Draft:Aleut evacuation and internment

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During World War II, the United States military forcibly evacuated 674 native Aleuts to five internment camps in Southeast Alaska after the Japanese attack on Dutch Harbor and invasion of Attu and Kiska in the Aleutian Islands in June, 1942. Aleuts interned at these camps suffered from poor housing conditions, disease, a lack of potable water, and medical neglect; these terrible conditions resulted in the deaths of 1 in 10 Aleuts by the end of the internment in 1944–1945.

In 1988, Congress passed the Aleut Restitution Act of 1988 to provide some compensation for survivors' loss of personal property and suffering during the internment. Federal officials from the Fish and Wildlife Service formally apologized in 2017 for their role overseeing the evacuation and internment of Aleuts from the Pribilof Islands.

Evacuation of Aleuts after Japanese attack

Japanese invasion of the Aleutian Islands

Main article: Aleutian Islands Campaign

As part of a coordinated operation to capture Midway Island, a Japanese fleet arrived near the Aleutian Islands on June 2nd, 1942. Torpedo bombers dispatched from the Japanese carriers Jun'yō and Ryūjō attacked the military installations at Dutch Harbor on June 3rd and 4th. The second attack dealt considerable damage to oil storage tanks and the base's hospital. These aerial attacks, known as the Battle of Dutch Harbor, were the first every enemy air attacks on the continental United States.

On June 6th and 7th, Japanese forces landed on the islands of Kiska and Attu, respectfully. The occupation of these two islands marked the only invasions of North America during World War II and was the first time since 1815 that the continental United States was invaded (during the War of 1812). The Aleuts living on the island of Attu were not evacuated before this invasion; in September 1942, the Attu islanders were sent to an internment camp on the Japanese island of Hokkaido.

Evacuation and destruction of Aleutian villages

Atka

Immediately after the occupation of Attu and Kiska by Japanese forces, it was feared that the island of Atka and its Aleut village of 83 residents would be the next target of a Japanese strike. On June 12th, the seaplane tender USS Gillis dispatched crews to evacuate the villagers and to burn down Atka village to prevent it from falling into the hands of Japanese forces. Most villagers were seeking refuge from potential Japanese air attacks at scattered fishing camps when the crew evacuated the village for demolition; by the time the villagers reassembled, amost all of their personal possessions were destroyed. A companion seaplane tender, the USS Hulbert, left the island in the early morning of June 13th with 62 Aleuts onboard. After a brief stay in the village of Nikolski, where the local Aleuts provided the evacuees food and shelter because the military failed to do so, the Atkans were relocated to Dutch Harbor on June 16th. The remaining 21 Aleuts on Atka were evacuated on two seaplanes that flew directly to Dutch Harbor, arriving on June 15th.

Pribilof Islands

On June 14th, an army detachment aboard the USS Oriole sailed to the Pribilof Islands to prepare the residents for evacuation. The ship stopped at St. George island to order residents to prepare to leave within twelve hours before anchoring off St. Paul island. With the US Army Transport ship Delarof arriving at St. Paul to join the operation, 294 Aleuts and 15 other residents boarded the transport on June 15th. 183 Aleuts and 7 other residents were evacuated from St. George the next morning, June 16th, on the Delarof. The Delarof arrived at Dutch Harbor on June 17th to pick up the 83 Atkan evacuees before departing, extremely crowded, for Southeastern Alaska.

Deciding the location for the disembarkment of these evacuees proved difficult and confusing for officials. The swiftness of the military's action left civilian authorities with little time to find a site. The question of which authority was responsible for issuing orders was also unanswered; the Juneau headquarters of the Alaska Indian Service, the Department of the Interior, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Washington, D.C., Office of Indian Affairs, Alaskan Governor Ernest Gruening, and other authorities all issued separate and often contradictory orders or suggestions regarding the destination of the Delarof. Eventually, it was decided that the Atkan and Pribilof Islands evacuees would first arrive at Funter Bay, on Admiralty Island. The Pribilof Islanders ultimately stayed at Funter Bay; the St. Paul islanders were sent to a defunct cannery and the St. George islanders were moved to an unused gold mine one mile away. The Atkan Aleuts were later sent further south to Killisnoo, where they were housed in a derelict herring factory.

July evacuations

In early July, six villages were targeted for evacuation. The Aleuts of Akutan, Biorka, Kashega, Makushin, and Nikolski were evacuated to Dutch Harbor by July 6th; little is known about some of the evacuations, but stories that emerged later describe events similar to the Atkan and Pribilof Islands evacuations. 160 Aleuts, with few personal belongings, departed from Dutch Harbor aboard the Alaska Steamship Company's SS Columbia destined for the Wrangell Institute in Southeast Alaska.

Unalaska City was evacuated on July 22nd. While all the previous evacuations were carried out swiftly by the military, Unalaskan officials cooperated with the army and navy in planning the evacuation. A month prior to the evacuation, officials were already drafting plans for the evacuation of Aleuts. Officials perceived the native Aleuts as obstructions to Unalaska's two-year military buildup and worried that, in the event of a Japanese attack, medical facilities would not have the capability to treat both military casualties and any wounded Aleuts. Race was also a major factor; both the military and Caucasian citizens of the city looked down upon Aleuts, believing that they had "no conception of cleanliness or orderliness." 137 Aleuts departed from Unalaska on the SS Alaska bound for the Wrangell Institute.

At the Wrangell Institute, evacuees were temporarily housed in tents while they awaited relocation to more permanent camps. The Unalaskan Aleuts were relocated to a burned cannery at Burnett Inlet on Etolin Island, and the remaining Aleuts from the five other islands were sent to a former camp of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) at Ward Lake, near the city of Ketchikan.

Internment

None of the sites chosen as camps for the Aleuts were built for long-term occupancy and most sites were in very poor condition when Aleuts arrived. At Funter Bay, the residents spent months fixing leaky roofs, broken windows, building beds, and installing plasterboard walls inside the bunkhouses. The potable water supply was inadequate due to poor pipes, freezing temperatures, and contamination. Because the cannery the St. Paul islanders were housed in wasn't built to house people during the winter, there was no insulation and no heating stoves in the bunkhouses. Conditions were similar at the Killisnoo site and the very isolated Burnett Inlet site, and while it was in far better condition upon the evacuees arrival, the CCC camp at Ward Lake was built to house a population less than half their number.

Over the course of their 2-3 years at the camps, the Aleuts faced many other hardships. Food was often scarce and of low quality; other than what little they could hunt or catch themselves, they had no fresh meat, and incoming supplies were infrequent. Conditions at all camps were incredibly unsanitary, and without adequate medical services, illnesses like tuberculosis, measles, influenza, and pneumonia took the lives of many.