May 22, 1943 – Attu Alutians 8:00 AM

Captain Donaldson crouched in a trench with his men and looked out through the mist that seemed to be a perpetual fixture on the island. He knew something was out there and he knew it wasn’t an American force. Through the mist he could hear engines but he couldn’t see anything but fog. He had a force of a little more than two hundred men to defend the island. He called his men to the bunkers and sent off a message to Kiska reporting the movement. This message would be relayed to Juneau by Kiska, because of the aurora the radio on Attu was unable to reach Juneau much of the time. With the impending danger even men on sick call were activated and on duty.

Within an hour the Captain and all of his force were dead and the Japanese held Attu. They took no prisoners. The wounded were bayoneted where they fell. The four hundred man force on Kiska was already under attack and would fall within four hours. The Japanese attack on the west coast had begun in a place nobody had expected on islands with names nobody but a few geographers would have recognized just days before. Within a day Japanese forces held the harbor at Anchorage and a good portion of the town. Juneau and Ketchikan were also in Japanese hands. By the end of the week aircraft were based at the captured airports and were flying cover for the invasion. There were too few defenders and there had been insufficient warning. The American intelligence had been totally blind to the attack. The resistance had been much less than aggressive. The area was lightly defended because the American Army believed this area wouldn’t tempt the Japanese to attack. The troops in all cases weren’t well trained, equipped and supported.

May 25, 1943 — North of Juneau

Sergeant Ferman McCans, Third Army stationed in Juneau huddled with his squad and shivered. It was colder here than he had ever known in Pennsylvania. Three days ago Lieutenant Foster had been given five squads to establish a weather station and outpost about three hundred miles north of Juneau. They had moved out of town in trucks but as the roads ended they had pulled out the dog sleds, offloaded the three CATs with snow shoes and cabs, hooked up the trailers to them and started off across the snow fields to the mountains. An advance party preceded them. It was dropped into the hostile area by air about a month before. Army pilots had been dropping supplies for weeks and that party was even now collecting the supplies at the site of the camp for assembly. Foster and his men were to move in, help assemble the remainder of the station and return, leaving only a small portion of their force there to operate the station. Much of the equipment they were transporting was delicate, it was not prudent to air drop it. Fuel and other supplies were being dropped as fast as possible. McCans helped set up the tent to protect them and the CAT from the weather during the night. That completed, they moved inside. The radio man had set up the antenna and was even now trying to make contact. After several fruitless attempts to contact Juneau they contacted the men at the new camp. The news was bleak. The Japanese were on American soil and the advance base had lost contact with Juneau several hours ago after learning it was under attack. The party was advised to use the radio as little as possible and move out as early as possible to join with the advance party.

May 26, 1943 — North of Juneau

Lt. Foster and his men arrived at the new camp site at just after 1000 hours and moved into the buildings that had been set up. With a little crowding the men could all be housed in the existing buildings while they assembled the additional structures. The men were all assigned to bring in air dropped supplies that were still laying on the ice using the snow CATs sparingly to save fuel. In spite of repeated tries, they were still unable to contact Juneau.

Late in the day the men heard aircraft engines in the distance. The few machine guns were readied, men stood on guard. This could be the enemy coming. Radio contact was soon made with the planes. The fliers asked the men on the ground to smooth and mark an airfield. Soon the ten C-54’s that had been supplying the base by air drops were on the ground along with a pair of P-47’s and four single engine planes flown by bush pilots. Nine of the C-54’s and the bush planes were jammed with supplies, the tenth had eighteen passengers, three of them women. These included the Juneau commander, Colonel Laird, the staff of the forces at Juneau and a half dozen aircraft mechanics. They had boarded the C-54’s just before the Japanese overran the base and flown to a remote field. When the Japanese advanced on that field they took off and flew out after loading all of the supplies they could collect. Most of what they brought were stocks of food and fuel oil and a few medical supplies. Everything that was left behind was to be destroyed. Many of the other men at the base took supplies and tried to strike out into the white wilderness. Hopefully they could survive.

Using the radio at the camp they contacted U. S. bases in the states and after a short time orders came back. The men at the base would remain there to maintain a U. S. presence, Colonel Laird, the women and his staff would be flown out. The aircraft mechanics and the pilots were put to taking care of the C-54’s and getting two of them ready to fly. Because of the extra passengers, the long distance and the rough runway they would use two planes to make the flight safer. They could take off lighter and still have fuel reserves to make the flight. Fluids were drained from six of the planes and used to fuel four planes. The remaining six were covered to protect them as much as possible. There was still enough fuel to fill the tanks of the P-47’s and the bush planes. These would be useful for defense if the Japanese came. The runway was smoothed and prepared, the planes would take off the following day. All but two of the C-54 flight crews would fly as passengers, these would stay with the two remaining planes that had enough fuel to fly. If the Japanese threatened, they would fly out as many men as possible, the others would take the snow CATs and try to escape. The P-47 and bush pilots would stay with their planes for now.

They reviewed their supply situation, with a little luck and some relatively strict rationing the remaining force could survive for about a year. Most of the men thought the U. S. command would evacuate them soon. When the two C-54’s left the next day the reality of the situation hit them, they might be here for a while. This idea was reinforced when they learned they had been given a code name of Base Icebox.

Massive Japanese forces were landed in Alaska and they began to enlarge the area they controlled. The Canadian Army moved forces west to protect its border, most of them were green troops that had just finished training. They had been destined for a posting in North Africa. Their training and equipment better suited that climate but they were the only reserves available. American Army forces were moved north to the Canadian border, just in case. Within days the battle was joined and the Canadian Army, sorely pressed, requested help from the American Army in defending its border. The American troops began to move north along with massive amounts of supplies that had previously been destined for Europe, their diversion sounded the death knoll to retaking France in the next year. It was apparent that containing the Japanese threat was the top priority, retaking Alaska right now was out of the question. Within a week the word came down from Washington, the movement of forces to Europe for the invasion of the continent was essentially ended. The axiom of Hitler first would need to be reevaluated. The Japanese threat to Canada and the American Mainland would have to be neutralized first.

It is a military axiom that aircraft and submarines cannot take and hold territory. Except on their own soil, American land forces were held at bay in the Pacific fronts, unable to meet the enemy because they could not be protected by the navy while being transported there. Even if they could get there they couldn’t remain because they couldn’t depend on the navy for supplies. Aircraft could drop troops, submarines could land them, and both could supply them, but only if the force were to remain small. Clearly, the surface ships of the U. S. Navy must take command of the Pacific if the Japanese were to be driven back to their homeland. The Pacific fleet had grown to three carriers but the Navy was lax to commit them to battle, particularly when Japanese had significant surface and land forces in the area. This included all of the Pacific except the corridor to Midway. In addition, no American commander had been able to win a battle with Japanese forces on land or the surface of the ocean. Defeatist mentality held the American Military captive as much as their enemies.

With Japanese forces on the North American continent, an attack on Japanese territory could clearly not happen until this threat was removed but the worst was yet to come.