Amchitka

Amchitka , island, 40 mi (64 km) long, in the Rat group of the Aleutian Islands, W Alaska. It was a site in 1965 and 1971 for the underground detonation of nuclear devices, its small population having been relocated. In the 1990s, radiation from the test caves was detected at the surface.

Aleutian Islands , chain of rugged, volcanic islands curving c.1,200 mi (1,900 km) west from the tip of the Alaska Peninsula and approaching Russia's Komandorski Islands. A partially submerged continuation of the Aleutian Range, they separate the Bering Sea from the Pacific Ocean. The Aleutians comprise four main groups: Fox Islands, nearest to the mainland, including Unimak, Unalaska, Umnak, and Akutan; Andreanof Islands, including Amlia, Atka, Adak, Kanaga, and Tanaga; Rat Islands, including Amchitka and Kiska; and Near Islands, the smallest and westernmost group, including Agattu and Attu. The Semichi Islands, of which Shemya is the largest, are nearby.

The Aleutians have few good harbors, and numerous reefs make navigation treacherous. Among active volcanoes is Mt. Shishaldin, on Unimak. Relatively moderate temperatures lead to heavy rains and constant fog. Almost treeless, the islands have a luxuriant growth of grasses, bushes, and sedges. Most of the islands are within the Aleutian National Wildlife Reserve. Sheep and reindeer are raised. Hunting and fishing are the main occupations of the Aleut population. Research stations and military bases are located on the islands; Amchitka has been used for underground nuclear tests. The Aleutians West Census Area has a (1990) population of 9,478, largely on Unalaska.

The Aleutians were visited in 1741 by Vitus Bering , a Danish explorer employed by Russia. The indigenous Aleuts were exploited by the Russian trappers and traders who, in search of sea otter, seal, and fox fur, established settlements on the islands in the late 18th and early 19th cent. The islands were included in the Alaska purchase in 1867; after the purchase, the U.S. government forbade seal trapping except by Aleuts. Fishing and fur hunting are now controlled by the federal government. Dutch Harbor, on Unalaska, became a transshipping point for the gold boomtown of Nome in 1900. The Aleutians were important during World War II; in 1940, a U.S. naval base was established at Dutch Harbor. In 1942 the Japanese bombed the base and later occupied Attu, Kiska, and Agattu islands; a U.S. counterattack from bases on Adak and Amchitka regained them in 1943.

Aleutian Islands campaigns. Kiska and Attu, two of the most westerly of these US-owned islands, which stretch across the north Pacific between Alaska and Japan, were occupied by Japanese forces in June 1942 (see Map 3). Though the Japanese feared the islands might be used as American bases to bomb, or even invade, Japan, they were principally occupied to help draw part of the US Pacific Fleet north before it was brought to battle off Midway in the central Pacific by Admiral Yamamoto's Combined Fleet. But Admiral Nimitz, C-in-C US Pacific Fleet, forewarned of Japanese intentions by ULTRA intelligence, sent his most powerful units to ambush Yamamoto off Midway and formed Task Force 8 (later known as North Pacific Force) to defend the Aleutians. Commanded by Rear-Admiral Robert Theobald, the force included 5 cruisers, 14 destroyers, 6 submarines, and 85 Army Air Forces aircraft.

From the start neither, side knew much about the other's dispositions or intentions and both forces were frequently shrouded in the fog and rain squalls that often prevailed. The Americans also feared the islands could be used as an invasion route and Theobald decided, quite contrary to the intelligence estimates that had been given him, that the Japanese invasion transports were heading for Alaska, an error which placed his forces in the wrong area.

Opposing Theobald's force were the offensive components of the Japanese Fifth Fleet, commanded by Vice-Admiral Hosogaya Boshiro, which was divided into four groups. Rear-Admiral Kakuta Kakuji's Mobile Force, built around two light carriers and a seaplane carrier; the Kiska Occupation Force; the Adak-Attu Occupation Force; and the supply ships which were escorted by Hosogaya's flagship, the heavy cruiser Nachi, and two destroyers. Yamamoto's Midway Force had also detached a powerful Aleutian Screening Force to act as distant cover for Kakuta but this was withdrawn when the battle off Midway failed to go Yamamoto's way. As part of the plan to induce Nimitz to divide his fleet, Kakuta twice raided a new US base at Dutch Harbor on Unalaska in the eastern Aleutians. This caused considerable damage, but a second raid, on US destroyers in Makushin Bay, failed.

Theobald's error in supposing Alaska was Hosogaya's objective meant that the Japanese landings on Attu on 5 June 1942, and on Kiska two days later, were unopposed, and they remained unknown to the Americans until 10 June. Kiska was then raided by American bombers—Attu was beyond their range—but they did little damage, and a naval bombardment was hardly more effective. On 27 August the Japanese began transferring the Attu garrison to Kiska, but in October Attu was reoccupied and then reinforced.

For the next nine months the Japanese were harassed from the sea, and from the air by USAAF bombers operating from air strips specially built on two other islands, Adak and Amchitka, just 145 km. (90 mi.) and 95 km. (60 mi.) respectively from Kiska. But adverse weather conditions hindered any real attrition of the occupying Japanese and it was not until March 1943 that sufficient Allied forces became available to drive them from American soil.

The weather also made American air support unreliable as Rear-Admiral Charles McMorris discovered when it failed to arrive after he encountered Hosogaya's more powerful force on 26 March 1943. However, the battle of the Komandorski Islands which followed prevented the 2,630-strong Japanese garrison on Attu from receiving any further infantry reinforcements before 11,000 men of the 7th US Infantry Division landed there on 11 May 1943 with the support of a battleship bombardment and, for the first time in the Pacific war, with air support supplied by an escort carrier. The Japanese, commanded by Colonel Yamazaki Yasuyo, resisted stubbornly and on 16 May the commanding US general was dismissed when he remarked that it would need six months to conquer the island. But Yamazaki and his men, outnumbered and poorly supported from the air and sea, were gradually pushed into the last high ground. Then, before dawn on 29 May, they launched one of the biggest banzai charges of the war which overran two command posts and a medical station before being halted. The battle went on all day and the next morning the surviving Japanese made a final attack before most of the survivors committed suicide. Only 28 prisoners were taken and 2,351 bodies were counted. The Americans lost 600 killed and 1,200 wounded.

Vice-Admiral Thomas Kinkaid, who had succeeded Theobald in January 1943, now turned his attention to Kiska. He imposed a destroyer blockade and ordered intensified air and sea attacks on the garrison. However, by then the Japanese had decided to evacuate the island and on the night of 28/29 July, while US naval patrol ships were refuelling after the ‘Battle of the Pips’, the Japanese Navy expertly evacuated 5,183 troops and civilians under cover of fog. Air reconnaissance failed to establish that Kiska was no longer occupied and as ground fire was reported on several occasions it was suspected that the Japanese might be hiding. So on 15 August 1943 a force of 34,000 US and Canadian troops landed, but it took them some days to discover the Japanese had departed. In doing so 56 men were killed or wounded when friendly patrols fired on one another.

If nothing else, the campaign taught the Americans some useful lessons in amphibious warfare which were soon put to good use elsewhere in the Pacific war. For the Japanese the whole diversionary effort was a disaster and a waste of valuable men and matériel.