War comes to Alaska : the Dutch Harbor Attack, June 3-4, 1942

"War comes to Alaska tells thestory of the Dutch Harbor Attack from both the American and Japanese pointsof view. Kept secret for morale and securityreasons, the Japanese attack and ultimate invasion of Aleutians was off limits to the American press. Government leaders feared the outbreak of panic if Americans realized how close the Japanese were to the West Coast of the Lower 48 states. But Rourke has gone beyond that importaant, but little known, story of when war cam to North America. He has also shown us the fight a small body of troops wages against weather in that far north place where they were building a fortress in that spongy tundra to protect the American mainland. There pilots found themselves using ground maps to guide their aircraft because magnetic forces skewed their instruments. Ground crews scraped, shoveled, and chipped ice, snow, and frozen earth to keep planes and otherequipment at the ready. Their companion air crewmen had to fly in weather that even acrtic birds avoided, yet they did their job and did it well."-- Back cover/ Includes bibliographical references (pages 160-162) and index. xiii, 166 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm