What is the history of Cold Bay, Alaska?
Although there is evidence of prehistoric occupation by the native Aleuts, and later records of Russian encampments in the Cold Bay area, its American history began as a part of the response to the Japanese invasion of the Aleutians in World War II. General William Brucker ordered the creation of Fort Randall, an airbase on the shores of Cold Bay, in 1942 as a part of a general expansion of American assets in the Aleutians. http://www.daileyint.com/flying/flywar7.htm Later, with the victory in the Pacific, the forces grew to 20,000 troops. The quonset huts used to house this massive encampment still stand around the community today. In later decades, control of the airfield passed to civil authority who maintaned it as a particularly useful location for fuelling and emergency landing needs on great circle flights from the west coast of the US to Eastern Asia. A DEW line station was established nearby and eventually was decommissioned. With the Reagan era, privatization of the airline i
