United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most capable navy in the world and it has been estimated that in terms of tonnage of its active battle fleet alone, it is larger than the next 13 navies combined, which includes 11 U. S. allies or partner nations. With the highest combined battle fleet tonnage and the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with eleven in service, two new carriers under construction. With 319,421 personnel on active duty and 99,616 in the Ready Reserve, the Navy is the third largest of the service branches, it has 282 deployable combat vessels and more than 3,700 operational aircraft as of March 2018, making it the second-largest air force in the world, after the United States Air Force. The U. S. Navy traces its origins to the Continental Navy, established during the American Revolutionary War and was disbanded as a separate entity shortly thereafter.
The U. S. Navy played a major role in the American Civil War by blockading the Confederacy and seizing control of its rivers, it played the central role in the World War II defeat of Imperial Japan. The US Navy emerged from World War II as the most powerful navy in the world; the 21st century U. S. Navy maintains a sizable global presence, deploying in strength in such areas as the Western Pacific, the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, it is a blue-water navy with the ability to project force onto the littoral regions of the world, engage in forward deployments during peacetime and respond to regional crises, making it a frequent actor in U. S. foreign and military policy. The Navy is administratively managed by the Department of the Navy, headed by the civilian Secretary of the Navy; the Department of the Navy is itself a division of the Department of Defense, headed by the Secretary of Defense. The Chief of Naval Operations is the most senior naval officer serving in the Department of the Navy.
The mission of the Navy is to maintain and equip combat-ready Naval forces capable of winning wars, deterring aggression and maintaining freedom of the seas. The U. S. Navy is a seaborne branch of the military of the United States; the Navy's three primary areas of responsibility: The preparation of naval forces necessary for the effective prosecution of war. The maintenance of naval aviation, including land-based naval aviation, air transport essential for naval operations, all air weapons and air techniques involved in the operations and activities of the Navy; the development of aircraft, tactics, technique and equipment of naval combat and service elements. U. S. Navy training manuals state that the mission of the U. S. Armed Forces is "to be prepared to conduct prompt and sustained combat operations in support of the national interest." As part of that establishment, the U. S. Navy's functions comprise sea control, power projection and nuclear deterrence, in addition to "sealift" duties, it follows as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, with it, everything honorable and glorious.
Naval power... is the natural defense of the United States The Navy was rooted in the colonial seafaring tradition, which produced a large community of sailors and shipbuilders. In the early stages of the American Revolutionary War, Massachusetts had its own Massachusetts Naval Militia; the rationale for establishing a national navy was debated in the Second Continental Congress. Supporters argued that a navy would protect shipping, defend the coast, make it easier to seek out support from foreign countries. Detractors countered that challenging the British Royal Navy the world's preeminent naval power, was a foolish undertaking. Commander in Chief George Washington resolved the debate when he commissioned the ocean-going schooner USS Hannah to interdict British merchant ships and reported the captures to the Congress. On 13 October 1775, the Continental Congress authorized the purchase of two vessels to be armed for a cruise against British merchant ships. S. Navy; the Continental Navy achieved mixed results.
In August 1785, after the Revolutionary War had drawn to a close, Congress had sold Alliance, the last ship remaining in the Continental Navy due to a lack of funds to maintain the ship or support a navy. In 1972, the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, authorized the Navy to celebrate its birthday on 13 October to honor the establishment of the Continental Navy in 1775; the United States was without a navy for nearly a decade, a state of affairs that exposed U. S. maritime merchant ships to a series of attacks by the Barbary pirates. The sole armed maritime presence between 1790 and the launching of the U. S. Navy's first warships in 1797 was the U. S. Revenue-Marine, the primary predecessor of the U. S. Coast Guard. Although the USRCS conducted operations against the pirates, their depredations far outstripped its abilities and Congress passed the Naval Act of 1794 that established a permanent standing navy on 27 March 1794; the Naval Act ordered the construction and manning of six frigates and, by October 1797, the first three were brought into service: USS United States, USS Constellation, USS Constitution.
