Prior to 1985, Whittier served as the all-weather port for the metropolis of Anchorage, a city whose own harbor on Cook Inlet is choked with ice for five months of the year. Whittier was connected by the Alaska Railroad with Anchorage was only accessible by rail, it had no road access when the Great War of 1985 was fought. Primarily a railroad ferry, barge port, and cruise ship stop, Whittier’s entire year round population of circa 300 lived in a single large, WW2 era building, the Begich Tower. Occupied the day after the Soviet invasion in 1985, a Soviet engineer company garrisoned the town. The Soviet Army evacuated the town’s civilian population by the beginning of October, with the intent of reopening the port for use as a logistical point for the Soviet enclave. This hope was dashed in the general nuclear exchange later that month, and the Soviet troops evacuated the town by the beginning of November 1985. Whittier would remain a ghost town for the next twenty years.
Not until June 17, 2005 would there be a permanent population again living in the old town. Rear Admiral R.E. Ffolkes, RN chose the port as his temporary base for his blockade of Russian Valdez, Alaska across Prince William Sound. Originally hired by Duke of Valdez to fight the neighboring town of Cordova, a scuffled broke out when the intoxicated son of the duke groped crewmember Joanna Kowalski, and was shot dead by Robert Allen for his effrontery. In the ensuing melee, the Valdez waterfront was burned the ground and Ffolkes and his crew escaped. Ffolkes found Whittier’s location well placed for his purposes and set up a small base camp there.
Using the port as a base, admiral planned a series of attacks on Valdez and its interests along the south coast of Alaska. The first target of Ffolkes’ wrath was the community of Homer. While not ruled by the Russians, this community located near the southern end of the Kenai Peninsula, had long been an ally of Valdez, notorious for levying tolls on all commerce entering the Cook Inlet or sailing westward. The Homer Guard Boat, a ten gun sailing sloop, the most powerful vessel in the area at the time was Ffolkes’ target.
On June 21, the first Royal Navy vessel constructed in North America since 1985 was laid down by Ffolkes’ crew. The semi-suicide semi-submersible U-1 was constructed out of scrap lumber and old bicycle parts. A vessel somewhat resembling the Confederate submersible H.L. Hunley built out wood, the cigar-shaped craft was crewed by three men, a commanding officer/helmsman and two men on bicycle seats to pedal. The vessel was not fully submergible: its pilothouse was to remain out of water at all times. The plan was for the U-1 plant limpet mines on the Guard Boat while it was at anchor in the Homer harbor. The crudely constructed vessel was completed in a single day, using parts of small boats found at Whittier/
Five days later, on July 26, theU-1, which had been towed by the Alaska I to Kachemak Bay, was sent in to attack the Guardboat. Acting Lieutenant Frank Taylor was in command. The vessel was pedaled by two native volunteers from Tatitlek. Striking a rock on the way into harbor, theU-1 sank with both of the pedallers still at their stations, both of whom drown. Lieutenant Taylor escaped the sinking craft, only to be shot dead by a sentry standing on the breakwater when he refused to surrender. After this fiasco, Admiral Ffolkes realized that he needed a cadre of skilled boatwrights if he wished to carry out his plans.
The war against the Valdez Russians paled in significance as word that a Sitka privateer/pirate ship, the Alexander Archipelago 20, captured an Imperial Japanese Navy Sloop, the Ioshima 16, off Kodiak Island on July 29. The Japanese crewmen boasted of Japanese plans to conquer Alaska before the Sitka sailors cut their throats and dumped their bodies into the North Pacific. On August 6, the Alexander Archipelago stopped at Whittier to sell some of its plunder, and the ship’s captain told Admiral Ffolkes of the Japanese sailor’s boasts. Admiral Ffolkes quickly decided that the threat of the Japanese to North America was the most significant challenge to British royal authority since 1985. A council of war, held on August 21, devised the idea of the Alaska League, an organization of sovereign states acting in concert to thwart the evil Orientals. Ffolkes invited all Alaskan leaders to a conference in Whittier to begin September 21. The same council of war, prompted by Ffolkes, decided to build a massive ironclad battleship in Whittier, to be named the H.M.S. Phoenix.
