Governor Bill Walker has declared June 3rd to be recognized as Dutch Harbor Remembrance Day. Statewide all flags will fly at half-mast to recognize Japan’s World War II attack on Dutch Harbor.
The 1942 bombing was the first hostile action on Alaskan soil; twenty-five
service men were killed.
Later on, Dutch Harbor was attacked again as well as the communities of
Adak, Kiska, and Attu.
In response to the June 3rd strike, the United States uprooted Unangan
people and sent them to internment camps in Southeast Alaska where they
suffered from disease and malnutrition.
Governor Walker hopes Dutch Harbor Remembrance Day will honor the military
who served and died defending the United States, and the Aleut people who
died while interned.
Zoe Sobel is a reporter with Alaska's Energy Desk based in Unalaska. As a high schooler in Portland, Maine, Zoë Sobel got her first taste of public radio at NPR’s easternmost station. From there, she moved to Boston where she studied at Wellesley College and worked at WBUR, covering sports for Only A Game and the trial of convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
