War in the Wind

In June 1942, forces of the Japanese Northern Army occupied Attu Island as part of its Midway campaign. Attu, at the far western end of the Aleutian Archipelago, was American soil. In May 1943, American forces landed on Attu to liberate it. They were unprepared for the tenacity of the Japanese defenders and the brutality of the environmental conditions. What was expected to be a week-long clean-up exercise became a month-long, nose-to-nose meat-grinder whose casualty levels would not be exceeded until Iwo Jima.