Aleutian Islands campaign

• 1. Introduction

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  The Aleutian Islands campaign holds a distinction that no other battle in World War II can claim: it was fought on North American soil. Between the 3rd of June 1942 and the 15th of August 1943, American and Japanese forces clashed across a remote chain of islands stretching into the North Pacific, part of the U.S. Territory of Alaska. It is a campaign that most people have never heard of, and that was deliberate in a sense. Historians have long called it the "Forgotten Battle," a conflict swallowed up by the louder, more dramatic events of the war in the Pacific.

  Yet the stakes were anything but obscure. U.S. General Billy Mitchell stood before Congress in 1935 and said, "I believe that in the future, whoever holds Alaska will hold the world. I think it is the most important strategic place in the world." Seven years later, Japanese forces proved him right in the worst way by seizing two of those islands. For the first time since 1815, a foreign military occupied American territory. The fear on the American side was vivid and specific: cities like Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles within bombing range of Japanese air bases.

  This is the story of a campaign fought in fog, cold, and tactical confusion. It is also the story of the Unangax people, the indigenous Aleuts who called these islands home and who were swept into internment camps by their own government while their homes were looted and their communities fractured. What unfolds across these months is a collision of strategy, suffering, and the long reckoning that followed.

• 2. Strategic Fog

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  Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto built the Japanese strike force from two non-fleet aircraft carriers, five cruisers, twelve destroyers, six submarines, and four troop transports. That force was handed to Admiral Hosogaya with a specific plan: bomb Dutch Harbor, then seize Adak Island, 480 miles to the west. The catch was that Japanese intelligence did not know Adak was undefended. Hosogaya's troops were meant to destroy whatever American forces they found, but there were none.

  Across the water, Admiral Chester Nimitz already knew. The Office of Naval Intelligence had broken Japanese naval codes by May 1942, and Nimitz learned the full scope of the plan, including the fleet strengths and the planned attack date of the 1st of June. On paper the Americans were ready. In practice, the Aleutians were an extraordinarily difficult place to fight. As of the 1st of June, U.S. Army strength at the three relevant bases totaled no more than 2,300 men, mostly infantry, artillery, and construction engineers.

  The debate over Japanese intent has never been fully settled. Many military historians believe the Aleutian invasion was a feint, a diversion to lure the U.S. Pacific Fleet away from Midway Atoll, since it was launched simultaneously under Yamamoto's command. Other historians argue the Japanese genuinely wanted to protect their northern flank and prevent an American-Soviet link-up that might eventually strike the Japanese mainland through the Kuril Islands. Both readings remain in play, and the fog of that strategic purpose hung over the entire campaign.

• 3. The Attack on Dutch Harbor

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  Nakajima B5N2 "Kate" torpedo bombers lifted from Japanese carriers on the morning of the 3rd of June, making the first aerial bombing of continental North America in history. The weather that had protected the Japanese fleet now worked against their strike force. Only half of the planes reached Dutch Harbor. The rest became lost in fog and darkness and either crashed into the sea or turned back.

  Seventeen Japanese planes found the naval base, the first arriving at 05:45. American anti-aircraft fire opened up immediately, and Eleventh Air Force fighters scrambled from Fort Glenn caught the attackers off guard. The Japanese quickly dropped their bombs and made only a cursory strafing run before retreating. The damage was minimal. The following day, the 4th of June, the Japanese returned better organized. When that second attack ended, Dutch Harbor's oil storage tanks were burning, the hospital was partly demolished, and a beached barracks ship had been damaged.

  American pilots eventually located the Japanese carriers but bad weather cut off all contact before they could press an attack. That same weather forced the Japanese to cancel their planned amphibious assault on Adak with 1,200 men. The strategic balance of the campaign was already being shaped by something neither side could fully control: the relentless, unpredictable weather of the North Pacific.

