Navy Town

 Second World War 1939-1945, closed / former military, United States Navy

The naval facilities southeast of the Fort Randall Army airbase were collectively called "Navy Town." This facility included a dispersed hospital complex of Quonset huts connected by wood frame corridors. The hospital site plan was one that would become standard in the Aleutians with modifications made to fit the topography.

As the war in the Aleutians moved west in 1942-1943 installations in the Eastern Aleutians such as Cold Bay and Dutch Harbor declined in strategic value. The facilities at Cold Bay were quickly phased-out and by March 1945 a considerable portion of the facilities at Cold Bay were abandoned and in a state of disrepair. These deteriorated facilities were turned over to the Navy in March 1945 to serve as a base for the Hula-Two project.

The Navy Town hospital, that had been a station hospital, became an important community service for Hula-Two. During the project 440 patients were hospitalized for 2,725 patient days. Of the 440 patients 102 required surgery with appendicitis the most common surgery. The Russians were four times more likely to require appendicitis surgery than American naval personnel. There were three deaths during Hula-Two, one American and two Russians. The American and one Russian died of coronary thrombosis while the second Russian died of intra-cranial hemorrhage. There were no epidemics at Cold Bay. With the termination of the Hula-Two project Cold Bay was reduced in status and soon after the war turned over to a caretaker force. A small station was maintained at the airfield but the rest of the installations were secured and left to wither in the rain, wind, and adverse weather of this region.

Much of Navy Town was collapsed or deteriorated by 1984 and in 1985 Navy Town was razed as part of the Department of Defense Environmental Restoration Program. Only depressions in the tundra where the buildings were located remain.

cdn.loc.gov/master/pnp/habshaer/ak/ak0200/ak0207/data/a...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hula
www.carolhipperson.com/Chapter19RadiomanBonusPhotos.htm...