As we have found out, the Japanese lost the Battle of Midway.But, to fool the Americans, the Japanese landed in the Aleutain Islands, off of the Alaskan coast.They were purely diversionary, because the Aleutains are a cold, frozen place, useless as an airbase and not really strategically important.On June 7th, 1942, two Japanese landing forces invaded and captured the islands of Attu and Kiska, with little resistance.Now, the thing to remember here is that the Japanese had no plan to invade the U.S. through Alaska and Canada.But, seeing that they were the only parts of North America to fall into Axis hands, it would make the U.S. more secure to take these islands before they do anything else in the central Pacific.So, on May 11, 1943, the 7th Infantry Division landed invaded Attu at Holtz and Massacre Bay.They numbered 11,000, but they were poorly trained and led.Once they made inland, the made little headway, but managed to squeeze the Japanese garrison of 2600.On May 29th, 1000 Japanese made a desperate counterattack, but were beaten off.After the island fell, over 552 Americans and 2350 Japanese lay dead, not to mention the 500 of so casualities suffered by the cold.
The Americans decided to improve their chances when overrunning Kiska by heavily bombarding the island's defences.On August 15th, a force of 29,000 Americans and 5300 Canadians invaded, only to find that the Japanese garrison of 6000 evacuated in July.
