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In early June of 1942, six months after Pearl Harbor formally jolted the U.S. into World War II, the Japanese mounted another surprise bombing attack-this time, on Dutch Harbor in the remote Aleutian Islands of Alaska. In the brief ensuing invasion, Japanese naval forces occupied the islands of Attu and Kiska, the first occupation by foreign forces in U.S. territory since the War of 1812.

After U.S. forces drove out the Japanese, it became clear to military leadership that the vast and forbidding 6,640-mile coastline of northwest Alaska needed to be patrolled for the duration of the war. Turning to the Indigenous communities for help, they soon found volunteers from local villages willing to join the newly formed Alaska Territorial Guard (ATG), also known as the "Eskimo Scouts." ( Ed. note: Many people in Arctic communities consider "Eskimo" a pejorative name steeped in racism and colonialism.)

In addition to a number of Euro-Americans, these recruits came largely from the Tlingit, Aleut, Tsimshian, Haida and Athabascan communities, and particularly, from the Yup'ik and Inupiaq people living along the Bering Sea and Arctic coastline. The all-volunteer corps knew the land and were accustomed to surviving in harsh winter conditions.

More than 6,300 Indigenous men and women, ages 12 to 80, joined the Alaska Territorial Guard. They were given a single rifle each, a uniform and army training manual, as well as snowshoes and other gear. These unpaid sentries learned military drills and how to operate communications systems. They became the eyes and ears of the U.S. military in western Alaska.

Protecting Resources and Supply Routes

The Alaska Territorial Guard proved vital in securing areas around the lend-lease transport route, which the U.S. used to move aircraft to Russia, its wartime ally. They also safeguarded the village of Platinum, home to a mine that provided the sole source of this strategic metal in the Western Hemisphere. The Guardsmen and women also cached survival supplies along transportation routes essential for allied American forces. Superior officers took the lead from Alaska natives, using local dogsleds to move between military installations.

Their duties expanded to include transport of equipment and supplies, construction of ATG buildings and facilities and the development of airstrips and support facilities for other military agencies. They also broke hundreds of miles of wilderness trails, set up and repaired of dozens of emergency shelter cabins and distributed emergency food and ammunition containers for the U.S. Navy. ATG members learned to fight fires, conduct land and sea rescues and engage in enemy combat.

Notable members of the ATG include Holger "Jorgy" Jorgensen, (-Norwegian), an intrepid bush pilot and former Morse Code operator who later helped staged a sit-in to racially integrate Nome's Dream Theater. There was also Wesley Ugiaqtaq, who before joining the ATG in Utqiaġvik (formerly Barrow), worked herding reindeer for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and captained a whaling ship out of Utqiaġvik. Jorgensen, who represented Alaska veterans and spoke also for Alaska Native people, in later years participated at elder and youth events. David Ungrudruk Leavitt, Sr., also Inupiaq, grew up as a subsistence hunter and joined the ATG as a teenager. Many years later, he attended the Honor Flight to Washington, D.C. to meet other ATG veterans who knew their commander, Marvin "Muktuk" Marston.

While some Alaskans stood proudly in defense of their homelands, others were sent to work in factories, or forcibly removed. Following the attack on Dutch Harbor, the U.S. military evacuated Alaska's Pribilof Islands, located in the Bering Sea between the United States and Russia. Indigenous families were put into crowded transport ships and removed to southeastern Alaska. There they were resettled in fish canneries, abandoned mining structures and other unsafe and unsanitary buildings. About 100 of the 881 detainees died by war's end.

Alaska Territorial Guard members stayed on watch even as the action of World War II became focused in Europe and the South Pacific. But during the last months of the war, the Japanese launched a last-ditch effort to terrorize Americans by sending 9,000 incendiary balloon bombs that were carried on the jet stream onto the mainland. The Alaska Territorial Guard members, trained to identify enemy ships and aircraft, spotted the balloons and helped to shoot them down and demobilize them.

Recognition Took More Than Six Decades

After the war, Alaska Territorial Guard veterans and their supporters petitioned the U.S. government and succeeded in passing Alaska's first anti-discrimination law aimed at ending segregation of its Indigenous people. In 2010, the U.S. government finally recognized the veterans for their service and gave them formal veteran status when President George W. Bush signed a bill into law that ordered the defense secretary to issue honorable discharges to the Alaskan natives. Alaska's Department of Military and Veterans Affairs then set up a task force to notify and assist former members, their families and dependents on how to obtain the benefits entitled to them.

