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The Japanese occupation of Attu (Operation AL) was the result of an invasion of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska during World War II. Imperial Japanese Army troops landed on 7 June 1942, the day after the invasion of nearby Kiska .
General Simon B. Buckner Jr. [of the Alaska Defense Command] said to us that the Japanese would have the opportunity to set up airbases in the Aleutians, making coastal cities like Anchorage, Seattle, and San Francisco vulnerable within range to attack by their bombers. The fear of that scenario was real at the time because the Japanese were ...
The attack on Pearl Harbor and beginning of the Pacific Theater in World War II, coupled with Japanese threats to mainland Alaska along with the rest of the United States West Coast, had already made the construction of a defense access highway to Alaska a priority.
The Battle of Attu (codenamed Operation Landcrab), [4] which took place on 11–30 May 1943, was fought between forces of the United States, aided by Canadian reconnaissance and fighter-bomber support, and Japan on Attu Island off the coast of the Territory of Alaska as part of the Aleutian Islands campaign during the American Theater and the Pacific Theater.
The Japanese planned to occupy islands in the Aleutians in order to extend their defensive perimeter in the North Pacific to make it more difficult for the U.S. to attack Japan from that area. The air raid on Dutch Harbor was conducted to support the invasions on Kiska Island and Attu Island by the Japanese military under Operation AL.
Operation Cottage was a tactical maneuver which completed the Aleutian Islands campaign.On August 15, 1943, Allied military forces landed on Kiska Island, which had been occupied by Japanese forces since June 1942.
An invasion is a military offensive in which sizable number of combatants of one geopolitical entity aggressively enter territory controlled by another such entity, generally with the objectives of establishing or re-establishing control, retaliation for real or perceived actions, liberation of previously lost territory, forcing the partition of a country, gaining concessions or access to ...
The Japanese consequently stepped up their fortifications on Kiska, but abandoned the island on July 28, having never finished construction of the airfield. Allied forces, unaware of the Japanese withdrawal, arrived in force on August 15. In an operation that cost 200 men to a variety of causes including friendly fire, the island was occupied ...