Last Letters from Attu by Mary Breu

Author:Mary Breu
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: West Margin Press
Published: 2009-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

12

Invasion

1942

Visitors to the remote island shared Etta’s feelings about this pleasant sanctuary. Ales Hrdlicka, a noted anthropologist, wrote about his visit to Attu: “The dreamless restoring nights. Have tasted simple pure values.” A visitor in 1937 recalled the generous hospitality afforded her party by Mike Hodikoff, the Attuan chief, and fellow Aleuts on “the shores of their little Eden.” Coast guard officers who knew the area claimed that Attu’s people “are by far the happiest and best of all the Natives because they live in such a remote situation and bad influences don’t come so easily their way. They … don’t want to be brought into closer touch with the world. They are always the most friendly and helpful … lending a hand if required.” Alice Petrivelli, an Atkan leader, described Attuans as “dignified, quiet, laid-back, calm.”

Even though they were aware of events at Pearl Harbor, these independent people seemed to feel immune to the possibility of war reaching their own isolated shores, with one exception.

MIKE, IN A REMINISCENT mood one day, told us of their hatred and distrust of the Japs. On one occasion, some thirty years before, a party of Attu fox hunters camped on the far side of the island were surprised by Jap marauders who had a bundle of fox skins stolen from the Attu people. In the battle that followed, some Attu men were killed, Mike’s father among them. After that, they never went trapping or hunting without arms. If an enemy was encountered, there was only one order—kill him. One time, they came upon a party of Jap marauders who got away before they could be dealt with, but a storm soon came up which must have wrecked the Japs’ boat because, later, a bundle of furs, which the Attu people recognized as belonging to them, was washed ashore, together with wreckage of the Jap boat.

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