WWII Aleutian Campaign Battles of Attu, Dutch Island & Kiska Documents

World War II:  Aleutian Campaign Battles of Attu, Dutch Island & Kiska Documents: Only U.S. Territory Lost To Japan & Battles In North America

4,533 pages of documents covering the Aleutian Islands Campaign.  Attu Island is the site of the only World War II battle on the North American Continent. Includes documents held by the University of Alaska Anchorage Archives, United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Alaska State Library, Franklin Roosevelt Presidential Library, and the National Archives & Records Administration.

Documents include War Department files, White House files, reports and books  dealing with aspects of the Campaign and American newspaper coverage of the Campaign.

While most people know something about the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, few are aware of the Japanese attack and invasion of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands from June 3 to 7, 1942. Attu is the westernmost area of the Aleutian Islands and one of the Near Islands. On Attu Island, the Japanese captured 42 residents of Attu, including the island’s schoolteacher. Forty people were transported to Otaru, Hokkaido Island, Japan. They were held as prisoners of war from September 1942 until 1945. Twenty-one people died during their internment, including four babies, born in Japan.

In 1940, anticipating the spread of the war in Europe to the Pacific Theater, the U.S. military began construction of forward-operating bases in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. 

By 1943, American troops were stationed throughout this remote, 1,200-mile-long archipelago. From airfields at Adak, Dutch Harbor, and Fort Glenn, U.S. pilots flew patrol bombers, fighter-bombers, and observation aircraft on combat and reconnaissance missions over the Aleutians.

On June 3 and 4, 1942, six months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japanese pilots bombed Fort Mears and the Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base on Amaknak Island. Three days later, Japanese soldiers invaded Kiska Island, 600 miles west of Dutch Harbor, and Attu Island, 800 miles west of Dutch Harbor. American forces recaptured Attu in June of 1943, at the price of many American and Japanese lives, and the Japanese army abandoned Kiska one month later. 

Of the approximately 2,600 to 3,000 Japanese invaders, only 28 survived to be taken prisoner, the rest were either killed in battle or committed suicide to avoid capture. U.S. troops remained in the Aleutians until the end of the war in 1945.

Aleutian Islands Campaign:  June 1942-August 1943

The Aleutian Islands Campaign began when the Japanese attacked Dutch Harbor in June 1942, followed by the unopposed invasion of Attu and Kiska Islands. In response the U.S. Army established an airbase on Adak Island. The U.S. Navy began submarine attacks on Japanese ships. On March 26, 1943, the U.S. Navy intercepted an enemy supply convoy to the Aleutians, resulting in the Battle of the Komandorski Islands. Joint Chiefs of Staff Rear Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, USN, strongly encouraged resolving the Alaskan situation. This resulted in U.S. Forces invading Attu on May 11, defeating the Japanese by the end of the month.  Subsequently, on August 15, when U.S. and Canadian Forces invaded Kiska, they found the Japanese had already evacuated. 
 

Dutch Harbor Attack:   June 3-4, 1942

The Japanese Second Carrier Striking Force launched an attack on the U.S. Naval Air Station Dutch Harbor and the Army's Fort Myerson in the Aleutian Islands, Alaska on June 3, 1942. Their goal was to disrupt the shipment of supplies between Russia and the United States. On June 4, the Japanese struck oil tanks and the island's power structures. On June 6, Japan took control of Kiska Island, followed with securing Attu Island the next day.  

Battle of Attu:  May 11-29, 1943

The codename for invasion of Attu was Operation Landcrab. Commanded by Rear Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, USN, the U.S. North Pacific Force and the Army 7th Infantry launched two separate amphibious landings on Attu on May 11, 1943.  The Japanese forces were commanded by Colonel Yasuyo Yamasaki.  At the end of the battle, the Japanese launched an unsuccessful banzai charge. A total of 2,351 Japanese soldiers including Yamasaki died on the island.  The U.S. then moved its attention to invading Kiska Island on August 15.  