Due to his strong posture on having a strong standing Navy during this period, John Adams is "often called the father of the American Navy". In 1798–99 the Navy was involved in an undeclared Quasi-War with France. From 18
Operation Cottage
Operation Cottage was a tactical maneuver which completed the Aleutian Islands campaign. On August 15, 1943, Allied military forces landed on Kiska Island, occupied by Japanese forces since June 1942; the Japanese, had secretly abandoned the island two weeks prior, so the Allied landings were unopposed. Allied forces suffered over 313 casualties in total during the operation, due to stray Japanese mines and booby traps, friendly fire incidents, vehicle accidents; the Japanese under Captain Takeji Ono had landed on Kiska at 01:00 on June 7, 1942, with a force of about 500 Japanese marines. Soon after arrival, they stormed an American weather station, where they killed two and captured eight United States Navy officers; the captured officers were sent to Japan as prisoners of war. Another 2,000 Japanese troops arrived. At this time, Rear-Admiral Monzo Akiyama headed the force on Kiska. In December 1942, additional anti-aircraft units, a negligible number of reinforcement infantry arrived on the island.
In the spring of 1943, control was transferred to Kiichiro Higuchi. A Consolidated B-24 Liberator aircraft sighted Japanese ships in Kiska. No further identification was visible. To United States naval planners, none was necessary and the orders to invade Kiska soon followed. Due to the heavy casualties suffered at Attu Island, planners were expecting another costly operation; the Japanese tactical planners had, realized the isolated island was no longer defensible and planned for an evacuation. Starting in late July, there were increasing signs of Japanese withdrawal. Aerial photograph analysts noticed that routine activities appeared to diminish and no movement could be detected in the harbor. Bomb damage appeared unrepaired and aircrews reported diminished anti-aircraft fire. On July 28, radio signals from Kiska ceased entirely. On August 15, 1943, the 7th Division and the 13th Infantry Brigade, landed on opposite shores of Kiska. Both U. S. and Canadian forces mistook each other, sporadic friendly-fire incidents occurred.
Progress was hampered by mines, timed bombs, accidental ammunition detonations, vehicle accidents and booby traps, which had left 28 Americans and 4 Canadians dead, with 50 wounded on either side. A stray Japanese mine caused the USS Abner Read to lose a large chunk of its stern; the blast killed 71 and wounded 47. Operation Chronicle, a similar amphibious assault on an abandoned island Yank Levy, who trained many of these forces in guerrilla warfare Feinberg, Leonard. Where the Williwaw Blows: The Aleutian Islands-World War II. Pilgrims' Process, Inc. ISBN 0-9710609-8-3. Garfield, Brian The Thousand Mile War, Aurum Press, 1995 ISBN 1-84513-019-7 Goldstein, Donald M.. The Williwaw War: The Arkansas National Guard in the Aleutians in World War. Fayettville, Arkansas, USA: University of Arkansas Press. ISBN 1-55728-242-0. Morison, Samuel Eliot. Aleutians and Marshalls, June 1942-April 1944, vol. 7 of History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. Champaign, Illinois, US: University of Illinois Press.
ISBN 0-316-58305-7. Perras, Galen Roger. Stepping Stones to Nowhere, The Aleutian Islands and American Military Strategy, 1867 - 1945. Vancouver British Columbia: University of British Columbia Press. ISBN 1-59114-836-7. Logistics Problems on Attu by Robert E. Burks. Operation Cottage at canadiansoldiers.com Aleutian Islands Chronology Aleutian Islands War Red White Black & Blue - feature documentary about The Battle of Attu in the Aleutians during World War II Soldiers of the 184th Infantry, 7th ID in the Pacific, 1943-1945 World War II Campaign Brochure for Aleutian Islands from the United States Army Center of Military History. "Kiska". Retrieved 2018-03-11. A film clip ALLIES TAKE KISKA ETC. is available at the Internet Archive
Mainland invasion of the United States
The concept of a mainland invasion of the United States relates to military theory and doctrine which address the feasibility and practicality of a foreign power attacking and invading the contiguous United States of America. The United States has been physically invaded a few times, once during the War of 1812 and several times during the Border War. During the Cold War, most of the U. S. military strategy was geared towards repelling an attack on the United States by the Soviet Union. The military history of the United States began with a foreign power on U. S. soil, the British Army during the American Revolutionary War. Following American independence, the next occurrence of an attack on American soil was during the War of 1812 with Britain, the first and only time since the end of the Revolutionary War in which a foreign power occupied the American capital; the American Civil War may be seen as an invasion of home territory to some extent, with both the Confederate and Union armies each making forays into the other side's home territory.
