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.