[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,

[[Page S3251]]

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.

[[Page S3252]]

       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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