After the Civil War, the threat of an invasion from a foreign power was small, it was not until the 20th century that any real military strategy was developed to address the possibility of an attack on America. In 1915, the Liberating Army of Races and Peoples attempted to execute its Plan of San Diego to reconquer the southwestern United States, setting off the Bandit War and conducting raids into Texas from across the Mexican Border. On March 9, 1916, Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa and his Villistas invaded Columbus, New Mexico in the Border War's Battle of Columbus, triggering the Pancho Villa Expedition in response, led by Major General John J. Pershing; until the early 20th century, the greatest potential threat to attack the United States was seen as the British Empire. To that end, military strategy was developed to not only forestall a British attack, but attack and occupy Canada. "War Plan Red" was designed to deal with a British attack on the United States and a subsequent invasion of Canada.
Similar plans existed for a 20th-century war with Mexico, although the ability of the Mexican Army to attack and occupy American soil was considered negligible, as demonstrated by the Mexican reluctance to accept the provisions of the Zimmermann Telegram. Mexican rebels led by Pancho Villa did invade the U. S. on supply raids during World War I. In 1921, Canadian Lieutenant Colonel James "Buster" Sutherland Brown drafted what can be called the Canadian version of War Plan Red, Defence Scheme No. 1. According to the plan, Canada would invade the United States as as possible if evidence of an American invasion was found; the Canadians would gain a foothold in the northern U. S. to allow time for Canada to receive aid from Britain. They would destroy key bridges and railroads; the plan had detractors, who saw it as unrealistic, but supporters who believed it could conceivably have worked. On the opposite side of the Atlantic, Imperial German plans for the invasion of the United States were maintained from 1897 to 1906, but were not considered because the German Empire had insufficient resources to carry them out successfully.
Early versions planned to engage the United States Atlantic Fleet off Norfolk, followed by shore bombardment of eastern cities. Versions envisioned a land invasion of New York City and Boston; the foreign policy of Kaiser Wilhelm II, sought to limit the United States' ability to interfere in European affairs, rather than as a territorial conquest. During World War II, the defense of the continental United States was part of the American theater; the American Campaign Medal was awarded to military personnel who served in the United States in official military duties. When war was declared between Germany and the U. S. in 1941, the German High Command recognized that current German military strength would be unable to attack or invade the United States directly. Military strategy instead focused on submarine warfare, with U-boats striking American shipping in an expanded Battle of the Atlantic an all-out assault on U. S. merchant shipping during Operation Drumbeat. Adolf Hitler dismissed the threat of America, stating that the country had no racial purity and thus no fighting strength, further quoted that "The American public is made up of Jews and Negroes".
German military and economic leaders had far more realistic views, with some such as Albert Speer recognizing the enormous productive capacity of America's factories as well as the rich food supplies which could be harvested from the American heartland. In 1942, German military leaders did investigate and consider the possibility of a cross Atlantic attack against the U. S.—most cogently expressed with the RLM's Amerika Bomber trans-Atlantic range bomber design competition, first issued in the spring of 1942—proceeded forward with only five airworthy prototype aircraft created between two of the competitors, but this plan had to be abandoned due to both the lack of staging bases in the Western Hemisphere, Germany's own decreasing capacity to produce such aircraft as the war wore on. Thereafter, Germany's greatest hope of an attack on America was to wait to see the result of that nation's war with Japan. By 1944, with U-Boat losses soaring and with the occupation of Greenland and Iceland, it was clear to the German military leaders that the dwindling German armed forces had no further hope to attack the United States directly.
