Aleutians Campaign, The

Until the end of the Pacific War no one can make a conclusive statement of the objectives of the Japanese attack on the Aleutian Islands in June 1942. It is well known that the Japanese had long coveted Alaska and the Aleutians, and that many of their military leaders considered these poorly defended outposts the logical route for an invasion of North America. Whatever his primary motives, the crushing blow administered by our forces in the mid-Pacific drastically revised the strategic situation. The reasons why Japan clung thereafter to her footholds in the western Aleutians are obscure.