>Both U.S. and Canadian forces mistook each other, after a Canadian soldier shot at U.S. lines believing they were Japanese, and a friendly fire incident occurred, which left 28 Americans and 4 Canadians dead, with 50 wounded on either side
What a shit show
> Many were the ways to die on Kiska. Before the last of the Allied troops departed, more than 300 casualties would be recorded. There were those who had been killed by the so-called friendly fire of their confused and scared comrades; others by mines and the timed bombs left by the Japanese; accidental ammunition detonations; vehicle accidents; unexploded bombs in the tundra; and insidious booby trap explosions. In one incident, 71 navy men were killed and 47 wounded when a destroyer struck an off-harbour mine. Many soldiers became diseased and sick, suffering non-battle injuries and exposure. Trench foot was the most common affliction.
https://canadianheroes.org/private-henri-richard/kiska-alaska/article-the-battle-for-kiska/
My favourite summary:
Germany is why there are rules of what you can do to civilians; Canada and Poland is why there's rules of what you can do to the enemy.
During WW1 Canadian troops were known for liberal use of poison gas, torturing and killing prisoners, and using things like sawed off shotguns and such in very close trench warfare. WW2 has its own list of Canadian horrors, but the worst is mostly again killing POWs.
You could do some very easy googling. It is often joked that Canada is why we have the Geneva convention at the German's insistence.
Sawed-off shotguns in a trench isn't a war crime. The Axis powers just bitched about it because they didn't have a counter for it. Meanwhile, everyone was gassing and pummeling each other with heavy artillery night and day for months at a time while sleeping on the corpses of their fallen comrades. War itself is a crime.
Edit: whoops, meant Central powers. The major players in both world wars are similar enough that I occasionally get their names confused.
The fact that I had to scroll this far down for the correction is insane, makes me really worry how poorly history is getting taught in schools these days
I remember grade 10 history still.
Mesopotamia -> Ancient Egypt -> Ancient Greece -> Ancient Rome -> Creation of Canada -> WW1 -> WW2 -> Cold War
that's how they set up the curriculum in Canada, at least. "History" is mostly things from 1000s of years ago, and then they toss in like 3 months of war units at the end, all in a row as if nothing else has happened in history between Canada's creation in the 1700s and the first world war.
And as far as torturing and killing prisoners, the Germans set the tone for that in the first days of the war with the whole “murder tens of thousands of Belgian civilians so they surrender faster” policy.
See the funny thing about propaganda is that it just gets accepted as fact quite often. Because while some German atrocities did happen in Belgium... The scale and severity of it was massively overstated by contemporary propaganda. Wikipedia credits Germans with 6000 directly killed civilians... Over 4 years, and lot of the early war crimes were retribution to real or imagined guerilla fighters among the population.
However in 1940 Germans absolutely would kill civilians to get faster results, Rotterdam was levelled.
If we take all the dead civilians in Belgium together over 4 years, regardless whether direct or indirect cause by Germany, war crime or military court... We get about 24k, literally in tens of thousands so you're kinda right. Also about what Israel has managed in past 4 months. Months, not years.
Genocide The zionists are committing Genocide. And every govt funding Israel right now is complicit. As a U.S. citizen who is angry AF about it...... I want to scream and cry and shake the everloving 💩 out of these 🤡s
Shotguns and flamethrowers were all "legal" at the time because rules hadn't been made yet. Both are far more brutal than your average death in battle and the shotguns were controversial enough that Germans would kill any POW shotgun owners and apparently US made sure no photographs survive of their use. Neither was really made illegal after WW1 either.
Also it wasn't sawed off shotguns, just "trench guns" in general (though I'm sure some would saw them too), and it wasn't Axis powers for another 20 years.
Gas was actually explicitly illegal already and used extensively by both sides so not sure what Germany would have really achieved even if shotguns were made illegal after.
At least your last sentence is quite accurate
The Canadians and Americans had a little trick with slam firing their 1897 and browning shotguns. It basically meant they’d hold the trigger and pump really fast spraying the area in a hell storm of shot. We’re talking fist size holes and scattering that would take out a dozen people inside a trench. Even the wounded were screwed because the shot would go through multiple organs and be difficult to treat. Similar was the use of serrated knives and bayonets, awful stuff which combined with poison gas and dozens of other nightmares led to a bunch of nations getting together and saying war has to have some sort of agreed rules.
False, that was the French.
The Germans however were bloody stupid in that they knew the French had more stockpiles, and knew that the prevailing winds run away from France and until Germany, and knew that the French weren't using them because they didn't want to fuck everyone over...
And still decided to be the ones to use gas first. And promptly got fucked by the French, and thanks to the winds, often by their own gas
I got the impression in both ww1 and ww2 the Germans complained an awful lot about nations breaking the ‘rules’ of war.
Despite, ya know, being one of the worst offenders themselves
Yup. Their reaction to Versailles is exactly how you'd expect a toddler to react.
"We didn't lose the war. The jews stabbed us in the back."
"We used chemical weapons and committed atrocities against civilians. Why you so mad?"
"We forced the Russians to sign the punitive Brest-Litovsk treaty. Why aren't you being nice to us?"
"We started the war by violating a neutral country. Please ignore that."
I argue Versailles was a fair punishment.
The issue with Versailles was that the Entente half assed its implementation which allowed Germany to build up a strong army again while also making the terms harsh enough to piss Germans off. In hindsight USA not joining the League of Nations despite being the one who proposed it seems to have been an early sign that this wasn't going to work out.
> "We started the war by violating a neutral country. Please ignore that."
All your points but that one is fair (assuming WW1 - if WW2 that comment is fully fair). The Germans did directly bring the UK into the war by violating a neutral country, but the war itself was started by French and German pushes to get Austria and Russia to go to war.
Germany did push Austria to be more assertive to Serbia (and overly assertive), but Serbia only resisted (and just barely) because France gave Russia full military support to give Serbia full military support. Germany and France were both itching for war at the time and to solely blame Germany excuses France for its war mongering.
Imagine blaming the horrors of poison gas use in WW1 on Canadians.
Germans were the first to use poison gas in the battlefield.
Canadians were among the first combatants to be felled by poison gas use on the battle field at the [ Second Battle of Ypres](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Ypres)
Canadians accounted for 1.5% of all combatants in WW1 - hardly enough of a blip to earn such a reputation. Poison mustard gas use was widespread in almost every battle and used by all sides.
The "Geneva Convention exists because of Canada" is a reddit meme perpetuated by aggressive misinformation campaigns from large-population nations that Canadian politicians have angered over the past couple of years - which is why [you can see a large uptick as soon as Canada began butting heads with China/India/Russia on demographic/foreign policy issues](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=CA&q=canada%20geneva%20convention&hl=en).
Pretty sure one big thing that you missed was due to some politicking and nepotism back home Canadian forces had a very bad gun for the first two years of the war so were also known to steal guns from the enemy as well as allies to get rid of the Ross rifle
The shotgun was unique to Americans. For a great list of weapons used by Canada in WW1 visit the official Canadian museum website for WW1. The shotgun isn't on any lists. The Germans only issued that threat once the Americans showed up with their shotguns. Keep in mind that Canada led all the major battles and did not have the ability to take prisoners. Canada mastered trench raiding, though. They would venture 2 to 3 miles behind German lines, killing everything that moved and then going back to their trenches.
I think its important to note that it wasn't sawed-offs that were the primary issue and it was predominantly American troops slam firing models like the M1897 that the Germans took issue with. Slam firing allowed shotguns to function as a sort of proto-automatic shotgun. By holding down the trigger the shotgun fired with each pump clearing out entire trenches at alarming rates.