In the end, German military strategy was in fact geared toward surrendering to America, with many of the Eastern Front battles fought for the purpose of escaping the advance of the Red
American Theater (World War II)
The American Theater describes a series of minor areas of operations during World War II within mainland North America and South America. This was due to both North and South America's geographical separation from the central theaters of conflict in Europe, the Pacific, Asia. Thus, any full-scale threat by the Axis Powers to invade the continental United States or other areas within mainland North and South Americas was considered negligible, allowing for American resources to be deployed in overseas theaters; this article includes attacks on continental territory, extending 200 miles into the ocean, today under the sovereignty of Canada, the United States and several other smaller states. The best known events in North America during World War II were the Aleutian Islands Campaign, the Battle of the St. Lawrence, the attacks on Newfoundland; the first naval battle during the war was fought on December 13, 1939, off the Atlantic coast of South America. The German "pocket battleship" Admiral Graf Spee encountered one of the British naval units searching for her.
Composed of three Royal Navy cruisers, HMS Exeter and Achilles, the unit was patrolling off the River Plate estuary of Argentina and Uruguay. In a bloody engagement, Admiral Graf Spee repulsed the British attacks. Captain Hans Langsdorff brought his damaged ship to shelter in neutral Uruguay for repairs. However, British intelligence deceived Langsdorff into believing that a much superior British force had now gathered to wait for him, he scuttled his ship at Montevideo to save his crew's lives before committing suicide. German combat losses were 28 wounded. Two Royal Navy cruisers had been damaged. U-boat operations in the region began in autumn 1940. After negotiations with Brazilian Foreign Minister Osvaldo Aranha, the U. S. introduced its Air Force along Brazil's coast in the second half of 1941. Germany and Italy subsequently extended their submarine attacks to include Brazilian ships wherever they were, from April 1942 were found in Brazilian waters. On 22 May 1942, the first Brazilian attack was carried out by Brazilian Air Force aircraft on the Italian submarine Barbarigo.
After a series of attacks on merchant vessels off the Brazilian coast by U-507, Brazil entered the war on 22 August 1942, offering an important addition to the Allied strategic position in the South Atlantic. Although the Brazilian Navy was small, it had modern minelayers suitable for coastal convoy escort and aircraft which needed only small modifications to become suitable for maritime patrol. During its three years of war in Caribbean and South Atlantic, alone and in conjunction with the U. S. Brazil escorted 3,167 ships in 614 convoys, totalling 16,500,000 tons, with losses of 0.1%. Brazil saw three of 486 men killed in action. American and Brazilian air and naval forces worked together until the end of the Battle. One example was the sinking of U-199 in July 1943, by a coordinated action of Brazilian and American aircraft. Only in Brazilian waters, eleven other Axis submarines were known sunk between January and September 1943—the Italian Archimede and ten German boats: U-128, U-161, U-164, U-507, U-513, U-590, U-591, U-598, U-604, U-662.
By fall 1943, the decreasing number of Allied shipping losses in South Atlantic coincided with the increasing elimination of Axis submarines operating there. From the battle in the region was lost for Germans with the most of remaining submarines in the region receiving official order of withdrawal only in August of the following year, with the last Allied merchant ship sunk by a U-boat there, on 10 March 1945. Before the war, a large Nazi spy ring was found operating in the United States; the Duquesne Spy Ring is still the largest espionage case in United States history that ended in convictions. The 33 German agents who formed the Duquesne spy ring were placed in key jobs in the United States to get information that could be used in the event of war and to carry out acts of sabotage. One man used his position to get information from his customers; the ring was led by Captain Fritz Joubert Duquesne, a South African Boer who spied for Germany in both World Wars and is best known as "The man who killed Kitchener" after he was awarded the Iron Cross for his key role in the sabotage and sinking of HMS Hampshire in 1916.
