Remnants of the Japanese Aleutian island campaign

[LittleLebowski]

Fascinating.

https://www.archaeology.org/issues/4...rom/#art_page1

he journey to Kiska Island, at the far western end of Alaska’s Aleutian chain, begins with a 1,200-mile flight from Anchorage to Adak Island. “You show up there and you feel like you’re in one of the most remote places on Earth, and then you get on a ship and sail another day past that to Kiska,” says Andrew Pietruszka, an underwater archaeologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) and lead archaeologist for Project Recover. “The moment you sail in, there are partially submerged ships sticking out of the water and you can see a Japanese midget submarine on shore. It’s like the land of the lost, like you’ve stepped back in time to this amazing natural setting with no modern structures that is so rich in historical artifacts.”

[Trooper224]

I've been there, on the very spot. It was one of the most unpleasant, yet simultaneously fascinating places I've ever been.

[BehindBlueI's]

Spennemann found one anti-aircraft gun that was in the process of being moved but had not yet been emplaced, still resting on its tires, which are still full of air.

I can't be the only one thinking that tire contains some sort of black magic we should be applying to all tires.

[WDR]

Very cool.

[BobM]

My grandpa had a book called Castner’s Cutthroats about special military activity there. As I recall, Alaskan outdoorsmen were recruited to conduct operations against the Japanese.

[UNK]

I was on Amchitka which is part of the Chains. It was beautiful in its own way. Also lots of military remnants Quonset huts runways and such. Didnt see any equipment other than what we brought in. I was on a LHA. Went through a storm where waves were coming over the bow. Pretty miserable ride. Good times.

[Catshooter]

My dad fought them there early in the war. He said the Japanese fighters were hard to hit, but he finally got one. He didn't care for the area at all.


Cat

[AKDoug]

My grandfather served in the Aleutians in WWII as part of the Canadian Navy. I took a bunch of pictures of "modern" Dutch Harbor and Unalaska while working there in the 90's and showed them to him. He still remembered many of the places 45 years later and had some pictures that I could compare mine to. Unfortunately he passed a couple months after that visit and I never got to discuss his service there further.

My daughter in-law was raised on Unalaska and we took a trip out there a couple years ago. She knew several old military tunnels and bunkers that I hadn't found in the 90's. The quality of construction, particularly concrete construction, was amazing considering the the weather they had to work through to build the bunkers and gun installations.

[MRW]

"The Thousand Mile War" by Brian Garfield is a good book on the Aleutian Island campaign. I picked it up years ago after my cousin spent some time up there working on a boat. I had to read more about once I heard him describe some of the locations up there.

[HCM]

My grandpa had a book called Castner’s Cutthroats about special military activity there. As I recall, Alaskan outdoorsmen were recruited to conduct operations against the Japanese.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castner%27s_Cutthroats