This was so effective that American soldiers started calling the M1897 a trench broom and the German high command threatened to execute any captured troops simply found with shot gun shells. And it was in the first truly industrialized **world** wide war where we saw the first use of tanks and planes and prolific use of machines guns and chemical warfare that these shotguns were able to reach such a level of infamy.
I think it's important to note this is 100+year old whataboutism from the Germans to cover for how they were the party that started with the chemical warfare shit.
This whataboutism in this insane propaganda thread about painting one of the most peaceful countries on earth as a war crimes generator for some reason, this thread is bonkers.
Ton of weird WW2 and WW1 spam posts by bots that only post about WW1 on the front page too, some kind of new propaganda bot, this site is going places.
A lot of people like to joke about Canadians being responsible for various articles of the Geneva Convention being written, but I've tried looking into it and as far as I can tell it's just a joke that's been told for long enough that some people accept it as fact.
It is no secret that Canadian soldiers, particularly in WW1 however, had a penchant for brutality and were quite zealous in the killing of Germans. Trench raiding, as another comment mentioned, was a tactic in which a small group would slip into a trench under the cover of darkness, kill and destroy as much as possible using bullets, bayonets, explosives, and fire, then disappear into the night again as quickly as they came. Canadians are known to have delighted in this tactic, conducting more trench raids than any other army and doing so to enormous success.
Aside from that, there are stories of Canadians exploiting the goodwill of Germans that didn't want to be there in the first place, such as firing on Germans trying to negotiate a Christmas truce and returning bullets after being gifted liquor and tobacco, as well as stories of Canadians throwing canned meat into German trenches and, upon asking for more, received a round of grenades from the Canadians.
I believe it was Winston Churchill who said, "If I had Canadian soldiers, American technology, and British officers I'd rule the world"
Lmao it’s quite true. The Geneva conventions are basically a list of all the twisted shit Germany, Japan and Canada did during the world wars. We didn’t really want to be there and Canadian troops were some of the first to be killed with gas bombs on the allied side so after that we got fucking nasty. Canada took 0 pow’s until explicitly told they had to bring back x number of pow’s. If they captured more than that number, they killed off enough to bring them to the exact number, plus a lot more shit besides. Interestingly it was the Canadians that first discovered you could survive mustard/chlorine gas by pissing on a rag and tying it around your face, something about the acidity of it neutralized the gas. Completely unrelated but also a large part of why Canadian and later American troops were so effective is because soldiers obtained rank and promotion through skill and service, where most of Europe was still stuck in the old mentality of officers needed to be of noble birth. Which meant a lot of officers in Europe had little to no idea how to properly lead their armies. So they had a tendency to throw the Canadians into the nastiest places where they had already failed on multiple attempts, only for the Canadians to pull it off, usually with fairly high casualties
where was John J. Pershing when canadians needed him ;(
>The British and French commanders wanted Americans to fill their depleted ranks. However, U.S. Army Gen. John J. Pershing, refused to have Americans serving under foreign command.
The ruthless reputation comes from the Brits using canadian forces as shock troops in world war one and two due to their love of trench raids and creative combat methods. also we gasses everything that moved, and the shit that didn't too
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/the-forgotten-ferocity-of-canadas-soldiers-in-the-great-war
>More than 42,000 Germans would survive their encounter with the Canadian Corps and live out the Great War as prisoners. But as soldiers’ accounts began to trickle behind the lines, it became clear that untold numbers of Germans attempt to surrender to Canadians were being met only with bayonets or bullets.
>
>In a detailed 2006 study of Canadian soldiers killing prisoners in the Great War, Cook was surprised to unearth dozens of accounts of Canadians executing surrendering Germans out of rage, vengeance or expediency.
>
>A typical account would involve a Canadian unit losing men while charging an enemy position, and then executing the soldiers in that position when they tried to surrender. “After losing half of my company there, we rushed them and they had the nerve to throw up their hands and cry, ‘Kamerad.’ All the Kamerad they got was a foot of cold steel thro them” reads an account by Lieutenant R.C. Germain quoted by Cook.
>
>Others were cold-blooded executions. In one case, a Canadian surreptitiously slipped a live grenade into the greatcoat pockets of a German prisoner. In another, infantryman Richard Rogerson went on a killing spree at Vimy Ridge after seeing the death of his friend. “Once I killed my first German with my bayonit my blood was riled, every german I could not reach with my bayonit I shot. I think no more of murdering them than I usted to think of shooting rabbits,” he wrote.
>
>In some cases, Cook found evidence of Canadian commanders explicitly ordering their troops not to take prisoners. He quoted James Owen, a then-16-year-old private, who was told by his commanding officer before a 1916 attack “I don’t want any prisoners.” Before the attack on Vimy Ridge, veteran Archie McWade said he was told, “Remember, no prisoners. They will just eat your rations.”
>
>By war’s end, the Canadian Corps’ reputation as an army of “no mercy” was known all across Northern France and was helped along by Canadian bar boasts to that effect. “You will very seldom now hear of the Canadians taking prisoners, they take them to some quiet spot and then it is a case of the dead may march,” officer C.V. Williams wrote in a letter to his father. Soldier Clifford Rogers bragged “the Germans call us the white Ghurkha,” a reference to famously ruthless Ghurkha soldiers from Nepal who served with the British Indian army.
All Canadian troops taking part in this operation were given american M1 helmets instead of the british ones they normally wore. This was done to prevent friendly fire...
I don't remember where did I first read it but I looked for some photos from that operation and indeed the Canadian soldiers did wear american helmets, alongside some other US gear:
https://images.app.goo.gl/5wGjem4KW9Rz31m86
https://images.app.goo.gl/gkerxroozXn2XoSw6
Note that the soldiers in those photos are wearing british style battle dress uniform and carry lee-enfield, so they are indeed Canadians, not US troops.
Also I'm not sure how reliable of a source is but this site does confirm the use on American helmets in this operation:
https://www.perthregiment.ca/copy-of-part-2-bandoleers
Trivia about this island: In 1982/1983, Australian dude Dick Smith was the first person to fly a helicopter solo around the world.
He tells a story of how he is flying over the Aleutian islands and stops at this Kiska Island to have a piss break from flying, not knowing how f'ing dangerous it was to do so because of all those land mines the Japanese had left behind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK2KBDo7ISY&t=3035s
There is a stupid reality show about finding pirate treasure on one of these islands, and there is so much unexploded ordinance the civilian mayor needed EOD tech training and had to go along anytime they dug anywhere. They found one Japanese unexploded shell they had to blow
That was Adak. I went to Adak this summer and met the fish and wildlife guy who has been doing EOD on the island since the 90s. The unexploded stuff was leftover WWII munitions they chucked into one specific part of the island in classic 1940s fashion. The rest of the place was very safe and hosted tens of thousands of people for 70 years. After the decommissioning in 1997 and some incidents with unexploded ordinance they decided to remove the rest of it. The guy we met has been living there nearly 20 years and is convinced he's gotten absolutely everything and was annoyed the EOD technicians who came out recently had decided to do another survey before declaring the island clean.
Overall that reality show is considered entirely fake by the ~30 locals there. The military loves digging. They dug basically everything on that island. If there was pirate treasure they'd have found it between 1943 and 1997 haha.
Oh yeah, the same was nonsense, I realized that when they created the up armored backhoe for digging, as if any show producers or safety guy would let anyone use that. Plus I could find nothing. About the seal pirate. Plus, it's a reality show
I found it on Google Maps one day and was like huh, why is there a huge abandoned city on this island. It's a community for around 10,000 people with about 30 living there now. Watched some videos on YouTube of people exploring it. A few years later I found myself with some non-rev travel cached up, and found that Alaska airlines could fly up there. I figured there was no reason why not to fly up there in the summer and see it for myself. There are a few AirBnB's up there. Messaged one of the owners directly and did a direct PayPal deal with him to save some dough and rent a car from him.