William G. Sebold, a double agent for the United States, was a major factor in the FBI's successful resolution of this case. For nearly two years, Sebold ran a secret radio station in New York for the ring. Sebold provided the FBI with information on what Germany was sending to its spies in the United States while allowing the FBI to control the information, being transmitted to Germany. On June 29, 1941, six months before the U. S. declared war, the FBI acted. All 33 spies were arrested, found or plead guilty, sentenced to serve a total of over 300 years in prison. After declaring war on the United States following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Adolf Hitler ordered the remaining German saboteurs to wreak havoc on America; the responsibility for carrying this out was given to German Intelligence. In the spr
Japanese occupation of Attu
The Japanese occupation of Attu was the result of an invasion of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska during World War II. Imperial Japanese Army troops landed on 6 June 1942 at the same time as the invasion of Kiska. Along with the Kiska landing, it was the first time that the continental United States was invaded and occupied by a foreign power since the War of 1812; the occupation ended with the Allied victory in the Battle of Attu on 30 May 1943. In May 1942, the Japanese began a campaign against Midway, their objective being to occupy the islands and destroy the remaining United States Navy forces in the Pacific. In order to deceive the American Pacific Fleet, an attack was ordered to take place in the Aleutians, thus beginning the Aleutian Islands Campaign. During the Battle of Midway, Japanese forces were repulsed in a decisive action, meanwhile on 6 June, Japanese naval forces under Boshirō Hosogaya landed troops unopposed at Kiska and Attu islands. A force consisting of 1,140 infantry under Major Matsutoshi Hosumi took control of the island and captured Attu’s population, which consisted of 45 Aleuts and two white Americans, Charles Foster Jones, an amateur radio operator and weather reporter from St. Paris and his wife Etta, a teacher and nurse from Vineland, New Jersey.
The village consisted of several houses around Chichagof Harbor. The 42 Aleut inhabitants who survived the Japanese invasion were taken to a prison camp near Otaru, Hokkaido. Sixteen of them died. Charles Jones was killed by the Japanese forces immediately after the invasion, his wife was subsequently taken to the Bund Hotel, which housed Australian Rabaul New Britain nurses who were prisoners of war from the 1942 Battle of Rabaul in Papua New Guinea, in Yokohama, Japan. Sometime she and the Australian nurses were taken to the Yokohama Yacht Club and kept there from 1942 to July 1944 when moved to the old Totsuka Hospital in Yokohama; the hospital served as a civilian prisoner of war camp until the end of the war in August 1945. Etta Jones died in December 1965 at age 86 in Florida. After landing, the soldiers fortifications; the nearest American forces were on Unalaska Island at Dutch Harbor and at an airbase on Adak Island. Throughout the occupation, American air and naval forces bombarded the island.
The Japanese intended to hold the Aleutians only until the winter of 1942. In August 1942, the garrison of Attu was moved to Kiska to help repel a suspected American attack. From August to October 1942, Attu was unoccupied until a 2,900-man force under Colonel Yasuyo Yamasaki arrived; the new garrison of Attu continued constructing the airfield and fortifications until 11 May 1943, when a 15,000 man army of American troops landed. On 12 May, I-31 was forced to surface five miles northeast of Chichagof Harbor, she was sunk in a surface engagement with USS Edwards. Allied forces under General John L. DeWitt took control of the island on 30 May after the remaining Japanese troops conducted a massive banzai charge. American forces lost 549 killed and 1,148 wounded, another 2,100 evacuated due to weather-related injuries. During the Battle of Attu, all but 29 men of the Japanese garrison were killed; the occupation ended with an American victory and American forces deemed the half-completed airfield as not ideally situated.
