One Year: 1942

Season 4: Episode 5

When Internment Came to Alaska

The U.S. military claimed it was protecting Indigenous Alaskans during World War II. The real story is much darker.

Episode Notes

Six months after Pearl Harbor, Japan launched another attack on the United States. This time, Axis forces actually invaded, turning the Aleutian Islands into a battleground. What the country did next, in the name of “protecting” Alaska’s Indigenous people, is a shameful chapter of the war. And it’s one the nation has never fully reckoned with.

This episode of One Year was produced by Evan Chung, Sophie Summergrad, Sam Kim, Sol Werthan, and Josh Levin.

Derek John is senior supervising producer of narrative podcasts and Merritt Jacob is senior technical director.

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Sources for This Episode

Books

Cloe, John Haile. “Attu: The Forgotten Battle,” National Park Service, 2017.

Garfield, Brian. The Thousand-Mile War: World War II in Alaska and the Aleutians, University of Alaska Press, 1995.

Golodoff, Nick. Attu Boy: A Young Alaskan’s WWII Memoir, University of Alaska Press, 1995.

Kohlhoff, Dean. When the Wind was a River: Aleut Evacuation in World War II, University of Washington Press, 1995.

Mobley, Charles M. World War II Aleut Relocation Camps in Southeast Alaska,  National Park Service, 2015.

Obmascik, Mark. The Storm on Our Shores: One Island, Two Soldiers, and the Forgotten Battle of World War II, Atria Books, 2019.

The Aleutians Campaign June 1942 - August 1943, Office of Naval Intelligence - United States Navy, 1945.

Articles

“Aleutian Voices: Forced to Leave,” Aleutian Voices, Volume 2, No. 1, 2015.

“Dutch Harbor Bombing, June 1942,” National Park Service.

Guilford, Gwynn. “​​The dangerous economics of racial resentment during World War II,” Quartz, Feb. 13, 2018.

Hammond, Jr., Colonel James W. “Fog of War in the Aleutians,” Warfare History Network.

Hill, Melody and Steven B. Caudill. “Special Interests and the Internment of Japanese-Americans During World War II,” Foundation for Economic Education, July 1, 1995.

Horton, Alex. “Thousands of Japanese fought in a bloody World War II battle for the Aleutians. Only 28 survived,” Washington Post, May 30, 2018.

Japanese-American Incarceration During World War II, National Archives.

Japan Invades the Aleutian Islands, PBS.

Justice Denied, National Archives.

Laskin, David. “It’s Cold, Wet and Treeless, but Bird-Watchers Love It,” New York Times, May 1, 2005.

Long Road to Redress, History, Art, and Archives: United States House of Representatives.

Martens Wong, Kevin. “Unangam Tunuu,” Unravelling Magazine, Dec. 28, 2016.

Mobley, Charles M. World War II Aleut Relocation Camps in Southeast Alaska, National Park Service, 2015.

Pisano, Jessica. “Remembering the ‘Forgotten War,’ ” Joint Force Quarterly, January 2022.

Public Hearings on the Commission of Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, National Archives.

“Redress and Reparations for Japanese American Incarceration,” the National WWII Museum New Orleans, Aug. 13, 2021.

“Retaking the Aleutians,” the National WWII Museum New Orleans, July 11, 2020.

Svarny, Gertrude. “Sculpture,” 1990.

“The Opening Round of the War in the Aleutians,” the National WWII Museum New Orleans, June 21, 2020.

“The Wartime Internment of Native Alaskans,” the National WWII Museum New Orleans, June 30, 2022.

Thompson, Erwin N. “Historical Overview Naval Operating Base Dutch Harbor and Fort Mears Unalaska Island, Alaska,” National Park Service.

“Unangax̂ (Aleut) Relocation and Internment, 1942-1945,” World War II Alaska.

Veltre, Douglas W. “Unangax̂: Coastal People of Far Southwestern Alaska,” Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association.

Zada, John. “The US island that once belonged to Russia,” BBC, July 25, 2018.

About the Show

The people and struggles that changed America—one year at a time. In each episode, host Josh Levin explores a story you may have forgotten, or one you’ve never heard of before. What were the moments that transformed politics, culture, science, religion, and more? And how does the nation’s past shape our present?

The sixth season of One Year covers 1990, a year when a controversial art exhibit became a First Amendment battleground, a single dad with a secret identity took on Big Tobacco, and President George H.W. Bush spoke out against his most-hated enemy: broccoli.

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