"Our goal is to locate 100 percent of the ATG members, begin correcting the oversight of the past, and allow future generations access to their ancestors' service records," the department stated on its website.

Federal funding was then allocated to ensure the actions of the thousands of members who had volunteered to protect the territory and the United States would not be forgotten. In 2012, a group of U.S. military veterans in Bethel, Alaska used a portion of the funds to build a memorial park to enshrine the Alaskan Territorial Guard veterans.

Fact Check

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How Native Americans Protected Alaska During WWII | HISTORY

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After the Japanese invaded the Aleutian Islands, Indigenous volunteers helped form the Alaska Territorial Guard.

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This is a simplified version of the History.com article above.

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Please watch the video and be ready to summarize it and give your personal reaction.

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Story Time with Aunt Phil, Alaska Territorial Guard WWII, Dec. 7, 2017

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The Journal of Conventional Weapons Destruction Issue 26.1 & 26.2

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The Journal of Conventional Weapons Destruction Issue 26.1 & 26.2

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Editor's note on Jan. 3, 2018: This post has been edited to correct several major mistakes that NPR discovered since its original publication and after questions were raised about the author's tribal affiliation and other representations about himself. John Smelcer has defended himself against the allegations. This is the second editor's note on this story. The first, which was posted on Aug. 30, addressed the questions about Smelcer. Details about the corrections are at the end of this post.
Most American school children learn that Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, leading us to join World War II. This week marks the 75th anniversary of Japanese-Americans being subsequently rounded up and interned as suspected enemies of the state. But there's another tragic and untold story of American citizens who were also interned during the war. I'm a member of the Ahtna tribe of Alaska and I've spent the better part of 30 years uncovering and putting together fragments of a story that deserves to be told.

In June 1942, Japan invaded and occupied Kiska and Attu, the westernmost islands of Alaska's Aleutian Chain, an archipelago of 69 islands stretching some 1,200 miles across the North Pacific Ocean toward Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula. From a strategic perspective, Japan wanted to close what they perceived as America's back door to the Far East. For thousands of years, the islands have been inhabited by a resourceful indigenous people called Aleuts. During the Russian-American Period (1733 to 1867), when Alaska was a colonial possession of Russia, Russian fur-seekers decimated Aleut populations through warfare, disease, and slavery.

Shortly after Japan's invasion, American naval personnel arrived with orders to round up and evacuate Aleuts from the Aleutian Chain and the Pribilof Islands to internment camps almost 2,000 miles away near Juneau. Stewardship of the internment camps would fall under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services (USF&WS).

The Army's stated purpose was to protect the Aleuts, who were American citizens, from the dangers of war.

All told, 881 Aleuts from nine different island villages were transported to abandoned salmon canneries where some roofs and walls had holes, some windows and doors were broken, and some floors were rotted. Electricity, sanitation and running water were scant - or nonexistent.

The Aleuts were interned against their will for the duration of the war, long after the Japanese were routed out of Alaska, and were largely neglected by the very government that said it was protecting them. Ironically, less than 30 miles away, over 700 Nazis who had been captured in North Africa were imprisoned at a POW camp at Excursion Inlet. The Nazis, sworn enemies of America and our allies, were treated far better than the Aleuts, so much so that military historian Stan Cohen later wrote in The Forgotten War, "All in all, the German imprisonment in Alaska was quite pleasant."

