The Aleutian Islands, a mostly forgotten portion of the United
States on the southwest coast of Alaska, have often assumed a key role
in American military strategy. W.H. Seward, the US secretary of state
who brokered the purchase of Alaska, believed that the acquisition
would permit the United States to dominate the Pacific. In the 1990s,
Bill Clinton attempted to install an American ballistic missile defence
system on the islands. But for most Americans, prior to the Second
World War, the bleak and barren islands were of far less interest than
the Philippines.
In Stepping Stones to Nowhere, Galen Perras shows how that
changed with the Japanese occupation of the western Aleutians, which
climaxed in the horrendous battle for Attu. Efforts to make the area a
major theatre of war rivalling Europe or the South Pacific foundered,
but certainly not for lack of effort. The campaign was unique in its
involvement of Britain, the Soviet Union, and Canada. Perras reveals
how this clash in the North Pacific demonstrated serious problems with
the way that American civilian and military decision makers sought to
incite a global conflict.
Thoroughly researched and accessible, this book will be invaluable
to military and naval historians as well as those with a general
interest in the history of the Second World War.