Rating: 8.0/10.
Book about the battle of Attu of 1943 in the Aleutian Islands, focusing on the stories of two men who fought on opposite sides. The first part introduces Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi, a Japanese doctor who was a medical resident and studied in California in the 1930s, and his struggles to become culturally accepted during a period of widespread anti-Asian sentiment. His family faces financial difficulties, and his wife Taeko eventually returns to Japan, where he ends up getting drafted into the army as a doctor during the time that Japan is expanding into China and Indochina and is plugged into invading the Dutch East Indies. The next part tells the story of Dick Laird, raised in Ohio, who worked his teenage years in dangerous coal mines, enlisted in the army at the age of 17 in 1935, and got married to a girl called Rose before leaving for the war.
The war begins when the Japanese strike Pearl Harbor, and Nobuo is sent to Attu in a secret scheme, not even being allowed to tell his wife (except through coded messages such as alluding to possibly meeting his former classmates). This island is supposed to be a distraction to the Americans. The Japanese take Attu in 1942 and find just a handful of inhabitants and no military presence; they take prisoners and withdraw in a few weeks due to the difficulty of being stationed there, and the diversion turns out to be ineffective, as the Americans are victorious at Midway.
Meanwhile, America enters the war and sends a massive military invasion force to retake Attu, which was a major struggle for both sides due to the weather, mud, and equipment failures. The Japanese are vastly outnumbered, although they have better clothing for the cold weather, and they hold out on high ground and use fog to their advantage to attack the Americans without being seen. Initially expected to be just a few days for a quick victory, the Battle of Attu lasts over three weeks, and even though the Japanese are trapped with no reinforcements, they refuse to surrender and prefer suicide rather than surrender.
Faced with a desperate situation, the Japanese attempt a desperate and chaotic banzai charge in the middle of the night, managed to reach the supply lines, and kill some Americans, and during this time, Laird heroically kills a group of Japanese with a grenade and captures some diaries, and the rest of the Japanese commit suicide by grenade, and out of over 2000 Japanese, only a few dozen survive as prisoners. The diary that is captured is translated and circulated, and it is discovered to be from a soldier who was trained in America, shares the same religion, and is fluent in English.
Next, America takes Kiska after a few embarrassments, firing a large amount of ordinance at what turned out to be seabirds, and the Japanese evacuate Kiska under the fog, and the invading force invades the empty island a few weeks later and still loses some men to friendly fire and weather. After the Aleutians had been won, Laird is deployed to Hawaii and then goes to fight in Leyte Gulf and Okinawa, which turned out to be a brutal three-month grind to take the island, and he is finally sent home in 1945.
The final section of the book discusses the aftermath of the war. When Japan surrenders in 1945, Taeko struggles in the hardship period and learns about her husband’s death, but there are conflicting details where multiple translations of the diary into English differ, and the original had been lost somewhere. Laird also returns to civilian life, and Nobuo’s daughter Laura becomes a focal point representing her father, and she is visited by Laird, who reveals that he was the man who killed her father, coming out to her partially out of guilt of having killed a fellow American. Laura later attends and meets with many war veterans from the battle on both sides, and visits Attu, once an island being so remote and difficult to exist in, is abandoned in 2010.
Overall, this is a well-researched book at around 220 pages, and about the grueling realities of war and the human impact that it has on combatants and their families. It is focused entirely on these two main protagonists and doesn’t offer much analysis strategically about the campaign; some interesting parts are left out, like the power of the Japanese evacuated from Kiska. Overall, within the narrow topic, the book does a compelling telling of the story.
