Iñupiaq men in qayaqs, Noatak, Alaska, circa 1929. Edward S. Curtis Collection, Library of Congress Digital Collections.
Crossing the Chilkoot Pass, circa 1898. Courtesy Candy Waugaman and Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park.
The Gold Rush boomtown of Nome on the Seward Peninsula, 1900. Courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey Photographic Library.
Anchorage historian John Haile Cloe’s latest book, “Mission to the Kurils” has just been released (Todd Communications, $40).
A B-25J from the Aleutians approaches Japanese targets in the Kuril Islands. (Army Air Force, 613ABW Hist. Office.)
The book is the first history written of the United States’ battle where American bombers spent two yeas after the Battle of Attu raiding Japanese strongholds in the chain of Kuril Islands. It remains largely unstudied and unrecognized, even by World War II buffs.
For a great article about the book and its contents, see The War After Attu: Anchorage Historian Writes the First History of Air Battle Launched from Alaska written by Mike Dunham and published in the Alaska Dispatch News on November 5, 2016.
JOHN CLOE will take part in a writers symposium on military topics at the Living Room Writers Group meeting sponsored by the Alaska Humanities Forum at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 9, at Jitters Coffee Shop in Eagle River. He presents a talk at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 10, at theAnchorage Museum, 625 C St. (enter by the door on Seventh Avenue) and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Friday, Veteran’s Day, at the Alaska Veterans Museum. The Veterans Museum also will have free admission 10 a.m.-5 p.m. that day. It is located at 333 W. Fourth Ave. behind the bronze statue of a soldier of the Alaska Territorial Guard. Cloe will also have a presentation at the UAA Campus Bookstore at 5 p.m. Monday, Nov. 21.
