On may 11, 1943, about 12,500 u. S. Soldiers landed on atule island, alaska to force out a Japanese Army that had occupied the area for almost a year. Fought in the harsh climate and terrain the battle of at t u as one of the blood attu. Next, journalist mark tells the story of experiences of a japanese medic and an american officer in his book the storm on our shores, one island, two soldiers, and the forgotten attle of world war ii. He started his career working for the miami herald and after a year or so came to denver as a reporter for the denver post. He was the lead writer for the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for the denver post for covering the tragic column bine in april 2005. He had been covering the political scene for the post on candidates running for senate and other environmental stories and things get pretty ugly with ome of those things. He was exhausted from working the graveyard shift when a colleague suggested he write a feature story for a notable retiring law professor at the university of denver dr. Thompson marsh who was an avid orntholings. Mark himself had always been interested in birds but it was the birders that fascinated him. Thus he wrote a book about the people who had the time and where withal to spend a year tracking down citings of rare birds. This book titled the big year was turned into a movie starring steve martin, jack black, and owen wilson. I think the idea of that kind of quest was something that many people try but few succeed. The inspiration for his second book, halfway to heaven. A personal determination to climb all of the 54 of colorados 14ers. I heard mark being interviewed on pbs about that book and was impressed that he had promised his wife that he would not go climbing alone. So he turned to the internet to get climbing partners. They had two little boys at the time and that soothed her feelings, and he succeeded his quest and the adventure turned into his second book which won the National Outdoor book award for outdoor literature and winner ofert National Press club for environmental journalism. If you were watching 60 minutes on sunday last april 7, you would have had a glimpse of marks latest book, a storm on our shores. A tale of face to face conflict in the midst of our countrys earliest and most horrific battles in world war ii. One last thing. I asked mark if theres anything else he would like me to tell you. He said, yeah. Tell them im thinner than i look. [applause] thank you. Thanks for coming. What a terrific crowd. I really appreciate it. We live not far from here and ive driven by many times but the first time ive been nside. Usually i rely on our teen aged sons for electronics. Im at a loss today. Anyway, thanks for coming. I appreciate it. So as joan mentioned about 15 years ago i was working on my first book which was about competitive bird watching, of all things. They made it into a movie starring jack black, steve martin, and owen wilson. When i was researching that book, i learned about an island attu, maybe if you do crossword puzzles youve heard of it, otherwise, most people really havent. Attu is the western most point of alaska, of the alution chain. It is out there. It is so far west they actually curve the International Dateline to keep it on the same calendar page. Its farther west than fiji, about the same long tude as new zealand. For a time, it was the greatest place in north america to see rare species of birds. So when i was investigating the history of this island, i looked and saw that in world war ii, the japanese had invaded and conquered it. The u. S. Lost part of alaska during world war ii, i didnt know that. The first soil, first u. S. Soil lost since the war of 1812, didnt know that either. The first the only ground battle of world war ii that was fought on north american soil. I learned that the battle was especially brutal. It had a casualty rate that was exceeded in the pacific war only at iwo jima. Now, i took history classes. How come i never knew about this . I didnt know. Still, im not a military historian, im a journalist. Im interested in the stories of people. But when i found out there were two men who had fought each other on attu, one was an aplatchen coal miner and american war hero, and the other was a surgeon from japan who fought against his will. I learned that those two families had spent almost 40 years trying to find each other after the battle. In an attempt at reconciliation, and i was hooked. It took me a long time to try to piece together the story. I spent a lot of time in a windowless room in anchorage at the air force base, national archives, college park, maryland, College Libraries in atlanta and oregon, denver. I talked to people in california, families in arizona, in new mexico, ohio, pennsylvania. Finally, the story began to come together and ultimately for me a big deal was that i actually got to camp on one of the most spectacular places on our planet, attu island itself, which is uninhabited. Ill tell you more about that and show you some pictures. But ultimately it all came together in my book, the storm on our shores. Ill read you the beginning to give you some flavor. Warren davis was confused. In the living room of her house, to the fidgetty old man but she did not know what the visitor wanted. He talked about his grown children, he talks about his arizona retirement, and he talked on and on about his beloved orchids and their beauty, fragility, and rewards. Davis had little patience for ideyolchit chat, for exotic flowers. She was an intensive care nurse with