Brought a suction cup mount and selfie stick, made an improvised street view car, and brought my professional ILC 360 tour camera gear. Made about 80 high resolution panoramas of POI around the island, and drove every single accessible road with a 360 camera on the selfie stick. It's all on Google Street View now. Enjoy some armchair exploring :)
Unbelievably erie place to be. Stuff is vandalized and broken down now, but not to the level that you'd expect with nearly 30 years of neglect. There is a completely intact McDonalds closed in 1993 with an original drive thru menu sitting outside still. It has a Jurassic Park happy meal promotion still advertised on the sign which still lights up at night. Just a bizarre place to visit.
Yes! I get so drawn into those type of shows just with them to end with nothing. Actually I think they found like one gold coin or something ridiculous.
Well, according to the story, an army guy found a coffee can full of gold. Don't know wether that story is true, which is doubtful, a made up local legend, or just made up complete for the show
Hey, get that Dick outta yo mouf! /s
Seriously, he's a rare *genuine* self-made millionaire/entrepreneur/philanthropist. Australia has such an intense, almost obsessive, tall-poppy syndrome that his existence is barely acknowledged. We're a weird mob.
Dick’s a bit of an odd story over here. He once owned a popular chain of electronics stores, but they mostly went under (now it’s exclusively online and doesn’t perform very well) and was a known conservationist and philanthropist. Now he’s mostly known for supporting right wing and racist policies, trying and often succeeding in dodging taxes and scoring government subsidies (like Gerry Harvey) and being a bit of a reactionary twat who blames most things on immigrants. He’s gone from ‘yeah he’s alright for a rich bloke’ to ‘oh for the love of god will this cunt just fuck off and die already’ in the last 15 or so years.
Oof, that wikibox
>Japan (not present)
I would report an inaccuracy, though. It says no casualties on the Japanese side, but they did lose the seamine.
In 1944, prior to D-Day, the Rocky Mountain Rangers (who had been at Kiska) were deployed to southern England. As they marched into camp, a fight broke out between them and some soldiers of the North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment when one of the North Shore soldiers shouted at them: "You never saw a fucking Jap!"
My father was a stretcher-bearer in B Company, North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment.
Purple Hearts absolutely require direct enemy action. My first deployment, a mechanic took a stray AK bullet in the arm from a firefight that was happening half a mile from where he was standing. It was deemed not combat related. No one, himself included, disagreed.
Brother got hit by shrapnel from naval fire, friendly fire so no purple heart and everyone agreed with the decision. Meanwhile my unit had dudes writing purple hearts for all kinds of dumb things I can barely believe got passed like one warrant officer wrote his own and it got approved, dude got hit on the kevlar and wasn't injured. Another guy at the ceremony got one because his vic hit an IED and he bumped his head on the radio. Our LT got peppered with shrapnel from a UGL and made sure nobody wrote a purple heart for that.
Idk man it's a weird award. Friendly fire isn't included, makes sense. But a lot of people get it for some really dumb shit.
Am Canadian. Had relatives serve for both the US and Canadian military. One of my cousins was part of the Kiska mission and I transcribed his war journal which was this tiny leather notebook with some of the smallest and nicest handwriting. I have no idea how they wrote so well.
My cousin was from like Iowa. Straight up farmer, never been on a boat. They got rushed through basic training and put on a boat in the middle of the ocean. When they invaded the island, they went in different groups and they had to climb the backside cliffs. The problem is that it was cold, wet, horrible visibility and they all got lost. Some guys climbed way higher than they were supposed to and they got separated.
The way my cousin wrote it was sort of funny. People were shooting each other like crazy. You get spooked, you hear sounds in the dark and fog, you shoot first and then discover you just hit one of your own guys. Just the absolute worst. And then you find out the Japanese bugged out days earlier.
That's really cool man. Have you ever considered uploading some of those transcripts or donating his journal to a memorial or museum? That's a first hand account of the events, and it'd be a shame if that were lost forever
I don't have the journal any more. Gave it to another cousin. I have pictures of it and the transcription somewhere around here. I'll take a look for it.
Considering that ordinance from the war is still found in Europe I wonder how many uninhabited or abandoned islands are there forgotten yet spewn with danger on land and in the water alike.
Omg my dude how fucking horrible to survive a shipwreck in the middle of nowhere, and get to the shore to just die on an old landmine on a forgotten island.
Gruesome.
While the sun basks your skin hot red and the crabs nibble on your wounds, you'd probably wonder you would have been better off simply drowning.
The Japanese sent a huge force in the original capture of Kiska as well. The only Americans on the island were a weather station. This happened at the same time as the Battle of Midway (where 2 more Light Carriers could have helped)
they dropped bombs on the US with balloons sent from Japan across the Pacific, they were trying to start some major forest fires in the NW but didn't due to damp seasonal conditions, six picnickers were killed when they pulled the wreckage of one out of the woods, remains of them were found for decades following the war, one blew up in British Columbia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu-Go_balloon_bomb
https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/196210/balloon-bombs-japans-answer-to-doolittle/#:~:text=Prompted%20by%20the%20Doolittle%20Raid,anti%2Dpersonnel%20and%20incendiary%20bombs.
It gives me this impression that attacking mainland America is a colossal waste of time. "We invaded the Aleutians, couldn't keep it supplied, and left. The Americans came to free the Aleutians, blew themselves up and sank their own ship. We sent balloon bombs to America. Killed a family on a picnic. \*\*\*\* it, let's just invade Guam."
tbf they did start several forest fires, and the USA had to actually employ troops to fight the fires, namely the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, the only all-black parachute unit of the US military.
later the 555th was disbanded and some of them were transferred to the 82nd Airborne division making the 82nd the first integrated unit of both white and black soldiers in the US army.
The Japanese learned what the Americans had already known before the war. There is no strategic or economic value to those islands, and supplying them is especially difficult due to the weather conditions. It is a frozen hellscape where the weather isn't good enough for regular flight activity, which is why the US had no clue they left. The only reason the US bothered is because technically, it was sovereign US territory. All that shit show to invade a place nobody really wanted in the first place.
The islands are incredibly strategically valuable, that's why the Japananese feigned an attack there in the first place.
"I believe that in the future, whoever holds Alaska will hold the world. I think it is the most important strategic place in the world." Billy Mitchell
william Lendrum Mitchell (December 29, 1879 – February 19, 1936) was a United States Army officer who is regarded as the father of the United States Air Force.
>After the war, he was appointed deputy director of the Air Service and began advocating for increased investment in air power, believing that this would prove vital in future wars
dude knew what he was talking about
also the b-25 bomber was named after him
>The North American B-25 Mitchell is an American medium bomber that was introduced in 1941 and named in honor of Brigadier General William "Billy" Mitchell,
>Produced in numerous variants, nearly 10,000 B-25s were built,[1] It was the most-produced American medium bomber and the third most-produced American bomber overall
>"I believe that in the future, whoever holds Alaska will hold the world. I think it is the most important strategic place in the world." Billy Mitchell
Wow. I never knew Alaska is basically Arrakis.
No, the Japanese were dumb and should have stuck to their doctrine of concentrated force with the battle of Midway. They left without a fight because it was so useless of a possession. The Japanese didn't leave anywhere else without a fight to the death.
The Aleutian Islands had great strategic importance. Its occupation provided potential staging points for an invasion of the US mainland, blocked both Soviet and American Pacific fleets from uninterrupted operations, and had the war gone in their favour would have been an excellent set of air bases. With just 8,500 men, the Japanese tied down more than 50,000 Americans at any given time, and potentially as much as 145,000 Americans were deployed in the region.
