Fort Abercrombie State Historical Park

I’ve mentioned about hiking several trails that are located inside Ft. Abercrombie State Park, those being the Lake Gertrude trail and park side trail. There is much more to this park and tonight I hiked from the house into the park and ended up at Miller Point were the two 8’ guns once were the big firepower of this coastal defense installation, it is a nice 3 mile hike there and back. Ft. Abercrombie was started in 1939 along with several other Forts and coastal defense installations set up to protect the Navy base that is now the Coast Guard Base. Kodiak was chosen for two reasons, one was it remained ice free during the winter and also it was a deep water port that ships didn’t have to line up like sitting ducks if attacked. They could zig zag out and be in deep water in a short amount of time. But I digress, back to the park. If you walk the beaten paths and trails you see some beautiful coastal rain forest that I have posted here several times. But it’s off the beaten paths that you delve into a world that’s rich in military history even though it is just remnants and skeletons of the past. Last year one of the curators of the Kodiak Military History Museum (located at the Fort) gave a walking tour of the park and one of the first things we did was duck under some branches and set our own path through the forest. Here he showed us the hidden Fort which consists of recreation buildings, warehouses, sleeping quarters, searchlight installations and much more. Only thing is you need to have a good imagination because most of the above list doesn’t exist anymore, you have to imagine the Quonset hut standing in the 40’ by 20’ squared off area with no trees and little growth, or the squared off area that all that remains are some pipes sticking up that was the plumbing. I took a few shots today of the structures that do remain and again with a little imagination you can picture these places 67 years ago during WW II.







This is the mossed over foundation of a warehouse were tools and auto parts were stored, its located in area where the motor pool used to be













This building housed a generator, there were lots of generator rooms because this was the only source of electricity especially for the quarters for the men. This one is located near the officers quarters.







Its interesting to note that when the Sea-Bees arrived (from Rhode Island by the way) there first and foremost task was to build the defence installation after that they build quarters to sleep in. Needless to say that the first winter they slept in cold make shift Quonset huts and tents, so having a little electricity to power the lights was a God send for reading and writing letters back home.

This was the foundation for a water tank for the shower area near the officer quarters, again a heated shower to these guys was probably the highlight of their day.

This is a searchlight control room, this is where the men operated the searchlight from. The light was located a few hundred yards away (you didn't want to be sitting on top of the light if they were shooting at you). I took this last summer while we took the walking tour, the curator (center) is explaining the function to the boy & girl (right) and the rest of the people

It was important to stay camouflaged seeing as the Japanese were so close by in Kiska and Attu. Here we have a non-descript hill on the point

Once on the other side you realize this is a building, actually a battery that held the ready ammo for those two 8" guns I mentioned. This is also the site of the Kodiak Military History Museum. These battery's and bunkers are strune throughout Kodiak and I failed to mention on yesterdays hike I must have passed a dozen or so.

Soon I will do a blog on the museum itself, it has some great WW II stuff and is another must visit when in Kodiak. Being from the lower 48 its hard to fathom the thought that the Japanese invaded and occupied American soil, sure we all know they attacked us (Pearl Harbor) but here in Alaska they actually occupied.