Attu Island is the site of the only World War II land battle in North America. The island was subsequently used as a launching site for American bombing missions to Japan's home islands. Many American combat aircraft were lost during the Aleutian Campaign, both to enemy action and to fierce weather conditions. Today, evidence of the desperate battle is found on its eastern end: thousands of shell and bomb craters in the tundra, Japanese trenches, foxholes and gun encampments, American ammunition magazines and dumps, and spent cartridges, shrapnel and shells are located at the scenes of heavy fighting.

Attu is at the western end of the Aleutian Chain, 1,500 air miles southwest of Anchorage, 500 miles east of the Russian mainland, and 750 miles east of the Kurile Islands. Attu's volcanic mountains and tundra valleys are subjected to year-round storms and dense fog that make it one of the most forbidding regions in the world. The island has no trees and the lower levels are covered with spongy tundra and a variety of plants.

The Japanese occupation of Attu, coordinated with the June 1942 attack on Midway, marked the peak of Japan's military expansion in the Pacific. The occupation of this remote part of the North Americancontinent created great alarm among Americans, however briefly, that it was the beginning of an invasion of the United States through Alaska. The American recapture of the island, following a very intense and bloody battle, was a morale boost for the nation.

The Atka B-24D Liberator bomber, located at its crash site in Atka Island, Alaska, played a highly significant role in World War II. In the Aleutian Campaign against the Imperial Japanese forces from 1942 to 1943 -the only battles fought in North America during the war -it was a superb weapon. This aircraft flew in at least 18 combat missions before finally succumbing to bad weather rather than enemy action.

Manufactured in 1941, it was the 19th of only 20 B-24Ds produced and is now only one of two B-24Ds known to exist in the world. Designed and built by Consolidated Aircraft, the original appearance of Serial #40-2367 was that of a four-engine bomber with twin tail fins. It weighed approximately 36,000 pounds, had a wingspan of 110 feet and was 67 feet long. It carried a crew of 9 men and was primarily used for bombing. This B-24D airplane came to Alaska in March 1942 and served exclusively in the Aleutian Campaign, but had been taken from combat duty and was being used as a weather observation plane. Had it crashed during combat, the usual pattern of explosion, fire or total loss at sea, would have destroyed it.

However, on December 9, 1942 it was crash-landed in Atka, Alaska, in an emergency landing which saved several lives. The tail broke off in the characteristic B-24 manner, but the tail section is intact, minus the vertical tail fins, which are in the vicinity of the aircraft.

Battleship Row was the grouping of eight battleships in port at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese launched the Attack on Pearl Harbor. These ships bore the brunt of the Japanese assault. They were moored next to Ford Island when the attack commenced. The ships were:

• USS Arizona - Magazine explosion, sunk with few survivors
• USS California - Sunk
• USS Maryland - Damaged
• USS Nevada - Damaged
• USS Oklahoma - Capsized and sunk
• USS Pennsylvania - Damaged. The Pennsylvania was in dry dock during the attack, making efforts to torpedo her extremely difficult.
• USS Tennessee - Damaged
• USS West Virginia - Sunk
• Also present was a repair ship (former coal ship): USS Vestal - Damaged and run aground

Four of the ships were sunk; of the other four, only Nevada had serious damage. Following the attack, operations immediately commenced to refloat and repair them. By the end of the war, six of them would see service again (all except the Arizona and Oklahoma). No battleship that was in the attack on Pearl Harbor is afloat today. The last ship to be either sunk or scrapped was the USS California (BB-44) in 1959.

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Alaska was an ideal location for the Japanese to anchor their defenses in the north Pacific. During the Battle of Midway, two aircraft carriers attacked Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians. On June 7 Japanese troops on Kiska and Attu. The Kiska Blitz, June 11th through 13th saw brand new B-24 bombers attempt to dislodge the Japanese. One of these planes eventually crashed on Atka Island.

The U.S. counterattacked at Attu in May 1943, the Army's first amphibious landing of the war. After two weeks, the Japanese were trapped. Colonel Yamasaki, with only 800 men, led a desperate Banzai charge on May 29. They overran Engineer Hill where medics, engineers, and service personnel held their ground in desperate hand-to-hand combat. The attack failed and the remaining Japanese committed suicide.