her twins, mom, and rocky marriage. She tried to be polite but really wasnt it time for this guy to go . Finally, it was. As she walked the man outside to his car, he paused and wheeled around. By the way, he told her, im the one who killed your father. Laura reeled. Was this some kind of a sick joke, by the way . What kind of talk was that . So casual yet so devastating. With his black framed glasses and shock of white hair the visitor looked like a grandfather not some demeanted prankster. He seemed nervous, too. His face was ashen and grim. Before laura could ask a question the man dropped into his drivers seat, checked his rear view mirror and drove away. He left laura so stunned that she felt dizzy. She had been through a lot in her life, crushing childhood poverty, a lifechanging move from japan to the United States, the birth of her beloved children. But she always had one deep hole in her life. She never met her father. He died when laura was a baby, before she had babbled even her first words. The little she knew came almost entirely from her mother who wasnt saying much. Lauras been too busy raising her own family to spend time researching the past of a man who existed only as framed photographs on a family wall. With a few brief words uttered in front of a house in california the lives of laura and her visitor were changed forever. Laura would spend the next years scrambling to uncover her familys past. The visitor would struggle to overcome his own past. They would each learn about honor and courage, anger and forgiveness, the duty of a man to serve his country even if the result was a pain that would not go away. It would become enmeshed in a military battle long forgotten and a mizzral islands far from civilization, a place that claimed thousands of lives but ultimately yielded no prize for its conquerers. Dave davis and the visitor would discover the secrets that the had ruined lives and the truth that is had helped to heal them. It wound filed fathers who soared with joy and others who sholdrd burdens that zpwrue unbearable. They would learn about scars that could heal only through attonement. At the center of all these revelations would be the diary in his last 18 days on earth when lauras father was doomed and knew it, he had written a diary. His final fair well to a family he had just started and the daughter he had never met. That diary had been recovered by the stranger at lauras door. It had been passed around to thousands of u. S. Servicemen. How the diary would change hands and change the hearts of so many who read it would be the greatest lesson of all to laura. So thats how it starts. It goes on. [applause] so here he is, dick lared. Born and raised poor, really dirt poor, in aplatcha. By the time he was six years old i think his family had moved ten times to different coal towns in pennsylvania, west virginia, ohio. He loved school but was forced to drop out at age 14 in the depths of the Great Depression to help support his family. An he age of 16, he was explosives expert underground in a coal mine in ohio. Now, all around him coal mining in the depression was really dangerous work. He was made to feel grateful to have it. But his friends were getting hurt, maimed, his neighbors were getting killed. He himself was in a number of eally tough accidents and so he saw that his coal mining life at aplatcha, he wanted something better. And what was a safer alternative . U. S. Army. He signed up, and on leave one day he met the love of his life, rose, who i think is probably fair to say i think both would say that they fell in lust before they fell in love. They had a child before they were married, which was really something in those days. I am really so grateful not families who are so candid and opened up their family chests with just so many letters and diaries, and photographs, and were just so honest and sincere about their own lives. Heres a guy who kind of got me started on this story. Paul, born and raised in hiroshima, a devout Seventh Day Adventist who for college moved from his native japan to attend school in the napa valley of california. That was for undergrads, for medical school he went to loama Linda University east of los angeles and was a did his residency as a surgeon when he was a doctor at white Memorial Hospital in los angeles. Paul was america. He loved the freedom and the wander lust, he loved ice cream and the big buildings. He loved the notion of a nation that rewarded risk instead of encouraged conformity. Paul loved america so mitch that his girlfriend so much that his girlfriend came over from japan. He proposed to her at Yosemite National park. They married in los angeles, and set off on one of the first Greyhound Bus tours from los angeles to, on heir honeymoon, to nigera falls. What more american thing can you do for that generation but honey moon in nigera falls. When they returned there was a tell gram waiting for them that while youre off your parents died, your brother panicked, and nobody can really explain this but his brother panicked and sold one of his sisters into a brothel in china. So the newlyweds, rushed back home to japan to buy his sister ut of a brothel. While in japan, apparel harbor happens. Pearl harbor happens. Paul is drafted against his will to fight the country he loves. Hes a conflicted man. He is a devout Seventh Day Adventist who is morally opposed to war. He is a pass fist and yet he is called to serve his home country. What does he do . Well, in his mind he justifies this by saying that as a surgeon he is here to heal and not to