• 4. Occupation and Resistance

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  Japan occupied Kiska on the 6th of June and Attu on the 7th, sending a shock through American public opinion. This was the continental United States invaded for the first time in 130 years, the last occasion being in 1815 during the War of 1812. The Attuan Unangax chief had actually declined a U.S. Navy offer to evacuate the island back in May 1942. His people initially faced little resistance to their daily lives under Japanese occupation, but that changed in September 1942 when Japan's Aleutian strategy shifted. At that point, the Unangax of Attu were transported to Hokkaido and interned.

  On the American side, the remoteness of the islands and the obstacles of weather and terrain delayed a serious military response for nearly a year. To keep the Japanese occupied on Kiska, bombers from the Eleventh Air Force flew missions escorted by P-38 fighters from Umnak, more than 600 miles away. American forces seized Adak on the 31st of August 1942 and immediately began building an airfield there, getting fighters and bombers operating from the new base by the 10th of September.

  In February 1943 the Americans occupied Amchitka and built another airstrip, tightening the noose further. Their targets from this new base included radar installations, anti-aircraft positions, submarine bases, and moored vessels. By April 1943 Japanese surface convoys made their final attempt to break through the American naval blockade and resupply Attu and Kiska; they were defeated and turned back. From that point on, Japanese resupply would depend entirely on submarines.

• 5. The Unangax Internment

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  Over 880 Unangax were loaded onto military transport ships after the attacks on Dutch Harbor, given less than 24 hours' notice and allowed only one suitcase or minimal personal items. Though they were U.S. citizens, the federal government treated them legally as "wards," a status that allowed it to exercise sweeping control over their lives. The evacuation was, in the words of the historical record, hasty and chaotic.

  Transport conditions were severe. On the USAT Delarof, disease was rampant, drinkable water was scarce, food was inadequate, and medical care was essentially absent. A government doctor refused to enter the ship's hold to provide assistance to those below. Haretina Kochutin gave birth on the vessel without assistance; her newborn daughter, Dela, died three days later.

  The internment sites the Unangax were sent to were derelict, unheated, and inadequate. The villagers of Saint Paul were housed at the Thlinket Packing Company cannery at Funter Bay, a facility that had ceased operations in 1931 and had fallen into disrepair by the time the government leased it for $60 per month on the 16th of June. The villagers of Saint George were placed across the bay at the site of the former Admiralty Alaska Gold Mine, leased for just $1 per year. The villagers of Atka were sent to the derelict Killisnoo Herring plant, left with four days' worth of food and little federal attention thereafter. Of the 83 Unangax resettled at Killisnoo, 17 died during the war.

  At Ward Lake, about 10 miles northwest of Ketchikan, 163 villagers were crowded into a former Civilian Conservation Corps camp built for 65 men, with a single privy shared by the entire community. The mortality rate there reached 18%. Across all the camps in Southeast Alaska, 85 of the 831 relocated Unangax died. About ten percent of the total interned population perished before the war ended.

• 6. Forced Labor and Neighbors

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  Men from the Pribilof Islands were compelled by the U.S. government to leave their families behind in the internment camps and return to the islands to harvest seal pelts. The pay was set at standard military wages rather than competitive market rates. Additional financial incentives were promised but almost never delivered; many men received nothing beyond basic army pay. In 1943, approximately 117,164 seal pelts were harvested at those operations, generating over $465,000. The primary beneficiary was the Fouke Fur Company, which worked alongside the Fish and Wildlife Service to maintain pelt operations.

  The Tlingit people, on whose land the internment camps sat without their consent, responded with concrete help. In Angoon, the Tlingit community hunted deer and fished to supplement the meager government rations, and provided blankets, mattresses, and medicine. At Killisnoo, Tlingit elder Annie Samato gave water from her property and strawberries from her garden. Her example prompted many other Tlingit women to share their berry patches with the internees.

