Aleutian Islands campaign
The Aleutian Islands campaign (Japanese: アリューシャン方面の戦い, romanized: Aryūshan hōmen no tatakai) was a military campaign fought between 3 June 1942 and 15 August 1943 on and around the Aleutian Islands in the American Theater of World War II. It was the only military campaign of World War II fought on North American soil.[3][4][5]
The islands' strategic value was their ability to control Pacific transportation routes as US General Billy Mitchell stated to the U.S. Congress in 1935, "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."[6] The Japanese reasoned that their control of the Aleutians would prevent a possible joining of forces by the Americans and the Soviets and future attack on Japan proper via the Kuril Islands.[7]: 19 Similarly, the US feared that the islands could be used as bases from which to launch air raids on West Coast cities such as Anchorage, Seattle, San Francisco, or Los Angeles.
Following two aircraft carrier-based attacks on the American naval base at Dutch Harbor, the Imperial Japanese Navy occupied the islands of Attu and Kiska, where the remoteness of the islands and the challenges of weather and terrain delayed a larger American-Canadian force sent to eject them for nearly a year.[8]
A battle to reclaim Attu was launched on 11 May 1943 and completed after a final Japanese banzai charge on 29 May. On 15 August 1943 an invasion force landed on Kiska in the wake of a sustained three-week barrage, only to discover that the Japanese had withdrawn from the island on 29 July. The campaign is known as the "Forgotten Battle" because it has been overshadowed by other events in the war.[9][10]
Many military historians believe that the Japanese invasion of the Aleutians was a diversionary or feint attack during the Battle of Midway that was meant to draw out the US Pacific Fleet from Midway Atoll, as it was launched simultaneously under the same commander, Isoroku Yamamoto. Some historians have argued against that interpretation and believe that the Japanese invaded the Aleutians to protect their northern flank and did not intend it as a diversion.[11]
Legacy[edit]
Many of the United States locations involved in the campaign, either directly or indirectly, have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and several have been designated National Historic Landmarks. The battlefield on Attu and the Japanese occupation site on Kiska are both National Historic Landmarks and are included in the Aleutian Islands World War II National Monument. Surviving elements of the military bases at Adak, Umnak, and Dutch Harbor are National Historic Landmarks. The shipwrecked SS Northwestern, badly damaged during the attack on Dutch Harbor, is listed on the National Register, as is a crash-landed B-24D Liberator on Atka Island.
The 2006 documentary film Red White Black & Blue features two veterans of the Attu Island campaign, Bill Jones and Andy Petrus. It is directed by Tom Putnam and debuted at the 2006 Locarno International Film Festival in Locarno, Switzerland, on 4 August 2006.
Dashiell Hammett spent most of World War II as an Army sergeant in the Aleutian Islands, where he edited an Army newspaper. He came out of the war suffering from emphysema. As a corporal in 1943, he co-authored The Battle of the Aleutians with Corporal Robert Colodny under the direction of Infantry Intelligence Officer Major Henry W. Hall.[24]