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. The enemy may have been planning the subsequent conquest of all the islands in order to obtain access to Canada and our northwestern states. He may even have aimed at an immediate invasion of Alaska, only to be deterred by our victory at Midway. 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.The enemy’s intentions may have been less ambitious, however. He may merely have planned to protect his northern flank, to divide our forces, and to complicate our defense of Hawaii and the West Coast after the expected capture of Midway.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. But it is probable that Attu and Kiska were either to provide jumping-off places for a future invasion, or to constitute advanced observation posts and defenses for the Empire. Perhaps both ends were envisaged. At all events, it was immediately clear that the occupation provided a continuing threat to our security. Even if this threat did not develop, any plans for seizing the offensive in the Central Pacific would be difficult to execute while the enemy maintained his flanking positions in the north. Furthermore, considering the war as a whole, every day that hostile troops remained on American soil was as beneficial to Japanese morale as it was deleterious to that of our own people.The situation was grave. Because of our commitments elsewhere, the means of quickly resolving it were far from adequate. As a result, the Japanese were ejected from the Aleutians only after 15 months of arduous operations which