Tanacross, AK

Not far from Tok (12 miles northwest toward Fairbanks) on the banks of the Tanana River is the small Indian village of Tanacross. It is the home of the Tinneh or Tanan, Athabascan Indian.

In the mid 1930’s an airfield was built across the river from the village. In 1942 the village gave permission to use the airfield for emergency deployment during WWII. The airfield was repaved, upgraded to two runways, a temporary camp established and thousands of troops were stationed there. This became an important US military post during the war and became part of the Alaskan-Siberia (ALSIB) route.

With Canadian cooperation, newly manufactured planes from Gore Field and Great Falls, Montana made their way to Alaska via the Northwest staging route. Part of this staging route was Tanacross. The planes final destination was Ladd Field where Russian pilots took command of the planes and flew them to Siberia and onto the Western Front. This was all part of the Lend-Lease Project. There were 7,926 planes that were transferred to Russia between 1942 & 1945.

Very interesting…right? The most interesting part is that most of these planes were flown by women! In my research on this airfield, there is a footnote in The WWII Heritage of Ladd Field stating that women (WASP) pilots only flew them from the manufacture to Gore Field, Montana. But, several of those women pilots have come through Tok asking about the airfield and have said that they had flown the bombers into that airfield!

Although the airfield is only used by the US Forestry, you can drive around …and take pictures!