In May 1943, the United States government even enslaved many of the men from the Pribilof Islands. The government threatened that none of the Aleuts would ever be allowed to go home (even after the war) if the men didn't "volunteer" to harvest fur seals for the war effort. By international treaty, only Native Pribilovians could harvest fur seals. They were told the furs would be made into liners for aviation jackets and helmets for American pilots and bomber crews, which was a lie. The men spent the summer sealing season on the tiny Pribilof Islands clubbing over 125,000 seals. The government sold the furs to the Fouke Fur Company of St. Louis, Mo., for $1.5 million in profits, all of which went straight into the government's coffers.
John Smelcer is the award-winning author of more than fifty books. His forthcoming historical novel, Kiska, is about the Aleut Internment experience.
The Japanese invasion of Alaska never made it very far beyond the westernmost Aleutian Islands of Kiska and Attu. Over a period of 15 months, American soldiers eventually recaptured the mountainous islands in a series of battles which came to be known as the Forgotten War. In all, half a million soldiers - American, Canadian, Russian, and Japanese - were involved in the conflict, one of the least known yet toughest-fought battles in WWII, as explained by Brian Garfield in The Thousand Mile War. Some of the most horrific accounts of hand-to-hand combat in World War II happened at the end, when over 500 Japanese soldiers, unwilling to surrender or to be taken alive after a desperate banzai (suicide) attack, blew themselves up en masse with hand grenades at the foot of Engineer Hill.

The war in the Aleutians gave America its first theater-wide victory over Japan and the first experience at amphibious assaults in the war. Some 118 Aleuts perished from lack of warmth, food, and medical care. Smaller Aleut villages lost as much as a quarter of their pre-internment population. The Aleut deaths were avoidable. Medical supplies that had been allocated for the internment camps were instead taken by the military. The 700 German prisoners all returned home after the war without a single one dying during their imprisonment.

Although the Japanese invasion was defeated by the fall of 1943, the Aleuts remained interned until the end of the war in mid-1945. In 1980, the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians was established. It reviewed the facts and circumstances surrounding the relocation and internment of tens of thousands of American civilians during World War II.

Forty-two years after the Aleuts returned to their villages, the U.S. government recognized that their constitutional rights had been violated.

In 1988, Congress passed the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands Restitution Act, which paid $12,000 to Aleut surviving victims of the internment camps. By then, about half of the survivors had long since passed away.

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The Other WWII American-Internment Atrocity

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There's another tragic and untold story of American citizens who were also interned during the war. They are the 881 Aleuts from Alaska who were held for three years.

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World War II Aleut Relocation Camps in Southeast Alaska - Introduction (U.S. National Park Service)

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The Aleuts are an Alaska Native people that historically inhabited a few small villages in the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands. During World War II the villagers were evacuated and interned at six locations in southeast Alaska, where they endured considerable hardship (the villagers of Attu Island wer…

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It's often called the "Forgotten Campaign of the Second World War" - and there's no secret as to why. The campaign lost out on fanfare mostly because it took place in a far off, remote territory that few Americans lived on or cared about. And it didn't help that it happened at a time when Marines and soldiers were pushing onto the beaches at the Battle of Guadalcanal.

The truth is, however, that the sporadic fighting and eventual American victory on the frozen, barren islands of Alaska proved instrumental to an Allied victory in the the Pacific.

A bit of a fixer-upper, but nothing that can't be buffed out.

(National Archives)

Just six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese launched a two-day attack on Dutch Harbor, Alaska. On June 3rd and 4th, 1942, their targets were the Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base and U.S. Army Fort Mears on Amaknak Island.

The Japanese attack was an attempt to establish a foothold in the Northern Pacific. From there, the Japanese could continue and advance towards either the Alaskan mainland or move toward the northwestern states of the United States. A few days later, on June 6th and 7th, the Japanese invaded and annexed the Alaskan islands of Kiska and Attu - along with the western-most Aleutian Islands.

It was a tactical victory for the Japanese but the Americans managed to shoot down a Zero during the Battle of Dutch Harbor, and it happened to land in relatively good condition.

Allied troops would move onto Kiska with over 34,000 troops... Just to find the island completely abandoned two weeks prior.

(National Archives)

Meanwhile, Japan was busy moving the bulk of their naval forces toward Midway to aid in recovery from the burgeoning American victory there. Back in North America, the Americans had regrouped and gained the support of the Canadian military.

The bolstered Allied troops moved toward Japanese-occupied territories. They sporadically picked off enemy vessels one by one as they pushed through the island chain. Then, on March 27th, 1943, the American and Japanese fleets squared off at the Battle of Komandorski Islands. The Americans took more damage, but caused enough to make the Japanese abandon their Aleutian garrisons.

