Into the Endless Mist

A detailed account of the Aleutian campaign, highlighting key naval battles, Japanese mistakes, and the decisive role of weather in shaping the conflict's outcome.

At the beginning of June 1942, in the wake of the enormous Japanese struggle to bring a conclusive victory in the Pacific War, the Imperial Japanese Navy commenced Operation AL (AL Sakusen). By conquering Attu and Kiska in the Aleutians, the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy intended to turn them into bastions that, supplied directly from the Kurile Islands, would check any American advance against the home islands from the north until at least the summer of 1943. The great disaster at Midway foiled the Japanese plan to create a greater defensive perimeter, though, ironically, as a result of the same battle, the Americans lacked the forces to quickly reconquer the two lost islands, and instead initially engaged in a low-level campaign of attrition against the Japanese forces over the winter of 1942 into 1943.

Volume 2 of Into the Endless Mist continues the story of the relatively little-known Aleutian Islands campaign from September of 1942. The Americans, using their industrial capacity and taking advantage of Japanese mistakes, moved against Kiska by landing on Adak and Amchitka and using these as bases from which to conduct an attritional air campaign against the Japanese garrisons and the ships sent to support them. Japanese efforts to provide reinforcements and supplies to their garrisons in the Aleutians would lead to the naval battle of the Komandorski Islands (Attsu oki kaisen) in March 1943, which also marked the end of the era of the classic duel of gun-armed ships without air support.

Although this battle did not decisively end the campaign, the period of balance between the US and Japanese navies in the North Pacific had ended and it was only a matter of time before the islands were retaken by US Army ground forces. Operation Landcrab, the US counter-invasion of Attu would end with the first Japanese ‘honourable defeat’ (gyokusai), in which the garrison sought to inflict a terrible toll on the attackers at the cost of their own complete destruction in a banzai charge. However, a painful lesson was learnt and soon after, despite all pessimistic predictions, the Japanese garrison of Kiska would be evacuated in what would become known as the ‘miracle at Kiska’ (Kisuka no kiseki) in Japanese historiography.

Into the Endless Mist Volume 2: The Aleutian Campaign, September 1942 – March 1943 concludes the account of the forgotten struggle in the Aleutians, and is based on meticulous research of American and Japanese primary sources, testimonies, monographs, and papers. This volume is illustrated throughout with original photographs and includes the @War series’ specially commissioned signature colour artworks.