Draft:Relocation of Aleuts during WWII

Submission declined on 13 March 2025 by Spinster300 (talk).

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Declined by Spinster300 49 days ago. Last edited by WereSpielChequers 37 days ago. Reviewer: Inform author.

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As part of World War 2, in June 1942 the Japanese launched a series of attacks on the Aleutian Islands starting the Aleutian Islands Campaign and set up military bases on the islands of Attu and Kiska. The natives living on Attu became Japanese Prisoners of War and were interned in Japan in terrible conditions leading to the death in captivity of about half of the pre-war population of the island.

Fearing that the Japanese would threaten the other islands the US Government made the decision to evacuate the remaining villagers of the Aleutian Islands west of Unalaska and the Pribilof Islands to various camps in the Alexander Archipelago in Southeast Alaska. There the villagers were left to fend for themselves in camps that were overcrowded with inadequate facilities for the number of people present. Many of the villagers died in these camps due to the poor conditions.

The villagers were returned to the Aleutians at the end of the war, however many of the villagers found their homes destroyed either due to Japanese bombing or by the US Army to deprive the invading Japanese of useful property and their communities changed by the military activity on the islands. Several of the native villages had to be abandoned, including Attu as the population was too low and it was deemed too expensive to rebuild.

Background

On the 3 June 1942 the Japanese carrier strike force launched an attack against the Americans at Dutch Harbor, as part of a large offensive operation attacking the Aleutian Islands in the North and Midway in the South. The objective of the attack of the Aleutians were.^[1]:

To break up any offensives against Japan by way of the Aleutians.
To place a barrier between the U.S. and Russia in case Russia decided to join the war against Japan.
To make preparation for air bases for future offensive action.

Japanese invasion of Kiska and Attu

Japanese troops raise the Imperial battle flag on Kiska after landing on 6 June 1942.

Following the initial attacks on Dutch Harbor the Japanese invaded and occupied the islands of Kiska on the 6 June and Attu on 7 June. At the time of the invasion 10 Americans were on Kiska operating a Navy weather station, with 8 eventually taken prisoners and the other two killed during the invasion^[2].

Attu had community of 42 native Aleutians living on the island^[3], along with two white civilians; Charles Foster Jones and his wife Etta. Jones was manning a weather station on the island and was executed after refusing to fix the radio he had destroyed when he became aware of the arrival of the Japanese. Etta and the Aleutians were taken prisoners and moved to Japan^[4].

Evacuation

While the possible evacuation of the Aleutian and Pribilof islands had been under consideration for some time different government agencies could not agree on who should take responsibility until the Japanese attack forced them to act. As such the evacuation was hastily planned and disorganized.^[3] The lack of organization led to a failure to provide adequate housing, food, health and sanitation for the evacuees^[5].

On 12 June the USS Gillis and USS Hulbert station at off Atka received orders to remove the local villagers and burn the village to prevent the buildings being used by the Japanese, should they take the island. Most of the natives were not at the village as they had scattered to distant fish camps in case of an attack meaning that by the time they were evacuated to Nikolski and then Unalaska most had been left with no personal possessions ^[6].

On 14 June the order was received by USCGC Onondaga to evacuate the residents of Saint Paul and on 16 June the USAT Delarof evacuated the entire communities of Saint Paul and Saint George. Ib the way to Southeast Alaska, the Delarof stopped briefly at Unalaska to pick up the evacuees from Atka^[6].

The evacuation of continued at the end of the month when the order was received at Dutch Harbor to evacuate the communities of Nikolski, Akutan, Kashega, Biorka and Makushin^[6].

Only the native Aleuts were evacuated while the white residents of the islands were made to stay behind to help the troops, resulting in the separation of some mixed families ^[7].

Facilities

Arrangements were hastily made to accomodate the Aleuts in southeast Alaska as they were already en-route, and they were eventually interned across a handful of locations^[6].

Funter Bay Cannery

The villagers of St. Paul spent most of World War II at the Thlinket Packing Company cannery at Funter Bay. The cannery had previously ceased operation in 1931 and had been used as storage before being aquired by P.E. Harris Co in 1941^[8]. By 1942 the buildings had fallen into disrepair with only a caretaker and his wife living on site when the owners struck a deal with the US Government on the June 16 to lease the property for $60 per month, and on June 24 the entire native population of St George and St Paul arrived at Funter Bay^[9]. The following day villagers of St George were shifted to the mine site about one mile away.

The villagers were left to their own devices to make the place living, building beds and repairing the decaying buildings at the site water was often in short supply and contaminated, and the cabins which had not been intended for winter occupation lack good isolation or heating^[9].

