day accolades, as do the American and Russian veterans who risked their lives to ensure the Lend-Lease deliveries were completed.

In a letter dated March 22, 2001, to US Senators Ted Stevens and Frank Murkowski in support of the construction of the WWII Alaska-Siberia Lend-Lease Memorial in Fairbanks, Stanley B. Gwizdak, Jr., then Acting Chairman of the Interior Veteran’s Coalition of Alaska, wrote:

“It is important, I believe, for the Russian and American people to recall and to celebrate a common heroic effort in combating a treacherous enemy during a daunting and terrible time when the outcome of that war was very much in doubt for both of us. This was not just the effort of Armies, Navies and Air Forces, but also the entire mobilization of both nations industrially, politically and spiritually. Our group still has those who remember this war and we are proud to endorse the Fairbanks memorial as well as all others.”

The heroism of American and Soviet pilots who flew Lend-Lease combat aircraft from the United States to the Soviet Union during World War II, and of all who participated in this endeavor, will always be remembered.

Alexander B. Dolitsky was born and raised in Kiev in the former Soviet Union. He received an M.A. in history from Kiev Pedagogical Institute, Ukraine, in 1976; an M.A. in anthropology and archaeology from Brown University in 1983; and was enroled in the Ph.D. program in Anthropology at Bryn Mawr College from 1983 to 1985, where he was also a lecturer in the Russian Center. In the U.S.S.R., he was a social studies teacher for three years, and an archaeologist for five years for the Ukranian Academy of Sciences. In 1978, he settled in the United States. Dolitsky visited Alaska for the first time in 1981, while conducting field research for graduate school at Brown. He lived first in Sitka in 1985 and then settled in Juneau in 1986. From 1985 to 1987, he was a U.S. Forest Service archaeologist and social scientist. He was an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Russian Studies at the University of Alaska Southeast from 1985 to 1999; Social Studies Instructor at the Alyeska Central School, Alaska Department of Education from 1988 to 2006; and has been the Director of the Alaska-Siberia Research Center (see www.aksrc.homestead.com) from 1990 to present. He has conducted about 30 field studies in various areas of the former Soviet Union (including Siberia), Central Asia, South America, Eastern Europe and the United States (including Alaska). Dolitsky has been a lecturer on the World Discoverer, Spirit of Oceanus, and Clipper Odyssey vessels in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. He was the Project Manager for the WWII Alaska-Siberia Lend Lease Memorial, which was erected in Fairbanks in 2006. He has published extensively in the fields of anthropology, history, archaeology, and ethnography. His more recent publications include Fairy Tales and Myths of the Bering Strait Chukchi, Ancient Tales of Kamchatka; Tales and Legends of the Yupik Eskimos of Siberia; Old Russia in Modern America: Russian Old Believers in Alaska; Allies in Wartime: The Alaska-Siberia Airway During WWII; Spirit of the Siberian Tiger: Folktales of the Russian Far East; Living Wisdom of the Far North: Tales and Legends from Chukotka and Alaska; Pipeline to Russia; The Alaska-Siberia Air Route in WWII; and Old Russia in Modern America: Living Traditions of the Russian Old Believers; Ancient Tales of Chukotka, and Ancient Tales of Kamchatka.