fight. But still, his countrymen are really suspicious of him. Paul has fallen in love with america and it shows. He speaks fluent english, he wears american style wrist watches, glasses, and he is also christian in a buddhist country. There are a lot of suspicions that he is a spy. He is never actually fully trusted. Best i can tell he is the only surgeon inducted into the Imperial Army who was never given the rank of officer. What do you do qua guy you dont quite trust . Send him to the middle of nowhere. Attu. There it is at the top of the screen. Now, attu is a place that looks like a good military target, maybe if you are a general sitting in a Comfortable Office in tokyo. Nobody who has ever been to attu thinks this is a good place to conduct military operations. The thinking by the japanese is that if you take attu you can island hop, maybe get on the mainland come down the west coast of the United States. Also, it might serve as a place for the real game, the big naval fight at midway. You can see between hawaii and attu on that map. But the reality on the ground is rough. It is it has some of the worst weather on earth. There are only eight days a year that are free of rain, snow, sleet or ice or fog. It is at the current, it is at if confluence of the colder berg sea and the warmer currents from the pacific ocean. When they mix, it creates just this crazy weather phenomenon. I experienced it myself firsthand. The mix of the hot and the cold creates these spontaneous unpredictable hurricaneforce winds, 80 mile an hour winds, 100 mile an hour winds, that knock you off your feet. It is a really bad place to build an air base. Thats only if you can see. The fog on attu i was there, there were times you could reach your hand out and not see it. Thats how dense it would be from this mix of hot and cold. But the japanese decided that this was where they were headed d almost six months to the day after the attack on pearl harbor the japanese came and claimed this great military prize of attu island. You can see the church to the left, school house to the right. There were its a volume canic island, mountains 3,000 feet high. Volume kanic mountains 3,000 feet high. Ice up top, incredible mud, snow melt, precipitation. Heer is the prize. Along with uts live a School Teacher and her husband. Japan sent a garrison of more than 2,000 men to invade and claim this island. They could have taken this island with a bull horn. Thai did not need a gun. But they had it. There it is, first time the flag is a foreign power is raised over u. S. Soil since the war of 1812, and they were prepared for it. The japanese had trained on some of their iletnds. They also have big snowfall, they were ready for the elements, as well see later, the u. S. Was not. The japanese were very smart, very strategic, very shrewd fighters. June of 19 was in 42. The u. S. Looked at attu and said, you want this island with some of the worst weather on earth . You can have it for the winter. And they did. They let them have it for the winter. Ut then in may of 1943, they came back. They came back to claim it. Here are some photos, some still photos from the battle itself. Trn tu itself in attu itself in may reminded me of the high countries in mud season. This muck prevented u. S. Troops from moving equipment inland. They couldnt get much mechanized gear in. So they did have to doman to man passthroughs of supplies. At one point dick, the u. S. Serviceman, he and the fellow soldiers had just run out of food. They had no food. They couldnt get inland, theyre waging war with a ferocious enemy. So what he did is crawled on his belly to a creek and caught a trout by hand. He lived on that. The terrain on attu was challenging to say the least. Made even worse by the fact that the u. S. Troops, all their training had been in the mow hauf desert of california. They were expecting and planning to fight the nazi field marshall in the sands, the desert sands of north africa when general decided to redeploy them to alaska. They sent many u. S. Troops wearing desert gear. One of the biggest problems was boots. As you can see when you do these traverses across places like fimb hook ridge, one misstep would cost you your life. Meanwhile, japanese are fortified in the high lands shooting down at them. So u. S. Troops had been told this might take three days against the garrison of about 3,000 japanese men. Almost three weeks later theyre still fighting. The japanese were really smart. Although well, the japanese who remained on the island were really smart. An amazing thing was they were a garrison of 3,000 men who were abandoned by their country. They never came for a rescue. The island was blockaded, surrounded by u. S. Troops, and the japanese government simply gave up on them. This turned into kind of the Japanese Version of the alamo. So the japanese decided not to fight the americans on the beaches. They holed up in the highlands, and with fog and clouds, lifting, you could see the clouds in this picture they would go up and down the mountains based on where the fog was and be on the edge. So u. S. Troops stuck in the mud below never knew who was shooting at them. They described that they said it was like trying to shoot birds out of clouds. With the elements, with the desert boots, dozens, hundreds actually thousands of men ended up with weatherrelated casualties. Many, many people had amputated toes, amputated feet. Hands. From just standing around in the muck all day. So they would try to massage each others feet back to life but this was just terrain that they had