[1] The ATG brought together for the first time into a joint effort members of these ethnic groups: Aleut, Athabaskan, White, Inupiaq, Haida, Tlingit, Tsimshian, Yupik, and most likely others.

Before World War II, Alaska was regarded by US military decision makers as too distant from the contiguous United States to effectively protect, and of little strategic importance.

[13] "...the mainland of Alaska is so remote from the strategic areas of the Pacific that it is difficult to conceive of circumstances in which air operations therefrom would contribute materially to the national defense."

The real honest-to-God and real-world first line of defense in Alaska ... nearer our opponent, Communist Russia, than any other armed troops in the United States."

In the face of an encroaching enemy, the defense of nearly 34,000 miles (55,000 km) of US coastline was left to the best efforts of unorganized local citizens and already overworked seasonal laborers.

In the early months of 1942, a Japanese Navy reconnaissance unit was caught on film making detailed surveys of Alaska coastline.

[17] Enemy aircraft and submarine sightings were common, inspiring great fear among the locals,[18] and culminating in the raid on Dutch Harbor and the occupation of the Aleutian Islands of Attu, Kiska and Adak that June.

By the time of the Dutch Harbor bombing, Major Marvin R Marston had submitted a new plan to defend the entire Alaska coast by enlisting the local citizens.

[16] Motivated by the recent Dutch Harbor attack, the Alaska Command assigned Major Marston and Captain Carl Schreibner within days to serve as military aides to Governor Gruening.

[7] The enrollment drive continued into early 1943, the organizers travelling in all kinds of weather and by every available mode of transport, including airplane, boat, snowmobile, foot, and the most reliable means in the region, dogsled.

When a promised plane failed to arrive after a week, Major Marston set out by dogsled on an epic 680-mile (1,090 km) trip around the Seward Peninsula, during the coldest winter in 25 years.

[23] Thanks to Marston and Mogg's heroic effort, the ATG stood as a first line of defense for the terrain around the Lend-Lease route from America to the Soviet Union, against an attack by Japan and the Axis Powers.

Explicit within the ATG mission was that of protecting the terrain around the American terminus of the Lend-Lease air route to Russia on which warplanes were flown from Great Falls, Montana to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada, then to Ladd Field, Alaska (now Fort Wainwright) and on to Nome.

Other field staff were located in Anchorage, Koyuk, Selawik and Gambell (on Saint Lawrence Island, where Major Marston first conceived his plan).

The Alaska Territorial Guard was drawn from 107 communities and from these ethnic groups: Aleut, Athabascan, White, Inupiaq, Haida, Tlingit, Tsimshian, Yup'ik, and probably more.

The ATG actively and successfully promoted racial integration in the US Army by proving the worth of native Americans as soldiers within US military forces[51] much as the Navajo, Comanche and Choctaw Code talkers did elsewhere during World War II.