This June marks the 70th anniversary of the Japanese bombing of Dutch Harbor and invasion of two remote islands in the Aleutians, Attu and Kiska during World War II. Petersburg’s Clausen Museum opens up a traveling exhibit Friday, March 2nd of historic and modern-day photographs of the battlefield on Kiska, one of eight former World War II sites designated a National Historic Landmark in Alaska. The exhibit, on display for the month of March, was developed by the National Park Service with photographs by Dirk HR Spennemann of Charles Sturt University of Albury, Australia.
Courtesy of the National Archives
Some of the scenes in the exhibit will look familiar to one Petersburg resident, Gerald Lind. He was stationed on an Army Air Forces rescue boat based on Attu Island in 1944 and 1945 and made a brief stop for a couple hours at the Kiska battlefield on his way out to Attu in 1944. That was more than a year after U.S. Forces bombed the Japanese troops and retook the two islands. Joe Viechnicki spoke with Lind about his memories of the island.
KFSK news director Matt Lichtenstein also interviewed Lind about his experiences during the war for Memorial Day in 2002.
