I'll Not Discharge These Women - They are my Sharpshooters!
Contributed by Cole Suellyn Wright Novak
The Alaska Territorial Guard(ATG), a.k.a., Tundra Army or Eskimo Scouts, was formed in the spring of 1942 as a replacement for the federalized 297th Infantry Battalion. Major Marvin "Muktuk" Marston, an Army Air Forces officer assigned to Fort Richardson, was selected to recruit "Uncle Sam Men" of the predominantly Eskimo villages west of the 154th Parallel along the Bering and Arctic coasts. In the next three years he traveled untold miles by fishing boat, dog sled and on foot to distribute surplus Model 1917 Enfield rifles, two boxes of .30-06 ammunition, and a cobalt blue patch. Marston established a defense force from Barrow to Bristol Bay, composed of almost entirely Alaska Natives. In addition to a number of Euro-Americans, these recruits came from the Tlingit, Aleut, Tsimshian, Haida, and Athabascan communities, the Yup'ik and Inupiaq peoples of the Bering Sea and Arctic Coastline.
More than 6,300 indigenous men and women, ages 12-80, joined up. these unpaid sentries ,"The Eyes and Ears" of Alaska, learned military drills, and how to operate communications systems.. They reported Japanese planes, sand hips and found pieces of 50 of the Japanese Incendiary Balloons. They protected our 6,640-mile coastline.
Territorial Governor Ernest Gruening happily received the first rosters from Major Marston, but roared when he found two women's names. He told Marston to get rid of them, there were no women soldiers. Marston replied as the title states and refused, as Laura Wright had scored 99 bulls eyes out of 100, and the second woman had scored 97 out of a hundred. They stayed in the ATG. There were many women who served in other support/administrative roles in the ATG, but those names do not appear on the official rosters.
The ATG also had units in Southeast Alaska and well as everything east of the 158th Parallel, established by Capt Carl Scheibner from Juneau. He was a WW I veteran and understood military organization. The Capt was well-liked and traveled extensively, but he was overshadowed by the taller, larger than life, brash and flamboyant Major Marston.
The ATG proved vital in securing areas around the lend-lease transport route (also known as the Alaska-Siberia (ALSIB) air ferry route. This Northwest Ferry Route began in Great Falls MT and flew through Canadian Provinces to Ladd Field near Fairbanks. The planes were turned over to the Soviet pilots who then flew on to Nome and across to Siberia. The ATG also safeguarded the village of Platinum, home to a mine supplying the sole Western Hemisphere source of this strategic metal. The members also cached survival supplies along transportation routes essential for our forces. Then their duties expanded to include transport of supplies and equipment, building ATG structures, breaking hundreds of miles of trails, set up and repair of dozens of emergency shelter cabins, and distributed emergency food and ammunition containers for the US Navy. ATG members learned fire-fighting skills, and how to conduct land and sea rescues.
Marston and Schreibner's ATG contributed to Alaska as it became the basis for the modern Alaska National Guard in 1949. Most of these unpaid volunteers have now passed into the mists. May we never forget their service and sacrifice!