1942 and 1943
Japanese soldiers on Attu Island, Alaska 1942. Notice the fog on the mountainsides.
Remember how Admiral Yamamoto’s plan to attack Midway had two operations in it? Operation MI, didn’t work out too well for the Japanese at Midway.
But Operation AL was a different story. Yamamoto’s plan put enemy forces on American soil at Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.
Alaska wasn’t yet a state in 1942, and neither was Hawaii. Both were American territories, so still American soil, and both had significant military bases because of their strategic locations. Alaska alone had about 42,000 stationed servicemen.
“I believe that in the future, whoever holds Alaska will hold the world,” General Billy Mitchell told Congress 1935. “I think it is the most strategic place in the world.”
Japan thought Alaska was pretty strategic, too.
Look at the map below. Alaska is gigantic. It’s twice as big as Texas, and it has more coastline than the entire United States combined. Part of that coastline comes from the Aleutian Islands that stretch more than 1,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean. These island almost touch Russia. And to their south is Japan.
America’s main naval base in the Aleutians was at Dutch Harbor (see map). This base held 15,000 American troops. That might sound like a lot of men, but not if you consider how much land and sea they needed to protect.
Since America broke the Japanese code, Admiral Nimitz knew Yamamoto planned to attack the Aleutians. So Nimitz ordered Task Force 8 to leave Pearl Harbor in May with five cruisers, fourteen destroyers, and six submarines, all sailing for Alaska. Their commander, Rear Admiral Robert Theobald, was ordered to protect the naval facility at Dutch Harbor—at all costs.
Map of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, stretching toward the Soviet Union
In early June, while the Battle of Midway was happening, a Japanese carrier force attacked Dutch Harbor. Of course, Yamamoto expected America to divert its carriers away from Midway and head to Alaska. But he didn’t know the Americans were already one step ahead of him. Cracking that Japanese code made all the difference, and the Americans were able to hold onto Dutch Harbor.
But America couldn’t exactly call this fight a victory, because thousands of Japanese troops landed on other Aleutian islands— Agattu, Kiska, and Attu (see map).
For the first time since the War of 1812 when the British invaded, enemy forces now occupied part of America. Japan planted its red-and-white flag of the rising sun in American soil.
This was serious trouble for the United States. Japan could now interrupt the shipping routes that ran across the northern Pacific that were used to send aid to the Soviet Union, an American ally during WWII. Military leaders were also worried that the Japanese planned to move from the islands into mainland Alaska. If they did, they could move south and invade the western states of Washington, Oregon, and California.
America should have immediately attacked the occupying Japanese, reclaim the American soil, protect the homeland, and send a clear message to the enemy.
But America was already fighting two fronts in this war. It was fighting all the battles in the southern Pacific against Japan as well as fighting Germany and Italy in Europe and North Africa.
There just weren’t enough troops or supplies to start another fight in Alaska.
So thousands of Japanese troops stayed on Attu and Kiska for an entire year.
Then, when the war in North Africa seemed under control, the American military sent troops to kick Japan out of Alaska.
Code-named Operation Sandcrab, the invasion of Attu was such a top-secret mission that not even the soldiers picked for the attack knew where they were going. Most of the men came from the battlefields of North Africa. They assumed they were heading to another hot climate. After all, the military had ordered a bunch of mosquito netting.
Trouble began even before the troops left San Francisco. The cargo ships carrying their supplies and military materiel were so small that vital items, like winter clothing, were left behind. The military decided heavy clothes wouldn’t be needed since Operation Sandcrab was taking place during the summer. They expected it to last only about thirty-six hours.
Summer in Alaska isn’t like summer in California, but the troops left San Francisco with only lightweight summer uniforms. Heading north, still uncertain of their destination, the men watched ice form on the ship rails. The nonstop icy wind was so cold that it blew right through their thin clothing. The mountains were still covered with snow, and the valleys were cold, wet, and boggy.
Soldiers unload landing craft on the beach at Attu
On May 11, 1943, the invasion of Attu began.
Fortunately, the garrison of 2,300 Japanese soldiers didn’t fight back against the initial assault. If they had, the invasion might have ended right there.
Not only did the troops have the wrong clothing, they also had inaccurate maps. They landed in the wrong places just to discover they also had the wrong equipment—or not enough equipment. If the landing vehicles managed to clear the beaches, they would immediately sink in the marshy Alaska soil, called muskeg.
These cold and desolate volcanic islands were nothing like the deserts of North Africa.
The soldiers soon suffered from frostbite and trench foot since their thin leather boots never dried out as they trudged through the snowy cliffs.
Soon the Japanese attacked.
