Specific Battles and Battle Areas, Alaska and the Aleutian Islands.

http://www.bookmice.net/darkchilde/japan/war76.html

info from website..


Some of this material comes from Alaskan Air Defense and the Japanese Invasion of the Aleutians, some from Army Air Forces in the War Against Japan, 1941-1942, , and some comes from another declassified report.
On June 3rd, 1942, the Japanese attacked Dutch Harbor, which was their first attack in the North Pacific areas. According to the information, they did not expect the level of resistance they got.
The Army-Navy defense group got advanced warning of the attack, and was able to focus their resources. They did not exactly defeat the Japanese, but they stopped their progress.
The Aleutians and Alaska have very inhospitable climates to military operations, and the Air Corps was using Alaska to rest all sorts of aircraft and equipment under hostile weather conditions.
Weather was quickly changeable. “Forecasts were of little use to the flyers, since the weather conditions could change more rapidly than planes could fly. ... More often then not, missions had to be canceled on account of the weather.”
The belief was that, if the Japanese too Dutch Harbor, it would allow them to proceed on to take over the northern part of Alaska. That would have caused problems for the U.S., since the country would have had to divert resources from Europe and/or the Pacific to meet the threat from the North. If the Japanese had been able to hold the northern part of Alaska, they might have been able to develop air fields and been able to attack areas of Canada and maybe the northern part of the U.S.
When the Japanese attacked Dutch Harbor, their main targets were Fort Mears, the radio station, and wooden oil tanks. It is possible that the Japanese did not know about Port Glenn's airfield when they started their attacks. Fighters from that field were able to shoot down one plane and drive others off.
Another attack on Dutch Harbor was carried out by almost thirty Japanese planes. They destroyed some warehouses and some oil tanks.
The Japanese took possession of Kiska and Attu islands around June 6th. The U.S. used some B-24's to attack and damaged two cruisers, one destroyer, and sunk one transport. Attacks generally were not successful, often due to poor weather. There was also a lot of antiaircraft fire.
There were three reasons for Japan to stay in the Aleutians:
1. They needed to prevent any “junction of forces” between the Soviet Union and the U.S.
2. They needed to prevent any moves against Japan via the Kurile Islands.
3. They needed to be a threat to U.S. positions.
The Aleutian campaign in the late summer became focused on which islands could be used as airfields.
On missions to Kiska, the b-17's and B-24's carried half loads of bombs due to the long distance they had to fly.
On an island named Adak, construction engineers build an airfield in “record-breaking time.” This allowed easier raids on Kiska since Adak was closer to it than Unmak which was the island being used.
When U.S. planes fought Japanese planes, they destroyed generally about half the Japanese planes.
Another island, Atka, was also used for construction of a runway.
In an attack on Kiska, almost 500 Japanese were killed by bombing. 5 Japanese planes were shot down, and some ships and subs were attacked. The U.S. attacked often enough that the Japanese were not able to build up their forces.
U.S. forces occupied Amchitka (70 miles west of Kiska). on February 12, 1943. Attacks on Kiska increased to an average of 46 sorties per day. 112 planes attacked Kiska on April 15th, from 7:30 in the morning until 8:30 in the evening. On April 24th, the Japanese tried to use a naval force to get supplies to their troops, but they were engaged by a U.S. naval force that battered it and forced them to turn back.
A couple of times Japanese planes from Attu attacked U.S. forces. Once was on May 23rd, but they did no damage. On May 24th 16 Japanese bombers attacked but were intercepted by P-38's which shot down five of the bombers at a minimum.
Once Attu was recaptured, the focus fell on Kiska. In June at least 3 Japanese subs were sunk around Kiska. (They were probably trying to resupply the troops there).
The Japanese generally evacuated Kiska, perhaps on July 28th, 1943, but a few men stayed behind, apparently to make the U.S. think the main forces were still there. Kiska was occupied by U.S. troops onAugust 15th.

 

Many American combatants contacted severe frostbite during the battles. Unknown at the time, severe frostbite was classified as a wound, and met circumstances listed in guidelines to be eligible for the Purple Heart.

Robert

 

This was an interesting read. However there is one mistake. US forces landed on amchitka on January 12, 1943 not February. This was also the day the USS Worden was blown into the rocks by a Williwah, broke up and sunk. My grandfather made the landing on Amchitka on this day and recorded it in his journal he kept.

 

There is a huge misconception that the Aleutians are an "arctic" environment. I even see official histories repeating that in one form or another: "The only major battle fought by US forces in the arctic" etc. I spent a year on Attu at the old USCG LORAN Station. It's a wet environment, much like British Columbia, but without the trees. In fact the southern loop of the chain is at the same latitude as Vancouver Island. Nobody got frostbite in the invasion in May. They got trenchfoot no doubt, because the surface is basically a foot of moss and lichens above naked rock and each step is ankle to knee deep in that green soup on any flat surface. The Japanese wore knee-high rubber boots, the American forces (and the Canadians at Kiska) wore standard army leather boots. A poor choice.
That surface is classified as muskeg, an arctic characteristic, but in the true arctic it forms in summer above permafrost. In the Aleutians it forms because it rains 300 days a year and because the actual surface is volcanic stone which prevents it from draining into the soil.

Attu is just turning green in May with some sleet possibly, but mostly rain. It even rains in January more than it snows. When it does snow, it's that heavy wet snow that is soon washed away by more rain.

Anyway, not arctic. It only looks arctic because the standard Mercator projection deceives the eye.

 

I remember my grandfather mentioning that a lot of the men that went to Alaska were training to fight in either the South Pacific or Africa, so they were not acclamated to the weather. I remember hearing him talk about the men not having the proper boots or clothing.