Attu, Aleutian Islands, Alaska • May 11, 1943 The Japanese assault on Alaska’s Aleutian Islands began with a carrier-based aerial attack on June 3 and 4, 1942, that targeted U.S. Navy and Army facilities at Dutch Harbor on Amaknak Island (see map below), the most populous island in the Alaskan archipelago. The carrier strike force was…
With Rear Adm. Fletcher’s Task Force 17 • May 7, 1942 In the 6 months following Japan’s December 7, 1941, attack on U.S. naval and air facilities at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the Japanese had the advantage of dominant air and naval power in the Pacific Ocean region. During these months the Japanese military looked to expand…
Rabaul, New Britain Island, Papua New Guinea • April 13, 1943 On this date in 1943 the headquarters of Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto on Rabaul, the important Japanese garrison on New Britain Island in the Bismarck Archipelago, sent a coded military radio signal to various Japanese commands in the Western South Pacific. The message listed the dates…
Aboard Admiral Spruance’s Flagship USS Indianapolis • April 1, 1945 For weeks the largest Allied fleet since Operation Overlord 10 months earlier—nearly 1,500 U.S. and British vessels—fired 2.3 million shells onto Okinawa, the largest island in the Ryukyu archipelago and a little more than 300 miles/483 kilometers from Kyūshū and Shikoku, the southernmost Japanese Home Islands. (Tokyo was 550 miles/855 kilometers away.)…
U.S. Navy Offshore Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands • March 26, 1945 Late in 1944 Vice Admiral Takijirō Ōnishi, recently appointed commander of the First Air Fleet in Japanese-held Manila, the Philippine’s capital, championed a special attack force (tokubetsu kogeki tai, abbreviated as tokkotai) that would inflict maximum damage on Allied naval vessels squeezing the island empire: Japan’s…
Boston Navy Yard, Massachusetts • March 20, 1944 On this date in 1944 the USS Mason, an Evarts-class destroyer escort, was commissioned at the Boston Navy Yard, 5 months after her keel was laid down. The next month, on April 25, 1944, the USS PC‑1264, a PC‑461-class submarine chaser, was commissioned 6 months after her keel was laid…
Tarawa, Gilbert Islands • November 20, 1943 On this date in 1943 the Alligator LVT-1, or Landing Vehicle Tracked‑1, made its first combat debut. Actually, the LVT‑1 saw use in landings on Guadalcanal and the adjacent islands of Tulagi, Tanambogo, and Gavutu over a year earlier, in August 1942, but only as a logistical support…
Off Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands • August 8, 1942 A United States naval task force carrying Maj. Gen. Archibald Vandegrift’s First Marine Division arrived off Guadalcanal, in the eastern Solomon Islands, on the morning of August 7, 1942, and launched Operation Watchtower, the first American offensive of World War II. Two days later the Marines had captured the…
San Francisco, California • July 15, 1945 On this date in 1945 the USS Indianapolis, a fast Portland-class cruiser in California for repairs, received orders to pick up some special cargo at Hunters Point (predecessor name for the now-closed San Francisco Naval Yard). Eleven days later, on July 26, Indianapolis unloaded her mysterious cargo—a large crate…
Washington, D.C. • April 9, 1983 On this date in 1983, National POW/MIA Recognition Day, 31 of the 67 Army and Navy nurses who had been captured by the Japanese in 1942 and interned at the Santo Tomas and Los Baños internment camps in the Philippines were honored at a White House ceremony by President Ronald…