American troops hauling supplies on Attu because their vehicles couldn’t travel over the island's rugged terrain. May 1943
Hidden on the steep ridges, they opened fire with machine guns and mortars. Sometimes the combat was so close that the combat became hand-to-hand. Even with American artillery set up on Attu’s beaches, it was hard to locate the enemy because the island was cloaked in a dense fog, hiding their positions.
Freezing in thin uniforms and sleeping in canvas tents, the Americans searched the island for the Japanese, who were wearing fur-lined coats and had small kerosene stoves for heat. Some American soldiers became so cold they burned their rifle stocks for warmth.
Yet, they bravely kept fighting.
Within two weeks, the Americans had inflicted serious damage on the Japanese forces, and finally reinforcements and proper equipment were on the way to the troops in Attu.
On the evening of May 28th , right before the supplies would arrive, a reconnaissance patrol crept up to one of the Japanese encampments. They saw something very strange: The Japanese soldiers were guzzling sake—Japanese wine—and yelling at the top of their lungs. Meanwhile, their wounded comrades were committing suicide with self-inflicted gunshots.
The Americans crawled away, confused at what they’d just seen.
Japan’s new military leaders were spreading propaganda among its people. Using the Bushido code, the leaders had convinced the soldiers that dying for one’s country wasn’t just a duty, it was a “holy mission.” They told their soldiers that it was better to commit suicide if you were wounded so you wouldn’t slow down your comrades.
The strange behavior was preparation for a suicide mission, also called a Banzai attack.
Early the next morning, the Japanese soldiers crept silently through Attu’s heavy fog. Some American infantry units were just beginning to eat breakfast. Suddenly they heard blood-curdling screams.
“Banzai!”
The Japanese soldiers raced out of the fog, overpowered three sentry outposts, and took an American field hospital. The medical tents were marked with the red-and-white symbol of the International Red Cross, which indicated a no-fighting zone under the Geneva Convention. Running through the field hospital, the Japanese soldiers bayonetted the unarmed medical personnel and slashed the wounded who lay helplessly on their cots.
The sound of gunfire alerted the 50th Combat Engineers who were on a hill above the hospital. Grabbing their M-1 rifles and helmets, the engineers lined up along the hill’s crest, only to see Japanese soldiers charging toward them, bayonets set to murder. The engineers only managed to fire off one or two rounds before the enemy reached them and hand-to-hand combat began. With rifle butts and fists, the outnumbered engineers beat back the Japanese troops, who once again disappeared into the fog.
That was how the Americans discovered what a Banzai attack was. The next time they heard the enemy screaming, they were ready and beat back the Japanese once more.
Three days later, the Americans had the upper hand. On May 31st the Americans defeated the Japanese.
Nearly all 3,000 Japanese soldiers on Attu were dead.
But the American forces paid a price for this victory. They suffered almost 4,000 casualties, many resulting from the cold and disease, with 549 killed in action.
With Attu cleared, the Americans headed for the next Aleutian objective: Kiska. That island had nearly 5,000 Japanese soldiers.
Yet when the Americans landed on Kiska on August 15th, the Japanese garrison was gone.
All that remained were four dogs, and the corpse of one Japanese soldier.
WHO FOUGHT?
“Modern armies had never fought before in any field that was like the Aleutians,” said Dashiell Hammett, a US Army corporal who spent eighteen months on the Aleutian Island of Adak. Later, Hammett became a famous mystery novelist. But his time in the Aleutians left a deep impression. “We could borrow no knowledge from the past. We would have to learn as we went along, how to live and fight and win in this land, the least-known part of America.”
The learning curve was steep. But some of the quickest students were the men of the US Army Combat Engineers.
With fighting going on around them, the engineers had to figure out how to keep food, water, and ammunition moving even when the trucks and tractors were bogged down in the muskeg. Realizing the equipment was almost useless, the engineers used streams and waterways as roads. Soon, artillery and ammunition were floating to locations. When the terrain grew steep, the engineers built a cable system to haul everything from backpacks to wooden carts to higher ground. They also created a supply hub on a hill overlooking a wide valley. They figured from that location, the artillery could shell the Japanese who were dug into even higher ground.
That rise was later named “Engineer Hill.”
It was there that the Army engineers faced that Banzai attack.
FIND OUT MORE:
BOOKS
Ghosts in the Fog: The Untold Story of Alaska's WWII Invasion by Samantha Seiple
The Capture of Attu: A World War II Battle as Told by the Men Who Fought There by Gregory J.W. Urwin First Among Men: A Story of the Invasion of Attu Island by Jerry Coke
INTERNET
Check out this 1940s newsreel about the Battle of Attu.
More about the battle.
MOVIES
Red, White, Black & Blue, critically acclaimed documentary about the Battle of Attu with interviews of veterans from the invasion campaign.