On May 11th, U.S. and Canadian soldiers landed on Attu Island to take it back. Japanese dug in and booby-trapped much of the surrounding island. The Americans suffered 3,929 casualties - 580 dead, 1,148 wounded, and over 1,200 cold-weather injuries - but the Japanese were overrun. In a last-ditch effort, the Japanese committed the single largest banzai charge - an attack in which every infantryman first accepted their death before charging charged into battle - in all of the Pacific campaign. The Japanese suffered 2,351 deaths with hundreds of more believed to be lost to the unforgiving weather.

The captured Zero from Dutch Harbor, dubbed the Akutan Zero, was studied and reverse engineered by American technicians. Test pilots were successfully able to determine the weak-points and vulnerabilities of the fighter aircraft, which were quickly relayed to the rest of the Army Air Force. This information proved vital in later battles.

In the end, America would retake the islands and force the Japanese Navy back south to deal with the brunt of the American military. With the Japanese gone, the only route into the continental U.S. was secure again.

To learn more about the Aleutian Campaign, check out the video below!

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Why Alaska was so important for an American victory in WWII

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It's often called the "Forgotten Campaign of the Second World War" - and there's no secret as to why. The campaign lost out on fanfare mostly because it took place in a far off, remote territory that few Americans lived on or cared ab...

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The Only Land Battle Fought on U.S. soil in WWII (Strange Stories)

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The Japanese Invasion of Alaska: Aleutian islands campaign

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Challenges of fighting- and filming on Attu

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Challenges of fighting- and filming on Attu

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The challenges of fighting—and filming—on Attu

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5 Things You Didn't Know About The WWII Battle of Attu

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The infamous Executive Order 9066, which singled out "resident enemy aliens" in the United States during World War II, forced 120,000 Americans of Japanese background into relocation camps like Manzanar. The EO targeted Americans of Italian and German ancestry, too, but also deeply affected another group of Americans-not because they were viewed as potential enemies of the state, but rather because indigenous Aleuts in Alaska were in a combat zone.

As John Smelcer explains for NPR's Code Switch, in 1942, Japanese troops began to bomb the Aleutian Islands, a long chain of islands that stretch between Alaska and Japan in the Pacific Ocean. They seized and occupied parts of the islands- the first time since the War of 1812 that American territory had been occupied. The islands were of strategic value to the United States and Japan. Following Japan's aggression, the U.S. military decided to forcibly evacuate indigenous people from their homes to get them to safer locations, then destroy their villages with a scorched-earth policy to prevent invading Japanese troops from using their housing.

All in all, 881 Aleuts were forcibly relocated and interned, transported to unsanitary camps in southeast Alaska, and held there throughout the war. They were not consulted and, as Christopher Cueva writes for the Alaska Humanities Forum, the evacuation itself was hasty and traumatic. As one Fish & Wildlife Service member recalled, nobody was allowed to bring more than one suitcase of possessions. Troops then set fire to the villages that had been inhabited just days before rather than leave them to the Japanese invaders. Aleuts were shoved onto crowded boats with no idea where they were headed, Smelcer reports.

"The irony was that the Atkans were prepared to evacuate before a Japanese attack, and they could have been given time to take their belongings before the village was destroyed," the report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians later noted.

As the National Park Service writes, the internment camps the Aleut evacuees were forced to live in were "abandoned canneries, a herring saltery, and gold mine camp-rotting facilities with no plumbing, electricity or toilets." There, they had little potable water, no warm winter clothing, and sub-par food. Nearly 10 percent of the evacuees died in the camps.

Those who lived struggled with the unfamiliar landscape. "The trees, more than anything, represented the strangeness and terror of their sudden relocation," writes Eva Holland for the Alaska Dispatch News. The Aleutians are barren, treeless islands; Southeastern Alaska's trees led the detainees to feel claustrophobic and depressed. Some of the men were even enslaved during their detainment, forced to harvest fur seals and threatened with continued detainment if they refused.

Aleuts were kept in camps as late as 1945-two full years after Japanese troops left the Aleutian Islands. Those who survived the war went home to find their villages burned and destroyed. It took 40 years for the Federal Government's Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians to investigate the treatment of Aleut citizens during World War II. In a New York Times op-ed published when the first hearings into EO 9066 began, David Oyama wrote that the Aleut relocation and detention was done "under conditions that are as shocking as any in the long, sad history of the Government's relations with its Native-American citizens."

