Page 32 - ARUBA TODAY

A32 FEATURE
Monday 28 May 2018

Forgotten WWII battle raged 75 years ago on Alaska island

By MARK THIESSEN After the battle, Dover said
MARI YAMAGUCHI things went back to normal
Associated Press for the American soldiers —
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) except one thing: “Some-
— William Roy Dover’s body had to bury those
memory of the World War II Japanese.”
battle is as sharp as it was During the war, the U.S.
75 years ago, even though Army buried the Japanese
it’s been long forgotten by soldiers’ bodies with care,
most everyone else. built a memorial, set up a
His first sergeant rousted him grave post and paid re-
from his pup tent around 2 spects to the spirits, said
a.m. when word came the Nobuyuki Yamazaki, whose
Japanese were attacking grandfather died on Attu.
and had maybe even got- Yamazaki was among a
ten behind the American delegation of Japanese
front line, on a desolate, soldiers’ descendants who
unforgiving slab of an oc- attended a 75th anniver-
cupied island in the North sary celebration this month
Pacific. “He was shouting, in Anchorage. The families
‘Get up! Get out!’” Dover have formally petitioned
said. Dover and most of the the Japanese government
American soldiers rushed to to have the remains re-
an embankment on what In this Aug. 22, 2017 photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, an artillery monument sits turned, Anchorage televi-
became known as Engi- above Massacre Bay on Attu Island, Alaska sion station KTVA reported.
neer Hill, the last gasp of Associated Press “Japanese people find
the Japanese during the remote Attu Island on May The Japanese staged a he was being treated for great comfort when the re-
Battle of Attu , fought 75 30, 1943, after a 19-day last-ditch, desperate offen- a bullet wound when the mains of the Japanese are
years ago this month on campaign that is known sive May 29 at Engineer Hill. order for the final charge buried in our homeland,”
Attu Island in Alaska’s Aleu- as World War II’s forgotten “Japanese soldiers surprise came. “I was going to die, I Yamazaki said.
tian chain. battle. Much of the fighting American forces on Attu thought,” he said. The Aleut people living on
“I had two friends that was hand-to-hand, waged with a fanatical charge out But as he headed out to Attu Island also suffered
were too slow to get out,” in dense fog and winds of of the mountains,” recounts fight, he collapsed, likely losses, becoming the only
the 95-year-old Alabama up to 120 mph (193 kph). an Associated Press chro- because he hadn’t eaten North American commu-
farmer recalled. “They both The battle for the Aleu- nology of WWII events in in days. He was captured nity to be imprisoned in
got bayonetted in their tian island was one of the 1943. “Savage fighting rag- and sent to several main- Japan during the war, ac-
pup tents.” Joseph Sasser, deadliest in the Pacific in es throughout the day and land POW camps — includ- cording to the book “Attu:
then a skinny 20-year-old terms of the percentage of into the following night. ing in Seattle, San Francisco The Forgotten Battle,” by
from Cartharge, Mississippi, troops killed. Nearly all the About 200 Japanese sol- and Chicago — before he John Haile Cloe.
also found himself perched Japanese forces, estimat- diers died in the assault, returned home to Japan’s While Kiska was unpopu-
against the berm on En- ed at about 2,500 soldiers, and the remaining 500 or Iwate prefecture in 1947. lated, about 45 Aleuts lived
gineer Hill when a cap- died with only 28 survivors. so held grenades to their His family already had a fu- on Attu Island. When Japa-
tain with a rifle took up a About 550 or so U.S. soldiers bellies and pulled the pins. neral and grave for him. nese forces invaded, the
position about 10 feet (3 were killed. It was the first official case “I felt so relieved to be Aleuts were captured and
meters) away. “I noticed American forces, many of “gyokusai,” a Japanese home,” he said. “But I nev- sent to Japan’s Hokkaido
about after 30 minutes or poorly outfitted for Alaska euphemism for annihilation er thought I was lucky to be Island, where about half
so, he was awfully quiet,” weather and trained in Cal- or mass suicide in the name alive. I thought I survived died, most from malnutri-
Sasser said. “We checked ifornia for desert combat, of Emperor Hirohito, which because I was not lucky. I tion or starvation.
to see if he had a pulse and recaptured Attu 11 months increasingly occurred in felt I was not supposed to The survivors never returned
if he was alive, and he was after the Japanese took it other Japanese battle- come back, because those to Attu. The Army said it
not. “We didn’t even know and a nearby island, Kiska. fields. who went to war were not would be too expensive
he had been shot,” said It was the only WWII battle Tomimatsu Takahashi told supposed to come back, to rebuild their village, and
Sasser, also 95. fought on North American Japanese public televi- and that’s what we were they were relocated after
American forces reclaimed soil. sion network NHK in 2010 taught.” the war.q