After building a new airfield the Americans launched bomber attacks against the Japanese home islands for the remainder of the war Attu village was abandoned after the war, surviving members of Japanese internment were moved to other islands after the war. In 2012, for the 70th anniversary of the occupation, a memorial to Attu village was dedicated at the former site of the town. Attacks on North America during World War II Fern Chandonnet. Alaska at War, 1941-1945. University of Alaska Press. Pp. 23–26. ISBN 978-1-60223-013-2. Diane Olthuis, it Happened in Alaska. Globe Pequot Press. P. 119. ISBN 978-0-7627-3908-0. Paulin, Jim. "Memorial placed in Attu honoring villagers". The Bristol Bay Times. Retrieved 3 March 2014. Mary Breu. Last Letters from Attu. Alaska Northwest Books. ISBN 978-0-88240-810-1. Mason, Rachel. "Attu, A Lost Village of the Aleutians." Alaska Park Science, Volume 10, Issue 2
Mile
The mile is an English unit of length of linear measure equal to 5,280 feet, or 1,760 yards, standardised as 1,609.344 metres by international agreement in 1959. With qualifiers, "mile" is used to describe or translate a wide range of units derived from or equivalent to the Roman mile, such as the nautical mile, the Italian mile, the Chinese mile; the Romans divided their mile into 5,000 roman feet but the greater importance of furlongs in pre-modern England meant that the statute mile was made equivalent to 8 furlongs or 5,280 feet in 1593. This form of the mile spread to the British-colonized nations some of which continue to employ the mile; the US Geological Survey now employs the metre for official purposes but legacy data from its 1927 geodetic datum has meant that a separate US survey mile continues to see some use. While most countries replaced the mile with the kilometre when switching to the International System of Units, the international mile continues to be used in some countries, such as Liberia, the United Kingdom, the United States, a number of countries with fewer than one million inhabitants, most of which are UK or US territories, or have close historical ties with the UK or US.
The mile was abbreviated m. in the past but is now sometimes written as mi to avoid confusion with the SI metre. However, derived units, such as miles per hour or miles per gallon, continue to be universally abbreviated as mph and mpg, respectively; the modern English word mile derives from Middle English myl and Old English mīl, cognate with all other Germanic terms for "miles". These derived from apocopated forms of the Latin mīlia or mīllia, the plural of mīle or mīlle "thousand" but used as a clipped form of mīlle passus or passuum, the Roman mile of one thousand paces; the present international mile is what is understood by the unqualified term "mile". When this distance needs to be distinguished from the nautical mile, the international mile may be described as a "land mile" or "statute mile". In British English, the "statute mile" may refer to the present international miles or to any other form of English mile since the 1593 Act of Parliament, which set it as a distance of 1,760 yards.
Under American law, the "statute mile" refers to the US survey mile. Foreign and historical units translated into English as miles employ a qualifier to describe the kind of mile being used but this may be omitted if it is obvious from the context, such as a discussion of the 2nd-century Antonine Itinerary describing its distances in terms of "miles" rather than "Roman miles"; the mile has been variously abbreviated—with and without a trailing period—as m, M, ml, mi. The American National Institute of Standards and Technology now uses and recommends mi in order to avoid confusion with the SI metre and millilitre. However, derived units such as miles per hour or miles per gallon continue to be abbreviated as mph and mpg rather than mi/h and mi/gal. In the United Kingdom road signs use m as the abbreviation for mile though height and width restrictions use m as the abbreviation for the metre, which may be displayed alongside feet and inches; the BBC style holds that "There is no acceptable abbreviation for'miles'" and so it should be spelt out when used in describing areas.
The Roman mile consisted of a thousand paces as measured by every other step—as in the total distance of the left foot hitting the ground 1,000 times. The ancient Romans, marching their armies through uncharted territory, would push a carved stick in the ground after each 1,000 paces. Well-fed and harshly driven Roman legionaries in good weather thus created longer miles; the distance was indirectly standardised by Agrippa's establishment of a standard Roman foot in 29 BC, the definition of a pace as 5 feet. An Imperial Roman mile thus denoted 5,000 Roman feet. Surveyors and specialized equipment such as the decempeda and dioptra spread its use. In modern times, Agrippa's Imperial Roman mile was empirically estimated to have been about 1,617 yards in length. In Hellenic areas of the Empire, the Roman mile was used beside the native Greek units as equivalent to 8 stadia of 600 Greek feet; the mílion continued to be used as a Byzantine unit and was used as the name of the zero mile marker for the Byzantine Empire, the Milion, located at the head of the Mese near Hagia Sophia.