As Debra McKinney of Anchorage News writes, Aleuts stayed silent about their ordeal for years, suppressing the story out of both grief and fear that they would be considered unpatriotic for speaking up about their traumatic treatment. Though the United States ultimately issued a formal apology in 1988 and provided some reparations to the people detained there, the legacy of the Aleut people's forcible relocation and harsh treatment endures.

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The U.S. Forcibly Detained Native Alaskans During World War II

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In the name of safety, Aleuts were held against their will under intolerable conditions in internment camps

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You will select a prompt from those listed below and write a well thought-out paragraph as your discussion post. You may start your post by re-writing the prompt. You will then write at least 5 sentences of your own to support the prompt. Be sure to include evidence from the readings in your paragraph. (Detail and specifics should be part of this.) Please edit your paragraph before submission.

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You will select a prompt from those listed below and write a well thought-out paragraph as your discussion post. You may start your post by re-writing the prompt. You will then write at least 5 sentences of your own to support the prompt. Be sure to include evidence from the readings in your paragraph. (Detail and specifics should be part of this.) Please edit your paragraph before submission.

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1. Many people do not know that part of WWII was fought in Alaska.

2. The Alaska Scouts were a very original, unique and important unit during WWII.

3. The evacuation of the Aleuts during WWII was a very devastating event.

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Please start here for information. Insert your own WWII and the Aleutians slideshow here.

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The evacuation of the people was very devastating. Many people were moved away from their homes to canning facilities. The places they were moved to were unhealthy and dangerous. They would be moved to canning facilities and old mining towns.They got no support from the government. Many people died from sickness and lack of food they were unvalued.

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Many people did not know about the part of WWII being fought in Alaska, including myself. The battles of Attu and Kiska are good examples. The Japanese were trying to secure US soil and were successful, but eventually gave it up or evacuated. They either evacuated by foot or by submarine, and a large amount of them actually died of suicide. During these battles a lot of resources were built to fight the Japanese like airports and the ALCAN Highway.

-susie p3

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The evacuation on Aleuts during WWII was a very devastating moment in history. Aleuts were forcibly moved and relocated soon after the Japanese invaded the Aleutian Islands, saying that they were protecting them. Men were forced to work, and if they didn't they were threatened, being told they wouldn't get to go back to their home. Nazis, which were an enemy of the US, were treated way better than Aleuts, which were supposed friends. After the war, they were kept for two years and still forced to work. Finally after they were free, they came home to ravaged houses and land. It took around forty years for the Aleuts to gain proper recognition, and it didn't help that they were afraid to speak up in fear of being diminished.

-Wayland Roys P3

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The Alaska Territorial Guard (ATG) provided safety for the lands of Alaska and the safety of others especially during WWII. Not only was their job to take care of the land they also transported supplies and equipment. They constructed facilities and buildings for people to work in during the war, as well as developing the airways in Alaska. Some noticeable members of the guard were Holger Jorgensen, he was a bush pilot and a former Morse Code operator. There also was reindeer herder, Wesley Ugiaqatq who captained a whaling ship before joining the ATG.

-Olivia Yurkew

p3

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The evacuation of the people was very devastating because many people had to move away from their once called home and many of them went through miserable time. some didn't had a place to stay and some had alot of time adjusting to their new environment where some people had to stay it was dangerous and unsafe. The government didn't care to help anything they just let it happend.

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Many people know that part of WWII was fought in Alaska. As a result of its involvement in the war, the Alaska Territorial Guard was formed. Japanese forces had taken the islands of Attu and Kiska. The U.S. government had to send thousands of troops in order to reclaim the islands in 1943. Even though it was a success, there were 3,829 casualties of American citizens. Ultimately, a little known fact is that part of WWII was fought in the Alaska territory. -Regan

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The Alaska Scouts were very important and unique group for Alaska in WWII. The Alaska Scouts were also the Alaska Territorial Guard, they protected the Aleutian chain on the islands watching out for the Japanese. This is because it was created in response to the Japanese invade multiple islands in the Aleutian chain. The Alaska Scouts were essentially the eyes and ears for the U.S. in West Alaska. This group also expanded to transport equipment and supplies. This group was entirely volunteers and over 6,300 natives joined. -

Cooper T.

