When Americans picture the Pacific War, they usually imagine palm trees and jungle heat. But in 1942–43, World War II came to the frozen edge of Alaska. On the remote Aleutian Islands of Attu Island and Kiska Island, U.S. and Japanese forces fought a brutal campaign of fog, wind, snow, and rock, the only land battle of World War II fought on American soil.

Join the Veterans Breakfast Club for a virtual conversation with Allen Frazier, Military.com journalist and historian, whose deeply researched article brings this overlooked campaign into sharp focus. Drawing on military records and human stories, Frazier recounts how more than 15,000 American troops battled not only entrenched Japanese defenders, but exposure, frostbite, and terrain so unforgiving that weather claimed more casualties than enemy fire.

This conversation will explore:

The Japanese attacks on Dutch Harbor and the occupation of Attu and Kiska

Operation Landcrab and the savage 18-day fight to retake Attu

The role of “Castner’s Cutthroats,” Alaska Native scouts crucial to the campaign

Acts of heroism, including Private Joe Martinez’s Medal of Honor charge

The final banzai assault on Attu—and its devastating cost

The bloodless but deadly Allied landing on evacuated Kiska

The forgotten civilian story: the Unangax̂ (Aleut) people, whose village was destroyed and whose culture was nearly erased

Frazier also confronts the moral weight of the campaign: the forced relocation of Aleut civilians, the deaths of Attuan villagers in Japanese captivity, and the fact that survivors were never allowed to return home. The Battle for Alaska secured U.S. territory, but at an immense human cost that still echoes today.

As always, VBC’s livestream will invite reflection, questions, and conversation. This is a chance to revisit a chapter of World War II that is both uniquely American and too often forgotten.