DEAN SENSUI / DSENSUI@STARBULLETIN.COM Retired Col. Red Miller takes a look at a memorial for the attack on Dutch Harbor prior to the official unveiling this morning. This memorial, and another one next to it, will be unveiled during a special ceremony at the National Memorial of the Pacific at Punchbowl.

Ceremony to recall
deeds in ‘forgotten’
WWII battles

291 U.S. airmen were imprisoned
while trying to take back
the Aleutian Islands

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By Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.com

Retired Air Force Col. A.T. "Red" Miller refers to the air campaign in the Aleutians and the imprisonment of 291 American airmen in Siberia as "the forgotten battles of World War II."

The Kailua resident said that he was told then that he could never reveal what he had done.

"If we said anything about what had happened," said Miller, 83, "we were told we would be shot."

The activities of these World War II aviators remained classified until the mid-1980s.

This morning at 10 a.m. at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, two gray granite memorial stones will be dedicated. One honors the 11th Air Force Association, whose members were part of the 11th Army Air Force, which conducted the campaign to retake the Aleutians. The second stone will recognize Americans Home from Siberia, World War II air crews who were held as prisoners in Siberia by the Soviets.

Over the past six decades, the victory at Midway has been honored and celebrated as the turning point of the Pacific war after Naval Intelligence broke the Japanese codes. But little, if anything, was said about the battles fought thousands of miles north.

Until the Soviet Union declared war on Japan in 1945 after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the relationship between the United States and the Soviets was strained because Japan and the Soviets had signed a neutrality pact in April 1941.

According to international law, the Soviet Union was a neutral country and was obliged to intern personnel of warring nations if they were within the control of Soviet armed forces.

Thirty-six American air crews from nine B-24 Liberator heavy bombers, 12 B-25 Mitchell medium bombers, 10 PV patrol bombers and four B-29 Superfortress very heavy bombers fell into that category. They had sought refuge at the Soviet base at Petropavlosk on the Kamchatka peninsula because of battle damage or weather conditions, but ended up being held virtually as prisoners of war.

It started with the famous Doolittle Raiders. One crew landed north of Valdivoltok instead of China after bombing Tokyo in 1942 and were instantly interned. Over the next three years, 36 other crews, a total of 291 Americans, met the same fate.

With the exception of four B-29 crews of the 29th Air Force, these airmen were members of the old Army Air Corps and Navy Air Wing 4 from the Aleutian Islands. They were flying missions against the Japanese Kuril Islands.

The story of the Aleutians began 60 years ago today in the early morning hours of June 3, 1942, when a Japanese naval task force attacked the U.S. base at Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island in the Aleutian chain. The Japanese attack, led by two aircraft carriers, was meant to divert the Pacific Fleet's attention from the southwest Pacific and the Midway offensive.

But the United States countered the attack, forcing the Japanese to withdraw to the western Aleutians. By June 6, U.S. Army and naval forces were able to attack and occupy Attu and Kiska islands.

The 11th Army Air Force provided the principal air offensive to retake the islands, the only U.S. territory ever captured and occupied by an enemy, Miller said. After a yearlong buildup of ground, air and naval forces, the United States was able to land on Attu and retake it in April 1943. A force landed on Kiska in July, but the enemy forces had been evacuated.

That battle was followed by an air campaign against Japanese bases on Paramushiro, the northwestern-most Kuril island, from U.S. bases in the Aleutians.

But bad weather conditions and the long distances U.S. pilots had to fly took their toll, ending with 291 airmen being held in Siberia, Miller said.

Miller was a B-24 co-pilot and flew five missions over Kiska. Then, on Sept. 11, 1943, he ran into trouble.

"During my first mission over Paramushiro, we developed engine trouble," said Miller. "As instructed, we landed in Siberia and were taken into custody by the Russians."

"There were 60 of us -- two B-24 crews and five from B-25s. They collected us together and flew us by an old C-47 to Tashkent, which is now part of Uzbekistan."

Miller said the airmen were held together in four groups as the Russians worked on a plan to return them to the United States. His secured compound was an old school house in Vrevskaya.

In February 1944, 60 airmen in his group were rounded up and loaded onto six trucks. "Forty-four hours later, tired, dirty and hungry, we found ourselves in Tehran (Iran) and back in U.S. control."

Miller left the military after the end of World War II but re-enlisted before the Korean War, switching to fighters and working in the intelligence field until he retired here in 1972.

The survivors of the ordeal have formed an organization known as the Americans Home from Siberia and are a part of the 11th Air Force Association.

Miller estimates membership of the Americans Home from Siberia now numbers about 50.

On October 2, 1992, the secretary of the Air Force acknowledged and honored this unique group of WWII veterans by awarding them the POW medal.