Cape Field / Umnak Airport

 airport, Second World War 1939-1945

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Cape Field at Fort Glenn (Umnak Island), also known as Umnak Airport, is a site significant for its role in World War II fighting. It provided aerial defensive cover for the U.S. bases in Unalaska Bay and is the most comprehensive and intact World War II base in the Aleutian Islands.

Constructed between January and April 1942, Cape Field's first runway was then the U.S. Army's most westerly airfield in the Aleutian Islands. In June 1942 aircraft from Cape Field participated in a counterattack after the Japanese attacked the Dutch Harbor naval and army installations on nearby Amaknak Island. It also served as the initial forward base to launch bombing attacks on Japanese installations on Attu and Kiska islands.

By the close of 1942, Fort Glenn had 10,579 personnel, but its role as an advanced air base had been supplanted by facilities on Adak Island farther to the west. Buildings, runways, and World War II artillery emplacements remain. It was decommissioned in 1950 and declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987.

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www.hlswilliwaw.com/aleutians/umnak-homepage.htm