<text id=00he1013><title>Combat in the Aleutians</title>
<history>US Air Force: Events History</history>
<article><hdr>Combat in the Aleutians</hdr><body>
<p>The Eleventh began a serious program of getting at the Japanese. They learned how to attack very low above the water, how to operate in foul weather, how to navigate in the extreme north latitudes. Slowly their force built, but the real enemy was the weather. More aircraft and crews were lost to the raging Arctic winds and fogs than to the Japanese.
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<p>There was never a solid strategic offensive by either side in the theater. There were a few fierce fights, like the one of 14 September 1942, in which a dozen Liberators, escorted by 14 P-38s and 14 P-39s, headed for Kiska from Adak. It was, curiously enough, a clear day; the Japanese spotted them miles off and began firing at 10 miles (16 km). The force came in at 50 ft (15 m), fighters and bombers alike. The heavies sank two ships and set three more afire. Three midget subs were slammed into twisted metal. Six flak batteries were knocked out of action. More than 200 troops were killed or wounded. The P-38s took on the waterfront, machine-gunning floatplanes while the P-39s shot down five that managed to get in the air and attack. Two of the P-38s were lost in a mid-air collision, but the US force retired with no other casualties.
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<p>The Eleventh routinely bombed the Japanese after that, then supported Operation Landgrab, the recapture of Attu in May 1943. There the defenders were wiped out after a foolhardy final charge. The Kiska defenders were evacuated under the cover of fog two weeks before the Americans put 30,000 armed troops on the island on 15 August to retake it.
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<p>Without a Japanese presence in the Aleutians, there was little mission left for the Eleventh. They sent bombers against the Kuril Islands north of Japan, and demonstrated another advantage of air power in so doing. Their threat contained two major Japanese garrisons: 34,000 men on northern Hokkaido Island, and 41,000 in the Kurils, plus more than 400 aircraft. In the last analysis, that was the major contribution of the Eleventh toward winning the war.
