[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 64 (Wednesday, May 8, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3250-S3252]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
BATTLE OF ATTU 70TH ANNIVERSARY
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise today to commemorate the 70th
Anniversary of the Battle of Attu.
The Battle of Attu is often times forgotten or dismissed, but this
battle is an important part of our history as a Nation. After all, it
was the last battle between warring nations to be fought in North
America.
During WWII Alaska was still a territory to the United States, and in
1942, Japan seized three islands off the end of the Aleutian chain in
the most southwest part of Alaska. Japan prepared the island for the
inevitable counterattack.
On May 11 1943, the Americans launched towards Attu Island, and a
battle raged until May 29 when 800 Japanese soldiers employed a full
fledged Banzai attack, fighting hand to hand. While the Japanese attack
crumbled,
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Japanese soldiers pulled grenades, dying by their own hand as a sign of
honor. By the afternoon, the battle was over. American forces had
prevailed.
This battle was remarkable in many ways. More men were killed in
action on Attu than at Pearl Harbor. It also remains the only time
American soldiers have fought an invading army on American soil since
the war of 1812. Last summer I had the honor of travelling to Attu with
Admiral Ostebo, the Coast Guard District 17 Commander, where we
dedicated a permanent memorial to the sacrifice of the Attu villagers.
Now all who walk the hills of Attu will be reminded of the sacrifice
Attu village residents and other Alaskans made during World War II.
An article in the Anchorage Daily News by Mike Dunham did a great job
in relaying the story of the battle, and I ask unanimous consent to
have it printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Anchorage Daily News, May 4, 2013]
70 years ago this month, the Battle of Attu raged
(By Mike Dunham)
Cpl. Joe Sasser was asleep in his pup tent on a cold, soggy
morning 70 years ago when the alarm sounded. ``Somebody was
shouting, `The Japs have come through!' '' he recalled.
Sasser's outfit, the 50th Engineers, were builders, not
fighters. Most of the men--and there weren't a lot of them--
were what the Army calls noncombatants. Their job was to make
roads and move supplies to the soldiers on the front lines.
The strung-out line of supply tents was not fortified. The
soldiers had rifles, not machine guns.
He struggled into his perpetually damp leather boots--``Not
the right attire'' for the snow and mud of Alaska, he said--
grabbed his helmet and M-1 rifle, went to an embankment
created when the road was pushed through a few days earlier
and peered over the side.
``The Japanese were moving up the hill,'' he said. ``The
ravines were full of them'' in numbers that far exceeded the
Americans at the outpost.
He watched the mass of determined, desperate men swarm
toward him in an action no U.S. soldier had faced since the
War of 1812--a bayonet charge by an enemy invader on American
soil.
Thus began the Battle of Engineer Hill, the last battle
between warring nations to be fought in North America.
Theater of frustration
In 1942 Japan seized three islands at the end of Alaska's
Aleutian chain. Only one, Attu, had a village. The citizens,
mostly Aleut Natives, were sent to internment camps in Japan.
The invaders prepared the island for the counterattack they
knew would come.
Historians debate whether Japan's Alaska incursion was a
feint to draw attention away from their real target, Midway
Island, or part of an ambitious plan to create a virtual
``fence'' across the Pacific.
Either way, the propaganda value was undeniable. The
Territory of Alaska was part of the North American continent,
sharing the mainland with the 48 states. The occupation by a
hostile force, even of an island 1,000 miles from the coast,
constituted an embarrassment that could not be tolerated.
On May 11, 1943, the Americans launched the Battle of Attu
with amphibious landings from two directions.
The day began in fog, Sasser recalled in a phone call from
his home in Carthage, Miss., last month. ``But it cleared up
somewhat later in the day. We got on our boats and went
ashore at Massacre Bay,'' the southern landing site.
``There was no resistance.''
It was a misleading start.
American intelligence originally estimated Japanese
strength at 500 men. There were more like 2,500. U.S. maps
were incomplete or inaccurate. Planners failed to understand
the swampy tundra that rose from the beach, a skim of grass
over bottomless muck. Soldiers went ashore in summer uniforms
and slick-bottom leather boots suitable for desert combat.
The defenders waited in the steep mountains, cloaked in
clouds, set in positions to cover the approaches in
crossfire. When the Americans were well into Massacre Valley,
the Japanese opened up with machine guns and mortars. The
valley offered little cover and no quick retreat. The advance
ground to a halt and the scene turned into what one historian
has called ``the theater of military frustration.''
Planes supposed to provide air cover crashed in the
Aleutian winds. Some attacked American soldiers by mistake.
The offshore armada couldn't see or reach inland targets
where U.S. forces were getting ripped up. Heavy guns and
supplies barely moved off the beach as heavy equipment bogged
down in the mire.
``The invasion of Attu was scheduled for a three-day
deal,'' Sasser said. ``Three days, they told us, and we'd be
out of there.''
On the fifth day the commanding general was replaced.
Reinforcements poured in as the Americans suffered heavy
losses--not just from the bullets but from exposure. Some
froze or died from hypothermia. ``Trench foot'' and frostbite
crippled their numbers. So did the psychological battering of
constant incoming fire.
``We went on one detail all the way across the valley to
pick up a guy who'd lost his marbles,'' Sasser said. ``He was
really a zombie at that point. He followed us back, almost
like a child, not saying anything.''
