Download or read book The Defense of Dutch Harbor Alaska written by D. Colt Denfeld and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Williwaw War written by Donald Goldstein and published by University of Arkansas Press. This book was released on 1992-07-01 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An amazing story of Arkansas soldiers and their struggle in the Aleutians. A must read book for those who want to learn about a forgotten part of that great war told from a soldier's point of view." -Major General James A. Ryan The Adjutant General Military Department of Arkansas
Download or read book World War II National Historic Landmarks written by Carol Burkhart and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Stepping Stones to Nowhere written by Galen Roger Perras and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Aleutian Islands, a mostly forgotten portion of the United States on the southwest coast of Alaska, have often assumed a key role in American military strategy. This work examines the Japanese occupation of the western Aleutians, which climaxed in the horrendous battle for Attu.
Download or read book War Comes to Alaska written by Norman E. Rourke and published by White Mane Pub. This book was released on 1997 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: War Comes to Alaska tells the story of the Dutch Harbor Attack from both the American and Japanese points of view. Kept secret for morale and security reasons, the Japanese attack and ultimate invasion of the Aleutians was off limits to the American press. Government leaders feared the outbreak of panic if Americans realized how close the Japanese were to the West Coast of the Lower 48 states. Rourke has gone beyond that important, but little known, story of when war came to North America. He has also shown us the fight a small body of troops waged against the weather in that far to the north place where they were building a fortress in that spongy tundra to protect the American mainland.
Download or read book Alaska at War 1941 1945 written by Fern Chandonnet and published by University of Alaska Press. This book was released on 2007-09-15 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the course of the past two hundred years, only one United States territory has experienced foreign occupation: Alaska. Available for the first time in paperback, Alaska at War brings readers face to face with the North Pacific front in World War II. Wide-ranging essays cover the war as seen by Alaskan eyes, including the Japanese invasion of the Attu and Kiska islands, the effects of the war on Aleutian Islanders, and the American campaign to recover occupied territory. Whether you’re a historian or a novice student interested in this pivotal period of American history, Alaska at War provides fascinating insight into the background, history, and cultural impact of war on the Alaskan homefront.
Download or read book History of Alaska Volume II written by Jonathan M. Nielson, Ph.D. and published by Academica Press. This book was released on 2018-03-01 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most significant military development to touch Alaska during the interwar years was the advent of air power, an innovation that completely altered Alaska's strategic position. Suddenly the world became smaller as areas once thought safely distant from potential enemies became vulnerable. Nowhere was this more evident than in the Pacific, whose countless islands became potential advanced air bases. As air technology improved, the ability of long-range bombers and, by the 1930s, of carrier aircraft, to penetrate American airspace was a development of far reaching significance. While such warnings were largely limited to a handful of air-power advocates their vocal advocacy constituted nothing less than an “insurrection”, a revolution in military thinking fought against entrenched military conservatism, cultural aversion to change, fears of budget cuts, and War Department lethargy. Indeed it was the air power crusader General Billy Mitchell who aggressively fought to convince the War and Navy Departments to embrace the new doctrine of offensive air power. Mitchell came to understand Alaska's strategic importance early on. Consequently, he saw the Aleutians as a vulnerability: if left unguarded Japan could “creep up” and, by establishing air dominance, take Alaska and Canada’s West Coast. But he also saw Alaska as a strategic base from which American planes could “reduce Tokyo to powder.” Prophetically, in 1923 Mitchell forecast precisely the military threat and strategic arguments that would shape military thinking almost twenty years later: “I am thinking of Alaska. In an air war, if we were unprepared Japan could take it away from us, first by dominating the sky and creeping up the Aleutians." By the mid-to late 1930s military and civilian advocates of air power and more visionary strategists were beginning to make their voices heard in Congress and elsewhere, decrying Alaska’s military vulnerability. Between 1933 and 1944 no one was more adamant than Alaska’s Delegate in Congress, Anthony Joseph “Tony” Dimond, who challenged the nation to defend itself by defending Alaska. To Dimond, it seemed poor strategy to fortify one pacific base, Hawaii, while ignoring another, Alaska. Dimond’s campaign was strengthened by passage of the Wilcox Bill, sponsored by Representative J. Mark Wilcox (D-Florida), officially known as the National Air Defense Act. This truly significant legislation authorized the location and construction of military airfields throughout the United States as a general defense preparedness measure. Alaska was recognized as one of the nation’s six strategic regions, and two bases, one at Anchorage, the other at Fairbanks, were recommended in part, “because Alaska was closer to Japan than it is to the center of [the] continental United States.” Fortuitously for Alaska defense advocates, General Douglas MacArthur stepped down as Chief of Staff of the Army and was replaced by Major General Malin Craig in October 1935. Craig and Brigadier General Stanley D. Embick advocated a substantial reconfiguration of Plan Orange arguing that the Philippines presented an invitation to attack and should be “neutralized” in favor defending the “Alaska-Hawaii-Panama Triangle.” Both the Army and Navy were charged with defending Alaska as far west as Dutch Harbor, and the army pledged to mobilize 6,600 troops in Alaska within a month of attack by Japan. In contemplating the defense of Alaska the Army General Staff formulated five priority objectives: first, increase the Alaska garrison; second, establish a major base for Army operations near Anchorage; third, develop a network of air bases within Alaska; fourth, garrison these bases with combat troops; and fifth, protect the naval installations at Sitka, Kodiak, and Dutch Harbor. Alaska was about to go to war.
