THE FORGOTTEN WAR

A provocative account of a Japanese effort to gain a toehold on American soil during the Second World War.

Mining her family history as well as archival evidence, Fleming recounts the sudden Japanese occupation of the Aleutian island of Attu in 1942 and the hasty counterattack mounted by the U.S. with green Army troops including the author’s father, an ambulance orderly. Thanks in part to a diary left by a Japanese doctor and extensive documentation, including troves of family and official photos, she’s able to weave in humanizing details (even including a Navy meteorologist’s dog) and to tell the story from both sides’ points of view. Fought in frigid, sloppy conditions, the hard-won victory became the second most costly for the U.S. in the Pacific Theater but received little attention. Fleming suggests this because an embarrassing number of casualties resulted from unsuitable gear, poor preparation, and friendly fire. Not only does she tell an engrossing battle yarn while doing a good job of filling in the broader strategic background from Pearl Harbor on, she also introduces Attu’s Indigenous Saskinax residents and discusses the enduring emotional cost on her father and other survivors. The book closes with encouragement to readers to look into their own family stories: “all of us are part of a legacy of love, resilience, recollection, and shared experience—part of an ongoing story that grows richer with every generation.”

Absorbing and enlightening fare.