The Cultural Landscape of the World War II Battlefield of Kiska, Aleutian Islands

Spennemann, Dirk

This document, "The Cultural Landscape of the World War II Battlefield of Kiska, Aleutian Islands," aims to assess the nature and values of the cultural landscape of the Kiska World War II battlefield and to report on the findings of a cultural landscape survey conducted in June 2009. The study provides an assessment of the cultural landscape based on a comparison of the historic context with the actual remains encountered on the ground. In June 1942, the Japanese attacked the Aleutian Islands of Alaska as part of a major strategic offensive in the Pacific. While they fell short of achieving the main objective of destroying U.S. carriers and establishing a seaplane base on Midway Atoll, the Aleutian aspect of the operation succeeded. The Japanese established two bases, one on Attu and one on Kiska, located at the western end of the chain. Kiska became the better developed of the two, serving as a base for seaplane and midget submarine patrols. For over a year, the island was subjected to regular aerial bombardment and occasional naval shelling by U.S. forces in attempts to dislodge the Japanese. Following the re-conquest of Attu by U.S. forces and the subsequent evacuation of the Japanese garrison of Kiska, U.S. and Canadian forces re-occupied Kiska unopposed in June of 1943. The U.S. forces developed a base on Kiska in order to deny the Japanese any opportunity of return, and also to be in position to potentially use Kiska as a staging point for further operations. That garrison was decommssioned in 1944 and the final U.S. troops withdrew in 1945, coinciding with the end of the war. The island has remained uninhabited since that time. In order to commemorate the significance of the battlefield to American history, a large part of Kiska was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1985. Kiska’s particular significance for its associations to World War II was more recently affirmed with its inclusion in the WWII Valor in the Pacific National Monument, designated in 2008. Today, the island exhibits extensive traces of the war effort, reflecting not only defensive and offensive aspects of conflict activity but also evidence of the Japanese and the U.S./Canadian base developments. This includes the phases of initial occupation, base expansion, strengthening the base, and then improving the infrastructure and defense system. The 2009 landscape survey and subsequent analysis identified a range of tangible landscape patterns that exemplify the Battle for Kiska, depicting the nature of a twentieth-century battlefield on which a majority of the engagement occurred between attacking U.S. bombers and fighter planes and the Japanese trying to fend off these attacks with anti-aircraft fire and seaplane fighters. A number of features from the Japanese occupation remain, such as shrines, tent and barracks bases, submarine wrecks, gun batteries, shelters, and telephone lines. Some initial features were reused or improved by U.S. forces, including utility poles, roads, and airfields. Still other elements of the landscape are associated primarily with U.S./Canadian occupation. These remains and landscape patterns are extremely well preserved due to the relative isolation of the island, as Kiska had been essentially uninhabited for over a century before the outbreak of World War II and has functioned as an uninhabited wildlife refuge since the war. Kiska forms a cultural landscape with a high level of integrity that is arguably unique on a global scale, continuing to demonstrate the particulars of this region’s conflict as well as wider trends in military strategy that were employed during World War II.

The Cultural Landscape of the World War II Battlefield of Kiska, Aleutian Islands

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