As I write this blog post on March 13, it is 29 degrees here in Washington, DC, and it seems impossible to believe that spring will arrive in just over a week. Emerging from one of the snowiest and coldest winters that many regions of the country have seen in decades, in which the phrase “polar vortex” became a routine part of our vocabulary, it feels like an appropriate time to recognize those who faced Arctic temperatures on the battlefield.
The Veterans History Project’s newest Experiencing War web feature shines a light on an often-forgotten part of World War II: the Aleutian Island Campaign. While some of the war’s most gripping stories came out of this campaign, it has not received the same popular historical attention as other theaters and battles, leading to its nickname as the “lost campaign” of the war.
The Aleutian Campaign took place relatively early in the war, from 1942 to 1943, in the Aleutian Island chain, a series of small islands (including Attu, Kiska, Adak, Unalaska, and others) located to the southwest of Alaska. At the time, Alaska was an American territory, but not yet a state. Both the United States and Japan saw the strategic significance of the location of the Aleutian chain, as it was positioned between the two countries and adjacent to the South Pacific, and both hoped to secure the islands for themselves. By early 1942, the US had established a presence on Unalaska and Umnak Islands. In June, the Japanese landed on Attu, and American troops spent the next year attempting to gain control of the Aleutians.
While many who fought in World War II coped with extreme temperatures, the weather and terrain of the Aleutian Islands stand as a defining element of the campaign. The photos in Seaman First Class Clifton Davis’s collection, such as the one to the right, give a sense of the stark, mountainous, and snowy landscape of the Aleutians. As for the weather, its impact on soldiers stationed there comes across in the language that they use to describe it: “atrocious,” “dismal,” and “a main and constant concern.” Depending on the season, servicemen were subject to blizzards, rainstorms with driving, horizontal rain, howling winds, and Arctic temperatures. The weather provided cover to and disguised the enemy during combat, complicated attempts to construct airstrips and barracks, and often threatened health and life. Many soldiers and sailors had arrived in the Aleutians without proper clothing or sleeping bags, which exacerbated the devastating effects of the weather. As Captain Dean Galles relates,
We were so ill equipped, clothing wise. We had leather Blucher boots, and by being continually wet all the time, they just fell apart. And after about two weeks… they called us back to the beach, and they said, take your shoes and socks off, of what you’ve got left. I was so amazed. My feet were black with, I guess fungus or mold.
Unsurprisingly, the lack of sunshine and constant gloom also impacted morale. Machinist First Class Earl Long, pictured to the left, describes the endless days on Adak:
Dark, dismal, damp, cold, and windy. One woke up with it, worked in it, and went to sleep with it. No change, day after day, week after week.
For some, the dreariness of the weather was punctuated by terrifying encounters with the enemy. During the Battle of Attu, the weather and terrain of the islands made things exponentially more difficult for US forces. Participants in the campaign recall instances of hand-to-hand combat: confused by the many layers of foul-weather gear that the Japanese troops were wearing, Dean Galles mistook them for American replacements. After walking into their lines, he was bayoneted four times.
Following the American victory on Attu in early fall 1943, many servicemen were transferred from the Aleutians back to the continental United States—though some, like Seaman First Class Henry Lesa, wound up serving in the Pacific Theater later in the war, on very different types of islands.
Currently, the Veterans History Project has preserved almost 600 narratives from veterans of the Aleutian Campaign. In addition to the collections featured in Experiencing War, more than 100 of these collections are digitized and accessible via our online database. We encourage veterans of the Aleutian Campaign to donate their service stories to expand the understanding of this unique World War II campaign and service location.
Comments (16)
A very interesting essay – has taught me a quite a lot. However, in the battle for the Aleutian Islands ground troops were aided by Alaskan Sled Dogs. The is little recorded of the help afforded by these brave canine
workers. Any further information or photographs of these dogs will be a great help in my research.
Thanks so much for your comment! I ran a search of our internal database, and while we have a couple of collections in which the veteran mentions sled dogs, none of these veterans served in the Aleutians. If you want to contact me directly, at meha [at] loc.gov, I’d be glad to help brainstorm additional collections and repositories that might be of use. This might be entirely unrelated to your specific research, but we ran a post on service dogs that might be of interest: http://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2015/04/faithful-and-true-even-to-death/.