no experience fighting on. T was it was assault. Awful. While this happened, paul was a surgeon. He started writing a diary that documented what its like to be on the receiving end of the most fearsome military in the history of our planet. He was hold up in a cave and doing surgeries and getting shelled. He was suitering up a patient and the doctor next to him was hit by shrapnel and killed. He was performing amputations, and having to duck because of. S. Bombs. Writes this and it is moving. It is kind of in a doctors tone. Ts factual. And what happens then after 18 days of fighting, well passed the threeday stint that u. S. Troops thought they would be in for, the japanese are desperate. Theyre down to maybe only about 500 men 500 men. The commander grabs the troops together. They decide to mount a last final bonsai attack. Here is something outside, goes outside of the tent. A squad of eight japanese soldiers has cap shared captured. Turning it back on the americans themselves. This could change the course of the battle. Throws the grenade. Not all eight japanese soldiers are dead. Hes looking for any kind of. Lues, any kind of hint he starts ransacking materials. They find an address book. It is full of names and addresses from california. The bible has a handwritten verse inscribed in the cup in the cover. And this paper is handwritten in japanese. There was hoping it was an Intelligence Report that reveals key japanese strategy. What comes back is not military intelligence but something even more powerful. All the trading for u. S. Troops had been japanese soldiers would fight to the death. Ruthless, savage, heartless killing machines. Paul is a daughter has a because he never met shipped out when his wife was pregnant. He has nightmares, he has become convinced he has killed the wrong guy. He is awarded the silver star for bravery. He is given that for courage, for helping turn the course of battle. He did what his country asked him to and more. This diary changes Many American views of who the enemy was. Is it the soldier we were warned about in training camp. Ultimately they werent that efferent. Some of this you cannot make up. They look at the medical satchel and its a copy in english of grays anatomy. Soldier opens up the book and sees a name signed on the inside cover. Gives it to another doctor. He recognizes the name. Identifies the body of his medical school classmate. So he buries a lot of his friends. He goes on to fight some of the worst firefights in world war ii. Finally he has seen so much combat and so lucky to have survived he is released before. He end of the war cant shake the nightmares. He cant give up this feeling that he killed the wrong guy. A family, living in tucson. Working industrial sites across the southwest. Sony times his wife rose wakes up screaming. He goes and seeks out laura davis. Meet. Where they first knew whatre he really he wanted to do or say. He wanted to feel something. Him and evenn , who or as hard for laura knowned she had always her mother died, but never knew how he lived. In the process laura decides to go off on her own quest warned about the life learn about the life of her father. After a number of years decides its time. Laura is really scared of it feels like she wants to meet this guy. Meeting in tucson. Shes going to lunch with the man who killed her father. They go out to lunch and size each other up. Here is what i know about the , my country gave me ander star for what i did they part ways. Laura can see it is haunted. He is really broken in some ways. He cant escape the actions over the course of three weeks years ago. Aura goes home one of the most moving pieces of writing i have seen. She realizes she is the only one who can do this. She wishes peace. She realize it was war. Both men were courageous for their countries. She grants him peace and atonement. Hes a tough guy and he weeps. That night is the first time in years he sleeps without diapers. I always come back to this. We are a divided country today. Divided. S killed this womans father. They could figure it out. There is some inspiration for me. As aey can do better country, we can do it. It actually wasnt what i started, but i am grateful to the families. I think for me at least it has value today. Happy to answer any questions, thank you. [applause] when you ask a question, news the microphone. This is your chance. Was any of this information about the battle covered in any of the newspapers . Back on the mainland . The battle was a pretty shameful chapter in the history of both countries. Admit theill not even island was lost. It didnt have military or strategic import. Six months after pearl harbor the japanese were still gaining. There was no interest in the work department. Japanese abandoned a garrison of 300 men. I think there were 28 survivors. It was awful. Shameful. Rescued or attempted to rescue. The japanese probably know a little more about it because of a subsequent battle with a really outsmarted americans and evacuate thousands of japanese troops from another island in the fall while the u. S. Thought they had the island surrounded and blockaded. Turns out the u. S. Was firing its gunships at massive raft of seabirds. Out and theysneak have very few casualties. Nobody was anxious to talk about that. There, world war ii are so much focus on europe and germany and the nazis and the is much less. We now hear oshima, nagasaki. The japanese were smart fighters. And for the americans that were called to serve, it is staggering what they went through. My generation got off really