Gallons of blood
Historian John Cloe observes that ``two under-strength
Japanese infantry battalions on half-rations'' repeatedly
threw back six battalions of amply supplied U.S. infantry.
But bit by bit the Americans pushed ahead--particularly on
days when air support could reach them.
On the seventh day, the Japanese retreated toward Chichagof
Harbor. The Americans' northern and southern landing forces
finally met. The Americans slowly took possession of
strategic ground, one yard at a time, each little victory
measured in gallons of blood. By May 28, the Japanese were
cornered at Chichagof Harbor.
Commander Col. Yasuyo Yamazaki had less than half his
forces still able to fight. They were almost out of
ammunition and near starvation.
But the valley above the harbor was lightly defended with
the Americans' main fighting units dispersed along the high
ground--and there were caches of U.S. supplies at the top.
Yamazaki devised a last-ditch plan. A surprise attack could
throw the Americans in Chichigof Valley back in panic. In the
rout, his men might reach the heavy artillery in Massacre
Valley and turn the Americans' own guns against them. He
could replenish his stock of weapons, hold strategic ground,
cut supply lines, divide the dispirited American forces and
perhaps maintain a stalemate until help arrived.
But he knew the odds of success were slim. He ordered all
documents burned. Men too sick or injured to fight died
either by their own hand or from an overdose of morphine.
Banzai
Just before dawn on May 29, Americans in the valley were
told to leave their positions and get a hot breakfast at the
regimental mess tent. Cloe suspects the order may have been
spread by an English-speaking Japanese infiltrator.
The groggy men were thinking of coffee when upwards of 800
screaming Japanese came charging out of the mist and dark.
The Americans were caught off guard and overrun. Fighting was
hand-to-hand. It was impossible to see what was going on.
There were no prisoners.
The Japanese reached the medical tents and slaughtered the
wounded in their cots. Their death shrieks added to the
chaos. U.S. troops, their top officers dead, uncertain of the
number or positions of the invisible enemy, scattered or
retreated.
It was one of those soldiers, fleeing over Engineer Hill,
who gave the warning that woke Sasser.
Among those escaping the carnage was an unarmed doctor.
``He asked for a gun, but nobody had two,'' Sasser said. ``He
disappeared for a while and came back with a rifle and took
up position with us. He wanted to be in the fight.''
Dr. John Bassett was killed about 15 feet from Sasser.
Sasser had a slight advantage over many of the other men.
He had trained as a scout before being transferred to the
engineers. As he looked down on the approaching Japanese, he
felt lucky that he'd moved his tent the night before.
``Three of us initially pitched at the crest of a ravine.
Then, I can't remember why, we moved 40 to 50 yards farther
up the hill to the road bed,'' he said. ``Two other guys
thought it was a good spot and pitched there. They were
bayonetted in their sleeping bags.''
Sasser credited a small embankment along the road for
saving him from a similar fate. ``It saved our lives.''
Outnumbered and rattled, a thin line of bulldozer drivers,
mechanics, medics and cooks formed a hasty defense. Some of
the men didn't have time to put on their boots. The only
automatic weapons they had were those dropped by the men in
retreat.
But the Japanese had even less, little more than bayonets,
swords, knives and sticks along with a few precious bullets.
Nonetheless, they engaged the Americans with a ferocity that
Sasser recalls to this day.
``They were a tenacious group,'' he said. ``I was
surprised. It was dishonor for them to be captured and an
honor to be killed.''
Yamazaki died with his sword in hand. The Japanese fell
back and reassembled for a second charge. The Americans had
their rifles ready.
``We picked 'em off one by one,'' Sasser said.
As their assault crumbled, the remaining Japanese each took
the grenade he kept for himself, gripped it to his chest or
his head--and pulled the pin.
The battle was over. The valley, in the words of one
historian, looked like an excavated cemetery. Hundreds of
corpses from both sides lay atop the rock and tundra.
``Then we had to go down there and pick `em up,'' Sasser
said.
Morning's heroes became the afternoon's grave diggers.
Aftermath
The Battle of Attu, often dismissed or forgotten, was
remarkable in many ways.
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More men were killed in action on Attu than at Pearl
Harbor: at least 2,350 Japanese--plus those never accounted
for--and 549 Americans; 1,148 Americans were wounded and
2,100 listed as casualties due to cold and shell shock. How
many Americans died as a result of injuries in the weeks
after the battle is uncertain, but some say it was equal to
or greater than the battlefield deaths.
Fewer than 30 Japanese were captured alive.
It was the only land battle in the war fought in the
Americas, the first amphibious landing by the U.S. Army and,
aside from Iwo Jima, the most costly in terms of the
percentage of American casualties. ``For every hundred of the
enemy, about 71 Americans were killed or wounded,'' according
to the official Army history.
It was the first time in the war that the U.S. military
retook occupied American territory, and the first time the
Army encountered the fanatical fight-to-the-death ethos of
the Japanese.
It remains the only time American soldiers have fought an
invading army on American soil since the War of 1812.
It was the deadliest battle on the continent since the
Civil War.
But history wasn't on Sasser's mind as he braced for the
screaming, charging enemy 70 years ago. ``At that particular
point I was not aware of the significance,'' he said. ``I
just knew we were there because it was American territory.
And we were going to get it back.''
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