Battle of Dutch Harbor

Battle of Dutch Harbor
Part of the American Theater of World War II

Buildings burning after Japanese air attacks on Dutch Harbor, circa 3 June 1942.
Date3-4 June 1942
Location53°53′15″N 166°32′32″W / 53.88750°N 166.54222°W / 53.88750; -166.54222
Result Japanese victory
Belligerents
 United States  Japan
Commanders and leaders
Robert Theobald
Simon Buckner
Archibald Arnold
Kakuji Kakuta
Strength
37th Infantry Regiment
206th Coast Artillery (AA)
1 search light battery
6 anti-aircraft batteries
U.S. Marines
30 aircraft
1 aircraft carrier
1 light carrier
3 cruisers
5 destroyers
86 aircraft
Casualties and losses
43 killed
50 wounded
14 aircraft destroyed
1 barracks ship destroyed
10 killed
5 captured
8 aircraft destroyed
1 aircraft captured[1]

The Battle of Dutch Harbor took place on 3-4 June 1942, when the Imperial Japanese Navy launched two aircraft carrier raids on the Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base and U.S. Army Fort Mears at Dutch Harbor on Amaknak Island, opening the Aleutian Islands campaign of World War II. The bombing marked the first aerial attack by an enemy on the continental United States and was the second time in history that the continental U.S. was bombed by someone working for a foreign power, the first being the accidental bombing of Naco, Arizona, in 1929.

  1. ^ Fern Chandonnet (2007). Alaska at War, 1941–1945: The Forgotten War Remembered. University of Alaska Press. p. 394. ISBN 978-1-60223-135-1.