Adak Naval Air Station Alaska Birthplace of the Winds Triangle Patch

Winter squalls on Adak Island can throw wind gusts past 100 knots, which is why BIRTHPLACE OF THE WINDS runs along the bottom of this patch. Naval Air Station Adak sat more than halfway down the Aleutian chain, closer to Siberia than to Anchorage. Sailors who drew orders there learned to walk bent into the wind and to judge a day by whether the planes could fly. The station grew into the Navy's watch post on the North Pacific. For a generation of Navy families, Adak was home, school, commissary and flight line on one treeless island.

American troops came ashore on Adak at the end of August 1942, and construction of the airfield started within days. Bombers and fighters flew from Adak against the Japanese-held islands of Attu and Kiska, and the field carried the Aleutian campaign of 1943. The Air Force handed the field to the Navy on July 1, 1950. From then on Adak was an antisubmarine base, with P-3 Orion patrol squadrons deploying in to track Soviet submarines and surface ships. A SOSUS shore terminal, Naval Facility Adak, was commissioned on the island on December 1, 1962, and by the 1980s more than 6,000 people lived on the station.

The patch is a three-sided design with a dark merrowed border around a gold-orange band of lettering. NAVAL AIR STATION climbs the left side and ADAK, ALASKA runs down the right. Inside, a snowcapped peak rises out of storm clouds above brown Aleutian ridges. Gold aviation wings spread across the middle, and below them a blue gridded globe carries a green outline of the island stitched ADAK ISLAND. It measures 4.75 inches wide by 4.5 inches tall.

Adak duty meant long patrols over cold water and long winters on the ground, and the people who stood that watch remember both. The work was quiet by design, tracking submarines that never showed on a map. The station was cut back in 1994 and closed on March 31, 1997, after the 1995 base closure round. The field lives on as Adak Airport. Ask anyone who served there about the wind, and they will have a story ready.

The iron-on backing makes it easy to put on a jacket or vest, and it can also be sewn on for a permanent hold. It fits a shadow box next to Aleutian duty photos, a Naval Station Adak patch or a P-3 deployment cruise book. It also makes a good gift for a parent or grandparent who raised a family on the island. One patch, and the whole Adak story comes back.