The facility was designated a National Historic Landmark for its role in World War II, although most of its elements from that period have been demolished or lie in ruins.

Despite the first loss of U.S. soil to a foreign enemy since the War of 1812, the campaign was not considered a priority by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

A very quick survey of the coast located a tidal marsh which had a firm foundation of sand and gravel beneath it.

Work began on 2 September with the construction of an enclosing dike around the marsh and a system of drainage canals drain off the water, followed by scraping off the topsoil to reach the gravel underneath.

The Japanese forces on Attu, (430 miles from Adak) however, remained only within the range of the B-24 Liberators, although the P-38s could fly escort missions.

Several cargo ships and minesweepers were hit with the harbor facilities and float planes taking a considerable beating.

Aircraft from Adak flew constant combat air patrols over Amchitka against attacking Japanese Rufe fighter-bombers from Kiska and longer-range bombers from Attu.

18th Fighter Squadron P-40 Warhawks began to arrive from Adak and surprised the Japanese by launching counterattacks to their raids.

From its bases on Amchitka and Adak, Eleventh Air Force conducted continual bombing raids on the Japanese on Kiska and Attu.

The battle, which lasted for more than two weeks, ended when most of the Japanese defenders were killed in brutal hand-to-hand combat after a final banzai charge broke through American lines.

Additional airfields were established at Alexai Point on Attu and on Shemya with a mission to carry out very long range B-24 Liberator strikes on the Kurile Islands, but otherwise, the Aleutians became the forgotten front.

[3] Headquarters, Eleventh Air Force was moved to Adak in August 1943 to provide operational control of the raids against the Kurile Islands.

Other than the B-24 operations against Japan, the remainder of Eleventh Air Force personnel simply counted the days until their reassignment elsewhere.

With the long-range Radar-Equipped Twin Mustangs operating from Davis, AAC moved the 625th AC&W Squadron to Elmendorf AFB on 1 July 1948 where it was attached to the 57th Fighter Wing.

The runway remained open to transient aircraft, but on 30 June 1950 the base was officially closed by the Air Force.

On 1 July 1950, the Air Force transferred Davis AFB to the United States Navy who established an anti-submarine warfare base there.

Adak was most recently run by the U.S. Navy as a deployment base for P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft, primarily to conduct antisubmarine warfare operations against submarines and surveillance of naval surface vessels of the Soviet Union.

The Naval Air Facility was also reported to be used as a refueling stop for U-2, Dragon Lady, ultra-high altitude reconnaissance aircraft.

Commander, Submarine Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet (COMSUBPAC) recognized the contacts as their very highly classified operations and immediate changes were ordered for the reporting procedures.

[9] In 1968 a tap on the Adak array for the Air Force Technical Applications Center (AFTAC), a nuclear event monitoring system, combined with AFTAC hydrophones in the Pacific provided time delay analysis for localizing the GOLF II Class Soviet SSB K-129 loss.