Ffolkes began to take measures to increase the fighting power of the forces he had. On August 23 he traded the Alaska I and a large mound of seasoned scrap lumber to a Sitka consortium for the Alaska II 16. At the same time, plans were going ahead for the construction of the Phoenix, with the conversion of the old ferry dock to a slip to build it upon.
Political changes in the Anchorage Bowl brought on by an invasion by the Russians of the Matanuska-Susitna Valley led to the domination of the whole area by the Fundamentalist Loopers embroiled the Royal Navy in a war against the fanatics who captured and confiscated a large depot of salvaged material for the construction of the Phoenix. On September 13, Ffolkes, commanding Alaska II, cut out and sailed off with Bayshore's floating pier, isolating the Loopers from the outside world. One week later, the Loopers completed an improvised warship at Bayshore, built with the aid of every carpenter they can find, naming it The Hand of God. This so-called fighting vessel was cobbled together out of scrap lumber and old condo siding, in a week, by people who completely lacked any knowledge of boat building. It fell apart when it fired its first broadside. Almost the entire crew, though muddy, cold, and wet, managed to wade ashore.
Ffolkes’ conference opened as scheduled on September 21. Delegates from many Alaskan communities voted the formation of the Alaska League, with Admiral Ffolkes elected its first President and Commander-in-Chief. The founding members of the league included Whittier, Tatitlik, Seward, Kenai, Hope, Soldotna, Cordova, Juneau, Ketchikan, Haines, Angoon, and Petersburg. Prince Rupert was an associated member. Sitka, Homer, Valdez, and Kodiak refused to join.
The war with Loopers continued. They launched an attack on Whittier on September 24 through the Alaska Railroad Tunnel. The invaders took the people of Whittier by surprise, nearly reaching the Phoenix's construction site before being driven off by the Royal Marines and armed sailors.
By the end of Spetember, the communities of southeast Alaska provided some timber and a total of five hundred shipwrights and artisans to speed the construction of the Phoenix. Among Juneau's contingent is Shawn Cromett, the representative of Cromett Heavy Industries, a sawmill and shipping company. He promptly revealed himself to Admiral Ffolkes as the Queen's Commissioner for the Eastern Territories. Ffolkes appointed Cromett General of the League Ground Forces.
The population of the town mushroomed to over 5,000 construction workers, sailors, and marines. Begich Towers, a battered and derelict structure was refurbished as a barracks, and the railroad ferry dock was walled in with a mole, pumped dry, and cleared of the wrecks that littered the bottom of its basin. The Phoenix would be built on the site of the old boat harbor.
The H.M.S. Phoenix was designed from the beginning to be built as much as possible with objects and materials found in Whittier itself, under the direction of then Commander Charles E. Harbuck, RN. Armor plate was improvised from the steel walls of an old military tank farm, hulls of railroad barges sunk there, and railroad box cars. Interior compartments, fuel tanks, and boilers were constructed from complete railroad tank cars emplaced in the hull. The main hull structure was built of poorly seasoned Sitka spruce cut in and provided by the communities of southeast Alaska and British Columbia.
The Phoenix was built almost entirely by people with few skills in metalworking. A levy of 500 shipwrights from the yards in Juneau, Sitka, Ketchikan, and Prince Rupert provided the backbone of the labor force. These men had no experience in working with metal, being wood vessel builders. Blacksmiths, supplemented by Commander Harbuck, later augmented by the small surviving cadre of foundry men from the destroyed Abbott Loop community, directed the armor plate making. Harbuck supervised the casting of the guns.
Command at Sea TN Ship Forms for the Phoenix in .pdf format.
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