WAR DEPARTMENT
            WAR DEPARTMENT GENERAL STAFF
          MILITARY INTELLIGENCE DIVISION 
                  WASHINGTON
 
                                        May 25, 1942.
 
MEMORADUM FOR THE 
 
     Subject; "Feasibility of Supply Route from Alaska to Irkutsk, Siberia via Lena River."
 
              1. General. Supply routes into the heart of Siberia are being exploited and much research
on the subject has been in progress both in this country and in Soviet Russia.
 
                  The main difficulties are: The severity of the weather
    which limits shipping to 60 - 90 days per year, the type ships to
    be used (small sturdy vessels, together with ice-breakers), and
    the lack of port facilities for handling heavy military supplies.
 
2. Specific. "The Lena River Route."
 
             a. The Wrangel Island area of the East Siberian Sea is notorious for its treacherous
weather.
 
              b. Tiksi Bay, the only usable port on the delta at the affluence of the Lena into the Sea of
Laptar is unable to handle any appreciable volume of supplies at this time since it lacks docks and
derricks. Especially since a transfer of cargo from ocean going vessels to river freighters or barges
would be necessary. Approximately 15,000 tons of freight passes through this port each year,
most of it as timber rafts.
 
 
c. Despite many shifting sand banks and shoals, the Lena is navigable by smaller vessels to
Ust-Kut (a railhead with a connecting single track to the TransSiberian Railroad). Ust-Kut is
approximately 150 miles north of Irkutsk.
 
d. The Trans-Siberian Railroad could handle the supplies, either to the East or West once supplies
reached Ust-Kut.