easy. Its easy to read the letters and the diaries. Where the japanese ever evacuated when the americans ever left the island . In the japanese share resources to get people off the island . Battlejapanese after the , they had the code of the bush , which is death before dishonor. The few japanese taken as prisoners of war, the u. S. Interrogator startled because they said the japanese will tell them everything they knew. Japanese had no training on what to do if you are taken as a prisoner of war. It would be to shameful, they had humiliated themselves and their families. They were taken as prisoners as and sent to japan. I think only half survived. Be. As not a good place to there was no food for japanese, must much less the native values. For years the u. S. Set up as a station. Eople do ship navigation they tell you how to get around these days. Nobody landed a plane for two years. Most seismically in the globe. We went 500 miles away, that is the closest civilian we dont know if they could land, if the runway would crack. The pilot was under orders. The clouds had to be at 1000 feet and there only at 750. I salute that pilot. You said many soldiers read this diary. How is it distributed . It was the world war ii version of going viral. Sometimes soldiers would handwrite what they saw in the translated version of the diary. I think it was eight or 10 different versions of the diary. The big issue, the diary, was the big one, not only were there that havent versions been passed around. Lost. S. Government either or could not find some people think it was destroyed, the original version of the diary. All that survived was english translations. He was a doctor and had a, of course, bad handwriting. Whats controversy about specific passages say. I spent a lot of Research Time and parts of the book discerning what different interpretations are. This is an overwhelming story. If it would be too personal, i would like to ask you, was there a moment of spirituality in this that struck you . Yes, i learned a lot of things through this. Ive covered a lot of murders. A lot of times in journalism you cover people with titles. Mayor that or general this. Storytruck me about this was these were ordinary people doing extraordinary things. There was no one instagramming a reunion. They were humans with big hearts. Laura was religious. Ultimately, they ended up exchanging christmas cards. One of her twins was going to college at the university of arizona tucson. Up on the guyk who killed her father. That gave me kind of hope with in resolve and resilience the heart of regular americans. Husband wass stationed and i laughed in alaska. He shared some of the stories because we had no idea. He said there were some planes that went down on reconnaissance and didnt come back. We dont know if it was weatherrelated or the japanese. Flying over volcanic islands. When the u. S. Came to invade, thewere relying on ground maps were trapped by russian for trap for trappers. The cradle of storms, where weather is born. Law. An unknown you send them on a mission to fly in fog like that. This was an extraordinary story. You talked about 11,000 americans. How many of them survived . American death toll was 549. What was crippling was the casualty rate, which is worked out to everyone hundred japanese weree island, 71 americans killed and casualties. If a man was wounded or got hurt, it would require eight people to haul him back. I think in some ways the japanese adopted a strategy. That would sap the American Force even more. Of the casualties were rather related weatherrelated. The u. S. Generals, if the Imperial Army generals looked at that map and thought it was quite a good place to fight, the american generals thought it would be an easy thing to take back. For a threeday battle you have the island completely surrounded , enemies are unable to restock or resupply. If you look into the logistics and how the battle was waged, there are lessons to learn, but mostly cautionary tales. Will you share some of your process . How do you know when you have a story it will be a book . How do you balance the Extensive Research . This book was tricky for me. I started looking into the battle. I had a number of different threats for the battle. They had families that met each other afterward. Me. s a crazy thing to we spent a lot of time talking. Where are these comparable stories for afghanistan . This generation in some ways it was difficult and in some ways i was lucky. People didnt instagram their fights back then. Its just a lot more public than that generation. Talk of people try to about what combat was like. They wouldomething like to talk about much in the hall. They did write letters home to their sweethearts. To be able to document so much. Of japan andmise a reallyd found compelling story. I want to thank you for an incredibly inspiring morning. I agree, we can do better. What is the next book going to do to help us . Im always open, hit me up. I did not seek this, nobody pitched this to me. Really persuaded me that there are so many Great Stories that nobody has to do things not because of recognition but because they are good people. You didnt say anything about the japanese wife of the doctor. What happened to her . Did she know the story . She thought she had signed on to she thought she had signed on to be a doctors wife. She was a widow with two very young daughters being shelled every night in japan. Daughters fromer city to city in wartime japan. Parents were in and he had no idea what happened to his soninlaw or daughter. Aikor the