History of World War II in the Aleutians

 June 3, 1942, six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese aircraft struck U.S. Army and Navy installations at Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Island Chain.

Two days of aerial bombardment left over one hundred civilians and servicemen dead and wounded; barracks, fuel tanks, and other structures set afire.

 The Eleventh Air Force alone dropped 26,910 bombs on Kiska and Attu islands in an attempt to soften Japanese emplacements prior to amphibious landings of U.S. and Canadian forces, but the Japanese troops were well entrenched, and the terrain was often obscured by fog. The boxy B-24 bore the brunt of the early missions, one of the few heavy bombers capable of making the 1,200 mile round-trip from Cape Field to the western end of the Aleutian Chain. Once over their targets, U.S. aircrews often had to drop their bomb loads blindly through the cloud cover, using the crests of volcanoes as landmarks, then fight their way home through antiaircraft fire. Under their protective blanket of fog, the Japanese ground forces found the continuous bombardment little more than a nuisance. Construction of their own airfield on Kiska proceeded slowly for the Japanese, a lack of heavy equipment forces workers to use hand tools and wheelbarrows. With the departure of the carriers Ryujo and Junyo and their Zeros, the air defense of the islands rested on the Rufe float fighter plane. The U.S. Eleventh Air Force and the Aleutian weather took their toll on these fighters, leaving only a handful to meet Allied raids. U.S. forces continued to move westward through the Chain. With the aid of heavy earth-moving equipment, engineers constructed a landing field in a water soaked tidewater flat on Adak Island in twelve short days. Just 250 miles from Kiska, this forward field brought the Japanese within range of U.S. fighter and dive bomber planes. In the Pacific Ocean, American aircraft and submarines patrolled for Japanese shipping, effectively shutting off resupply and reinforcements. Isolated, their air power virtually eliminated, the Japanese troops dug in and prepared for the inevitable invasion.

 Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the Commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet, had traveled extensively within the U.S. and was familiar with her industrial capabilities and seemingly limitless oil reserves. When the Admiral counseled against waging war with the "sleeping giant," he was met with veiled threats of assassination. "If you insist on my going ahead," he told the Prime Minister, "I can promise to give them hell for a year or a year and a half, but can guarantee nothing as to what will happen after that." The impetus for Yamamoto's attack on the Aleutian Islands was twofold" to divert forces of the U.S. Pacific Fleet from the central Pacific Theater and to gain a largely psychological foothold on American soil. He accomplished both goals with a minimal commitment of men and materials. U.S. and Canadian forces grew to 144,000 troops in the Alaska-Aleutian area by 1943, but the ships dispatched northward by U.S. Admiral Chester Nimitz from his fleet were but a token force having little or no impact on the outcome of the Battle of Midway. The Japanese occupation of Attu and Kiska islands at the western tip of the Aleutian Chain, would in the end call for over 2,300 Japanese soldiers of the North Sea Garrison to sacrifice their lives for the Imperial Edict.

The “Akutan Zero,” was one of the prizes of the Aleutian Campaign. Downed during the attack on Dutch Harbor, the aircraft was later recovered and shipped to San Diego for repairs. Flown in mock engagements with U.S. fighters, the plane was found to possess superior maneuverability and range, but was fragile—lacking armor plating and self-sealing fuel tanks. Of the aircraft available to U.S. forces at the time, only the most recently produced, the Hellcat, was superior in performance. Summing up the Zero as an aerial foe, U.S. Navy and Army Air Forces warned: Never attempt to dog fight the Zero

On May 11, 1943, two contingents of U.S. soldiers, numbering approximately 12,500 men in total, landed on the north and south ends of Attu Island and began pressing towards the Japanese strongholds at Holtz Bay and Chichagof Harbor. Progress was slow and costly. Eight days of heavy fighting passed before the South Landing Force climbed its way out of Massacre Bay. The North Landing Force, amongst their numbers the unorthodox Alaska Scouts, forced the Japanese from Holtz Bay, then continued towards Jarmin Pass and the North Landing Force to complete the pincer movement. The approximately 2,300 Japanese troops that remained had retreated to the wild heights of Fish Hook Ridge above Chichagof Valley, waiting for reinforcements. None arrived. On May 23, a force of sixteen Japanese Betty bombers was met by U.S. P-38 Lightnings over Attu. Five of the Japanese bombers were downed. It was the last attempt by the Japanese to support their Aleutian troops by air.On the ground, American forces had increased to 15,000. Air strikes and U.S. ground force assaults up the precipitous Fish Hook Ridge further diminished Japanese forces. On May 29, Colonel Yamasaki, and the remainder of his Attu troops, numbering 750 or less, broke through American lines in a desperate attempt to reach Massacre Bay and needed stockpiles of U.S. supplies. They were finally halted at Engineer Hill, as a hastily organized U.S. defense repelled wave after wave of banzai attacks. Those Japanese troops that were not killed by U.S. fire, took their own lives. In the end, of the 2,300 Japanese troops, fewer than thirty soldiers of the North Sea Garrison were left alive, many ashamed that they had dishonored themselves by surrender. American dead numbered 549.