The feat of the home front workers of the «Alaska - Siberia» ferry route

Abstract

During the Great Patriotic War, the entire Soviet people stood up to defend their homeland. All the resources of the country were mobilized to repulse the enemy. The paper is devoted to home front workers who during the Great Patriotic War carried out an important task of the State Defense Committee to arrange the supply of combat aircraft under lend-lease from the United States to the Soviet Union along a shorter route through Alaska, Chukotka, Eastern Siberia to Krasnoyarsk and further to the front, where fighters and bombers were needed, which the Red Army badly needed, especially in the initial period of the war. In harsh climatic and natural conditions, inaccessible deserted areas, where delivery of equipment and building materials was difficult, aviation specialists and local residents managed to build airfields in a short time, the construction of which would have taken 5 years in peaceful time. The pilots of the Alaska-Siberia ferry route, showing courage and heroism, made flights in extreme conditions, mastered new equipment and eliminated malfunctions of American aircraft, poorly adapted to work in low temperatures. The flight crew, aviation specialists and local residents did everything to help the front and defeat fascism.