Nicholai Galaktionoff Interview

Nick Galaktionoff on the beach at Unalaska, July 2, 2002.

Shelly Hudson

As part of the "Beginning of Memory Project," Ray Hudson conducted interviews with Unangax̂/Aleuts who were forced to evacuate from their homes during World War II. Many of the evacuees from the Aleutians faced years away from their childhood homes, sometimes in deplorable camps. Many communities - the "Lost Villages" - were never resettled.

Nicholai Galaktionoff was born in Makushin in 1925 and following the death of his father and two other men in the village in 1937 he moved to Unalaska with his mother and grandmother. Following the war, he married Irene Ermeloff of Biorka and was closely associated with resettlement of that village.

Download a full transcript of Nicholai's interview.

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Excerpts from Lost Villages of the Eastern Aleutians: Biorka, Kashega, Makushin

Nick Galaktionoff was asleep when gunfire awakened him about 5:30 on the morning of June 3, 1942. He had seen and heard military target practice before, most dramatically when a boat pulled a target out in the bay and the heavy guns from Amaknak Island fired at it. As he struggled awake, he made out the words, “Japanese come!” He ran to the window, expecting the streets to be flooded with invading troops. He joined Cecil Diakanoff on the street, and they watched the havoc as Japanese planes bore down on the village. People ran to bomb shelters and vehicles sped past. Nick noticed Blackie Floyd, owner of one of the bars, and about eight civilians in the back of a truck. A plane flew overhead, not much higher than the electric poles, and the ground was chipped away by gunfire. Nick dashed for a pile of cement sacks stored near the U.S. marshal’s house.

The planes in this attack—a combination of Kate bombers and Zeros—flew a path over Sedanka Island, delivered their bombs, and returned in much the same direction to carriers stationed in the North Pacific.

The next day, about six in the evening, Nick was walking up from the dock with John Bereskin of Akutan when the sirens went off and ten Japanese fighters and eleven dive-bombers struck again. Before he was able to reach his foxhole, the oil tanks on Dutch Harbor were hit and dark clouds billowed into the air.1 The oil burned for days, filling the air with smoke and sending a dark rainbow into the water. These planes had approached Dutch Harbor by skirting the northern end of Unalaska Island; they returned by flying south, past Makushin and Kashega, between Unalaska and Umnak Islands. ... 

By 1933, Alfred Stepetin said, “already the Aleut traditions were forgotten. Very few people knew how to sing, dance, or even basket weave.” … others—notably Sophie Pletnikoff, Nick Galaktionoff, and Sergie Sovoroff—taught traditional skills in nontraditional ways whenever opportunities arose. They participated in school classes paid with federal Indian education and other grant funds; they gave demonstrations at Native craft festivals; and each taught private lessons when requested.