Download or read book Thousand Mile War written by Brian Garfield and published by University of Alaska Press. This book was released on 2010-04-15 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Thousand-Mile War, a powerful story of the battles of the United States and Japan on the bitter rim of the North Pacific, has been acclaimed as one of the great accounts of World War II. Brian Garfield, a novelist and screenwriter whose works have sold some 20 million copies, was searching for a new subject when he came upon the story of this "forgotten war" in Alaska. He found the history of the brave men who had served in the Aleutians so compelling and so little known that he wrote the first full-length history of the Aleutian campaign, and the book remains a favorite among Alaskans. The war in the Aleutians was fought in some of the worst climatic conditions on earth for men, ships, and airplanes. The sea was rough, the islands craggy and unwelcoming, and enemy number one was always the weather--the savage wind, fog, and rain of the Aleutian chain. The fog seemed to reach even into the minds of the military commanders on both sides, as they directed men into situations that so often had tragic results. Frustrating, befuddling, and still the subject of debate, the Aleutian campaign nevertheless marked an important turn of the war in favor of the United States. Now, half a century after the war ended, more of the fog has been lifted. In the updated University of Alaska Press edition, Garfield supplements his original account, which was drawn from statistics, personal interviews, letters, and diaries, with more recently declassified photographs and many more illustrations.
Download or read book Dutch Harbor Alaska written by Erwin N. Thompson and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Aleutian Islands written by George L. MacGarrigle and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on 1992 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides one in a series of 40 illustrated brochures that describe the campaigns in which U.S. Army troops participated during the war. Each brochure describes the strategic setting, traces the operations of the major American units involved, and analyzes the impact of the campaign on future operations.
Download or read book Guarding the United States and Its Outposts written by Stetson Conn and published by . This book was released on 1964 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The development of plans to protect the United States and the rest of the Western Hemisphere that concentrates on policy in the three years before Pearl Harbor, the gradual merger of hemisphere defense into a broader national defense policy, the transition to offensive plans after Pearl Harbor, and the military relationships of the United States with other American nations.
