Posted on 07/18/2007 7:38:24 AM PDT by BGHater
The Japanese government has resumed a search for the remains of World War II soldiers said to be buried in mass graves on the Aleutian island of Attu, U.S. officials said.
More than 60 years after one of the deadliest battles of the war, the bodies of nearly 2,500 Japanese soldiers still lie beneath the bog of the tiny fog-draped island at the western tip of the chain, according to estimates by the Department of Defense.
Last week, a group of Japanese and U.S. officials made a four-day trip to the island and used shovels and pickaxes to verify the location of burial sites mapped by the Japanese government in 1953 and by the U.S. Navy.
Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is studying the feasibility of excavating the remains and taking them back to Japan for reburial, said Maj. Christopher Johnson, a policy adviser in the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office at the Pentagon.
Chief Warrant Officer Robert Coyle, who commands 20 Coast Guard members stationed on Attu, said he found two left boots made of rubber containing foot bones and a leather pouch that soldiers may have used to hold bullets. The group also found an old wooden cross in a valley thought to contain the bodies of 501 Japanese soldiers.
After a short ceremony to honor the dead, Japanese officials reburied the remains, said Maj. Johnson, who was also on the expedition.
Japanese forces landed on Attu and the neighboring island of Kiska on June 7, 1942, in the only land invasion of the United States during World War II.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
“”I don’t know how they would do it because there’s no road access to the burial spots,” he said. “Maybe they could bring heavy equipment in by plane. And they’d need a crew of hardy guys with some pretty strong backs.”
Bet the Japanese figure out a way. Getting their dead back home is a passion for them.
Attu, Kiska was the high water mark for the Japenese in the Pacific War. The landings were a diversion against the main thrust against Midway and to split the US Carrier force and engage it with strong odds.
Good pic. I bet the mosquitos there are something awful.
“More than 60 years after one of the deadliest battles of the war,...”
Not to take anything away from the men in this battle..does the writer seriuosly believe this was one of the deadliest???? i would say this was way down the list...
Japan Warns U.S. House Against Resolution on WWII Sex Slaves
Attu's 345 square miles is not exactly a tiny island. To put in in perspective, Guam is 210 square miles. Manhattan is 23 square miles. Iwo Jima is 8 square miles. Midway atoll is 2.4 square miles, the largest island of which is 1.9 square miles and was home to the airfield and military base which was the chief Japanese objective in the battle.
You were right about Attu and Kiska being the first attack in the Battle of Midway. The Americans recognized it as a diversion because we had cracked the Japanese Naval Code. So we basically did nothing to oppose the Japanese invasion of Attu and Kiska in 1942.
For the next year, neither island was particularly helpful to the Japanese. It extended their supply lines and the year-round fog was not particularly helpful to air operations. After Attu fell, Kiska was quietly abandoned by a brilliant submarine evacuation. The allies lost about 20 men by accidentally shooting at each other in the fog.
Attu's 345 square miles is not exactly a tiny island. To put in in perspective, Guam is 210 square miles. Manhattan is 23 square miles. Iwo Jima is 8 square miles. Midway atoll is 2.4 square miles, the largest island of which is 1.9 square miles and was home to the airfield and military base which was the chief Japanese objective in the battle.
You were right about Attu and Kiska being the first attack in the Battle of Midway. The Americans recognized it as a diversion because we had cracked the Japanese Naval Code. So we basically did nothing to oppose the Japanese invasion of Attu and Kiska in 1942.
For the next year, neither island was particularly helpful to the Japanese. It extended their supply lines and the year-round fog was not particularly helpful to air operations. After Attu fell, Kiska was quietly abandoned by a brilliant submarine evacuation. The allies lost about 20 men by accidentally shooting at each other in the fog.
I read that the U.S. Soldiers that were sent to retake Attu Island were trained for Desert Warfare and not fully-equiped at all for the Winter-Tundra like climate.
Right up until the time Attu was re-invaded, much of the U.S. Military was against the operation, not only because of the difficulties likely to be encountered (underestimated as they were), but due to the island's dubious strategic value and the Japanese military resources it was consuming.
In the end, however, the operation went forward because of the national shame of allowing a foreign enemy army to occupy American soil, the first time this had happened since the Battle of New Orleans some 128 years before.
I guess it depends on how you define "United States". Alaska was a territory in the 1940s. So were Guam and the Philippines.
Generally, I am not eager to pick a fight with the Japanese over WWII. However, I ~am~ troubled at their long-standing refusal to be honest over many aspects of the war and, especially, filling their school books with self-justifying propaganda.
Still, they have enough problems with the Chinese and Koreans, for whom the history of those times is even more alive than for most of us. I'd try to stay out of it...but...BUT...when they start getting in our face with THREATS over Iraq, I get my back up IN A HURRY. Maybe they are planning to start another war to find themselves some oil.
(I saw you touting Goodfellas on another thread so I know that you are a person of great intelligence and discernment! Those Japs are treatin' us "like a half a fag or sump'in.")
News flash...Attu is an island.
Attu was the first and only major battle in the Pacific War which did not take place in a jungle or tropical island environment. Attu was essentially mountain and tundra warfare. New Guinea is essentially an island, too, but on a much larger scale that Attu.
One very strategic aspect of the battle is that the United States abandoned plans to invade Japan from the shortest route. While the fierce Japanese opposition on Attu may have played a minor role, it is clear that the nature of the beast (fog, winds, storms year-round) played the deciding role. Bottom line is that the rules of island warfare developed elsewhere in the Pacific just didn't apply so well on Attu.
Japan has shirked from admission... and has NEVER accepted blame.
I remembered the balloon bombs, but had never focused on how many there were. Looking at the distribution in Oregon, you have to figure that there were more in the sparsely inhabited areas.
Indeed, they only killed people when they decided to drag the bomb through the woods.
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