 
Allied Invasion of Kiska, August 15-24, 1943

The codename for the invasion of Kiska was Operation Cottage. Victory at Attu allowed the Allies to begin planning and staging for the invasion of Kiska Island. The U.S. Army 7th Division and Canadian 13th Infantry Brigade planned for the action without knowledge that Japanese forces had left the island using deep fog and darkness as cover.  On August 15, the Allied troops landed, expecting to by opposed by a large Japanese force. Despite the island being empty, the Allies suffered serious casualties. During the eight-day search, 28 Allied servicemen were killed by friendly fire, along with an additional four killed by Japanese booby traps.  When USS Abner Read (DD-526) struck a floating mine on August 17, seventy-one men were killed. The island was declared under Allied control on August 24.  

Source: Naval History and Heritage Command (Naval Historical Center)

 
Documents 

Highlights include:

A February 20, 1942 memo from President Roosevelt to Captain McCrae - FDR expresses doubt about the defense preparations for Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. 

James A. Yost World War II Photograph Album, circa 1943–1944 - An album of photos compiled by James A. Yost, who served with the U.S. Navy on Attu in 1943‒44. The album includes 105 black-and-white prints depicting scenes from Attu Island, including tug boats, cargo ships, steamships and docks; the Holtz Bay and Little Falls cemeteries where American troops killed in the campaign were buried; grave markers of Japanese soldiers killed; interpretive signs at key sites where the fighting to retake the island took place; and three large but poor-quality prints depicting a downed Japanese Akutan Zero plane and several scenes of the bombing of Dutch Harbor.

Diary of Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi, a Japanese Army Doctor Killed on Attu, Alaska, in 1943 - Captured enemy document, translated by the Office of Chief of Staff of G-2, Massacre Valley, Attu Island, June 1943. This is a 3-page extract covering the battle until death of the writer. 

Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi, sometimes mistakenly referred to as Nebu Tatsuguchi (August 31, 1911 – May 30, 1943), was a surgeon in the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) during World War II. Tatsuguchi studied medicine in California before the war. He converted to Christianity and served as a medical missionary of the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Japan before being drafted into the Imperial Army in 1941. He was killed during the Battle of Attu on May 30, 1943.

In the evening hours of May 28, American forces occupied the high ground in Chichagof Valley, controlling three critical hills: Fish Hook, Buffalo, and Engineer. The Japanese forces were pushed to the sea, and the Americans planned to bombard them the next day. Colonel Yamasaki, the Japanese commanding officer on Attu, had only 800 men available for combat, plus 600 men who had been wounded over the last two weeks of fighting. Rather than surrendering, which was considered dishonorable, Yamasaki chose to make a daring move. He and his men would counterattack the Americans at their weakest point, capture their artillery on Engineer Hill, and use it against them. They would then sweep through the island to Massacre Bay, raid the enemy’s supplies, and retreat into the mountains to await reinforcements. Most Japanese soldiers saw the plan as a chance for an honorable death, not a great victory. That night, Dr. Tatsuguchi recorded in his diary, “[there are] continuous cases of suicide…. heard they gave 400 shots of morphine to kill wounded….”

“The last assault is to be carried out. All the patients in the hospital are to commit suicide. Only 33 years of living and I am to die here.... At 1800 (hours) took care of all the patients with grenades. Good-bye, Taeki, my beloved wife, who loved me to the last.” - Dr. Paul Nebu Tatsuguchi, May 28, 1943


Department of War - Roosevelt White House Files

630 pages of military reports, correspondences and bulletins regarding intelligence and activities related to the Alaskan region, dating from December 7, 1941 to December 1944. Includes plans for the occupation of Kiska and U.S. Daily Joint Intelligence Committee summaries.