Download or read book Attu written by John Haile Cloe and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on 2017 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Battle of Attu, which took place from 11-30 May 1943, was a battle fought between forces of the United States, aided by Canadian reconnaissance and fighter-bomber support, and the Empire of Japan on Attu Island off the coast of the Territory of Alaska as part of the Aleutian Islands Campaign during the American Theater and the Pacific Theater and was the only land battle of World War II fought on incorporated territory of the United States. It is also the only land battle in which Japanese and American forces fought in Arctic conditions. The more than two-week battle ended when most of the Japanese defenders were killed in brutal hand-to-hand combat after a final banzai charge broke through American lines. Related products: Aleutian Islands: The U.S. Army Campaigns of World War II is available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/aleutian-islands-us-army-campaigns-world-war-ii-pamphlet Aleutians, Historical Map can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/aleutians-historical-map-poster Other products produced by the U.S. Department of Interior, National Park Service can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/agency/national-park-service-nps World War II resources collection is available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/world-war-ii
Download or read book The Capture of Attu written by United States. War Department and published by . This book was released on 1944 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Complete Guide to World War II s Forgotten War written by U. S. Military and published by . This book was released on 2017-03-30 with total page 437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive book provides a complete guide to the Aleutian campaign in World War II, incorporating seventeen official documents and histories with vivid details and insightful analysis. Contents: The Aleutians - Lessons From A Forgotten Campaign * World War II in the Aleutians: The Fundamentals of Joint Campaigns * The Aleutian Campaign: Lessons in Operational Design * The "Moose Muss" of the Aleutian Campaign: An Operational Analysis Using the Principles of War * The Aleutian Islands Campaign - An Operational Art Perspective * Fighting The Cold: The Need for Standing Cold Weather Combat Capabilities * The Aleutian Campaign In World War II: A Strategic Perspective * Mountain and Cold Weather Warfighting: Critical Capability for the 21st Century * Imperial Japanese Navy Campaign Planning and Design of the Aleutian-Midway Campaign * Aleutian Campaign, World War II: Historical Study and Current Perspective * Weather as the Decisive Factor of the Aleutian Campaign, June 1942 - August 1943 * Victory in the Aleutians: An Analysis of Jointlessness * Effective Operational Deception: Learning the Lessons of Midway and Desert Storm * Memories of the Aleutians Campaign, WWII * Aleutian Islands - The U.S. Army Campaigns of World War II * The Aleutians Campaign - June 1942 to August 1943 * World War II in Alaska In the summer of 1943, the United States and the Imperial Japanese Empire struggled violently over one of the most desolate pieces of ground in the Northern Pacific. The Aleutian chain of islands, part of the territory of Alaska, became the battleground for a dramatic conflict in the Second World War. The campaign for the Aleutians represented on both sides key strategic objectives and Interests, and eventually cost considerable lives. Alaska's role as battlefield, lend-lease transfer station, and North Pacific stronghold was often overlooked by historians in the post-war decades, but in recent years awareness has been growing of Alaska's wartime past. Six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese bombed the U.S. Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base and U.S. Army Fort Mears, near Unalaska Island and occupied the Aleutian islands of Attu and Kiska. For many decades following the War, the prevailing understanding about the Japanese Aleutian operation was that it served as a mere diversionary measure from their Midway operation. Recent research, however, concludes that the Japanese had a broader and longer term strategy to establish and expand an eastern defensive perimeter. In response, U.S. military strategists knew that they could not risk leaving the Aleutians open as stepping stones for Japanese attacks on the United States mainland. In addition, the occupation was a significant propaganda victory for the Japanese-the affront could not go unanswered. Aleutian Campaign - Because planes departing from Kodiak and Dutch Harbor did not have the nearly 1,400 mile range to engage the Japanese at Attu and Kiska, U.S. forces built bases on other Aleutian islands as refueling and maintenance stops, allowing them to strike further west. Pilots and ground troops soon realized they were facing a second enemy, Mother Nature. Weather along the Aleutian chain is some of the worst in the world, with dense fogs, violent seas, and fierce wind storms called williwaws. Aircraft lacking accurate navigational devices or consistent radio contact crashed into mountains, each other, the sea-simply finding the enemy was a life-and-death struggle. For soldiers in the Aleutians, contact with the enemy was infrequent and fleeting, but the weather was a perpetual adversary.
Download or read book Battle for the Aleutians written by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Aleutian Campaign In World War II A Strategic Perspective written by Major John A. Polhamus and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-06 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work is a detailed historical study of the Second World War’s little known Aleutian Campaign in the North Pacific, commonly referred to as the “Forgotten War.” After describing the events that transpired in the North Pacific throughout the war, this work focuses on the strategic reasons why the United States and Japan decided to dedicate critical and limited resources to a secondary effort in the North Pacific. The strategies are compared to determine which country dedicated a higher percentage of available manpower and resources to the region and which country gained an advantage from their respective propaganda efforts. Despite the United States’ tactical and operational victories in the North Pacific, the Japanese benefited at the strategic level. Secondary theaters of operations, like the Aleutians during World War II, produced many lessons that were applied to other theaters during the war and remain relevant today in the Global War on Terrorism.
Download or read book The Thousand mile War written by Brian Garfield and published by . This book was released on 1969 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History of the Aleutian campaign fought for fifteen months in 1942-43.
