Alaska’s Aleutian Island chain consists of 69 measurable islands. Just as many more exist, too small to measure as an island. For Japan in World War II, they made the perfect island-hopping path toward America’s West Coast, and apparently that was Japan’s intent in capturing two of those islands in June 1942. They held residency on Attu and Kiska for 14 months.
What stymied Japanese success in the Aleutian campaign were the sea battle of Midway, June 4-7, 1942, then the prolonged ordeal of Guadalcanal, August 7, 1942-February 9, 1943. These two battlefronts overshadowed occurrences along the boundary separating the North Pacific from the Bering Sea. Many believe Japan’s thrust into Alaska’s extended island chain was a diversion connected to Midway. A deeper analysis shows a more complicated desire to lay claim to that sea highway leading to America’s West Coast.
Purchased from the Russians by Secretary of State William H. Seward in 1867, Alaska was long seen as a frozen, forbidding outpost with little value, military or otherwise. In the era before statehood in 1959, Alaska was officially a United States territory.
