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 …
Tag Archives: Aleutians
What Next?
What next? After attacking Dutch Harbor and occupying two islands, where would the Japanese War machine turn up next? The men who went north to build the Alaska Highway in 1942, left the rolling catastrophe of War with Japan behind. struggled to keep up with news of the war. But everyone understood one thing. The …
Mortal Enemies
Mortal Enemies struggled with weather and confusion in the Aleutians in June. Task Force 1 had bombed Dutch Harbor, not once, but twice. But the Americans had yet to hear from Task force 2. Link to another story “Icy Fog Defended Dutch Harbor” Admiral Hosogaya’s task force still lurked somewhere west of Task Force 1 …
Admiral Yamamoto’s Plan
Admiral Yamamoto’s plan for June 1942 had more moving parts and more targets than just the Aleutians. Even as his two task forces sailed through the North Pacific to attack Dutch Harbor and occupy Kiska and Adak—to establish a toe hold on the American continent, the Admiral sent his main carrier force to Midway Island …
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 …
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 …