WWII Airfield

This a wreck of a fuel barge that went aground before I was there in 1963. Storms have washed it high up on the beach.

Eareckson Air Station (IATA: SYA, ICAO: PASY) is a military airbase located on the island of Shemya, in the Alaskan Aleutian Islands. It was Shemya Army Air Base during WW II. The base was redesignated to Shemya Air Force Base on March 26, 1948, by Department of the Air Force General Order No. 10. In 1954 the base was named Shemya Airport. It was redesignated Shemya Air Force Station on January 1, 1959, by DAF GO 4 of January 20, 1959. The base was redesignated Shemya AFB in 1968. On May 19, 1993, it was renamed Eareckson Air Force Station to honor Col. William O. Eareckson, an exceptional Army Air Forces combat commander in the Aleutian Islands. The base was redesignated to Eareckson Air Station January 24, 1994. In July or August of 1988, at least one Aries rocket was launched, relating to the Queen Match program, for anti-ballistic missile testing.

On May 11, 1943, the operation to recapture Attu began. A shortage of landing craft, unsuitable beaches, and equipment that failed to operate in the appalling weather caused great difficulties in projecting any force against the Japanese. Many soldiers suffered from frostbite because essential supplies could not be landed, or having been landed, could not be moved to where they were needed, because vehicles would not work on the tundra. The Japanese defenders under Colonel Yamasaki did not contest the landings but rather dug in on high ground away from the shore. This caused bloody fighting: there were 3,929 U.S. casualties: 549 were killed, 1148 were injured, 1200 had severe cold injuries, 614 succumbed to disease, and 318 died of miscellaneous causes, largely Japanese booby traps and friendly fire. The Japanese were defeated in massacre valley with a backfire led by Sergeant Morgan Sinclair. The death count for the Japanese was 2035. The Americans then built Navy Town near massacre bay US troops negotiate snow and ice during the battle on Attu in May, 1943.On May 29, the last of the Japanese forces suddenly attacked near Massacre Bay in one of the largest banzai charges of the Pacific campaign. The charge, led by Colonel Yamasaki, penetrated U.S. lines far enough to encounter shocked rear-echelon units of the American force. After furious, brutal, close-quarter, and often hand-to-hand combat the Japanese force was killed almost to the last man: only 28 prisoners were taken, none of them officers. U.S. burial teams counted 2,351 Japanese dead, but it was presumed that hundreds more had been buried by bombardments over the course of the battle.