Save Our History: Alaska's Bloodiest Battle

Save Our History: Alaska's Bloodiest Battle

Premieres on The History Channel(R) March 25th 8p.m. ET/PT

NEW YORK, March 3 /PRNewswire/ -- In 1942 and 1943, the Aleutian Islands in Alaska played host to the only armed conflict fought on American soil since the War of 1812. Thousands of American soldiers battled Japanese troops, with inferior equipment and clothing, and severe conditions to reclaim the westernmost points of Alaska for America. Host Steve Thomas returns to the scene of the Battle of the Aleutians in SAVE OUR HISTORY: ALASKA'S BLOODIEST BATTLE, airing Saturday, March 25th at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on The History Channel(R).

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20051031/HISTORYLOGO )

In an effort to draw resources and attention away from the Battle of Midway, Japanese forces bombed Alaska's Dutch Harbor in June 1942, setting up a year-long occupation of the islands of Kiska and Attu with about 3,000 soldiers. In May of 1943, a force of 11,000 Americans, most of them facing battle for the first time, landed on Attu, the outermost Aleutian island, to drive out the Japanese. They were met with the bone-chilling cold of the Alaskan winter and found themselves battling the unforgiving, waterlogged tundra as much as the Japanese themselves. Steve Thomas explores the Aleutians, from the Coast Guard station at Fort Tidball, near Kodiak Island, all the way out to Attu, just 700 miles from Japan and Siberia, where artifacts from the three-week battle, one of the bloodiest in all of World War II, litter the landscape. Thomas revisits the key battle sites with historian Galen Perras and 85-year-old veteran Dean Galles.

SAVE OUR HISTORY: ALASKA'S BLOODIEST BATTLE tells the story of the Battle of the Aleutians, a little-known but crucial moment in American history, the only time in nearly two centuries that American forces have had to fight to win back a piece of their own soil. Veteran Dean Galles returns to the scene of the battle where he was bayoneted six times, only to recover, continue fighting in the Pacific and be wounded again. It is the story of ordinary men called to face extraordinary circumstances.

Highlights of SAVE OUR HISTORY: ALASKA'S BLOODIEST BATTLE include:

* Hiking through mossy terrain, the group comes upon disintegrating
Quonset huts and underground Army bunkers frozen in time, housing
ammunition depots, observation towers and radio and radar systems.

* Steve travels by boat with a local history teacher to explore the wreck
of an American supply ship, a National Historic Landmark, that still
stands half out of water. A pod of humpback whales accompanies their
boat on the journey.

* Steve sees up close a PBY Catalina plane, one of the workhorses of
World War II, undergoing restoration. There, former PBY Navy Captain
Bill Thies recalls how his crew located an intact Japanese Zero fighter
plane that had crashed in the Aleutians, a discovery that turned out to
play a key role in the war.

* On Attu, historian Galen Perras brings to life some of the engineering
challenges of moving equipment into battle and wounded men away from
the front lines in the still-frozen tundra, and describes ingenious
solutions devised by combat engineers in the thick of battle.

* 85 year-old World War II veteran Dean Galles recalls in vivid detail
how, just before the Japanese suicide charge on Engineer Hill, he was
bayoneted four times and left for dead, and poignantly explains that he
made the trip back here 62 years later "for the boys who didn't make
it."

SAVE OUR HISTORY: ALASKA'S BLOODIEST BATTLE is produced by HTV Productions for The History Channel. Executive Producers for The History Channel are Susan Werbe and Libby H. O'Connell, Ph.D. Executive Producer for HTV Productions is Virginia Kuppek. Series Producer is Andrew Ames.

SAVE OUR HISTORY is a series of quarterly specials on The History Channel that brings to life key moments from America's past, and explores the tools and technologies being used to preserve them. From priceless artifacts to presidential hideaways to moon rockets, SAVE OUR HISTORY salvages the past for the future.

Teachers, students and families will find educational support materials for SAVE OUR HISTORY: ALASKA'S BLOODIEST BATTLE and other resources at http://www.saveourhistory.com/.

Now reaching more than 88 million Nielsen subscribers, The History Channel(R), "Where History Lives," brings history to life in a powerful manner and provides an inviting place where people experience history personally and connect their own lives to the great lives and events of the past. The History Channel has earned six News and Documentary Emmy(R) Awards and received the prestigious Governor's Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for the network's "Save Our History(R)" campaign dedicated to historic preservation and history education. The History Channel web site is located at http://www.history.com/.

Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20051031/HISTORYLOGO
AP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org/
PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com
Source: The History Channel

CONTACT: Katie Bradshaw of The History Channel, +1-212-210-9108,
katie.bradshaw@aetn.com

Web site: http://www.history.com/
http://www.saveourhistory.com/

NOTE TO EDITORS: For more information and photography please visit us on the web at http://www.historychannelpress.com.

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