Emily Chan
The remains of three military ships from a “forgotten battle” of World War II were recently discovered off a remote Alaskan island. It is the first time that shipwrecks from this particular conflict have been studied in depth.
The battle involved Japan’s invasion of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska during World War II. The vessels include two Japanese freighters and the SS Dellwood, an American cable ship that installed undersea cables during the war.
In July, underwater archaeologists stumbled upon their wrecks during an expedition to Attu Island, which is located at the westernmost tip of the Aleutians.
After Japanese forces invaded the island in June 1942, the Japanese ships were sunk by American aircraft.
The invasion occurred roughly six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The American ship sunk almost a year later when the Japanese invasion had been defeated during efforts to fortify the island’s defenses.
During World War II, Attu and Kiska, a nearby Aleutian island, were the only parts of North America that were invaded and occupied by a foreign enemy.
The United States spent about a year bombing the Japanese in their territories with warplanes. Eventually, a force of almost 35,000 American and Canadian troops drove out the Japanese.
The last phase of the invasion included the Battle of Attu. During that conflict, the lives of 2,351 Japanese and 549 Allied soldiers were taken in May 1943.
Researchers were able to locate the three shipwrecks while aboard the Norseman II, a former crab fishing boat that was converted into a research vessel.
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