The Bombing of Dutch Harbor

This marker near Dutch Harbor recalls the day the Second World War reached American soil in Alaska. On June third and fourth, nineteen forty-two, Japanese carrier aircraft struck the naval base here at Unalaska, in two separate raids on consecutive days. It was part of Operation A L, launched alongside the attack on Midway, an attempt to seize a foothold in the Aleutians and threaten the West Coast.

Roughly seventy bombs fell, killing dozens of servicemen and civilians and destroying fuel tanks and buildings. Within days the Japanese landed on the far islands of Kiska and Attu, the only enemy occupation of United States territory in the war. The campaign to take them back was long and bloody, fought in fog, wind, and freezing rain.

This windswept ground was once the front line of the war in the North Pacific.