Exploring Attu’s Underwater Battlefield and Offshore Environment/ThayerMahan, Inc.
Kotohira Maru, the Japanese freighter discovered in Attu
American and Japanese forces fought in the Aleutian Islands, “lost” in the middle of the Pacific. One of them is even considered a US national monument, but it was only a few years ago that it was discovered what lay beneath the calm waters.
The moment in July when the research ship led by Wolfgang Tutiakoff he first saw the island of Attu it seemed almost sacred: “It was very emotional and literally breathtaking,” he tells . “About twenty people were silent for at least five minutes until someone said something.”
At the end of Alaska’s Aleutian island chain (which belongs to North American territory), Attu is the westernmost territory in the United States — so western that, technically, it is located in the Eastern Hemisphere and the International Date Line runs around it.
Currently, no one lives on that island, and it is considered a national monument. They seem forgotten by history, but they were once a very important place for the USA.
In June 1942, in the middle of the Second World War, the islands of Attu and Kiska were invaded by Japan. They became the only US territory invaded during that war.
Tutiakoff describes it as a “forgotten battlefield”. And no wonder: almost 3,000 people died and thousands were injuredoften due to the extreme cold during the fateful Battle of Attu, which ended with the expulsion of the Japanese by the Americans and Canadians.
Now, maritime archaeologists Jason Rauppfrom East Carolina University, and Dominic Bushwhich is now part of the non-profit group, led the expedition to Attu in July 2024, searching for wreckage and other sunken relics aboard the investigation vessel.
At the time, people lived on the island, and Tutiakoff’s grandfather was one of them. The young woman is a descendant of the tribe Unanganwhich populated the place and was moved to other islands. Only about half of the nearly one thousand people survived the War.
Consortium Library, University of Alaska
The natives of the island of Attu, in 1935
Now researchers are researching new war artifacts that tell the story of the forgotten islands, notably the Japanese freighter Kotohira Maru, which was 6,000 tons and carried supplies from Japan.
But a similar excursion had already been made in 2018: during a trip to the island of Kiska, the stern of the one destroyer American badly damaged in August 1943when it hit a Japanese sea mine. The ship was saved, but 71 crew members died at Kiska and dozens suffered serious injuries.
Debris of a Imperial Japanese Navy submarinea two-man Japanese “midget” submarine intended to launch torpedoes at enemy warships, and parts of the American B-24 Liberator bomber that was hit by anti-aircraft fire while attacking Japanese positions on the island.
The most recent Attu Island investigation has already worked with specialized and light remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), tethered to the research vessel and provided Live video from the dark depths.
Dominic Bush says that the new investigation, combined with historical facts, has allowed us to better understand the intentions of the Japanese in invading the Alaskan islands. And they could even be planning a military base for air strikes on the USA.
“The Japanese came to think that taking over US territory in North America would be advantageous from a strategic point of view,” he says. “They called Attu their ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier’.”