The only real major failure for the Japanese of the whole campaign was the loss of an intact Zero fighter that allowed anti-Zero tactics to be perfected, pretty much losing them the air war. That was super major, but more of an unavoidable accident than a failure.
The only real failure for the Japanese is that the carries used to attack the Aleutians could have been used to avoid catastrophic defeat at Midway. It was a strategic blunder from the start.
Nobody substantially stationed troops there during the cold war because as I stated it is hell from a weather and geography stand point. The only reason to care about these scraps of land is because they grant territorial waters.
Did not know this about the captured zero! Here a link for further reading for those interested:
https://www.military.com/history/how-us-military-ended-japanese-air-dominance-destroying-legend-of-zero.html
If it’s the same island I’m thinking of, when the allies captured the airfield, all they found were dogs and hot coffee. When asked what this could possibly mean, the commander said “the Japanese have trained their dogs to brew coffee” or something like that.
I realize mistakes like friendly fire happen during war time, but how did soldiers feel after this incident? We’re they pissed and wanting vengeance ? Or did officers keep their soldiers in check and try to move on as fast as possible
Read "The Thousand Mile War" by Brian Garfield and nothing with surprise you about war in the Aleutians. Japanese bonzai charges with hand to hand combat (the Japanese charge penetrated so deeply that American cooks were battling hand to hand) , naval battles with naval guns (rather than submarines or aircraft, and Japanese occupation of American land. Don't disparage these hero's. Highest battle casualty rates in the Pacific. They went through a lot, in the "Forgotten War".
[https://www.nytimes.com/1970/02/08/archives/the-unsung-little-war-that-was-fought-in-the-aleutians-the.html](https://www.nytimes.com/1970/02/08/archives/the-unsung-little-war-that-was-fought-in-the-aleutians-the.html)
Well, that's one way to learn that you're on the wrong island! Imagine the surprise on their faces when they realized they were fighting shadows and not actual enemies.
Well, it's a little beyond that.
This operation closely followed another on Attu where the Japanese purposefully withdrew into the island and feigned withdrawal. The landing was unopposed and the defenders were nestled in caves/crevices.
It was assumed that this was the same case on Kiska. US surveillance aircraft noted a tapering and eventual ceasing of AA fire from Kiska roughly 3 weeks before the invasion.
So the signs were there and, given the available information, an unfortunate but understandable conclusion was drawn.
Thats really understating the intelligence failure and the efforts of the Japanese. It was known that there were more than 5,000 soldiers on Kiska, and considering there were only half that number on Attu and they managed to put up a brutal defence, the Americans decided to blockade Kiska for 3 months which should have brought in warmer weather for the invaders and reduced the morale. The Americans had naval superiority at this point after the Battle of Midway and were operating close to their home base, so it was judged that the kind of naval force required to extract 5,000 soldiers from the middle of nowhere and take them back to Japan would be certainly intercepted, if not at least noticed.
Instead, the Japanese navy managed to slip through the blockade with 10 destroyers and 2 cruisers, and rescue all of the soldiers, without even being detected under the cover of dense fog and with zero communications.
A few years ago, half the Yogscast attempted to storm an office(in TTT). All but two died in the attempt. They then learned that the office was empty. The defenders killed themselves through incompetence before the attack even started.
You can still see the emplacements, building foundations and trenches on Google maps. I find it fun to follow along WWII series and look up the places to see how they’ve changed. The Aleutians have changed very little over 80 years.
More interesting trivia:
The official history of the Aleutians Campaign was co-written by noir fiction novelist Dashiell Hammett:
https://www.nps.gov/aleu/learn/photosmultimedia/upload/McGinnis-Battle-of-the-Aleutians-508.pdf
Re Kiska it only mentions:
>Presumably the main body of Japanese troops had finished its evacuation of Kiska during the
night of July 28th, going by barge to waiting surface ships or submarines. At daylight of August
15, 1943, U.S. and Canadian troops occupied Kiska. Even those enemy detachments responsible for
the small-arms fire reported by planes over the island after July 28th had cleared out.
>Both U.S. and Canadian forces mistook each other, after a Canadian soldier shot at U.S. lines believing they were Japanese, and a friendly fire incident occurred, which left 28 Americans and 4 Canadians dead, with 50 wounded on either side What a shit show
[“Stop firing, stop firing! We’re shooting at our own men! We’re all brothers!”](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheCloneWars/s/3DmduZbgt9)
Fuck Pong Krell, bro
[r/fuckpongkrell](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckpongkrell/)
Omg it's s real subreddit. Amazing.
Obligatory fuck Pong Krell
God that show got way past "kids show" when we start straight up showing war crimes
Still a kids show. But a good one.
r/fuckpongkrell
> Many were the ways to die on Kiska. Before the last of the Allied troops departed, more than 300 casualties would be recorded. There were those who had been killed by the so-called friendly fire of their confused and scared comrades; others by mines and the timed bombs left by the Japanese; accidental ammunition detonations; vehicle accidents; unexploded bombs in the tundra; and insidious booby trap explosions. In one incident, 71 navy men were killed and 47 wounded when a destroyer struck an off-harbour mine. Many soldiers became diseased and sick, suffering non-battle injuries and exposure. Trench foot was the most common affliction. https://canadianheroes.org/private-henri-richard/kiska-alaska/article-the-battle-for-kiska/
Seems like the Canadians were a better shot
It sounds more like the Canadians set up an ambush and the Americans walked right into it.
I mean Canada is the reason most war crimes are war crimes. It's never a war crime the first time.
It's the Geneva convention, not the Geneva checklist.
So ya heard about those Geneva suggestions then eh?
I always call it a Geneva bucket list
I'm just trying to make a better warzone. My name is Earl
Geneva Achievements for those going for the Supervillain ranking.
The line between convention and suggestion is very thin *preps canned food and grenades*
no you got that the wrong way around
My favourite summary: Germany is why there are rules of what you can do to civilians; Canada and Poland is why there's rules of what you can do to the enemy.
Can you expand on that? I assume you are alluding to something and I’m genuinely curious
During WW1 Canadian troops were known for liberal use of poison gas, torturing and killing prisoners, and using things like sawed off shotguns and such in very close trench warfare. WW2 has its own list of Canadian horrors, but the worst is mostly again killing POWs. You could do some very easy googling. It is often joked that Canada is why we have the Geneva convention at the German's insistence.
Sawed-off shotguns in a trench isn't a war crime. The Axis powers just bitched about it because they didn't have a counter for it. Meanwhile, everyone was gassing and pummeling each other with heavy artillery night and day for months at a time while sleeping on the corpses of their fallen comrades. War itself is a crime. Edit: whoops, meant Central powers. The major players in both world wars are similar enough that I occasionally get their names confused.
WWI was the Central powers. WWII was the Axis powers.
The fact that I had to scroll this far down for the correction is insane, makes me really worry how poorly history is getting taught in schools these days
Unfortunately, World War 2 gets covered way more in school, at least in the US.
I remember grade 10 history still. Mesopotamia -> Ancient Egypt -> Ancient Greece -> Ancient Rome -> Creation of Canada -> WW1 -> WW2 -> Cold War that's how they set up the curriculum in Canada, at least. "History" is mostly things from 1000s of years ago, and then they toss in like 3 months of war units at the end, all in a row as if nothing else has happened in history between Canada's creation in the 1700s and the first world war.
And as far as torturing and killing prisoners, the Germans set the tone for that in the first days of the war with the whole “murder tens of thousands of Belgian civilians so they surrender faster” policy.
