World War II in Alaska

I knew about the Japanese attack on Attu, one of the Aleutian Islands in the early days of World War II.  What I didn’t know until I read an article in the magazine American Indian was that 40 natives were captured and taken to Japan, where 16 of the detainees and four of five children born there died before the war’s end.

The U.S. military also took almost 900 native Americans living in the combat zone to internment camps, ostensibly for their protection.  Approximately 10% of the evacuees died in those camps.

In 2018, on the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Attu, descendants of Attuans, and Japanese and American soldiers met in Anchorage to commemorate the battle.

See William C. Meadows, “Attu’s Lost Village,” American Indian, (Fall 2022), pp. 22-29.