Funter Bay Mine

Across the bay from the cannery, the villagers of St George were housed in the shoreside camp of the former Admiralty Alaska Gold Mine. By June 1942 the mine had been out of production for more than 15 years and only the onside caretaker (Rado Pekovich) and one other person lived at the site, eventually the mine was leased to the government for $1 per year to house the villagers^[10].

The mining camp facilities were not adequate to house the number of villagers due to electrical hazards, poisonous chemicals left over from the mining activities and only two outhouses for the entire population, and like for the cannery health and sanitation were chronic problems^[10].

Killisnoo Herring Plant

About 50 miles south of Funter Bay was the derelict Killisnoo Herring plant. Operations there began in the 1870s; in 1928 almost all of the housing burnt down leaving only the industrial plant a few nearby buildings as a result if the fire by the 1930 census the population had plummeted to only three people from around 300 before the fire ^[11].

When the villagers of Atka arrived here around 25 June 1942 the available buildings included three houses, five cabins, a bunkhouse, a warehouse, a machine shop a shed and a store. Most of the buildings were unheated not built for winter occupation and the villagers had been unable to bring any luggage. The villgers were left there with some bedding and 4 days worth of food and receive little federal attention thereafter and were largely left to fend for themselves. Like at the other camps Killisnoo suffered from poor water sources, poor sanitation, lack of plumbing and inadequate tools. Of the 83 villagers re-settled at Killisnoo, 17 died during the war due to the conditions of the camp^[11].

Wrangell Institute

The residents of Nikolski, Akutan, Unalaska, Makushin and Kashega were taken to a tent city that was quickly erected on the grounds of the Wrangell Institute, a boarding school set up by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1932, a few miles south of the town of Wrangell while more permanent accommodation was made ready. After the villagers were sent to the other camps the children were sent to the institute for schooling^[12].

The first villagers arrived on July 13 consisting of 41 people from Akutan, 18 from Biorka, 20 from Kashega, 8 from Makushin, 72 from Nikolski and 1 from Unalaska. The remainder of the Unalaskans arrived there in the following weeks however sources differ on the date and the number of arrivals^[12]. The villagers were moved on and the camp was dismantled by early September.

Burnett Inlet Cannery

The 111 villagers from Unalaska were eventually settled at the cannery at the mouth of Burnett Inlet, located on the West side of Etolin Island after a deal was struck with the owners in late August 1942. The cannery was built in 1912 and had burned down in 1940 with the loss of many of the buildings. When the evacuees arrived they found eleven cabins and a bunkhouse still standing but in a dilapidated state, with a row of small cabins hastily constructed among the burned out ruins of the rest of the side. This was the most isolated of the evacuation sites and even though it suffered from overcrowding, lack of transportation, limited water, no bath house and one single outhouse for the entire community, it had the lowest mortality rate of the relocation camps^[13]. In the spring of 1944, 46 villagers from Biorka, Kashega and Makushin were moved to Burnett Inlet from the Ward Lake camp due to the overcrowding of that facility^[14].

Ward Lake CCC Camp

Ward Lake is located about 10 miles Northwest of Ketchikan. Starting in the 1920s after the construction of a section of the Tongass Highway between Ward Lake and Ketchikan allowed a commercial bus service between the two points, and recreational facilities started being built in the area. In 1933 the CCC was established to provide work and training to the unemployed during the Great Depression and to advance nationwide conservation programs. The CCC built a small camp with a capacity for 65 men at Ward Lake in 1935 and by 1941 it served as a staging area for the CCC and engineering troops bound for Annette Island for the construction of an airfield. The CCC had ceased to exist in 1942 and the Aleut villagers were moved into the recently emptied camp^[14].

163 villagers were moved to the camp which was well above the capacity that it was built for and new building were quickly built; none of the cabins had running water and the entire community had to share one privy and the camp suffered from lack of medical services, poor sanitation and disease; leading to a high mortality of 18% among residents^[15]. Unlike the other camps the villagers had easy access to nearby Ketchikan by road through the commercial bus service and while this allowed the villagers to look for employment it caused some friction with the local community^[14].

Internment in Japan

Following the invasion of Attu the villagers were kept in their homes for 3 months before being taken to Japan^[16], they were brought to the city of Otaru on Hokkaido and once there those there were capable were put to work mining clay and were housed in a dormitory and a Shinto monastery^[17]. Of the Attuans taken to Japan 22 of them them died from malnutrition, starvation, tuberculosis or other ailments^[18]^[16].

Aftermath

In the spring of 1944 the surviving residents of of the Pribilofs were allowed to return home, while the remaining villagers were moved back in the spring of 1945 and the camps were dismantled^[15].

The villagers of St Paul and St George were returned to their islands and were able to largely resume life as before^[19].

While the residents of Nikolski were able to return to their village and resume life as before the other villagers were not so lucky. Atka Island had a military base and airstrip built close to the village which made it a target for the Japanese during the war and when the villagers returned the village was destroyed^[19]. The residents of Unalaska returned to a profoundly changed village with a large number of military installations^[19].