The Roman mile spread throughout Europe, with its local variations giving rise to the different units below. Arising from the Roman mile is the "milestone". All roads radiated out from the Roman Forum throughout the Empire – 50,000 miles of stone-paved roads. At every mile was placed a shaped stone, on, carved a Roman numeral, indicating the number of miles from the center of Rome – the Forum. Hence, one always knew; the Italian mile was traditionally considered a direct continuation of the Roman mile, equal to 1000 paces, although its actual value over time or between regions could vary greatly. It was used in international contexts from the Middle Ages into the 17th century and is thus known as the "geographical mile", although the geographical mile is now a separate standard unit; the Arabic mile was not the common Arabic unit of length. The Arabic mile was, used by medieval geographers and scientists and constituted a kind of precursor to the nautical or geographical mile, it extended the Roman mile to fit an astronomical approximatio
Landing at Amchitka
The Landing at Amchitka was the amphibious landing operation and occupation of Amchitka island by American forces during the Aleutian Islands Campaign. In June 1942, the Japanese occupied some of the western Aleutian islands, hoped to occupy Amchitka. A Japanese survey team rejected it for military purposes. During the Aleutian campaign an air force base was needed near the occupied islands of Attu and Kiska. Amchitcka was ruled out as a possible candidate due to its close proximity only 50 miles away from the island of Kiska. At the War Department's suggestion, an initial reconnaissance of Amchitka was carried out in September 1942, which found that it would be difficult to build an airstrip on the island. Planners decided on December 13 that the airfield "had to be built" to prevent the Japanese from doing the same. A further reconnaissance mission visited Amchitka from 17 to 19 December, reported that a fighter strip could be built in two to three weeks, a main airfield in three to four months.
In December 1942, plans were drawn out for the landings dubbed "Operation Longview". The operation would scrap together 2,000 immediate U. S military in the Aleutian Islands by the Alaska Defense Command, it was thought through reconnaissance that Amchitka was occupied by a small Japanese military presence. Eager to remove the Japanese, the Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed to move to regain the territory; the operation delayed due to the weather conditions. American forces made the unopposed landing on the island on January 1943, three days later. Nearly 2,100 troops disembarked in Constantine Harbor without opposition, their only enemies were the weather, the unpredictable current, the rock-studded waters through which the landing was made. The destroyer USS Worden was guarding the USS Arthur Middleton as that transport put the preliminary Army security unit on the shores of Constantine Harbor, Amchitka Island; the destroyer maneuvered into the rock-edged harbor and stayed there until the last men had landed and turned to the business of clearing the harbor.
A strong current, swept Worden onto a pinnacle that tore into a hull beneath the engine room and caused a complete loss of power. The destroyer broached and began breaking up in the surf. William G. Pogue, the destroyer's commanding officer, ordered abandon ship. Pogue was among the fortunate ones, because he was hauled, out of the sea. Fourteen of the crew drowned. Once on the ground the island was found to be empty of Japanese military. During the first night ashore a "willowaw" smashed many of the landing boats and swept a troop transport aground. On the second day a blizzard racked the island with snow and biting wind. Lasting for nearly two weeks, the blizzard subsided enough to reveal to a Japanese scout plane from Kiska the American beachhead on Amchitka. Harassed by bombing and strafing attacks from Kiska, engineers continued work on an airfield on Amchitka completing it in mid-February. Japanese attacks on the island sharply declined. By February 16, the fighter strip was ready for limited operation.
On that day eight P-40's arrived on Amchitka, within a week they were running patrols over Kiska. The stage was now set for the next phase of operations, amphibious attacks to eject the Japanese from their Aleutian footholds. Battle of Attu Military history of the Aleutian Islands Operation Cottage
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