Nurses fishing, Dutch Harbor, Aleutian Campaign, Alaska, 1943. Dmitri Kessel—Time & Life Pictures: Getty ImagesA Seabee strings wire for communications on the island of Adak, Aleutian Campaign, Alaska, 1943American troops are carted by tractor to the movies from an isolated camp in Massacre Valley, Attu Island, Aleutian Campaign, Alaska, 1943. Dmitri Kessel—Time & Life Pictures: Getty ImagesA P-38 Lightning above the Aleutian Islands, Alaska, 1943. Dmitri Kessel—Time & Life Pictures: Getty ImageThe rocky peaks of Attu Island, Alaska, 1943. Dmitri Kessel—Time & Life Pictures: Getty ImagesDutch Harbor, Aleutian Islands, WWII, 1943. Dmitri Kessel—Time & Life Pictures: Getty ImagesA docked submarine, Dutch Harbor, Aleutian Islands, WWII, 1943. Dmitri Kessel—Time & Life Pictures: Getty ImagesAmerican troops, Aleutian Islands, WWII, 1943. Dmitri Kessel—Time & Life Pictures: Getty ImagesAleutian Islands Campaign, Alaska, 1943. Dmitri Kessel—Time & Life Pictures: Getty ImagesA bunker on Kiska Island, Aleutian Campaign, World War II, 1943. Dmitri Kessel—Time & Life Pictures: Getty ImagesOn the island of Kiska, men build fires near wrecked equipment and cook their meals, Alaska, 1943. Dmitri Kessel—Time & Life Pictures: Getty ImagesResting on a downed plane, Aleutian Islands Campaign, Alaska, 1943. Dmitri Kessel—Time & Life Pictures: Getty ImagesUSS Pruitt leads landing craft from USS Heywood toward their landing beaches in Massacre Bay, Attu, on the first day of the May 11, 1943, invasion of Attu. Pruitt used her radar and searchlight to guide the boats nine miles through the fog. The searchlight beam is faintly visible pointing aft from atop her pilothouse. Some 15,000 American and Canadian troops successfully landed on the island. U.S. NavyLanding boats pouring soldiers and their equipment onto the beach at Massacre Bay, Attu Island, Alaska. This is the southern landing force on May 11, 1943. The American and Canadian troops took control of Attu within two weeks, after fierce fighting with the Japanese occupying forces. Of the allied troops, 549 were killed and 1,148 wounded — of the Japanese troops, only 29 men survived. U.S. burial teams counted 2,351 Japanese dead and presumed hundreds more were unaccounted for. The AtlanticA train of bombs drops from United States Army Air forces plane on territory in the Aleutians held by the Japanese in 1943. The AtlanticBombs dropped from a U.S. bomber detonate on Japanese-occupied Kiska Island, Alaska, on August 10, 1943. USAFDozens of bombs fall from a U.S. bomber toward Japanese-occupied Kiska Island, Alaska, on August 10, 1943. Note the craters from previous bombing runs and the zig-zag trenches dug by the Japanese. USAFJapanese ship aground in Kiska Harbor, on September 18, 1943. U.S. NavyAn American soldier leans against a wall in the captured Japanese headquarters on Kiska Island, beside graffiti caricatures of FDR and Churchill, 1943. Dmitri Kessel—Time & Life Pictures: Getty ImagesDead Japanese Soldiers. Attu, Aleutian Islands. Photo taken in May 29, 1943. Photo by National Archives and Records Administration.A heavily damaged midget submarine base constructed by occupying Japanese forces on Kiska Island, photo taken sometime in 1943, after Allied forces retook the island. The AtlanticA Canadian member of the joint American-Canadian landing force squints down the sights of a Japanese machine gun found in a trench on Kiska Island, Alaska, on August 16, 1943. After the brutal fighting in the battle to retake Attu Island, U.S. and Canadian forces were prepared for even more of a fight on Kiska. Unknown to the Allies though, the Japanese had evacuated all their troops two weeks earlier. Although the invasion was unopposed, 32 soldiers were killed in friendly-fire incidents, four more by booby traps, and a further 191 were listed as Missing in Action. The AtlanticAttu Island, Japanese Cemetery. Aleutian Campaign, World War II, 1943. Dmitri Kessel—Time & Life Pictures: Getty ImagesLittle Falls American Cemetary. Attu Island, Aleutian Campaign, World War II, 1943. Dmitri Kessel—Time & Life Pictures: Getty ImagesGrave marker, Aleutian Islands, 1943. Dmitri Kessel—Time & Life Pictures: Getty Images