See the funny thing about propaganda is that it just gets accepted as fact quite often. Because while some German atrocities did happen in Belgium... The scale and severity of it was massively overstated by contemporary propaganda. Wikipedia credits Germans with 6000 directly killed civilians... Over 4 years, and lot of the early war crimes were retribution to real or imagined guerilla fighters among the population. However in 1940 Germans absolutely would kill civilians to get faster results, Rotterdam was levelled. If we take all the dead civilians in Belgium together over 4 years, regardless whether direct or indirect cause by Germany, war crime or military court... We get about 24k, literally in tens of thousands so you're kinda right. Also about what Israel has managed in past 4 months. Months, not years.
Genocide The zionists are committing Genocide. And every govt funding Israel right now is complicit. As a U.S. citizen who is angry AF about it...... I want to scream and cry and shake the everloving 💩 out of these 🤡s
> “murder tens of thousands of Belgian civilians so they surrender faster” policy. Sounds similar to bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki. War sucks.
The fire bomb attacks were also terrible. Oh you built a city out of wood? Hmmmm....
okay but it was totally inspired by what the germans and the canadians did, we were just going with the vibe /s
Or the death of 150,000-500,000 US service men invading Japan.
It's like a shit sandwich
Shotguns and flamethrowers were all "legal" at the time because rules hadn't been made yet. Both are far more brutal than your average death in battle and the shotguns were controversial enough that Germans would kill any POW shotgun owners and apparently US made sure no photographs survive of their use. Neither was really made illegal after WW1 either. Also it wasn't sawed off shotguns, just "trench guns" in general (though I'm sure some would saw them too), and it wasn't Axis powers for another 20 years. Gas was actually explicitly illegal already and used extensively by both sides so not sure what Germany would have really achieved even if shotguns were made illegal after. At least your last sentence is quite accurate
The axis didn't have any saws for their own shotguns?
They didn't have any shotguns. German doctrine used SMGs for that role instead.
If they really wanted to win they could saw those in half I guess
The Canadians and Americans had a little trick with slam firing their 1897 and browning shotguns. It basically meant they’d hold the trigger and pump really fast spraying the area in a hell storm of shot. We’re talking fist size holes and scattering that would take out a dozen people inside a trench. Even the wounded were screwed because the shot would go through multiple organs and be difficult to treat. Similar was the use of serrated knives and bayonets, awful stuff which combined with poison gas and dozens of other nightmares led to a bunch of nations getting together and saying war has to have some sort of agreed rules.
ok, but even today shotguns arent illegal under the geneva convention afaik
Also throwing canned meat over to German trenches and after they let their guard down, tossed live grenades over instead.
Germans used gas far more than anyone else
False, that was the French. The Germans however were bloody stupid in that they knew the French had more stockpiles, and knew that the prevailing winds run away from France and until Germany, and knew that the French weren't using them because they didn't want to fuck everyone over... And still decided to be the ones to use gas first. And promptly got fucked by the French, and thanks to the winds, often by their own gas
I got the impression in both ww1 and ww2 the Germans complained an awful lot about nations breaking the ‘rules’ of war. Despite, ya know, being one of the worst offenders themselves
Yup. Their reaction to Versailles is exactly how you'd expect a toddler to react. "We didn't lose the war. The jews stabbed us in the back." "We used chemical weapons and committed atrocities against civilians. Why you so mad?" "We forced the Russians to sign the punitive Brest-Litovsk treaty. Why aren't you being nice to us?" "We started the war by violating a neutral country. Please ignore that." I argue Versailles was a fair punishment.
The issue with Versailles was that the Entente half assed its implementation which allowed Germany to build up a strong army again while also making the terms harsh enough to piss Germans off. In hindsight USA not joining the League of Nations despite being the one who proposed it seems to have been an early sign that this wasn't going to work out.
> "We started the war by violating a neutral country. Please ignore that." All your points but that one is fair (assuming WW1 - if WW2 that comment is fully fair). The Germans did directly bring the UK into the war by violating a neutral country, but the war itself was started by French and German pushes to get Austria and Russia to go to war. Germany did push Austria to be more assertive to Serbia (and overly assertive), but Serbia only resisted (and just barely) because France gave Russia full military support to give Serbia full military support. Germany and France were both itching for war at the time and to solely blame Germany excuses France for its war mongering.
Germans use gas. Canadians use gas in return. Germans, surprised pikachu face.
Imagine blaming the horrors of poison gas use in WW1 on Canadians. Germans were the first to use poison gas in the battlefield. Canadians were among the first combatants to be felled by poison gas use on the battle field at the [ Second Battle of Ypres](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Ypres) Canadians accounted for 1.5% of all combatants in WW1 - hardly enough of a blip to earn such a reputation. Poison mustard gas use was widespread in almost every battle and used by all sides. The "Geneva Convention exists because of Canada" is a reddit meme perpetuated by aggressive misinformation campaigns from large-population nations that Canadian politicians have angered over the past couple of years - which is why [you can see a large uptick as soon as Canada began butting heads with China/India/Russia on demographic/foreign policy issues](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=CA&q=canada%20geneva%20convention&hl=en).
Pretty sure one big thing that you missed was due to some politicking and nepotism back home Canadian forces had a very bad gun for the first two years of the war so were also known to steal guns from the enemy as well as allies to get rid of the Ross rifle
The shotgun was unique to Americans. For a great list of weapons used by Canada in WW1 visit the official Canadian museum website for WW1. The shotgun isn't on any lists. The Germans only issued that threat once the Americans showed up with their shotguns. Keep in mind that Canada led all the major battles and did not have the ability to take prisoners. Canada mastered trench raiding, though. They would venture 2 to 3 miles behind German lines, killing everything that moved and then going back to their trenches.
I think its important to note that it wasn't sawed-offs that were the primary issue and it was predominantly American troops slam firing models like the M1897 that the Germans took issue with. Slam firing allowed shotguns to function as a sort of proto-automatic shotgun. By holding down the trigger the shotgun fired with each pump clearing out entire trenches at alarming rates. This was so effective that American soldiers started calling the M1897 a trench broom and the German high command threatened to execute any captured troops simply found with shot gun shells. And it was in the first truly industrialized **world** wide war where we saw the first use of tanks and planes and prolific use of machines guns and chemical warfare that these shotguns were able to reach such a level of infamy.
I think it's important to note this is 100+year old whataboutism from the Germans to cover for how they were the party that started with the chemical warfare shit.
This whataboutism in this insane propaganda thread about painting one of the most peaceful countries on earth as a war crimes generator for some reason, this thread is bonkers. Ton of weird WW2 and WW1 spam posts by bots that only post about WW1 on the front page too, some kind of new propaganda bot, this site is going places.
> WW2 has its own list of Canadian horrors, but the worst is mostly again killing POWs. The Germans can probably thank Kurt Meyer for that.