The government did not allow the communities of Attu, Kashega, Biorka and Makushin to return the their villages because the cost of restoring their destroyed villages was deemed too great^[15] and they were forced to amalgamate into the other Aleut communities^[19].

Of the 831 Aleuts relocated to the camps in Southeast Alaska 85 of them perished from the poor conditions^[15].

Japanese Government response

Following the war, as part of the Treaty of San Francisco, the Japanese government offered the surviving residents of Attu reparations of $4,000 per year for three years, however some refused as the they deemed their treatment too awful to be compensated with money; and the Japanese never compensated the families for the deaths in captivity as well as the loss of land and property^[18].

US Government response

In 1980 the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians was appointed by the US Congress to conduct a study on the internment of Japanese Americans, this was expanded to also look at the treatment of the Aleuts. Public hearings were held starting in 1981 and testimonies were recorded and survivors began sharing their stories^[15]. The report condemned the government indifference to the conditions at the camps, citing crowding, rotting buildings, a lack of furniture, clean or running water, electricity, medical care and government supervision^[7]

In 1988 the US Government passed the Aleut Restitution Act of 1988 which acknowledge the failure of the United States to provide adequate care to the Aleuts and provided $12,000 for each survivor as well as a $5 million trust fund to help their descendants^[7]. In 1994 the act was expanded to include funding to cover property damage of churches sustained during the war.

References

^ Mitchell, Robert J.; Tyng, Sewell Tappan; Drummond, Nelson L. Jr.; Urwin, Gregory J. W. (April 2000). The Capture of Attu: A World War II Battle As Told by the Men Who Fought There. University of Nebraska Press. pp. 2–3. ISBN 0-8032-9557-X. Archived from the original on 2022-02-22. Retrieved 2020-11-24.
^ "The Little Known Battles of Attu And Kiska: Retaking The Only US Soil Lost During WWII". War History Online. 17 January 2018. Retrieved February 18, 2025.
^ ^a ^b "The Wartime Internment of Native Alaskans". The National World War 2 Museum. 30 June 2022. Retrieved February 14, 2025.
^ "The lone civilian: One Alaska war hero's unique place in history". Anchorage Daily News. Retrieved February 17, 2025.
^ "WWII internments set Aleuts adrift from their islands". The Seattle Times. Retrieved February 14, 2025.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "World War II Aleut Relocation Camps in Southeast Alaska - Introduction". National Park Service. Retrieved February 14, 2025.
^ ^a ^b ^c "Alaska's Aleuts--Forgotten Internees of WWII : Captivity: Residents of strategic islands were rounded up by U.S. government in 1942 and left to languish in old fish canneries". Los Angeles Times. March 1992. Retrieved February 14, 2025.
^ "The Funter Bay Cannery". Alaska Historical Society. Retrieved February 25, 2025.
^ ^a ^b "World War II Aleut Relocation Camps in Southeast Alaska - Chapter 2: Funter Bay Cannery, pt. 1". National Park Service. Retrieved February 14, 2025.
^ ^a ^b "World War II Aleut Relocation Camps in Southeast Alaska - Chapter 3: Funter Bay Mine, pt. 1". National Park Service. Retrieved February 14, 2025.
^ ^a ^b "World War II Aleut Relocation Camps in Southeast Alaska - Chapter 4: Killisnoo Herring Plant, pt. 1". National Park Service. Retrieved February 14, 2025.
^ ^a ^b "World War II Aleut Relocation Camps in Southeast Alaska - Chapter 5: Wrangell Institute". National Park Service. Retrieved February 14, 2025.
^ "World War II Aleut Relocation Camps in Southeast Alaska - Chapter 6: Burnett Inlet Cannery". National Park Service. Retrieved February 14, 2025.
^ ^a ^b ^c "World War II Aleut Relocation Camps in Southeast Alaska - Chapter 7: Ward Lake CCC Camp". National Park Service. Retrieved February 14, 2025.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e "Agony of the Aleutians: The forgotten internment". Anchorage Daily News. Retrieved February 14, 2025.
^ ^a ^b "Descendant of last native leader of Alaska island demands Japanese reparations for 1942 invasion". Associated Press. 10 December 2024. Retrieved February 14, 2025.
^ "What became of the places where Alaskans were held captive in WWII? A historian traveled to Japan to find out". Anchorage Daily News. Retrieved February 28, 2025.
^ ^a ^b "Descendant of last Native leader of Attu Island demands Japanese reparations for 1942 invasion". Anchorage Daily News. Retrieved February 14, 2025.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "World War II Aleut Relocation Camps in Southeast Alaska - Chapter 8: National Historic Landmark Evaluation". National Park Service. Retrieved February 14, 2025.