  In April 1943, men from St. Paul and St. George wrote protest letters refusing to return to the seal harvest unless they received fair wages of $1 per skin and improved treatment. Their requests were denied. In October 1942, a group of women at Funter Bay had already signed a petition modeled on the Declaration of Independence, asserting, "We all have rights to speak for ourselves." The Alaska Native Brotherhood and the Alaska Native Sisterhood assisted in challenging the Fish and Wildlife Service, with Roy Peratrovich playing a role in spreading awareness. Their efforts did not win immediate settlements, but contributed to securing the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971.

• 7. Attu and Kiska Recaptured

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  Operation Landcrab began on the 11th of May 1943, sending American forces onto Attu with the 17th and 32nd Infantry Regiments of the 7th Infantry Division and a platoon of scouts known as Castner's Cutthroats. Colonel Yasuyo Yamasaki had positioned his forces in the high ground away from the landing beaches rather than engaging the Americans at the shore. The result was fierce fighting in terrain that defeated not just soldiers but their equipment. Vehicles could not operate on the tundra. Cold-weather supplies could not be landed, and soldiers suffered frostbite waiting for them. The Army Air Force flew more than 500 sorties in a 20-day period in support.

  U.S. casualties totaled 3,829, with 549 killed and 1,148 wounded. Another 1,200 suffered severe cold-weather injuries, and 614 died from disease. On the 29th of May, without warning, the remaining Japanese forces launched what was recorded as one of the largest banzai charges of the Pacific campaign near Massacre Bay. Yamasaki's men penetrated so deep into American lines that they reached rear-echelon units. When the fighting was over, American burial teams counted 2,351 Japanese dead; only 28 Japanese soldiers were taken prisoner, none of them officers.

  By contrast, the invasion of Kiska on the 15th of August 1943 met no resistance at all. An invasion force of 34,426 Canadian and American troops landed after a sustained three-week barrage, only to find that the Japanese had quietly withdrawn on the 29th of July. The evacuating Japanese had slipped away under fog cover while the U.S. Navy, the day before the withdrawal, fought the Battle of the Pips 80 miles to the west, an inconclusive engagement against what may have been phantom radar returns. Allied casualties on Kiska still reached 313, from friendly fire, vehicle accidents, booby traps, disease, and frostbite.

• 8. Aftermath and Reckoning

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  When the Unangax returned to their communities in 1944 and 1945, survivor accounts describe homes looted and vandalized by U.S. military personnel. Larcy Chercasen's account details broken furniture, barricaded homes, and extensive property damage. The government refused to allow the communities of Attu, Kashega, Biorka, and Makushin to return to their villages at all, judging the cost of restoration too high; those communities were forced to amalgamate into other Unangan settlements. The village of Atka had been destroyed to build a military airstrip. Unalaska returned to find a profoundly altered landscape of military installations.

  In 1980 the U.S. Congress appointed the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians to study the internment of Japanese Americans; the investigation was expanded to cover the treatment of the Unangax as well. Public hearings began in 1981. The resulting report condemned government indifference, citing crowding, rotting buildings, a lack of furniture, clean or running water, electricity, medical care, and adequate supervision. In 1988 the Aleut Restitution Act formally acknowledged the government's failure and provided $12,000 for each survivor along with a $5 million trust fund for descendants. In 1994 the act was expanded to cover property damage to churches.

  The campaign left a quieter military legacy as well. In the summer of 1942 Americans recovered the Akutan Zero, an almost-intact Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero fighter, which allowed test flights of the aircraft and contributed to improved American fighter tactics later in the war. Dashiell Hammett, the detective novelist, spent most of the war as an Army sergeant in the Aleutians editing a military newspaper; in 1943, as a corporal, he co-authored The Battle of the Aleutians with Corporal Robert Garland Colodny under the direction of Major Henry W. Hall. The battlefield on Attu and the Japanese occupation site on Kiska are both National Historic Landmarks today, included in the Aleutian Islands World War II National Monument.