Adak, End of the World.

This is one of many Navy stories I'll pass along from time to time.

You that are lucky have never heard of Adak. Some of you have seen the 'crab fishing' series on satellite TV..well, Adak is 500 or 700 miles further west of where they fish or crab...awful weather. We were a lot closer to Siberia than we were to Alaska..

Anyway, I got there in early 1968. Looking out the window of our plane after a very long ride, my first impression was that I was so far from Texas that I could never get back again. I was almost right.

No trees, just tundra grass. Adak is about the 3rd island from the end of the Aleutian chain. Dismal doesn't come close to a description.

We had 9 patrol planes, searching for Russian subs and monitoring all other vessels, mostly Japanese fish processing ships.

We found two Russian 'Whiskey' subs, diesel boats in the far north Pacific and one nuclear sub under the polar ice cap. A fair number of fish-factories and such, but flying conditions were horrible.

In WWII, the Japanese invaded and occupied Attu and Kiska, just west of us, but Adak was never invaded. We used to walk from our barraks to the hanger to work. One place we had to walk had good stepping stones, until we found out they were WWII land mines. Defused, they said, but all the others scattered about were still functional. Just another day in Adak.
After about 2 months, a loud commotion came thru the barracks..."So & So is down in the head,(bathroom) and cutting his wrists..."
Lot'sa guys went to help...this guy was sitting in his underwear, crying and sawing on his wrists with his dull work knife. Lots of care and concern was given....two months later, another guy repeated the show...this one was offered a sharper knife...
Depression, awful weather and constant work will wear some down. A normal day was snow, fog, 50+ wind...
Our small hanger held 3 planes at most, usually we had to push work stands out thru 12" of snow and work with a flashlight under our arm. I worked graveyards, 11:00pm till 7:00am, but we got a lot of work done because most officers were not around.
Our barracks were warm, that much I'll say...but the 'recreation room' was a bunch of broken vinyl chairs that showed movies like 'Red Tomahawk' over and over.
An old, very old, cargo ship brought supplies to the island on a 2 or 3 week schedule, mainly when we saw it coming, we knew it was there.
Our galley (food fixing place) lost the ability to function for a few weeks..so we ate 1954 issued C-rations...dried eggs from the '50's were just a delight...except when I went to our galley for breakfast and the first dozen eggs they put on the griddle turned green on hitting the grill....it's hard to eat that next one after seeing that...but it's not an option if they serve it to you...
Oh well....Adak was Adak...I have a lot's more stories if anyone wants to hear them..like the time...well, later..
Thanks for your time.