war was over, tai found her parents. Theook many months for congregation in honolulu to raise money. They were reunited in honolulu. For a long time, it was a big deal. It was like well blubber soup. Whale blubber soup. And laura became a u. S. Citizen. I met taiaiko a few months before she died. She had been living in l. A. She had survived so much with her daughters. They both came from really nothing. They ended up as nurses. Taiaiko gave her life up for her daughters. I have the microphone, but you answered my question already. Hank you so much it was a wonderful presentation. Mark, do have plans to work in japan itself . Yes. Yes. I dont know 10 countries. I hope that this one goes as. Ell what we called world war ii, it is the pacific war. We have a different view of what is taught in japanese schools. Did she ever sees the document her father wrote . yes, laura did see the document her father wrote, not the original. One of the great things with last name like hers is people can find you. , they would mail their copy of the diary to laura and laura met many u. S. Vets that way. Did that happen later then . Yes, it was in the 50s. Thank you. How did the layered family handle this situation . We heard some much about the takaguchi family. How about the laird family . Takaguchis . Race the bert laird. Takaguchis lost their family. I do not know how to say it really. He was kind of a stoic guy who was not a on emotions or not. Articularly eloquent he was sturdy and hardworking and clearly saw a right and wrong. He was not a speech giver. His family, i think healing,lairds own that only he could do it. They could not help him so much. Thing. Hard he is a decorated hero. For one of the greatest things he did in his life, he had great parents. How he handled that would you want to talk to your kids about that . It. Alked to his wife about we talk about now. Feelings more i was nine years old when pearl harbor happened. I have a lot of memories of inwing up in a small town michigan during the war. I have one memory that occurred that is as clear in my mind today as it was back when it happened. I was in school, and one of the teachers brought a note in and handed it to the teacher and she walked to the desk and i thought, my god, i am in trouble. Standingipal was outside. He said, you have got to go to the train station right now. I got my bicycle and i started riding towards the train station and i realized there was an train. Ly long passenger finally got there i saw my mother and my dad and my sister my uncle bob Standing Bear at the train station. My mom said, what is going on in . He said, uncle bob is going to the army. He had just graduated from high school. Had never been out of our little hometown, had never been out of the town, let alone the state and he was getting on the train. The strange thing about the days, allk in those the windows were open and in every window there is a young boy hanging out of the window. So my uncle bob got all of these young boys and went to someplace they did not know just out of high school. And bob never did come back. Boysnt, like all the other to the swamps of louisiana to train to go to war in new guinea and uncle bob, wrote me a letter one time i still have it. He wrote it from the hospital in, i think, australia. It was one of those censored letters. He did not tell you. He said he was probably going to have to go back to new guinea in the war and he did and bob was enough, you were talking about oddly enough, you were talking about how he was killed in the landing in new it,ea, but the. Thing about. T was one of these young boys the train was coming along, scraping them up. They did not know if they were coming back. Actuallyed us all of world war ii was fought by young boys. Battle you can think up, they were young boys. It strikes her memory. Thank you. Thank you. [applause] i have a question. Ou talked about the diary didnt talk about the entries in the diary. Well, you can read the book. [laughter] is one ofneral, this the only surviving accounts of in the American Military and what it was like to be doomed. If you got commander saying this fewt, were going out in a hours, what you going to do . You write to your wife. Youre going to write to the daughter you never met. We ask a lot of these boys. You talked about visiting attu and no one was living on the island. What happened to the native people will who were there you go who were there . Mark yeah, we didnt learn our. Esson kind of epic did all the is it did all of the natives from the Aleutian Islands and we resettled them in places like anchorage, seattle, and in many cases they were never allowed to return to their home islands. And we have a culture was destroyed. In some cases, devalued. Reclaim whatng to for them together, but attu example, allie its aleuts again. Ived on attu it is a spectacular place when the weather is ok. [laughter] rk ok . I am grateful. Thanks so much. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] you are watching American History tv all weekend, every weekend and cspan3 on cspan3. The United States purchased alaska from the russian empire for sunday two point million dollars. After the attack on pearl harbor in 1941, the territory became strategically vital because of its close proximity to japan. America, reel aleutians, ahe 1943 War Department film. Directed and narrated by john huston, the documentary tells the story of the early stages of the Aleutian Islands campaign during world war ii and depicts the harsh weather and Living Conditions faced by u. S. Forces. Narrator