 
Reports

U.S. Coast Guard at War Alaska, Volume III (1946)


Alaskan Air Defense and the Japanese Invasion of the Aleutians, by Arthur B. Ferguson (1944)

Prepared by the Assistant Chief of Air Staff Intelligence Historical Division in April 1944. Covers the problems with Alaskan air defenses from 1934 to June 1942 and the Japanese invasion of the Aleutian Islands.

 
The Occupation of Kiska NAVAER 50-30T-2 15 AUGUST 1943 (1944)

Abstract: This is one of a series of pamphlets dealing with the weather aspects of Naval and Amphibious Warfare. The data on which these studies are based are taken from official documents and reports submitted to the Navy Department. The material has been collated and presented in a semi-technical form with particular attention given to the operational aspects of weather.
 

The Aleutians Campaign, World War II - Historical Study and Current Perspective (1977)

Abstract: This work, is a detailed historical study of the Aleutians Campaign conducted by U.S. Armed Forces from 3 June 1942 through 18 August 1943 to gain control of the North Pacific and eject the Japanese from Attu and Kiska Islands. The campaign, characterized by combined and joint operations, involved an extended air battle, a brutal fight for control of the waters of the western Aleutians, and two major combat amphibious operations. The Aleutians Campaign, of major significance at the time, quickly became over-shadowed by later naval, air, and amphibious operations conducted in the Pacific. Though studied extensively after August 1943 to apply lessons learned to other operations, the Aleutians Campaign attracted little attention by military scholars in the years after World War II. This study details the conduct of the campaign and applies tactical, operational, and strategic aspects to the current U.S. Army model for campaign planning. 

National Security Agency (NSA) Cryptologic Quarterly Article: Radio Intelligence in Japanese and American North Pacific Naval and Air Operations. Summer 1990-Vol. 9, No. 2
 

The Battle of Attu and The Aleutian Island Campaign (2014)

A monograph By Major Matthew Scott Metcalf of the United States Army.

Abstract: The Battle of Attu is a case study for the importance of the proper application of operational art into the planning and preparation of a major military operation. This monograph provides a succinct historical account of the events surrounding the Battle of Attu and the Aleutian Island Campaign to provide the strategic and operational context that shaped the American operational approach. Analysis of primary source data used includes personal accounts, media sources, and previous studies. America was successful due to its ability to organize and apply combat power by leveraging the elements of operational art; specifically, the elements of operational reach and basing. These elements led to the building of depth during the Battle of Attu which was critical to the successful outcome of the battle.

 
The Aleutian Islands Campaign: The Strengths and Weaknesses of its Planning Process and Execution (2014)

A Monograph by Major Jeremy Easley of the United States Army

Abstract: During the planning and execution of the Aleutian Islands Campaign, what did the commanders and planners do well, and what could they have done to reduce the loss of life? Analyzing this campaign reveals strengths and weaknesses of the planning process, which resulted in an erratic execution of the plan. Furthermore, this analysis reveals how modern doctrine accounts for the weaknesses exhibited in the planning of this campaign.

Other reports include:

Medical Department United States Army in World War II Cold Injury, Ground Type (1958)

World War II in Alaska a Historic and Resources May 1987 Management Plan (1987)

 Infantry Operations in the Aleutians the Battle for Attu (1990)

World War II in the Aleutians: The Fundamentals of Joint Campaigns (1994)

The "Moose Muss" of the Aleutian Campaign: An Operational Analysis Using the Principles of War (1997)

 
Books

Attu Boy (2012) 

In 2012, the National Park Service published Nick Golodoff’s Attu Boy. Golodoff was six when his family was captured and sent to Japan. This book combines transcriptions of the oral histories of Attu survivors with Golodoff’s memoir. Sadly, during the war, Golodoff’s village was destroyed, and the United States Government opted to annex the island for military purposes. The Aleuts were not allowed to return.

  
Attu: The Forgotten Battle (2017) by John Hale Cloe

Abstract: In Attu: The Forgotten Battle, Colonel John Haile Cloe, U.S. Army Reserves, Retired, has brilliantly exposed an affecting and griping picture of this little remembered conflict, from the planning stages to the final days of bloody hand-to-hand combat and the desperate Banzai charge.

