Alaska was large, sparsely inhabited, and lacking in infrastructure in 1941, a condition that is still largely true today. It was purchased by the United States from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million dollars, provoking criticism from politicians who thought that even two cents an acre (Alaska has a total land area of 570,374 square miles) was too much for frozen wasteland.
A military presence was established as early as 1898 with the founding of Fort Kodiak. However, Alaskan forces were still small at the outbreak of war, consisting of four infantry regiments, a few small warships based at Kodiak Island and Juneau and a few aircraft based near Anchorage.
The southern coast of Alaska, particularly the Aleutian island chain, lies very close to the great circle route from the Pacific Northwest to Japan, suggesting that the territory would have great strategic significance in the war. In fact, the climate of the Aleutians was vicious enough to make large-scale military operations all but impossible. The Japanese seized Attu and Kiska in the western Aleutians, and the Americans expended considerable resources effort to drive them out, but the hope that the Aleutians would be a highway to the Kuriles and Japan itself was ill-founded. Alaska remained a secondary theater throughout the war.
References
The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia (c) 2007 by Kent G. Budge. Index
