Memorial Day Alaska Ping.
Memorial Day Alaska Ping.
The Aleutian campaign was a Japanese “Faint” to draw the Americans away from Midway Attack!
Story needs to be told to recruits who feel like the Drill Sergeant is just being sassy telling them to get up and move
I’m a history buff and did not know this. Thanks for posting.
As a vet myself I feel this man’s pain. We must never forget. We have a debt we can’t repay, but we owe to never let freedom slip away on our watch.
I didn’t know about this battle. Thanks for posting.
My father being from Massachusetts, I remember the incident where 2 or 3 German spies or saboteurs sneaked ashore in New England, deploying from a mini-sub or some such, with the goal of sabotaging infrastructure and/or gathering intelligence. If I recall correctly, they were all apprehended or killed rather quickly.
Many Americans don't realize that there were also some German-American citizens who were put into internment camps during WWII. Most believe that only the Japanese were the victims of such wrong-headed (IMHO, whether "Constitutional" or not) policies.
History has demonstrated that America had little or nothing to fear from its ethnic minority citizens who happened to match the ethnicity of the Enemy—certainly not anywhere near enough to justify mass interments. Wartime hysteria is a powerful—and often atrociously unjust—mob phenomenon.
I always chuckle at the "conservatives" who—then and now—enthusiastically supported FDR's patently un-American policy on mass internment of select ethnicities. As I mentioned, history has compellingly shown the notion to be abject hysteria...
You might be interested in “The Thousand Mile Watr” by Brian Garfield (circa 1999?). It is a thorough-going history of this little known, but important front in WWII. The US had little to gain by a big victory, but it could not afford to lose, either.
As an aside, compare the terrain on Attu with the terrain of Kiska.
We almost lost. The Japanese attack came very close to capturing a battery of US howitzers. If they had they could have turned those guns on the defenseless support ships that were anchored beneath them. At Guadalcanal the Japanese might have won if their Navy had been a bit more aggressive. They bombarded Hickman Field and Marine positions with WW I battleships. About six miles beyond, the American supply fleet lay defenseless at anchor. The Japanese commander fearful of air attacks from an American carrier ( that had been withdrawn) did not press the attack. Japanese army commanders often with foolish bravado sacrificed their troops in massive frontal attacks. Other than a few commanders, the Japanese Navy did not demonstrate the same aggressive spirit.
Years ago I dated the daughter of a man who had been stationed on an air base there. From the way he spoke it has to be one of the most miserable and inhospitable places on Earth!
(Didn’t know) Thanks for posting. BUMP!
In a three year occupation, the Japanese killed almost 1/2 of the population of Guam.
There was a huge battle to retake the island starting July 21, 1944. There were over 10,000 killed and wounded in the battle on the US side which landed nearly 60,000 troops to retake the island.
Guamians are Americans too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Guam_(1944)
My wife’s grandfather was the Transport Commander for the landing.
No, I did not know about this battle. Thank you for posting this.
He never said much about it until after I enlisted. His stories were mostly about the assignment, not the fight. Once he opened up one night about the torture and atrocities the japanese inflicted on those captures at remote weather outposts. They used bayonets on the captives in every imaginable way. They were beasts.
He was killed during the Battle of Attu on Attu Island, Alaska on May 30, 1943.
I didn’t know much about this battle, but it makes sense, from a Japanese perspective, to try and control these islands.
Japan was in trouble once the USA took Saipan and US bombers could hit Tokyo. Attu doesn’t appear to be that much farther away.
Bookmarking this thread.
Dutch Harbor I guess, one sees some pictures of that as well, was not on Attu Island I gather, read about Dutch Harbor here, so that was indeed, separate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dutch_Harbor
The Atlantic had some pictures as well.
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/08/world-war-ii-battle-of-midway-and-the-aleutian-campaign/100137/
How inhospitable and rough and forsaken were the terrains of these places.