The Forgotten Battle

As the military was busy upgrading Alaska's defenses and infrastructure, it also began a year-long campaign to retake Attu and Kiska. The Aleutian Campaign is sometimes known as the Forgotten Battle. With relatively small forces engaged in one of the most isolated places in the world, it was obscured by the much larger Battle of Guadalcanal in the South Pacific and the Battle of Stalingrad in Russia, where armies of over a million men met in the largest battle of the war. But the soldiers who fought in the Aleutian Campaign, faced some of the most difficult conditions found anywhere during the war.

Despite the obstacles, the constant air attacks took a toll on Japanese defenders. In September, a new airfield was built on the island of Adak, cutting flying distances by half. Over half a million pounds of explosives were dropped on the enemy bases by the end of 1942, and several ships had been sunk. In January of 1943, the U.S. occupied Amchitka; American planes were now within 100 miles of Kiska.

As the Air Force kept pounding the islands, the Navy set up a blockade to prevent supplies from reaching the Japanese troops. American war vessels and aircraft sank or forced to turn back 17 of the 35 ships the Japanese dispatched between November 1942 and March 1943 to supply the Aleutian bases. The largest naval engagement was the Battle of the Komandorski Islands on March 26, 1943.  The larger Japanese fleet failed to follow up it's advantage and retreated when the commander erroneously believed he was under air attack. After the battle, the Japanese ended attempts to resupply the Aleutian garrisons by surface ship. From then on, only submarines resupplied the islands. The isolated Japanese garrisons prepared for the coming American invasion.

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