Acting on this information (from part I of this series) Chief of Naval Operations proceeded to establish operational bases at Kodiak and Dutch Harbor. But work on the proposed submarine bases was not begun until after the war's outbreak.

Repair facilities installed at Kodiak were to equal those of a submarine tender, and the shops and living quarters erected at this base were designed to accommodate one squadron of S-boats Dutch Harbor was also set up to provide normal base facilities for a squadron of six S-class submarines. As the war went forward, action eventually centered around Attu and Kiska, and Kodiak's importance as a submarine base diminished. Dutch Harbor became the chief submarine base in the Aleutians.

However, at the beginning of World War II, Dutch Harbor bore a close resemblance to those frosty gold-rush towns featured in wolf & dog team movies. Arriving in this bleak port on 27 January 1942 the submarines S-18 (Lt. W. J. Millican) and S-23 (Lt. J. R. Pierce) were to be the first to conduct pioneer war patrols in the area.

It was a rugged area for pioneering -- a wilderness of gray, blizzardswept seas studded by islands as inhospitable as rocks. The days were brief and the nights bitter black, deafened by wind howl and the thunder of surf. Across the archipelago unpredictable storms raged in sudden tantrums. Worse were the fogs which curdled over the reefs like the blinding vapors of ammonia.

In the boreal water the submarines shivered. A business of constant dunking was necessary to de-ice the scope & scour the frozen snow bergs from bridge and decks. In the tropical Pacific the S-boaters had prayed for air-conditioning. Now in this arctic limbo, their prayers were for steam heat.

Aboard S-23, beginning her first Aleutian patrol on 7 February, Lt. Pierce & crew slept in their clothing to keep warm. Compartments on the boat were as cold and dank as duck blinds in a marsh. At the same time there was enough `body warmth' in the submarine's hull to cause a heavy condensation of atmospheric moisture when the boat submerged under the icy waves. Cold sweat dripped in a constant rain from the bulkheads, wetting everything inside the sub.