Beginning with the official after action reports of the Battle of Attu during May of 1943, there have been several accounts of this World War II contest, fought on a freezing, fog-shrouded island at the farthest end of Alaska’s Aleutian Chain. But Cloe gives the reader a particularly stark understanding of how different and difficult it was to conduct military operations in the fierce, northern latitudes compared to the more notorious battles waged elsewhere in the Pacific Theater.

Presenting a detailed account of this early amphibious campaign in the North Pacific, he lays bare the grave miscalculations and chaos—from the critical highest national levels, to the poor planning and execution of the battle. Aside from Iwo Jima, the Battle of Attu claimed the highest percentage of American casualties during World War II.

Cloe’s close connection with an interest in the story of Attu provides an authentic foundation for this engrossing retelling.
 

COMBAT NARRATIVES: The Aleutians Campaign June 1942-August 1943 (1945/Reprinted 2018)

Published by the Publications Branch of the Office of Naval Intelligence

Abstract: The Aleutians Campaign, originally published as a Combat Narrative in May 1945, reefers to an area that Samuel Eliot Morison once described in his 15-volume history as a “theater of frustration.” The Japanese invasion of Attu and Kiska during the Midway campaign of 1942 seemed to indicate that the enemy sought to use the Aleutians island chain as a line of advance for operations against the North American mainland. But the severe climate of the Aleutians and the increasing attention given to other areas of the Pacific greatly diminished the strategic value of these islands. After the American reoccupation of Attu and Kiska in May 1943, the Aleutians Campaign became relatively inactive. “Both sides,” in Morison’s opinion, “would have done well to have left the Aleutians to the Aleuts for the course of the war.”

 
World War II Aleut Relocation Camps in Southeast Alaska (2012)

Abstract: The Aleuts are an Alaska Native people that historically inhabited a few small villages in the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands. During World War II the villagers were evacuated and interned at six locations in southeast Alaska, where they endured considerable hardship (the villagers of Attu Island were interned by the enemy in Japan, where they suffered even more hardship). The experience of the Aleut relocation during World War II has been told by Kirtland and Coffin (1981), Kohlhoff (1995), and others based on archival research and oral history. This volume focuses instead on the places, using archival material and oral history to supplement onsite observation and photography at each of the six relocation camp sites.

 
Aleutian Islands 3 June 1942–24 August 1943

A brochure prepared in the U.S. Army Center of Military History by George L. MacGarrigle.

 
The Battle for the Aleutians - A Graphic History 1942-1943 (1944)

Produced by the U.S. Army's Intelligence Section, Field Force Headquarters, Adak, Alaska October 1943. 

Abstract: This small book is a partial record of the men who fought for these Aleutian bases, and the men who built them into impregnable fortresses that history will remember as the Northern Highway to Victory.

 
United States Department of the Interior Documents

There are now eight sites in Alaska designated as National Historic Landmarks because of their significance during World War II. Among those are Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base, one of the first bases that the Japanese attacked during the Aleutian campaign; Kodiak Naval Operating Base, whose ships and submarines played a critical role in the Aleutian campaign; and Sitka Naval Operating Base, the U.S. Navy’s first air station in Alaska when World War II began.

This collection contains reports concerning the history of the region, importance and condition of Attu Battlefield and U.S. Army and Navy airfields on Attu, Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base and Fort Means on Amaknak Island, Adak Army Base and Adak Naval Operating Base, Sitka Naval Operating Base and U.S. Army coastal defenses at Sitka.
 

NEWSPAPERS

326 full sheet pages of front-page news related to the Campaign. Includes reporting from the Nome Nugget, published in Nome, Alaska. Other newspapers include The Evening Star, Washington D.C., and the Detroit Times. This collection includes regional papers in Arizona, Delaware, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, and Washington.