of 1947, the United States Air Force assumed control of the original Army Fort Richardson and Elmendorf Field, gaining full ownership of its facilities in 1951. The Alaskan Command, established 1 January 1947, and headquartered at Elmendorf, was a unified command under the Joint Chiefs of Staff, based on lessons learned during the war when a lack of coordinated effort hampered operations to drive the Japanese from the western Aleutian Islands of Attu and Kiska. Elmendorf officially became an Air Force base 28 March. With tight Air Force budgets in the late 1940s, Amchatka AFB was placed in caretaker status in February 1949 and the 449th Fighter Squadron (All Weather) was moved from Davis AFB to Ladd AFB. Cape and Thornborough AFB were inactivated in January 1950; avis AFB was transferred to the Department of the Navy. With the exception of Shemya AFB, the Air Force had no active bases in the Aleutian Islands. Following the Armistice in Korea, Shimeya was declared surplus and inactivated on 1 July 1954. Strategic Air Command Strategic Air Command established a significant presence in Alaska in the late 1940s, initially as a result of its strategic reconnaissance mission. The first efforts were in photo-reconnaissance and mapping, with very long-range B-29 Superfortress reconnaissance aircraft based at Ladd AFB. With growing tensions in US-Soviet relations, SAC explored the possibility of attacking Soviet targets via great circle routes over the North Pole as part of "Project Nanook". Ladd AFB, however, due to the geography of its location, was unsuitable for SAC's postwar B-36 Peacemaker bomber as well as the new jet B-47 Stratojet. Ladd, being sited next to the Chena River, could not have its runway expanded to meet the requirements for these new aircraft. SAC chose to expand Ladd's former World War II Air Transport Command satellite field, known as "Mile 26" due to its distance from Fairbanks. The airfield's jurisdiction had been transferred from ATC to Eleventh Air Force on 1 November 1945, but had remained a satellite of Ladd Field, and was in a standby status. Mile 26, later known as Eielson AFB had its runway lengthened to 14,500 feet and a major construction project was undertaken to expand and build new support facilities at the base in the late 1940s. The new runway at Eielson was the longest runway in North America at the time. Its planned usage was to support SAC deployments