Unglamorous, tedious, monotonous and requiring painstaking exactitude
Everything else in the world is still going on, but you’re in a little capsule
The base was closed on August 1st, an occasion commemorated three weeks later – after a slight delay due to inclement weather.
“You’ll see a big white building, without a coastguard marking on it,” one former resident reflected. “You’ll see the bottom row of windows boarded up. We want to make sure the environment doesn’t come in and destroy the building, so if it can be used in the future, it’s still in good enough condition to do so.”
The former home of Attu Station housed Alaska’s final Loran (long-range navigation) station – the other five having been decommissioned earlier in the year. The technology had recently been declared obsolete, with the advent of GPS.
“Loran-C, including recent limited technological enhancements, serves only the remaining small group of long-time users, ” reads a 2009 statement signed by then-President Obama. “It no longer serves any governmental function and it is not capable as a backup for GPS.”
Citing taxpayer savings of $36 million, the system was shutdown. And with it, went its remaining stations – and the entire permanent residence of Attu. The 2010 census listed 20 people. By year’s end, all were gone.
“You’ve stepped aside from civilization and reality when you’re there,” another former Coast Guard member recounted. “Everything else in the world is still going on, but you’re in a little capsule and getting information two or three weeks after it happens.”
The reduction of the island’s initial inhabitants is a largely familiar one, with a population numbering in the thousands during the 37-mile-long island’s pre-Columbian days. The native Aleut suffered at the hand of Russian traders, who exploited the land due to its relative close proximity across the Bering Sea.
In 1867, Attu became both one of the westernmost and easternmost (owing to its location on the opposite side of the 180° longitude line) locations in the United States, with the purchase of the Alaskan territory from Russia. Seventy-five years later, it would serve as the site of the first foreign invasion of U.S. soil since the War of 1812.
When Japanese forces arrived on the island, six months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, nearly 900 residents had been evacuated to nearby islands by American forces. Some 47 remained – 45 native Aleut people and a pair of Americans. Etta Jones and husband Charles Foster ran a school for local children tied to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The former was one of 42 residents was taken to a prison camp, while the latter – a radio operator – was shot and killed during the invasion.
Attu was a strategic location -- closer to mainland Russia than Alaska – separating the two largest military forces of the Second World War. Japan occupied the island for nearly a year before American forces attempted to recapture it, in what would become the first – and only – land battle fought on U.S. soil during the war.
Massacre Bay – believed to have been named for the wholesale slaughter of natives more than 100 years prior – was chosen as the base of American Naval activity. The battle devolved into hand-to-hand combat, with more than 1,200 Americans and roughly double that number of Japanese soldiers killed. The island remained a tactical base of operations for the American army. Five months prior to the end of the war, American aircraft shot down nine Japanese fire balloons heading to the U.S. mainland in a period of two hours.
No native population was reestablished on the island following the conclusion of the war, even as a small American military base remained. Colonel James R. Kilgore of the U.S. Army Air Force declared the work of the Loran operators, “unglamorous, tedious, monotonous and requiring painstaking exactitude.”
Now devoid of permanent residents, the island serves as an important destination for competitive birding – as the sole North American location for a number of species. The closure of the Coast Guard station has, however, restricted plane travel to the island, which is now only accessible via multi-day boat voyage.
In 1987, the Japanese government erected a titanium monument on Engineer Hill, the site of the Battle of Attu’s final conflict. It reads, "In memory of all those who sacrificed their lives in the islands and seas of the North Pacific during World War II and in dedication to world peace."
Sources:
LORAN Station Attu: The Last Place on Earth https://coastguardnews.com/loran-station-attu-the-last-place-on-earth/2010/09/02/
The lone civilian: One Alaska war hero's unique place in history https://www.adn.com/our-alaska/article/lone-civilian-one-alaska-war-heros-unique-place-history/2014/05/24/
Military in Alaska https://lam.alaska.gov/sled/military-in-alaska/wwii
Alaska Coast Guard says goodbye to its last LORAN station https://web.archive.org/web/20170625091725/http://archive.kucb.org/news/article/alaska-coast-guard-says-goodbye-to-its-last-loran-station//
TERMINATION: LORAN-C https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BUDGET-2010-TRS/pdf/BUDGET-2010-TRS.pdf#page=50