Word: aleutians
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...some official quarters in Washington attempts were made to shrug off the obscure Jap moves in the Aleutians as feints or minor encroachments. But the U.S. had reason to worry. Kiska has not only a good harbor but some flat land for airfields. The busy little Japs were under cover of Aleutian fog, and probably building air and submarine bases, emplacing anti-aircraft guns, sneaking in shells, bombs and torpedoes. Apparently anticipating a Japanese move east to Atka Island and northeast to the Pribilof Islands, the Army announced the evacuation of 550 natives to southeastern Alaska...
...anti-Japanese forces would be able to exert full pressure. All the means whereby Japan marched south could be employed here for another march south, but against Tokyo." Expert Kiralfy sees the invasion of Hokkaido taking place not only from Sakhalin, but via the Kuril Islands, which continue the Aleutian chain. "American carrier planes and bombing squadrons based upon Kamchatka could participate in a move that would serve a double purpose. The seizure of the Kuriles would completely open the way for United Nations forces to flow into Manchuria and Karafuto. They would endanger the eastern horn of Hokkaido...
...outer supply routes of the world were athrong with ships, men and supplies : around the world's fat waist in the Indian Ocean and the south Pacific; around its chest in the Atlantic and north Pacific; around its neck above the Arctic Circle off Norway, in the Aleutian and Kuril Islands. The interior lines were jammed: jammed with soldiers moving up on German and Russian railroads and highways, jammed with little men slipping down the south China Sea and through the southern straits to the Indies and east toward India...
Attack from the North. Tonguing out from Alaska, 1,150 miles into the north Pacific toward Tokyo, lie the U.S. Aleutian Islands (see map, p. 17). The outermost U.S. base, Dutch Harbor, is 2,550 miles from Tokyo-well beyond effective bomber range. But the Aleutians stretch halfway to Japan's little-known naval base at Paramoshiri in the Kuriles, which means that they could be either targets for Japanese attack or U.S. steppingstones toward Japan. Heavily armed, carefully balanced striking forces might take off from Alaska and the Aleutians, perhaps get the use of Russia's naval...
...demanded second thoughts on basic war strategy. The possible shelling of Atlantic coastal towns would be bad enough, but Canadians, remembering Pearl Harbor, thought also of Dutch Harbor. If the Japanese hoped to protect themselves from the wrath to come, they would have to neutralize Alaska, from which the Aleutian Islands stretch west and south toward Russian air bases, a short bomber hop from Tokyo...