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The Alaskan Scouts or the Alaskan Territorial Guard, was a very important and original unit during WW2. It was originally formed by Euro-Americans and several natives like the Athabaskans were asked to join, it was a 100% join rate from all native groups who were asked. Their jobs were to defend the coastlines of Alaska from incoming enemies like the Japanese. They covered 6,640 miles of coastline of Northwest Alaska. They helped defend, protect Alaska, they were officially recognized for the veteran status in 2010.

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The evacuation of the Aleuts was a very devastating event. The Aleut evacuation and internment lasted from 1942-1945, during this time 881 Unangax or Aleut were evacuated from nine villages throughout the Aleutians. The Aleut were forced to evacuate on cramped ships and most of their belongings were left behind. The Aleut were shipped from their home and villages to southeast Alaska to live in abandoned canneries. After the Aleut were evacuated the U.S. government burnt the churches and homes of those living in the Aleutians. The U.S government claimed the evacuation was for the Aleut safety, even though no official plan was ever put in place. The Aleut had little to no say in their evacuation and were completely caught off guard. The Aleut made the best of the situation, and many went into the armed forces. When the Aleut returned, they found their villages burned and ransacked. It was difficult for the Aleut to pick back up on a subsistence lifestyle with no belonging. In 1968 reparations for mistreatment were compromised.

Alise p.5

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During WWII the Aleuts were rushed out of their homes and brought to camps in southeastern Alaska. The camps had no plumbing, toilets, electricity, or medical care, multiple people died at these camps proving how little they were prepared for this evacuation. The Battles of Attu and Kiska were short but destroyed the Aluet people's home and way of life. After WWII Alaska became an important place to have a military presence because of its strategic global positioning. The ALCAN and multiple Bases were built all over the state leading to a dramatic increase in population in the following years. The unpreparedness shown when the Islands of Attu and Kiska were evacuated demonstrated a desperate need to protect the Aleutian Islands from evasion.

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During WWII the Aluets were forced out of their homes and shipped to camps in southeastern Alaska. The camps had no plumbing, toilets, electricity or medical care. Multiple people died at these camps proving how little they were prepared for this evacuation.  The battles of attu and Kiska were short but destroyed the Aleuts peoples homes and way of life. After WWII Alaska became an important place to have military presences because of its location. The AlCAN became a very important road for the military, for them to be able to transport equipment and establish a military presence in Alaska to increase the population.

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This event was a bunch more difficult than it should have been. The Aleuts were forced out of their villages and brought to a strange new land, then were forced to work. They were forced to work and had to live in small houses with many, many, many people in them. And when they finally got back to their village, they had to fix tons of damage from the war. ~Archer<3M. P.1

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During WWII, Dutch Harbor was bombed by Japan. The Japanese occupied Alaska for about fourteen months, invading Kiska and Attu while they were there. many people did not have time to evacuate. Alaska became a strategic location for the U.S. against the Japanese, until they were driven out. As a result of WWII, many people moved into the then territory, and a majority of them stayed after the war.

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The evacuation of Aleuts in WWII was very devastating due to how the U.S. treated them. The Aleuts were evacuated out of their homes to horrible conditioned areas to live in and as they were evacuated U.S. burned the Aleuts homes because it was better then letting Japan live in those homes. Due to the poor conditions in the homes and mistreatment the Aleut population was decimated through warfare, disease, and slavery. The U.S. thought they were helping the Aleuts by moving them but really it was hurting them because of the lack of care of where they were placed. Overall, during WWII the Aleuts were heavily mistreated by the U.S.

Liza Pugh

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The battles of Attu and Kiska Island are the forgotten battles of WWII even though they are the only ones that occurred on U.S. soil. These were some of the first battles that took place in WWII and there were thousands of people that took part and were successful in keeping the islands part of U.S. territory in the end. Both Attu and Kiska were attacked by Japanese troops, Attu on June 6th of 1942 and Kiska one day before. Japan seized the island and raised the imperial flag, U.S. troops were sent in 1943 to take them back. Japanese troops captured Aleut residents and the U.S. reacted by bombing the islands to force troops out.

