WW II Pacific campaign filled with misery
By RON SIMON • News Journal • September 1, 2008
LUCAS -- In the summer of 1943, Lt. Bernard Kasten only saw the sun twice.
As Kasten, 90, a retired Sears and Roebuck store manager recalls, "It's 1,000 miles from Dutch Harbor to Attu. They are the most brutal miles in the Pacific Ocean. For 15 months, that is where we fought one of the toughest campaigns of World War II."
Kasten believes the long Aleutians Islands campaign has been mostly forgotten.
It began with the Japanese bombing Dutch Harbor's naval base. It included one battle on Attu Island and a huge surprise, when it was found the Japanese had evacuated Kiska Island.
The rest, Kasten said, was pure misery.
He said the only authentic book written on this campaign was "The Thousand Miles War" by Brian Garfield.
"In the context of the global war, it was a relatively small campaign. About 500,000 men took part through land, sea and air.
There were few American casualties at the battle on Attu Island but one of them, the death in action of 2nd Lt. "Shorty" Brewer, brought tears to Kasten's eyes.
Brewer was a good friend and Kasten believes he may have died himself, in Brewer's place, had his own infantry company been in reserve.
Otherwise, Kasten's memories of the Aleutian Islands are of fog, cold, damp, wind, and black muck a foot deep.
Kasten's unit landed on a forsaken island called Amchitka to establish an air base.
"My memory of the first 10 days on that island is mostly a blur," Kasten said. "The weather conditions were constantly bad."
Just getting a tent erected in the wind was hard, he said.
Wheeled vehicles sank in the black muck so everything had to be carried ashore and moved by hand.
But the men did eat well for those first 10 days. A supply ship was driven ashore by the wind.
Its cargo of food was quickly devoured before it could go bad, Kasten said. From that point, it was field rations all the way.
Water was nearly undrinkable despite being purified with chlorine.
"The G.I.s called it 50-50," Kasten said.
Establishing an air field was difficult and Japanese fighter and bomber planes made it even harder with their daily raids.
Kasten said morale got a boost when some American fighter planes managed to ambush the Japanese during one of those raids. Otherwise, he said, the Japanese often had the advantage.
The Japanese occupied two of the outermost islands, Attu and Kiska.
Kasten said there were few Japanese on Attu and most died in a final suicide charge.
He said the Americans hit Kiska hard, only to find there were no Japanese there.
That was the end of what turned out to be an 18-month campaign for Kasten's 7th Infantry Division.
He said his unit had been trained to fight in the deserts of North Africa. So the shift to the chill, windy Aleutian Islands was a shock.
A native of Grand Rapids, Mich., Kasten earned a degree in business administration and paid for his schooling by owning and operating the East Lansing Heating Co.
"We cleaned and repaired coal furnaces in homes," he said.
Sears and Roebuck officials liked Kasten's background and hired him as a trainee. His training was in Cleveland. That's where he met his wife, Mary June, at Euclid Beach Amusement Park.
He was drafted in early 1942. After basic training, he attended Officers Candidate School.
Not long after graduation, he and Mary June were married. There wasn't much time to celebrate. After training in California, Kasten's 7th Division was on its way to the Thousand Mile War.
When he got home from Alaska, Kasten was promoted twice and became a captain in the infantry.
He was assigned to Fort Benning, Ga., where he instructed trainees in the 82nd Airborne in infantry tactics. That's where he was when the war ended.
He said Sears kept his job open for him and he eventually became a store manager. His last store was at Great Northern Mall in North Olmsted. He retired in 1974.
Kasten and June spend summers on the shores of Charles Mill Lake and their winters in Florida.
He enjoys painting and gardening and she has a large doll collection. They are active in the United Methodist Church and he is a member of Disabled American Veterans.
"I'm still a Michigan boy at heart," Kasten said. "I still root for the Detroit Tigers and Lions and for Michigan State."
The couple had four boys and three of them, Bernard Jr., William Richard and James C. are physicians. The fourth son, Robert Mark, is a businessman in Cincinnati.
There are 14 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren to date. There are more doctors on the way," Kasten said.
Recalling his war in the Aleutians, Kasten believes the entire campaign was largely mismanaged and didn't provide much in the way of glory for those involved -- just misery.
"Frostbite was our biggest problem," he said.
"Attu was one of the biggest operations in the Pacific War and to this day you won't hear much about it," he said.
WW II Pacific campaign filled with misery | mansfieldnewsjournal.com | Mansfield News Journal
Re: A Soldier Strips the Romance Out of Life at War
I was raised on german food...but my husband is a millionth generation american polish, so I don't get to make german food too much and his kids certainly won't touch it....the most i can get him to eat is canned german potatoe salad (yeeechhhh!) To make matters worse, in February I really wanted Wienerschnitzel, kartoffelpuffer and sauerkraut...so I made it even though I know he hates it. later that night he came down with a horrible stomach flu and after bringing all that sauerkraut back up he won't even let me make it for myself becasue the smell makes him remember his horrible experience! 
Re: A Soldier Strips the Romance Out of Life at War
