Bloodstained Sands: U.S. Amphibious Operations in World War II (General Military) by Michael G. Walling

Author:Michael G. Walling [Walling, Michael G.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781472814418
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2017-04-20T04:00:00+00:00

Lessons Learned

Lessons learned by the Army in preparing and equipping troops to survive the rigors of combat in wretched weather and difficult mountain terrain would prove useful during the upcoming Italian campaign.

Many amphibious warfare techniques developed during the Attu landings were refined for Kiska and were further improved and applied to advantage in later amphibious operations in the Pacific. Other lessons learned included:

a.Beaches must be thoroughly cleared before being established as beaches suitable for landing craft;

b.A landing should not be made on a falling tide when bottom and gradient conditions are unknown;

c.Unless extreme precautions are taken, a blockade cannot completely encircle an island and prevent a determined enemy from reinforcing, supplying, or evacuating; and

d.Army and Navy communications and techniques have to be standardized or placed under a joint command.37

Estimated U.S. casualties were 1,481 killed, 3,416 wounded, 640 missing, and eight captured, while Japanese were 4,350 killed and 28 captured.

From the standpoint of casualties, Attu was the second most costly in terms of U.S. forces killed and wounded compared to Japanese killed (71 Americans versus 100 Japanese). Only Iwo Jima, two years later, was more costly.

No casualty list includes the hundreds of men lost from Army Air Force aircrews, soldiers who drowned during unopposed landings, or sailors lost in shipboard accidents or battles with Aleutian weather or to the Imperial Japanese Navy.

It was a campaign fought and forgotten in fogs and williwaw-driven storms.

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