Alaska Film Archives

Alaska Division: Great Falls to Fairbanks
Alaska Division: Great Falls to Fairbanks
This is an Army Air Corps training film for crews ferrying aircraft from Great Falls, Montana to Fairbanks, Alaska, where Soviet pilots then took possession of the airplanes. The aircraft were part of the Lend-Lease program in which the United States sent war supplies to the Soviet Union during World War II. Footage includes graphics showing the route, aerial views of runways along the route, views of runways during landings, and graphics advising pilots of procedures for aborting flights. During the life of the Lend-Lease project, nearly 8,000 planes flew along this route, also known as the Alaska-Siberia (ALSIB) route, from Montana to Alaska then on to Krasnoyarsk in Siberia. The film was made by the U.S. Army Air Forces Air Transport Command Overseas Technical Unit.