Profit & Loss

The enemy inflicted minor damage to the Naval Station at Dutch Harbor and the Army post at Fort Mears, but did not seriously impair their military effectiveness.

The enemy has occupied the undefended islands of Attu, Kiska and Agattu in the westernmost tip of the Aleutian chain and has constructed temporary living facilities ashore.

Thus the Navy, in a profit-&-loss communique last week, summed the Jap's accomplishments in six weeks of Alaskan warfare. To the U.S. it was some reassurance that things had not gone worse on a front from which news had come chiefly in complaints about the weather that sounded suspiciously like alibis. But still unanswered, even by implication, were such questions as: 1) Can the Japs be dislodged soon? 2) Is Alaska strong enough to withstand an invasion?

The Navy saw the first Alaskan attack (June 3), in perspective, as the lesser prong of a double assault on the western rim of U.S. outposts. The greater prong was blunted against the air and sea defense of Midway.

The simultaneous blow at Alaska--struck by two aircraft carriers, several cruisers and destroyers, two seaplane tenders and four to six transports--achieved a measure of success.

The Attack. At 6 o'clock that June morning, 15 carrier-based bombers swept over Dutch Harbor and nearby Fort Mears for 20 minutes, smashing and setting fire to barracks and warehouses. Expecting the attack, shore batteries and ship anti-aircraft guns opened up five minutes before the first bomb dropped. Two raiders were downed. Next day 18 bombers guarded by 16 fighters attacked Dutch Harbor again, while nine other bombers struck at Fort Glenn on Umnak Island 70 miles west, where two more raiders were destroyed. Dutch Harbor fuel tanks, a warehouse and the beached station ship Northwestern (used as laborers' barracks) were set afire. Casualties: one civilian, 44 Army & Navy personnel killed, 49 wounded.

U.S. Plus. Tallied by U.S. forces in that time were three Jap destroyers and one transport sunk; four cruisers, three destroyers, a gunboat and another transport damaged; seven enemy aircraft, possibly several others, destroyed. Any Japanese plan for a swift knockout blow to the main U.S. naval base in Alaska had been thwarted. But though Alaska stood firm, it was at a price.

U.S. Minus. The principal loss to the U.S. was some 600 miles west of the scene of battle: the three islands of Attu, Kiska and Agattu, seized by the Japs. The presence of troop transports since then indicate that the Japanese have been digging in on those craggy isles astride one main sea route between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. Kiska alone gave Japan a harbor, a potential submarine base, enough flat terrain for an air base within bomber range of Dutch Harbor and other Alaskan bases.

After the attacks on Dutch Harbor, the Army sealed Alaska in a drum-tight censorship. The U.S. could only speculate on how many men and how much equipment at West Coast ports were being nastily diverted northward, how much reinforcement had been received from the battle-trained Royal Canadian Air Force, what preparations were afoot to dislodge the Japs. Plain to see was that, although Japan had paid a heavy price for its Aleutian foothold, if the U.S. intended to kick the Jap out, the U.S., too, would pay.

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