The Missing Flag at the ALSIB Monument
On the riverfront in downtown Fairbanks stands a monument that tells a story the world urgently needs to hear. It commemorates the Alaska–Siberia air route — ALSIB — through which nearly 8,000 American combat aircraft were transferred to Soviet pilots at Ladd Field between 1942 and 1945.
The purpose was singular: to equip the Soviet Union in its fight against Nazi Germany on the Eastern Front, where millions of Soviet citizens — including Ukrainians, Russians, Belarusians, and others — were suffering and dying.
The monument once displayed three flags: the American flag, the flag of the Russian Federation, and the state flag of Alaska. Together, they honored an alliance that helped defeat one of the greatest evils the modern world has known.
Shortly after the conflict in Ukraine began, the flag of the Russian Federation was removed.
I understand the impulse. The Russian government’s invasion of Ukraine has caused immense suffering, and people of conscience want to distance themselves from that regime. But the ALSIB monument does not commemorate the Russian government. It commemorates a wartime alliance that included the Soviet Union, within which Ukraine was a central battleground and whose people were among the primary beneficiaries of the aircraft ferried through Fairbanks.
Removing the flag, however well-intentioned, may unintentionally obscure the fuller historical meaning of what this monument stands for.
A Conversation at the Monument
During last week’s commemoration here in Fairbanks, I had the privilege of standing at the ALSIB monument with a man whose life embodies this history. He was born to a Ukrainian mother and a Russian father, both of whom fought in the war. He later became a Soviet pilot, then eventually an American citizen who flew for Alaska Airlines.
He carries within him the complexity of this story without contradiction.
Standing together before the monument, we reflected on the sadness of the missing flag. Then he offered a suggestion that cuts through the present confusion with historical precision: replace the removed flag of the Russian Federation with the flag that actually flew during the Lend-Lease effort — the flag of the Soviet Union.
Why the Soviet Flag Is the Right Flag
The suggestion is historically sound for several reasons.
First, it restores chronological accuracy. The Lend-Lease transfers at Ladd Field occurred between 1942 and 1945. The flag of the allied nation during that period was the Soviet flag — the red banner with the hammer and sickle. The Russian Federation tricolor did not exist as a state flag during the war years; it was readopted only in 1991.
Placing the Soviet flag at the monument would honor the pilots with the actual flag under which they served.
Second, the Soviet wartime flag historically encompassed Ukraine and the other Soviet republics that fought under it during World War II. The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was one of those republics, and Ukrainian sacrifice in the war was immense.
In this specific historical context, the Soviet flag represents Ukrainian sacrifice in a way the modern Russian Federation flag cannot. Far from excluding Ukraine, restoring the Soviet wartime flag would honor Ukrainians among the Soviet peoples who fought, suffered, and died in the struggle against Nazi Germany.
Third, the Soviet Union is a state that no longer exists. Its wartime flag cannot reasonably be interpreted as an endorsement of any living government. It is a historical artifact, and displaying it at a historical monument is an act of memory, not of present-day diplomacy.
The purpose would not be political nostalgia. The purpose would be historical accuracy.
What the Pilots Understood
It is true that the Soviet Union was, in many respects, a repressive state. The American pilots at Ladd Field were not naïve about this. Historical records confirm that they discussed and argued with their Soviet counterparts about their political differences. They knew they served nations with sharply opposed ideologies.
And yet they chose to work together.
They shared meals. They trained side by side. They formed friendships that lasted lifetimes. They did not erase their differences — they chose to look beyond them toward a greater threat.
The evil of Nazism, which sought to dominate the world, required them to see each other as brothers in a common fight. That choice — to cooperate despite deep division — is what the ALSIB monument commemorates.
It is not a monument to the Soviet system. It is a monument to the spirit that enabled ordinary men from hostile nations to defeat darkness together.
The Same Choice Before Us
Today we face threats that do not respect borders or ideologies. Some are new. Some are old. The same principle holds: there will always be differences between peoples. But if we can set those differences aside and focus together on what threatens to destroy us, we may again discover the same spirit of cooperation shown by American and Soviet pilots at Ladd Field during the war years.
The key to ALSIB’s success was not that Soviet and American pilots had no differences. They had many. The key was that they chose to look beyond their differences and the sufferings already known on both sides in order to defeat a greater evil and darkness.
The monument in downtown Fairbanks is not merely a piece of metal and stone. It is a witness. It testifies that cooperation across seemingly unbridgeable divides is possible — and that such cooperation can change the course of history.
A Proposal Ahead of the 20th Anniversary
August 27, 2026 will mark the twentieth anniversary of the ALSIB monument’s dedication. I respectfully urge Fairbanks city official to mark that anniversary by restoring the monument to historical accuracy.
Let the flag of the Soviet Union fly once more beside the American and Alaskan flags — not as a political statement about any current government, but as an act of honest remembrance.
Let it honor the Soviet pilots who took the planes and flew them west. Let it honor the Ukrainians who fought and perished under that same flag. Let it honor the Americans who trained, fed, and befriended their allies at Ladd Field.
And let it remind us, at a time when the world is again divided, that the choice those pilots made remains open to us all.
This page is offered as a historical reflection and proposal for remembrance. It does not seek to justify the actions of any modern government. It seeks to remember, accurately and respectfully, the peoples involved in the Alaska–Siberia Lend-Lease effort during World War II.