-Kylie C.

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During WWII, the Alaska scouts watched and guarded the west coast of Alaska from intruders. This group, also referred to as the territorial guard, was made up of the indigenous communities who were asked to join and assist in the war. 100% of those were requested to join, joined. The thing that made the Alaska scouts so unique was their unusual skills and gear, including snow shoeing and owning a single rifle. After the war, the indigenous people who assisted, were not credited for their hard work until nearly 60 years later.

-capri p3

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Many people do not know that part of WWII was fought in Alaska. In fact, the two battles that were fought in Alaska were the only battles fought on United States soil during the war. These were the battles of Attu and Kiska, two islands that are part of the Aleutian Islands in Southwest Alaska. The island of Attu was invaded by the Japanese in June of 1942, who held the island until thousands of American troops took it back in 1943. They were successful, but with many casualties. This was the only time Japan ever occupied American land during WWII. Kiska was seized a day before Attu, but this time the occupation was ended by heavy bombing by the United States from June through August of 1943, which forced Japanese soldiers to evacuate the island.

-Adelle Eaton P5

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During WWII, the Alaska Scouts were a unique and important group. Comprising both local experts and Native Alaskans, they protected the Arctic landscape. They performed important tasks including reconnaissance and leadership, applying their expertise to get rid of possible Japanese attacks via the Aleutian Islands. Their intelligence and ingenuity played a significant role in the Allies' victory in the Pacific.

-Maxim Sapelnik P5

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The Alaska scouts are a very original, unique, and important unit during WW2. One reason is because they contained men and women, with the ages of 12-80. This was covered by History.com from the article, "How Native Americans Protected Alaska During WWII" stating the range of participants,"More than 6,300 Indigenous men and women, ages 12 to 80, joined the Alaska Territorial Guard"(Evans). In addition to the gender and ages, many came from the native tribes knowing the land, "In addition to a number of Euro-Americans, these recruits came largely from the Tlingit, Aleut, Tsimshian, Haida and Athabascan communities, and particularly, from the Yup’ik and Inupiaq people living along the Bering Sea and Arctic coastline. The all-volunteer corps knew the land and were accustomed to surviving in harsh winter conditions"(Evans). This explains how unique and original the Alaskan Scouts were during their time.

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The Alaskan Territorial Guard was an extremely important unit for WWII. It was formed by European Americans and some Native Americans. All the Native Americans who were asked joined the guard to defend their homes. They transported supplies and equipment. They were quite strange when it came to the gear and way they travelled in the war. They played a very important role in protecting Alaska's west coast.

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The population evacuation was very catastrophic. Many people were moved away from their homes to unsafe canning facilities, while the government passed it off as protecting them. They were relocated to dangerous and unhygienic environments. Following that, the government ceased assisting them. They were on their own and had no help. Food deficiencies and illness claimed a great number of lives. Native Alaskans were not given human rights.

Azzie P5

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Many people do not know that Alaska was apart of ww2

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Many people do not know that Alaska was apart of ww2

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Many people do not know how ww2 affected and took place in Alaska. Alaska went through a lot of hardships during ww2 including the Japanese occupying Attu for a whole year. And also attacking Kiska island just a day before Attu Island. They also bomebed them for 2 months straight.

cw

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The Alaska Scouts were very original, unique and important during WWII. The scouts guarded the Kiska Island for any invasions and fought anytime they needed to. The Alaska Scouts were very good at shooting and could shoot very well. This made the scouts a very good team and could handle almost anything that came there way. To help improve the scouts skills they went through military training to became they best that they could be in order to protect their island even better during WWII.

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Many people do not know the giant role Alaska played in World War 2. Some people even look over what Japan did for U.S. soil. It is very important to learn about this terrible history, so we don't repeat it again. When Attu and Kiska were taken by the Japanese, the native people who were on the Islands were taken hostage or turned in to slaves and used for free labor. Even after the war, the U.S. made something called the Territorial Guard meaning that the natives that weren't taken by the Japanese were basically enslaved again only by the U.S. this time. They watched Alaska's shore for long hours to make sure that the shoreline of Alaska did not get captured again. It was basically being volentold and they didn't volunteer for it.

-Harper period 1