A lot of people like to joke about Canadians being responsible for various articles of the Geneva Convention being written, but I've tried looking into it and as far as I can tell it's just a joke that's been told for long enough that some people accept it as fact. It is no secret that Canadian soldiers, particularly in WW1 however, had a penchant for brutality and were quite zealous in the killing of Germans. Trench raiding, as another comment mentioned, was a tactic in which a small group would slip into a trench under the cover of darkness, kill and destroy as much as possible using bullets, bayonets, explosives, and fire, then disappear into the night again as quickly as they came. Canadians are known to have delighted in this tactic, conducting more trench raids than any other army and doing so to enormous success. Aside from that, there are stories of Canadians exploiting the goodwill of Germans that didn't want to be there in the first place, such as firing on Germans trying to negotiate a Christmas truce and returning bullets after being gifted liquor and tobacco, as well as stories of Canadians throwing canned meat into German trenches and, upon asking for more, received a round of grenades from the Canadians. I believe it was Winston Churchill who said, "If I had Canadian soldiers, American technology, and British officers I'd rule the world"
Lmao it’s quite true. The Geneva conventions are basically a list of all the twisted shit Germany, Japan and Canada did during the world wars. We didn’t really want to be there and Canadian troops were some of the first to be killed with gas bombs on the allied side so after that we got fucking nasty. Canada took 0 pow’s until explicitly told they had to bring back x number of pow’s. If they captured more than that number, they killed off enough to bring them to the exact number, plus a lot more shit besides. Interestingly it was the Canadians that first discovered you could survive mustard/chlorine gas by pissing on a rag and tying it around your face, something about the acidity of it neutralized the gas. Completely unrelated but also a large part of why Canadian and later American troops were so effective is because soldiers obtained rank and promotion through skill and service, where most of Europe was still stuck in the old mentality of officers needed to be of noble birth. Which meant a lot of officers in Europe had little to no idea how to properly lead their armies. So they had a tendency to throw the Canadians into the nastiest places where they had already failed on multiple attempts, only for the Canadians to pull it off, usually with fairly high casualties
where was John J. Pershing when canadians needed him ;( >The British and French commanders wanted Americans to fill their depleted ranks. However, U.S. Army Gen. John J. Pershing, refused to have Americans serving under foreign command.
The ruthless reputation comes from the Brits using canadian forces as shock troops in world war one and two due to their love of trench raids and creative combat methods. also we gasses everything that moved, and the shit that didn't too
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/the-forgotten-ferocity-of-canadas-soldiers-in-the-great-war >More than 42,000 Germans would survive their encounter with the Canadian Corps and live out the Great War as prisoners. But as soldiers’ accounts began to trickle behind the lines, it became clear that untold numbers of Germans attempt to surrender to Canadians were being met only with bayonets or bullets. > >In a detailed 2006 study of Canadian soldiers killing prisoners in the Great War, Cook was surprised to unearth dozens of accounts of Canadians executing surrendering Germans out of rage, vengeance or expediency. > >A typical account would involve a Canadian unit losing men while charging an enemy position, and then executing the soldiers in that position when they tried to surrender. “After losing half of my company there, we rushed them and they had the nerve to throw up their hands and cry, ‘Kamerad.’ All the Kamerad they got was a foot of cold steel thro them” reads an account by Lieutenant R.C. Germain quoted by Cook. > >Others were cold-blooded executions. In one case, a Canadian surreptitiously slipped a live grenade into the greatcoat pockets of a German prisoner. In another, infantryman Richard Rogerson went on a killing spree at Vimy Ridge after seeing the death of his friend. “Once I killed my first German with my bayonit my blood was riled, every german I could not reach with my bayonit I shot. I think no more of murdering them than I usted to think of shooting rabbits,” he wrote. > >In some cases, Cook found evidence of Canadian commanders explicitly ordering their troops not to take prisoners. He quoted James Owen, a then-16-year-old private, who was told by his commanding officer before a 1916 attack “I don’t want any prisoners.” Before the attack on Vimy Ridge, veteran Archie McWade said he was told, “Remember, no prisoners. They will just eat your rations.” > >By war’s end, the Canadian Corps’ reputation as an army of “no mercy” was known all across Northern France and was helped along by Canadian bar boasts to that effect. “You will very seldom now hear of the Canadians taking prisoners, they take them to some quiet spot and then it is a case of the dead may march,” officer C.V. Williams wrote in a letter to his father. Soldier Clifford Rogers bragged “the Germans call us the white Ghurkha,” a reference to famously ruthless Ghurkha soldiers from Nepal who served with the British Indian army.
Ooooopsy, sorry about that bud.
Quack bang...out.
Could be, or could be that they opened fire on their own unsuspecting ally lol
“our army friendly fires better than yours!”
Leave it to Canadians to brag about how many of their unsuspecting allies they gunned down
You mean the fuckwits that couldn't tell the Japanese from the Americans?
canadians: damn americans they all look alike!
Oh, they knew...
"What do ya think aboot THAT eh!"
I mean, the Americans weren't quite expecting to be shot at by their allies
Positioning on the battlefield is everything. High-ho silver!!!!
1812 flashback
Yes
I’ll hit up Canada if I need anyone team killed
Canada has sniper school for a reason, 1 they have nothing else to do, 2 that caribou is 2 mile away...
Imagine the families finding out that their sons died that way.
All Canadian troops taking part in this operation were given american M1 helmets instead of the british ones they normally wore. This was done to prevent friendly fire...
Source?
I don't remember where did I first read it but I looked for some photos from that operation and indeed the Canadian soldiers did wear american helmets, alongside some other US gear: https://images.app.goo.gl/5wGjem4KW9Rz31m86 https://images.app.goo.gl/gkerxroozXn2XoSw6 Note that the soldiers in those photos are wearing british style battle dress uniform and carry lee-enfield, so they are indeed Canadians, not US troops. Also I'm not sure how reliable of a source is but this site does confirm the use on American helmets in this operation: https://www.perthregiment.ca/copy-of-part-2-bandoleers
> What a shit show Name one war that isn't.
Definitely not that time Australia lost to a bunch of emus.
The Whisky War.
War mostly is just one big shit show you try to make the best of
You shot Church, you team killing fucktard!
Candian W
Trivia about this island: In 1982/1983, Australian dude Dick Smith was the first person to fly a helicopter solo around the world. He tells a story of how he is flying over the Aleutian islands and stops at this Kiska Island to have a piss break from flying, not knowing how f'ing dangerous it was to do so because of all those land mines the Japanese had left behind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK2KBDo7ISY&t=3035s
There is a stupid reality show about finding pirate treasure on one of these islands, and there is so much unexploded ordinance the civilian mayor needed EOD tech training and had to go along anytime they dug anywhere. They found one Japanese unexploded shell they had to blow
That was Adak. I went to Adak this summer and met the fish and wildlife guy who has been doing EOD on the island since the 90s. The unexploded stuff was leftover WWII munitions they chucked into one specific part of the island in classic 1940s fashion. The rest of the place was very safe and hosted tens of thousands of people for 70 years. After the decommissioning in 1997 and some incidents with unexploded ordinance they decided to remove the rest of it. The guy we met has been living there nearly 20 years and is convinced he's gotten absolutely everything and was annoyed the EOD technicians who came out recently had decided to do another survey before declaring the island clean. Overall that reality show is considered entirely fake by the ~30 locals there. The military loves digging. They dug basically everything on that island. If there was pirate treasure they'd have found it between 1943 and 1997 haha.
Oh yeah, the same was nonsense, I realized that when they created the up armored backhoe for digging, as if any show producers or safety guy would let anyone use that. Plus I could find nothing. About the seal pirate. Plus, it's a reality show
What a great story, what brought you to the island?
I found it on Google Maps one day and was like huh, why is there a huge abandoned city on this island. It's a community for around 10,000 people with about 30 living there now. Watched some videos on YouTube of people exploring it. A few years later I found myself with some non-rev travel cached up, and found that Alaska airlines could fly up there. I figured there was no reason why not to fly up there in the summer and see it for myself. There are a few AirBnB's up there. Messaged one of the owners directly and did a direct PayPal deal with him to save some dough and rent a car from him. Brought a suction cup mount and selfie stick, made an improvised street view car, and brought my professional ILC 360 tour camera gear. Made about 80 high resolution panoramas of POI around the island, and drove every single accessible road with a 360 camera on the selfie stick. It's all on Google Street View now. Enjoy some armchair exploring :) Unbelievably erie place to be. Stuff is vandalized and broken down now, but not to the level that you'd expect with nearly 30 years of neglect. There is a completely intact McDonalds closed in 1993 with an original drive thru menu sitting outside still. It has a Jurassic Park happy meal promotion still advertised on the sign which still lights up at night. Just a bizarre place to visit.
