Until the 'Battle of the Pips' confused the Americans, any escape from Kiska looked hopeless (January 1992)

In April of 1943 Vice Admiral Shiro Kawase took command of the Japanese forces who were in the Aleutians. There are probably many Americans that do not know that, for a while, the Japanese held a couple of the Aleutian Islands. Their holding of the islands never really led to much of anything, but the fact that they held the territory relatively close to the US worried the American military.

Their hold on the islands was upset by the air superiority that the Americans had in the area, plus the fact that the islands were relatively far away from Japan and difficult to resupply.

In the middle of May of that year the US attacked the Japanese forces on Attu who fought almost literally to the last man. There were 2,650 Japanese on the island, and almost all of them were killed. This made the situation on Kiska worse as morale dropped, and they realized they would be next for invasion.

Kawase couldn't use regular surface ships for entire evacuation, since they were subject to aerial attack. He used big I-class submarines to start off with. That stopped, though, with the loss of I-24 on June 10 (all crew plus 150 evacuees from Kiska lost); I-9 sunk with all hands plus evacuees three nights later; June 22, I-7 forced to run aground and then was bombed.

Some regular surface ships got to Kiska in fog, and he managed to get the rest of the men off the island. The US did not learn about what happened until after they had bombarded the island and attacked with over 36,000 soldiers, only to find the place abandoned except for booby traps and mines.

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