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.
Back in the seventies when I was stationed on Adak in the aleutians, which was a US held Island and operational Airbase during the war. There was a book that we had access to and it was in print called “the thousand-mile war” on quote and it was about the Aleutian campaign pretty good read. We used to send out Notice to Mariners routinely for the area in and around Kiska Island which was full of ordinance after ferocious battles had occurred there. Fishermen were dragging up bombs in fishing nets and required EOD assists - that happened fairly often. On a Adak there was lots of old buildings that supported the Army Air corps and its operations in the Aleutians. It was a full-time long-term effort maintaining vigilance up there and it was dangerous - mostly because the weather (and high velocity wind shear) was absolutely terrible and unpredictable.
Read the book by Brian Garfield on the Thousand Mile War. I’m a WW2 buff with over 50 books on my shelf and it’s one of my favorites. It puts the Pacific Campaign in a different perspective and makes me wonder why we lost all those Marines island hopping.
There is a sidestory to the battles of Attu and Kiska, plus the Japanese bombing of Dutch Harbor and other sites in the Aleutians/Alaskan chain of island.
This is off the top of my head because it has been about 10 years or more since I’ve seen these documents in the National Archives, College Park, Md. There was a husband and wife weather observatory team on one of those islands. Had been there for years but the Japanese invasion surprised them. The husband was captured, sent to Japan, where he died reportedly from maltreatment and/or malnourishment.
His wife was spirited away by some Aleut/natives in canoes during a fog to American lines.
Unfortunately I can’t recall the Record Group in w hich I found those documents. Could have been Army, Army Air Force (RG 18), Navy (BuShips? RG 19), or those for regional commands.
Don’t even know if any archivists there know about this incident but it has got to show up somewhere - best bet would be the “Weather Observation posts” reports for the Air Force and Army as they relied on these observers to report back flying conditions, storms, etc.
Somewhere in history, a brave husband and wife defied the Japanese to the end. An we must no forget the bravery and sacrifice of Alaskan natives who helped our fighters and civilians at great risk to themselves.