Last Ditch

The Japanese admitted the loss of Attu this week. Tokyo reported that the Jap forces perished in a desperate counterattack. The U.S. Navy, more reserved, believed there were still last-ditch snipers around Chichagof Harbor. This belief was borne out by an account of the fighting sent from U.S. Aleutian Headquarters by TIME Correspondent Robert Sherrod late last week:

Now the Japs are pinned on and around a nameless little peninsula that sticks out into Chichagof Harbor -- an area from three to seven thousand yards deep and maybe four thousand yards wide. The battle now is a matter of yards.

A ridge cuts down the peninsula, its fog-hidden peaks rising at times to a height of 2,000 ft. Here the Japs dug in, under rock ledges and beside boulders, their machine guns cleverly camouflaged, their snipers posted at angles to protect the machine gunners. Jap strategy is plain: to die, but to take as many Americans with them as possible.

Snipers and machine gunners have plenty of ammunition and food. They are warmly dressed for the damp, chilling weather --their caps with ear muffs are filled with kapok, their gloves, boots and heavy coats are lined with white rabbit fur.

The Japs had expected a long stay on Attu. Their food supplies were ample: shrimp and crab meat and bamboo shoots, spices and soy sauce and dried black seaweed for flavoring rice. They varied this diet by catching salmon and halibut, shooting Emperor geese and Yukon River ducks. They had hundreds of gallons of sake.

Their remaining stay on Attu now appears to be short. Now the fighting has narrowed to a battle of soldier against soldier. U.S. troops are going in with rifle and bayonet and prying out each sniper, then blasting out each machine gunner with grenades. Such fighting takes canny soldiering. It takes guts.

Such fighting also entails losses. But losses to weather on the slopes of Chichagof ridge may top losses to Jap bullets.

A fairly high proportion of the Japs on Attu have already been killed. The rest will be killed as soon as they can be reached. So far no Jap has surrendered.

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