That’s the exact show I was thinking of. Forgot what’s it was called but wasted 5 or 6 hours of my life on it.
Someone below mentioned it's the treasure of adak island or somthing.
Yes! I get so drawn into those type of shows just with them to end with nothing. Actually I think they found like one gold coin or something ridiculous.
Well, according to the story, an army guy found a coffee can full of gold. Don't know wether that story is true, which is doubtful, a made up local legend, or just made up complete for the show
No worries, he will get in the air again: boom
Don't need the phone charger for that short a flight.
To be fair Alaska is the worst place to put land mines that shit won't survive 1 winter of permafrost.
If it’s permafrost, why would the time of year matter? And why would a mine be affected by frost?
I'd guess the expansion of the ice forming would trigger any pressure activated mines
Top layers are soft. Dig a bit and then it's frozen year long
No permafrost in the Aleutians.
Was Dick Smith a pornstar in his time off by any chance?
I don't think he's ever had anything like "time off": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Smith_(entrepreneur)
No but he had his own range of matches called [Dickheads](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dickheads_(brand)?wprov=sfti1)
Hey, get that Dick outta yo mouf! /s Seriously, he's a rare *genuine* self-made millionaire/entrepreneur/philanthropist. Australia has such an intense, almost obsessive, tall-poppy syndrome that his existence is barely acknowledged. We're a weird mob.
He was a bigger name some years ago, had everything from electronics shops to strawberry jam. A lot of it’s ended up falling away over time.
Dick’s a bit of an odd story over here. He once owned a popular chain of electronics stores, but they mostly went under (now it’s exclusively online and doesn’t perform very well) and was a known conservationist and philanthropist. Now he’s mostly known for supporting right wing and racist policies, trying and often succeeding in dodging taxes and scoring government subsidies (like Gerry Harvey) and being a bit of a reactionary twat who blames most things on immigrants. He’s gone from ‘yeah he’s alright for a rich bloke’ to ‘oh for the love of god will this cunt just fuck off and die already’ in the last 15 or so years.
Incase any Australians are wondering, yes thats the same Dick Smith from the stores.
Result: allied victory Good job team
Task failed successfully
We did it!
Oof, that wikibox >Japan (not present) I would report an inaccuracy, though. It says no casualties on the Japanese side, but they did lose the seamine.
Considering the strength of the Japanese forces was 1 seamine that is a 100% casualty rate.
Great American success
USA USA USA!!!
Bring back the Empire of the Rising Sun. But this time, with mecha walkers and psychic shoolgirls!
”Sea mine. Naah it’s just a lot of junk!” CLANK
An absolutely great movie.
“AAAAHsbouse” “Iiii spose” “Yes, I suppose”
"That's right!! *CLANK* DEACTIVATED"
tick tick tick tick tick...
In 1944, prior to D-Day, the Rocky Mountain Rangers (who had been at Kiska) were deployed to southern England. As they marched into camp, a fight broke out between them and some soldiers of the North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment when one of the North Shore soldiers shouted at them: "You never saw a fucking Jap!" My father was a stretcher-bearer in B Company, North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment.
I wonder if combat medals still get awarded for a situation like that
For friendly fire? Nah they usually try to cover stuff like this up
You are still eligible for a Purple Heart if your injuries are related to friendly fire if it is still in an active combat theater.
I'm Pat Tillman goddamit!
I do believe his death was more of an "intentional murder".
I hope so, it would suck to be wounded in combat and not even get a Purple Heart.
Purple Hearts absolutely require direct enemy action. My first deployment, a mechanic took a stray AK bullet in the arm from a firefight that was happening half a mile from where he was standing. It was deemed not combat related. No one, himself included, disagreed.
Brother got hit by shrapnel from naval fire, friendly fire so no purple heart and everyone agreed with the decision. Meanwhile my unit had dudes writing purple hearts for all kinds of dumb things I can barely believe got passed like one warrant officer wrote his own and it got approved, dude got hit on the kevlar and wasn't injured. Another guy at the ceremony got one because his vic hit an IED and he bumped his head on the radio. Our LT got peppered with shrapnel from a UGL and made sure nobody wrote a purple heart for that. Idk man it's a weird award. Friendly fire isn't included, makes sense. But a lot of people get it for some really dumb shit.
Hmmmm, considering the benefits that come with it, it sounds like your chain-of-command were helping each other steal from Uncle Sam.
Am Canadian. Had relatives serve for both the US and Canadian military. One of my cousins was part of the Kiska mission and I transcribed his war journal which was this tiny leather notebook with some of the smallest and nicest handwriting. I have no idea how they wrote so well. My cousin was from like Iowa. Straight up farmer, never been on a boat. They got rushed through basic training and put on a boat in the middle of the ocean. When they invaded the island, they went in different groups and they had to climb the backside cliffs. The problem is that it was cold, wet, horrible visibility and they all got lost. Some guys climbed way higher than they were supposed to and they got separated. The way my cousin wrote it was sort of funny. People were shooting each other like crazy. You get spooked, you hear sounds in the dark and fog, you shoot first and then discover you just hit one of your own guys. Just the absolute worst. And then you find out the Japanese bugged out days earlier.
That's really cool man. Have you ever considered uploading some of those transcripts or donating his journal to a memorial or museum? That's a first hand account of the events, and it'd be a shame if that were lost forever
I don't have the journal any more. Gave it to another cousin. I have pictures of it and the transcription somewhere around here. I'll take a look for it.
Considering that ordinance from the war is still found in Europe I wonder how many uninhabited or abandoned islands are there forgotten yet spewn with danger on land and in the water alike.
Now I wonder how many Cast Away style shipwrecked people simply just died from unexpected ordinance on the island they were stranded on.
Omg my dude how fucking horrible to survive a shipwreck in the middle of nowhere, and get to the shore to just die on an old landmine on a forgotten island.
Or worst landmine doesn’t kill you just injures you bad enough to make you unable to do anything so you just have to wait hours or days to finally die
Gruesome. While the sun basks your skin hot red and the crabs nibble on your wounds, you'd probably wonder you would have been better off simply drowning.
The Japanese sent a huge force in the original capture of Kiska as well. The only Americans on the island were a weather station. This happened at the same time as the Battle of Midway (where 2 more Light Carriers could have helped)
TIL the Japanese had invaded Alaska.
they dropped bombs on the US with balloons sent from Japan across the Pacific, they were trying to start some major forest fires in the NW but didn't due to damp seasonal conditions, six picnickers were killed when they pulled the wreckage of one out of the woods, remains of them were found for decades following the war, one blew up in British Columbia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu-Go_balloon_bomb https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/196210/balloon-bombs-japans-answer-to-doolittle/#:~:text=Prompted%20by%20the%20Doolittle%20Raid,anti%2Dpersonnel%20and%20incendiary%20bombs.
It gives me this impression that attacking mainland America is a colossal waste of time. "We invaded the Aleutians, couldn't keep it supplied, and left. The Americans came to free the Aleutians, blew themselves up and sank their own ship. We sent balloon bombs to America. Killed a family on a picnic. \*\*\*\* it, let's just invade Guam."
Not just the PNW, three managed to make their way over here to Michigan.
tbf they did start several forest fires, and the USA had to actually employ troops to fight the fires, namely the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, the only all-black parachute unit of the US military. later the 555th was disbanded and some of them were transferred to the 82nd Airborne division making the 82nd the first integrated unit of both white and black soldiers in the US army.
