ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Gregory Golodoff spent most of his years on a quiet Alaska island, dwelling an peculiar life, managing a co-op retailer, fishing for crab and serving because the village council president. However Golodoff’s latest demise on the age of 84 has reopened a chapter of American historical past and stirred up recollections of a long-forgotten Japanese invasion that prompted the one World Conflict II battle on North American soil.
Golodoff was the final survivor amongst 41 residents imprisoned in Japan after Japanese troops captured distant Attu Island throughout World Conflict II. He was 3 when the island was taken. He died Nov. 17 in Anchorage, his household stated. His sister, Elizabeth “Liz” Golodoff Kudrin, the second-to-last surviving Attuan, died in February at 82. Three of their siblings died in captivity.
“The eldest technology has handed away to the opposite aspect,” stated Helena Schmitz, the great-granddaughter of the final Attu chief, who died in Japan alongside together with his son.
Attu is a desolate, mountainous slab of tundra, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) extensive by 35 miles (56 kilometers) lengthy, and sits between the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea on the volcanic Ring of Hearth. It’s essentially the most westerly island within the Aleutian chain — nearer to Russia than mainland Alaska — and was one in every of only a few U.S. territories, together with Guam, the Philippines and the close by island of Kiska, taken by enemy forces in the course of the struggle.
The American effort to reclaim Attu in 1943 amid frigid rain, dense fog and hurricane-force winds turned often called World Conflict II’s “forgotten battle.” About 2,500 Japanese troopers perished, many in hand-to-hand fight or by suicide; 28 survived. Roughly 550 U.S. troopers died. Initially skilled and outfitted to struggle within the North African desert, many suffered from frostbite and publicity as a consequence of insufficient gear.
Even after the surviving captives have been freed on the shut of the struggle, they weren’t allowed to return to Attu as a result of the U.S. army determined it might be too costly to rebuild the neighborhood. Most have been despatched to the island of Atka, about 200 miles (322 kilometers) away.
With the lack of their homeland, the Attuans’ language, Sakinam Tunuu, is now all however gone, spoken solely by members of Schmitz’s rapid household. The distinctive basket-weaving fashion of the island is practiced by simply three or 4 weavers, and never all are of Attuan descent. Schmitz runs a nonprofit named Atux Without end to revive the cultural heritage.
A lot of what’s identified in regards to the Alaska Natives’ time in Japan is chronicled within the ebook “ Attu Boy,” written by Golodoff’s older brother, Nick, with help from his editor, Rachel Mason, a cultural anthropologist with the Nationwide Park Service in Anchorage.
Mason knew the three siblings. Gregory and Liz had little reminiscence of Attu or Japan, and neither appreciated to speak about it, she stated.
Nick Golodoff, who was 6 when he was captured, had a childlike innocence about his time as a prisoner, Mason famous. The quilt of his ebook featured {a photograph} of him driving on the again of a Japanese soldier, each smiling.
That have was removed from typical. Of the Attu residents interned in Japan, 22 died from malnutrition, hunger or tuberculosis. Schmitz’s great-grandfather, Mike Hodikoff, died together with his son of meals poisoning from consuming rotten rubbish whereas in Japanese captivity, the ebook famous.
Japanese troopers landed on Attu Island on June 7, 1942, when residents have been attending companies on the Russian Orthodox church. Some ran for his or her rifles, however Hodikoff advised them, “Don’t shoot, possibly the People can save us but,” in accordance with the ebook.
As an alternative, the village radio operator, Charles Foster Jones, was shot and killed earlier than he may alert authorities, turning into the one U.S. civilian killed by the invading forces in North America, in accordance with a tribute to Jones by the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The opposite residents — all Alaska Natives apart from Jones’ spouse, a white trainer from New Jersey named Etta Jones — have been saved captive of their houses for 3 months earlier than being advised to pack up and convey what meals they might for the journey to Japan.
They first went to Kiska, one other Alaska island; one Attu resident died on the way in which. Stuffed within the cargo maintain of a ship, the others launched into a two-week voyage to Sapporo, the biggest metropolis on Japan’s Hokkaido Island, the place they have been saved in 4 rooms in an deserted dormitory. Solely Etta Jones was separated from them and brought in a special boat to an internment facility in Yokohama, south of Tokyo.
One Japanese guard complained the Attuans ate higher than the Japanese, however circumstances worsened when the Alaskans ran out of the meals they introduced.
The Golodoffs’ mom, Olean, and others have been compelled to work lengthy hours in a clay mine. As their numbers dwindled, she additionally turned the cook dinner for the surviving POWs, although there was little to make. She was lowered to gathering orange peels off the road and cooking them on prime of a heater, stated George Kudrin, who married Olean’s daughter Liz in Atka after he returned from the Vietnam Conflict.
“I fed them to my kids, and solely then would they cease crying for some time,” Olean as soon as advised an interviewer.
Her husband, Lawrence, and three of their seven kids died in Japan. Nick Golodoff lived till 2013. One other son who survived captivity, John, died in 2009.
Kudrin stated Olean didn’t communicate of her experiences in Japan, and his spouse, Liz, was too younger to recollect something.
“She at all times knew that she was a part of the historical past of World Conflict II and he or she at all times stated, ‘I’m a survivor with my mama,’” he stated.
American forces reclaimed Attu on Could 30, 1943, after a brutal 19-day marketing campaign. A lot of the combating was waged in dense fog amid winds of as much as 120 mph (193 kph). Attu Island as we speak is a part of the Alaska Maritime Nationwide Wildlife Refuge and identified extra for being one of many prime locations in North America for teams devoted to viewing birds, particularly these from Asia.
Greg Golodoff’s spouse of fifty years, Pauline, stated he by no means spoke along with her about his expertise in Japan or about being the final dwelling resident of Attu.
“I attempted to ask him, however he didn’t need to discuss it,” she stated.