Thank you so much for this article. My grandfather fought with the 9th Infantry in the Aleutians, he was injured there, and never spoke of it. It is next to impossible to find details of his service and I am quite hungry for them! It’s always good to read of others seeking – and sharing – what info they have. I hope someday to have a clearer picture of his time in the war.
My uncle Malcolm McCaull served in the Aleutian islands during WW II. I remember my mother reading his mail out loud. 2 things I remember that he was sending me winter gloves and a purse made from Seal hides. The other is that when he got back after the war would take me to an ice cream parlor. I remember the gloves and purse and still have them. At that age and the time frame I guess I was not affected by this environmental dilemma. But I do remember going to an ice cream store and sitting on stools at a counter and thinking this does not seem like a parlor. But I loved it and him, my Uncle Mac.
I have my dads little note pad and wondered if it is of any value as a historical piece. He started it in May 1945. Assigned to the 9th fleet, USS Rhodes. In June mentioned one dropped out and headed to Pearl Harbor. On July 1st informed they were headed to an Island called Adak in the Aleutians. on the 8th escorted tanker to Attu. On the 12 part of task force 92.to secret meeting place in the Coral Islands. approx 150 miles from Japan. Talked about ships bombarding an island in the Curals. Mentioned an attack by 5 Jap planes, that he had just missed and that they were running like hell back to Attu. They had trouble in the morning with steering gear which slowed them down considerably. After that there were no further notations. (I summarized his notes) Since I was unaware of this book until after his death, I don’t know why he suddenly stopped writing. If this is of any interest historically in any way, please contact me. Karen Senecal
Dear Karen, thanks so much for your comment and your offer of your father’s diary. It sounds like a rich historical artifact and I’d love to talk more with you about it. I will email you directly. Thank you so much once again!
i know you worked very hard on this blog but it does not include much about the terrain on the aleutian islands
My father, William Rudolph Rozier, served as an anti-aircraft battery commander in the Aleutians. from July 1943 to Dec 1944 and then completed his service in Luzon, The Philippines, as the commander of a Provisional Civilian Labor Battalion associated with Camp M. He died in 1976 one month after a hip replacement operation. A replacement we felt certain was the consequence of his exposure to extreme cold while serving in the Aleutians. I have donated photos to the Museum of the Aleutians. I do have digital copies that I can forward to you.
Dear William Rozier, thanks for reading and for your comment. Unfortunately, we aren’t able to accept digital copies of photographs, but are grateful for your interest and for the kind offer. Thank you again!
My father also was in the Aleutian Islands and would not talk about this time, until we found out their were little or no information about his time there. Until recently have I been able to find his draft card (this year), but the info on it doesn’t match what my grandmother had written in her bible. He helped return prisoners to Japan right after the bomb was dropped but to date none of that can be verified. Sadly he died of several types of cancer which doctors contributed to radiation and plutonium exposure he received during that time.
My Uncle was stationed on Attu after the battle, best I can remember. He was a radio operator and “listened” to the Japanese. His name was Edward Gengler, is there anyway I might find more information about this?
Thanks,
Dave
My dad served in the Aleutian island I wanted to know if his name is on the memorial Walter E. Granquist. Thanks Jim Granquist. God bless everyone that fought in the forgotten war.. Thanks all soldiers of world war 11 for help saving this GREAT country
My uncle, David Leo Moriarty, served in the U.S. Army during WWll, and I was always told by my mother that he was in a unit that was supposed to go to the South Pacific and was equipped for that, but for some unknown reason was sent to the Aleutian Islands instead, where his unit was lost for an unknown amount of time. Upon rescue, my Uncle Dave weighed about 95 pounds and lost all of his teeth. He spent a year in the hospital at the Hotel Oakland in Oakland, CA, which had been turned into a Veterans Hospital for the duration. Is there any validity to this story?
I am writing a document about this and I need to know how this is important to people.
My grandfather was on alot of the islands there, Attu, Kiska, Adak..He helped build the runways for the B29s. I have so many stories and pictures of his time there. One picture I have is of a massive crater, with hundreds of men sitting all around it, and in the middle is a boxing ring with boxers going at it in shorts, on the back of the picture it says “beautiful day only 23 below”
I’m trying to find more information for my museum about a man that served in ww2 at the Aleutian island we have his uniform but just his last name Knudson