Alaska: Saga of a Bold Land

by Walter R. Borneman

As this second wave of Japanese aircraft was halfway to its target, Admirals Hosogaya and Kakuta both received urgent messages from Admiral Yamamoto that they should break off the entire attack on the Aleutians and steam south to support the main Japanese fleet off Midway. Kakuta had no choice but to wait and recover his planes, and by that time—despite reports that things had not gone well at Midway—Hosogaya had convinced Yamamoto that some face could be saved by continuing the Aleutian invasion. Yamamoto begrudgingly agreed, but Hosogaya chose to occupy only the western two islands of Attu and Kiska. He feared that Adak lay too close to the newly discovered airfield on Umnak—especially now that its pilots were done playing poker. So after the skies cleared of aircraft over Dutch Harbor on the evening of June 4, Kakuta’s carriers picked their way westward into the fog, having lost fifteen men and less than a dozen planes.33