BiblioVault - Books about Aleutian Islands (Alaska)

Alaska at War, 1941-1945

The Forgotten War Remembered

Edited by Fern Chandonnet

University of Alaska Press, 2007

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.

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Alaska's Hidden Wars

Secret Campaigns on the North Pacific Rim

Otis Hays Jr.

University of Alaska Press, 2004

On the eve of World War II, the national interests of Japan, the United States, and the Soviet Union collided in the North Pacific.

Alaska's Hidden Wars tells the story of the war in the North Pacific, a story of savage weather, isolation, and sacrifice.

Two island chains, the Aleutians and the Kuriles, became the focus of a series of major campaigns that pitted the Americans against the Japanese. Alaska's Hidden Wars chronicles the role of Japanese-American intelligence specialists and reveals a Japanese eyewitness account of the defense of Attu. Two virtually unknown aspects of the North Pacific war are also exposed: the brutal North Pacific weather and the imprisonment of American airmen in Kamchatka.

In 1942, the Japanese raided Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands and occupied the islands of Kiska and Attu. The Americans mounted a vigorous campaign, and the Japanese retreated to the Kuriles. For the next two years, the Americans launched air raids and fleet bombardments, while American soldiers maintained lonely outposts along Aleutian coasts. But in 1945, when Japan finally surrendered, the Kuriles were taken, not by the waiting Americans, but by the Soviets.

Alaska's Hidden Wars is a fast-moving history that brings declassified archival sources to light and draws the reader into the lonely, bitter war fought in the North Pacific.

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An Aleutian Ethnography

Lucien Turner

University of Alaska Press, 2008

Lucien Turner was a pioneering nineteenth-century ethnographer whose study of Aleut communities surpassed the work of all of his contemporaries, and now his rare writings are collected here for the first time. Turner’s admittedly fragmentary ethnographic notes, which chronicle his complete immersion in three Aleut communities, reveal valuable insights into Aleutian cultures and the outsiders who lived among them in the nineteenth century. Carefully edited by Ray Hudson, An Aleutian Ethnography is an essential resource for scholars of American history and history of anthropology alike.

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Williwaw

A Novel

Gore Vidal

University of Chicago Press, 2003

A gripping tale of men struggling against nature and themselves, Williwaw was Gore Vidal's first novel, written at nineteen when he was first mate of the U.S. Army freight supply ship stationed in the Aleutian Islands. Here he writes of a ship caught plying the lethal, frigid Arctic waters during storm season. Tensions run high among the edgy crew and uneasy passengers even before the cruel wind that gives the book its title suddenly sweeps down from the mountains. Vividly drawn characters and a compelling murder plot combine to make Williwaw a classic war novel.

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The Williwaw War

The Arkansas National Guard in the Aleutians in World War II

Donald Goldstein

University of Arkansas Press, 1992

When the 206th Coast Artillery Regiment of the Arkansas National Guard was called into federal service in January of 1941, few of the soldiers saw this action as anything more than a temporary detour in their lives. The war, after all, was in Europe and Asia and did not seem to involve them; many of the men thought they would serve their one-year enlistment and go home. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor changed all that.

The Williwaw War highlights the event sthat shaped the service of Arkansas’s 206th in the Aleutian Islands, including the Japanese strikes on Dutch Harbor on the third and fourth of June 1942, as well as the naval battle of the Komandorski Islands and the recapture of Attu and Kiska.

Written by the noted co-authors of the best-welling books on World War II, The Williwaw War chronicles the efforts of the men of the 206th as they battled terrible weather, overwhelming boredome and deprivation, and the Japanese, who were succesfully attempting to distract the Americans from the main Japanese assault on Midway Island.

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