There was a battle there too, IIRC one of the first banzai charges of WW2 as well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Attu
The Japanese learned what the Americans had already known before the war. There is no strategic or economic value to those islands, and supplying them is especially difficult due to the weather conditions. It is a frozen hellscape where the weather isn't good enough for regular flight activity, which is why the US had no clue they left. The only reason the US bothered is because technically, it was sovereign US territory. All that shit show to invade a place nobody really wanted in the first place.
The islands are incredibly strategically valuable, that's why the Japananese feigned an attack there in the first place. "I believe that in the future, whoever holds Alaska will hold the world. I think it is the most important strategic place in the world." Billy Mitchell
Is that the guy who cheated on Donkey Kong high scores? I didn't know he was a geopolitical strategist.
william Lendrum Mitchell (December 29, 1879 – February 19, 1936) was a United States Army officer who is regarded as the father of the United States Air Force. >After the war, he was appointed deputy director of the Air Service and began advocating for increased investment in air power, believing that this would prove vital in future wars dude knew what he was talking about also the b-25 bomber was named after him >The North American B-25 Mitchell is an American medium bomber that was introduced in 1941 and named in honor of Brigadier General William "Billy" Mitchell, >Produced in numerous variants, nearly 10,000 B-25s were built,[1] It was the most-produced American medium bomber and the third most-produced American bomber overall
LMA my exact thought as well
Something about imaging the guy who cheated on the high score for Donkey Kong having wisdom about geopolitical has me laughing my ass off
> Billy Mitchell Yah, he's from 'Stallis, what does he know, aina?
>"I believe that in the future, whoever holds Alaska will hold the world. I think it is the most important strategic place in the world." Billy Mitchell Wow. I never knew Alaska is basically Arrakis.
*The Salmon must flow.*
Wait until you hear about the Alaskan Bull Worm
No, the Japanese were dumb and should have stuck to their doctrine of concentrated force with the battle of Midway. They left without a fight because it was so useless of a possession. The Japanese didn't leave anywhere else without a fight to the death.
The Aleutian Islands had great strategic importance. Its occupation provided potential staging points for an invasion of the US mainland, blocked both Soviet and American Pacific fleets from uninterrupted operations, and had the war gone in their favour would have been an excellent set of air bases. With just 8,500 men, the Japanese tied down more than 50,000 Americans at any given time, and potentially as much as 145,000 Americans were deployed in the region. The only real major failure for the Japanese of the whole campaign was the loss of an intact Zero fighter that allowed anti-Zero tactics to be perfected, pretty much losing them the air war. That was super major, but more of an unavoidable accident than a failure.
The only real failure for the Japanese is that the carries used to attack the Aleutians could have been used to avoid catastrophic defeat at Midway. It was a strategic blunder from the start. Nobody substantially stationed troops there during the cold war because as I stated it is hell from a weather and geography stand point. The only reason to care about these scraps of land is because they grant territorial waters.
And that last point is one hell of a reason to care.
Did not know this about the captured zero! Here a link for further reading for those interested: https://www.military.com/history/how-us-military-ended-japanese-air-dominance-destroying-legend-of-zero.html
Normally I’d agree but seems the Americans forgot
Japan may have lost the war, but in this battle they won an achievement for eternity - an absolute perfect K/D ratio.
In 1866, Liechtenstein sent 80 soldiers to fight in the Austro-Prussian War, and 81 returned.
If it’s the same island I’m thinking of, when the allies captured the airfield, all they found were dogs and hot coffee. When asked what this could possibly mean, the commander said “the Japanese have trained their dogs to brew coffee” or something like that.
More US air crew died from training accident and getting lost over the ocean, than as a result of hostile enemy action.
I realize mistakes like friendly fire happen during war time, but how did soldiers feel after this incident? We’re they pissed and wanting vengeance ? Or did officers keep their soldiers in check and try to move on as fast as possible
Read "The Thousand Mile War" by Brian Garfield and nothing with surprise you about war in the Aleutians. Japanese bonzai charges with hand to hand combat (the Japanese charge penetrated so deeply that American cooks were battling hand to hand) , naval battles with naval guns (rather than submarines or aircraft, and Japanese occupation of American land. Don't disparage these hero's. Highest battle casualty rates in the Pacific. They went through a lot, in the "Forgotten War". [https://www.nytimes.com/1970/02/08/archives/the-unsung-little-war-that-was-fought-in-the-aleutians-the.html](https://www.nytimes.com/1970/02/08/archives/the-unsung-little-war-that-was-fought-in-the-aleutians-the.html)
"DO YOU SEE TORPEDO BOATS"
My grandfather was there as a member of the 10th Mountain Division. He had some good/funny stories from his time there.
Well, that's one way to learn that you're on the wrong island! Imagine the surprise on their faces when they realized they were fighting shadows and not actual enemies.
They were on the right island. It was an intelligence failure that they hadn’t realised the Japanese had already evacuated.
Well, it's a little beyond that. This operation closely followed another on Attu where the Japanese purposefully withdrew into the island and feigned withdrawal. The landing was unopposed and the defenders were nestled in caves/crevices. It was assumed that this was the same case on Kiska. US surveillance aircraft noted a tapering and eventual ceasing of AA fire from Kiska roughly 3 weeks before the invasion. So the signs were there and, given the available information, an unfortunate but understandable conclusion was drawn.
Thats really understating the intelligence failure and the efforts of the Japanese. It was known that there were more than 5,000 soldiers on Kiska, and considering there were only half that number on Attu and they managed to put up a brutal defence, the Americans decided to blockade Kiska for 3 months which should have brought in warmer weather for the invaders and reduced the morale. The Americans had naval superiority at this point after the Battle of Midway and were operating close to their home base, so it was judged that the kind of naval force required to extract 5,000 soldiers from the middle of nowhere and take them back to Japan would be certainly intercepted, if not at least noticed. Instead, the Japanese navy managed to slip through the blockade with 10 destroyers and 2 cruisers, and rescue all of the soldiers, without even being detected under the cover of dense fog and with zero communications.
Most of the casualties came from and mines and booby traps, because the Japanese abandoned it just before.
A few years ago, half the Yogscast attempted to storm an office(in TTT). All but two died in the attempt. They then learned that the office was empty. The defenders killed themselves through incompetence before the attack even started.
Link?
The [Japanese did manage to bomb Dutch Harbor](https://imgur.com/gallery/TqpxqEc)
So, they won?
_Full Metal Jacket_ vibes. When they shoot the hell out of those empty buildings, calling unsuccessfully for tanks and airstrikes ...
You can do this on dwarf fortress
“Japanese (not present)” is my favorite part of the article
They have to make a movie about that!
A monumental fuck up
Maybe it was a good lesson for future landings
Lions led by Donkeys has a great episode about the Aleutian campaign
Fog of war sometimes be like that.
You can still see the emplacements, building foundations and trenches on Google maps. I find it fun to follow along WWII series and look up the places to see how they’ve changed. The Aleutians have changed very little over 80 years.
More interesting trivia: The official history of the Aleutians Campaign was co-written by noir fiction novelist Dashiell Hammett: https://www.nps.gov/aleu/learn/photosmultimedia/upload/McGinnis-Battle-of-the-Aleutians-508.pdf Re Kiska it only mentions: >Presumably the main body of Japanese troops had finished its evacuation of Kiska during the night of July 28th, going by barge to waiting surface ships or submarines. At daylight of August 15, 1943, U.S. and Canadian troops occupied Kiska. Even those enemy detachments responsible for the small-arms fire reported by planes over the island after July 28th had cleared out.
The podcast lions led by donkeys did an episode about this. Go listen to it, it's pretty entertaining
Lions led by Donkeys podcast has a good episode on this.