Whittier, Alaska, aka H-12
This odd little town nestled on the shore of the scenic Passage Canal of Prince William Sound has some tall tales to tell and the most unbelievable thing is that they’re all absolutely true. Its beginnings were simple enough; it was originally a portage route for the Chugach people that are native to Prince William Sound and later the route was used by Russian and American explorers and prospecting miners during the Klondike Gold Rush. It was just a place to pass through for a long time until the US Army came along. What began as a secret base, which drove the miraculous construction of a railway through a mountain, became a town that tenaciously held its place along this shore through a World War, a Cold War and a devastating earthquake and resulting tsunami.
Today, this port welcomes cruise ships and train tours instead of troop ships and launches glacier tour excursions and fishing boats instead of submarines. It still holds onto its odd privacy though, only having access via the water or the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel, which now one can travel through by train or car, but only during the day, once an hour, one way at a time, in turn. This conditional opening allows visitors to come to Whittier, but the town still keeps its mystique, at least from 11:00 pm to 5:30 am when the tunnel is closed.
Driving through a railroad tunnel is a whole new experience for us and I would assume most people, since this is not a real common situation. The tunnel is the engineering masterpiece of Anton Anderson, you may have guessed that by the tunnel’s current name. What is remarkable, other than being the longest combined rail highway in North America, is that construction of the tunnel began in November 1941, amid two-story-high snow drifts and completed in just ONE year. That’s 3 miles of digging in subzero temps in a very short amount of time.
Now, this is where the story of this town drifts away from “just passing through” and to the US Army. If you were paying any attention at all in history class you may remember December 7th, 1941 as the date that will live in infamy, pushing the US into World War 2. Even before the infamous date, there was a strategic concern for America’s then Territory of Alaska and it’s easy accessibility to the Empire of Japan’s military reach. In his History Net article: Whittier, Alaska: A Tiny City Born of War, Brendan Sainsbury states:
“If it wasn’t for the foul weather, this peculiar little Alaskan port would never have existed in the first place. Shortly before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr., the American general in charge of Alaska’s nascent Defense Command, began looking for a location for a secret military installation to ferry troops and cargo to the growing hubs of Anchorage and Fairbanks in the Alaskan interior, where strategically important airfields and army facilities were being built. Buckner’s proposed base had three provisos: access to an ice-free deep-water port, natural protection from airstrikes, and radar-unfriendly topography. The rugged nodule of land at the head of Passage Canal, with its seemingly omnipresent clouds and impassable mountains, fit the bill perfectly.”
With the attack at Pearl Harbor, construction of the tunnel went into overdrive and the establishment of H-12, the secret base that is now Whittier, bloomed into the harbor. H-12 housed over 1,200 personnel at its’ peak of operation with no civilian personnel allowed. Its existence was officially kept secret. The build up of US military facilities was happening in haste and just in the mick of time. Our eyes were truly opened to the large part Alaska had in WW2 during our visit to the Prince William Sound Museum in Whittier. Seems like the bigger stories and the Hollywood movie accounts of the war in the Pacific always focus on the South Pacific, while the North Pacific was left largely out of the limelight. It came as a shock to me to learn that so much action had taken place on this American territory. The Japanese bombed Dutch Harbor just 7 months after attacking Pearl Harbor and occupied the islands Attu and Kiska off Alaska's coast taking the villagers there as prisoners of war. The battle of Attu was brutal and the only land battle in which Japanese and American forces fought in snowy conditions.
After the war ended, H-12 could have met the fate of many decommissioned military posts no longer needed, but then along came the Cold War.
Did you know that the narrowest distance between mainland Russia and mainland Alaska is approximately 55 miles? Did you also know that in the Bering Strait, are two small islands: Big Diomede which is owned by Russia and Little Diomede which is owned by the US and the stretch of water between these two islands is only about 2.5 miles wide. In the winter the water between these two islands freezes over making it technically possible walk between the US to Russia. So, the U.S. military decided to bolster the H-12 garrison rather than abandon it and built a 275,000 square foot, 6 story “city under one roof” to accommodate over 1,000 army personnel. It had everything, including a theater, bowling alley and a jail. It completed construction in 1953, then the Hodge building was completed in 1957 containing 150 two-and-three-bedroom apartments plus bachelor efficiency units. So, H-12/Camp Sullivan/Whittier clung on with the army operating the port until 1960.
On Good Friday, March 27th, 1964, Alaska experienced the largest earthquake ever recorded in North America. The magnitude 9.2–9.3 quake lasted four minutes and thirty-eight seconds and killed 139 people. Whittier was severely damaged when it was struck by a 43-foot tsunami wave which killed 13 of its citizens. The community had a rough path to recovery, but hung on.
Whittier incorporated as a town in 1969 and in 2000, the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel opened to vehicle traffic and this once isolated city began to receive visitors in earnest. Large cruise ships began docking in the port and 100-passenger tour boats began taking passengers on excursions into the sound.
The Hodge building has been updated and still houses nearly all of the 200 or so permanent residents that call this odd and tenacious little town home. The experience of Whittier is to say the least, unusual, from the railroad tunnel drive in, to the hulking ruin of the old Buckner Building to the natural wonders of the sound and surrounding mountains, it is a one-of-a-kind place.
