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 …
Category Archives: The Aleutians
SS Chirikof Carried the Real Deal
SS Chirikof carried the soldiers of the 93rd Engineering Regiment from the Alaska Highway Project to their second front in WWII, islands in the remote Aleutians. “The 93rd would do the necessary but unglamorous work of building and maintaining runways, hangers, barracks and other facilities for Alaska Defense Forces in the Aleutians until the middle …
Teodoro Pena Invaded and Endured Attu
Teodoro Pena came north with the 7th Infantry Division to wrest Attu back from the Japanese. A very young medic, Teodoro couldn’t possibly have known the horror the Army had sent him into. In 1942, Teodoro left his job with the CCC and enlisted at Fort Sam Houston in Texas. He trained as a medic. …
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 …
Extreme Geography
Extreme geography awaited the soldiers of the 93rd Engineers when they left Southern Louisiana in early 1942. From hot and humid Louisiana, they travelled north—way north—to Alaska and Yukon Territory. The 93rd came to Carcross Sergeant Albert France, interviewed long after the fact by Donna Blazer-Bernhardt, remembered their time on the Alaska Highway Project. He …
Kiska in August
Kiska came next. Led by Castner’s Cutthroats the American 7th, in one of the bloodiest and most miserable battles of WWII, drove Japanese defenders on Attu to suicide and reclaimed the island for the United States. That left the Japanese enemy in possession of Kiska—or so American commanders thought. Castner’s Cutthroats and Attu In response …
Castner’s Cutthroats
Castner’s Cutthroats, a platoon of unique soldiers commanded by Colonel Lawrence V. Castner, launched into Subarctic history shortly after the Japanese occupied Kiska and Attu in June 1942. Few Americans Worried about the Aleutians Relentless cold, impenetrable fog and endless hurricane force winds called “williwaws” threatened the Japanese survival far more than the Americans. 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. …