Aleutian World War II Evacuation

Aleutian World War II Evacuation

“Reparations helped ease the pain, but were too little too late,” according to Harriet Hope of Unalaska, Harriet was 5 when her family was evacuated. It has been 70+ years since the Aleut people were forced to leave their homes by evacuation during World War II. The Aleutian Islands are a string of some 200+ islands along Southwest Alaska that come out into the Pacific Ocean. Also referred to as “Unangan”, the Aleut People are closely related to the Eskimo in language and culture. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the earliest people in this region, the Paleo-Aleuts arrived in the Aleutian Islands from the Alaskan mainland around 2000 B.C. Native Aleuts were exploited to Russian explorers and traders in

the mid 1700s. New World Encyclopedia writes that within 50 years of Russian contact, the population of the Aleuts was 12,000-15,000 people; at the end of the twentieth century, it was 2,000. Eighty percent of the Aleut population were killed through European violence and disease, both of which they had no defense for. There were 880 Aleuts interned in United States camps during World War II along with a short number that were captured by the Japanese. The evacuation of the Aleuts is often described as a “grave injustice”, discussed in further detail will be: why the Aleuts were evacuated, what was life like during evacuation, and the Aleut people today. These are a people that faced many life changing events struggles as they were taken from their homes and taken from the life they knew.
To begin, Aleut people’s evacuation in 1942 is the effect of the Japanese invasion of the Alaskan homeland in that time. On November 28th, 1941, the U.S. War Department was warned by the Army of intelligence that Japanese attack of Alaska was near. In December of 1941, the U.S. declared war on Japan after the attacks on Pearl Harbor. By April of 1942, some forty thousand troops were stationed in Alaska. The Japan bombing of Dutch Harbor Naval Air Station in Alaska was the determining factor that led the U.S. to evacuate the some 800 Unangan to southeast Alaska, a location nearly 1,500 miles from their home. The population was placed on a military transport boat called the Delaroff, they were given one hour to pack and could typically only bring one suitcase. The 800 or so Aleuts from both St. George and St. Paul had no idea why they were leaving their home, where they were going, or how long they would be there. Terenty Merculief talks about the ship ride to the camps, “During the trip, people got very sick and many lives were lost. The people who died at sea were given proper rites, and then we were ordered to throw their bodies overboard.”
The Aleutian people were herded from their homes to be held in old southeast Alaskan fish canneries, an American plan that killed 10% of Aleuts and scarred and injured the rest. “In 1942, my wife and our four children were whipped away from our home…all our possessions were left…for mother nature to destroy…I tried to pretend it was really a dream and this could not happen to me and my dear family.”, said Bill Tcheripanoff, Sr., of Akutan. The Aleuts were shoved into cramped transport ships, usually only allowed a single suitcase. According to the National Park Service, the villagers watched as U.S. servicemen set their homes and churches afire as to not let them fall into Japanese hands. They were places in the canneries, a herring saltery, and gold mine camp-rotting facilities with no plumbing, electricity, or toilets. Pneumonia and tuberculosis took the young and old. 32 died at Funter Bay Camp, 17 at Killisnoo, 20 at Ward Lake, and 5 at Burnett Inlet. “The overcrowded conditions were an abomination. There were 28 of us forced to live in one, designated 15’x20’ house. There existed no church, no school, no medical facility, no store, no community facility, no skiffs or dories, no fishing gear and no hunting rifles. We had to abandon our heirlooms and pets even before the evacuation.”, said Philemon M. Tutiakoff of Unalaska.
Last, life after for the Aleut People never went back to what it was.

Those who were unaware of the destruction of their homes and churches came back to witness just that. Few people knew of the internment camps given to the Aleuts other than the survivors until some began remembering the tragedy of their camps and began asking the government for compensation. Still it remains today that many are unaware of what happened to the Aleut people. By 1982, the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians investigated the five Aleut camps in Alaska and stated government “indifference” of “deplorable conditions”. The group reported crowding, rotting buildings, lack of furniture, no clean and running water, no electricity, no medical care, and no government supervision. Congress authorized reparations to the Aleuts in 1988 along with Japanese-Americans and stated a formal apology. Aleut survivors received $12,000, and a $5-million trust fund was set up under the Interior Department to help them and their descendants. Another $1.4 million went to restoring churches in six villages. Aleut Corp., a native regional corporation in Anchorage, was given $15 million as compensation for Attu Island, the island occupied by the military which also remains closed to its former inhabitants. Harriet Hope, who was mentioned before, stated, “The people who really deserved any kind of recognition for the hell they were put through are gone now, like my parents.” Hope also made claims that her parents never

complained.
As a result, the Aleut people, who had nothing to do with World War II, were forced out of their peaceful lives in the Aleutian Islands into a place of struggle and death which scarred their history for years to come. Why the Aleuts were evacuated, how life was during internment, and life of the Aleuts now all are something that go into effect when looking into the harsh and broken internment of the Aleutian people.