Kiska was next. Naval bombardment joined aerial bombing to prepare for landing in July. When American naval forces were drawn away by mysterious radar signals, Japanese ships entered Kiska Harbor, evacuated 5,138 men, and escaped. Three weeks later, American and Canadian troops landed unopposed.

In 1942 following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 to authorize the U.S. military to incarcerate of Japanese American families living on the West Coast. Without a hearing or evidence of disloyalty, nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans were relocated to ten camps one of which as Tule Lake in California. Lacking basic freedoms, families were forced to live in primitive barracks, endured terrible conditions, boredom and uncertainty about what the future would hold.

In 1943 the U.S. Government developed a questionnaire that had two questions about willingness to serve in the U.S. armed forces and to foreswear allegiance or obedience to the Japanese Emperor or any other foreign government. Those who answered "no" to both questions were labeled "disloyals" and sent to Tule Lake, which was then renamed as the Segregation Center. It then became the largest of the 10 camps housing 18,789 people and remaining in operation until seven months after the end of the War.

The attacks on Pearl Harbor and the loss of the battleship USS Arizona was an integral part of the Japanese grand strategy of southern expansion. The initial Japanese objective was to immobilize the Pacific Fleet for six months to a year. This would allow the Japanese military an uninterrupted invasion of the Far East.

The Arizona was so badly damaged that she would never fight again. She had sustained the greatest loss of life in American naval history. One thousand one hundred and seventy-seven officers, sailors and Marines perished in the massive explosion of their ship. By war's end, only two ships had not been raised: Arizona and Utah.

Twenty-one years passed before an appropriate memorial was selected. On Memorial Day 1962, a formal dedication of the USS Arizona Memorial took place. The memorial is unique in its design. The ship below is the final resting place for nearly 900 of the 1,177 crew members who lost their lives that morning. The 184-foot long memorial structure spans the mid-ship of the sunken battleship. It consists of three main sections: the entry room, the assembly room and the shrine room where the names of those killed on the Arizona are engraved on a wall of Vermont marble.

The USS Oklahoma Memorial, dedicated December 7, 2007, stands to honor the men who lost their lives aboard that battleship on December 7, 1941.

In May 1916, the USS Oklahoma was the 37th battleship commissioned by the United States Navy. After sea trials, she joined the Atlantic Fleet and protected convoys during World War I. In October of 1936, the battleship was transferred to the Pacific Fleet. She operated for four years out of her homeport in San Pedro, California, before moving to Pearl Harbor on December 6, 1940. Her last mooring took place on December 5, 1941, when she took her place with six other battlewagons in a location that would forever be known as "Battleship Row."

The Oklahoma capsized at 8:08 a.m., approximately 12 minutes after the first torpedo hit. Hundreds of men were trapped below her decks. Death came to 429 officers, sailors, and Marines, marking the second greatest loss of life at Pearl Harbor. But not all were lost. Some men waited in compartments for rescue, while others thought of ways to escape their watery tomb. Fourteen Oklahoma crew members managed their own escape in the first hours of the ship's capsizing. During the next 48 hours, 32 men would be rescued from inside the ship.

On the morning of December 7, 1941, the USS Utah and her crew went about their Sunday chores. Swinging low over the Pearl City Peninsula, the lead elements of Lt. Matsumura's torpedo planes from the carrier Hiryu began their run on the ships moored on the west side of Ford Island.

Within minutes of being hit, the Utah was struck by two torpedoes on the port side of the vessel. The ship immediately began to list 15 degrees as the crew scrambled to battle stations amidst the confusion of the attack. By 8:05 a.m., the ship's list had increased to forty degrees. Lt. Commander Isquith who was the senior officer aboard ordered abandon ship. Seven minutes later, the Utah capsized. Fifty-eight men had lost their lives.

Following the attack, preparations for the salvage and repair of 21 vessels that were damaged or sunk was undertaken. In November of 1942, work began on righting the USS Utah. After nearly two years of work, the Utah had stuck fast to the harbor bottom. It was resolved that continued salvage would be costly for a ship no longer valuable in the war effort. So in March of 1944, the project was abandoned as the Utah rested on her side at a 30-degree angle.