Seventy Years Ago: WWII In The Pacific - Bombing Kiska August 12, 1943

ALASKA (Eleventh Air Force): From Adak B-24's and B-25's fly 26 bombing, strafing, and radar and photo reconnaissance sorties over Kiska. From Amchitka P-40's, P-38's, B-24's, B-25's, and A-24s fly 70 bombing sorties over the island and are joined by B-24's, P-40's, and F-5A's flying 6 reconnaissance and photo sorties. Targets included the runway, harbor and shipping installations, army barracks, and the Rose Hill area. Lost is B-24D 42-40309.

My friend Ray Rundle, a Navy Communications Technician expert in communications intelligence then stationed on Adak, told the Army there were no more Japanese troops on the island. The Army didn't believe him. Army pilots insisted that Japanese troops remained and had fired anti aircraft weapons against Army bombing missions.

In fact, the Japanese troops had evacuated the island under cover of fog on July 28, two weeks earlier.

When the US Army invasion force stormed ashore on August fifteenth, the invaders found three dogs. US Navy Chief of Naval Operations Earnest King reported to Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox that all they found were some dogs and freshly brewed coffee. When Knox questioned the report, King responded that Japanese dogs were very clever and knew how to make coffee.

Descendants of the Japanese dogs still lived on Adak when I was stationed there twenty years later. And Ray Rundle, who had been commissioned and promoted to the rank of Navy Lieutenant, had also returned to Adak.