Another naval base bombed by the Japanese? Hearing the story of Dutch Harbor an unidentified man, his face red with rage, stomped six blocks down dignified Chestnut Street… buying newspapers headlining the Japanese attack…and tearing them into shreds. Police said he was within his rights. The Santa Cruz Sentinel reported that story from Philadelphia on …
Category Archives: Dutch Harbor
Lieutenants
Lieutenants? Where would the army be without them? In June 1942 Lt. Darrel M. Schumacher of the 340th Engineering Regiment cooled his heels in Skagway. He and his men would walk to the Teslin River as soon as the 93rd built them a trail. In the meantime, they waited. Then the Japanese bombed the American …
Emerging Alaska Highway
Emerging Alaska Highway, in June, had finally started rewarding the strenuous efforts of thousands of soldiers and civilians working through subarctic wilderness from Alaska south to Dawson Creek. Now came word of the Japanese in the Aleutians. None of them knew what to make of that. For some, of course, the Japanese assault justified their …
Petty Officer Koga
Petty Officer Koga looked desperately for a place to get his zero on the ground, and just a few miles from Dutch Harbor he found the island of Akutan. Ironically his landing on Akutan may have turned Dutch Harbor into a crucial American victory. Aerial Combat with Japan in 1942 meant fighting Japan’s premier warplane, …
Icy Fog Defended Dutch Harbor
Icy fog, on June 3, had defended Dutch Harbor more effectively than the American Navy’s pilots and sailors. Half of the Japanese pilots couldn’t find the base. And if icy fog helped the Americans, luck helped even more. Knowing little about the layout of the base, Japanese pilots engaged targets at random. Flames and billowing …
Marauding Japanese Forces
Marauding Japanese hatched a plan that would do precisely what the men who ordered the Alaska Highway feared. They would attack North America through the Aleutians and Alaska. The simultaneous battle at Midway They dispatched two battle groups. Planes from the carrier group would assault the American naval base at Dutch Harbor. Soldiers from the …
Akutan Zero
Akutan lies just a few miles from Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands. In June 1942, flying away from the assault on the American naval base there, Petty Officer Koga’s luck ran out. Ground fire penetrated an oil line in the engine of Koga’s Zero. The Japanese Bomb Dutch Harbor Knowing his engine on the …
Few Americans Worried about the Aleutians
Few people in The United States or Canada knew the Japanese posed a threat to America through the Aleutians—until, on June 21, 1942 the Navy issued a press release. “The enemy has occupied the undefended islands of Attu and Kiska…” Americans scurried for their globes and Atlases and few suddenly became many. Task Force 2 …
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Task Force 2
Task force 2 still lurked, on June 4, 1942, in the fogbound waters of the North Pacific. Japanese Pilots from the first task force had bombed Dutch Harbor, not once, but twice. But task force 2 carried troops who intended to invade and occupy the Islands of Adak and Kiska—American territory. The Americans hadn’t heard …
Icy Fog Defended Dutch Harbor
Icy fog, on June 3, had defended Dutch Harbor more effectively than Admiral Theobald’s pilots and sailors. Half of the Japanese pilots couldn’t find the base. Theobald Did His Best But if icy fog helped the Americans, luck helped even more. Knowing little about the layout of the base, Japanese pilots engaged targets at random. …