 The St. Louis fires a salvo
at Kiska during the bombardment
of 7 August 1942.Capt. Takeji Ono of the Japanese Imperial Navy landed on
Narukami-shima (Kiska) a little after 1 a.m. on the 7th of June,
1942, with a landing party of 500 Japanese marines. Within a short
time they reached the United States Navy weather and radio shack
manned by 10 men and a dog name "Explosion."
Two of the U.S. Navy sailors were wounded by machine gun fire aimed
at their shack, while the remaining eight sailors escaped into the
foggy night along with their dog. The two wounded sailors were
captured, had their wounds treated, and were declared to be
prisoners of war. Seven of the remaining eight sailors were captured
when they went to their food caches...which the Japanese riflemen
were watching. These nine sailors were then sent to Japan as
prisoners of war. The tenth sailor, William House, remained at large
hiding in caves, eating whatever he could find...including grass.
After hiding out for 50 days in the cold and being dangerously
emaciated, he finally surrendered.
The Japanese fed him and restored his health, then sent him to Japan
as a prisoner of war. Their dog "Explosion" remained on Kiska.
At the same time as the Japanese marines had landed on Kiska,
some twenty Japanese ships, including four transports, moved into
Kiska Harbor. In September, 1942, the Kiska garrison was reinforced
with an approximate 2,000 additional personnel. Kiska was then
placed under the command of Rear Admiral Akiyama. Shortly
afterwards, an infantry battalion was moved to Kiska from Attu,
which was captured on the 6th of June 1942. In December of 1942 and
January of 1943, additional anti-aircraft units, engineers and
infantry arrived at Kiska. In the Spring of 1943, the tactical
command was transferred from the Imperial Navy to Lt. General
Higuchi, commanding general of the Japanese Northern Army.
An LB-30 (a Consolidated B-24A Bomber transferred to Britain) saw a
fleet of ships anchored at Kiska Harbor, but couldn't identify them.
By the time the LB-30 returned to Umnak to report their sightings to
Navy Intelligence, another reported sighting by a PBY aircraft was
radioed in of the presence of a Japanese fleet in Kiska harbor.
The orders came down from the highest level, "Get Kiska Back!"
On June 11th, 1942, a flight of new B-24's were on their way to the
Western Aleutians with the LB-30 leading the way. The Kiska Blitz
was on. Continuous air raids from Adak and eventually from Amchitka
to the east kept the Japanese fairly
much under cover for the remainder of their stay on the island.
With the capture of Attu on the 29th of May, 1943, airfields were
now available to Allied fighters and bomber aircraft from which to
continue additional raids on Kiska from the west. Kiska was now caught in a pincer. To make
matters worse, a U.S. Naval blockade was set up to deny supplies and
equipment from reaching Kiska by sea.
Realizing how tenuous their occupation of Kiska was becoming, the Japanese
secretly brought in I-Class submarines and other ships under the cover of darkness
and fog to evacuate their troops from the island. On July 28th,
1943, in less than an hour, the Japanese had evacuated all 5,183 men
from Kiska without mishap, then returned to Paramashiro without
firing a shot and without having been seen by the U.S. Navy.
The time came for the allied forces to take Kiska back from the Japanese. D-Day was set for
the 15th of August, 1943. An armada of U.S. Naval Ships gathered in Adak's harbor, leaving on Friday the 13th to rendezvous with the
Japanese at Kiska. Two days later, on the 15th of August 1943, a
patrol of Alaska Scouts
followed by the Mountain Infantry landed on one side of the island
while the main force headed for a beach on the west side.
Colonel Verbeck, Commander of the first Alaska Scouts and first to go ashore,
immediately suspected there was "nobody home," that the
Japanese had somehow vacated the island. Meanwhile, over on the west beach
some 7,300 American and Canadian troops waded ashore eager for a
fight. The trigger-happy Americans and Canadians were shooting at
each other, mistaking each for the enemy...in part apparently
enabled by the fog.
This resulted in 313 casualties of which 24 had been shot, four were
killed by mines or booby traps, and with over 100 troops suffering from trench foot. The Canadians suffered four dead, four injured, and
one case of trench foot. The U.S. Navy also suffered casualties; the
Destroyer "Abner Read" hit a
mine left
 |
Japanese transport
burning after U.S.
air attack on Kiska
Harbor, 18 June 1942 |
behind by the Japanese which broke off the ship's stern
killing 71. Wounded and missing numbered around 47. Amazingly, one of the
few living creatures on Kiska that came to meet the invaders was
Explosion, the dog owned by the sailors who had been
captured over a year earlier by the invading Japanese forces.
Kiska was now back in the hands of the Allied forces.
Recent photo taken from
C-130 log flight.
Japanese WWII wreck
Kevin Mackey For a more detailed account of the battle for
Kiska, read of the account from any number of books including "The
Thousand Mile War," "Aleutian Headache," and "The Aleutian
Warriors." See the
Bibliography
Page for additional resources. |
