On May 11, 1943, American soldiers began landing on the island of Attu, which, along with the neighboring island of Kiska, had been seized by Japanese troops a year earlier.

Attu is the westernmost point in Alaska’s Aleutian Island chain, some 1,500 miles from Anchorage. Its occupation by Japan was the first time since the War of 1812 that US territory had been seized by a foreign power.

The Japanese troops who landed on the islands were the northernmost arm of a larger operation that included the forces sent to attack and occupy Midway Island in the Central Pacific. Having turned back the Japanese advance, the US sent a massive force to retake the islands in mid-1943.

Instead of the three days of fighting that the Americans expected, the battle for Attu turned into a three-week slog.

Now, 79 years later, the Aleutian Islands and Alaska have renewed importance for the US, as the increasing accessibility of the Arctic is making the region a venue for competition with Russia and China.

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Japan seized Kiska and Attu in June 1942, exactly six months attacking Pearl Harbor. Their landings were preceded by air raids on nearby Dutch Harbor, which killed 43 US personnel and destroyed 11 planes.

Read more: yahoo