3 shipwrecks from 'forgotten battle' of World War II discovered off remote Alaskan island

Underwater archaeologists have located the wrecks of three military ships involved in Japan's invasion of Alaska's remote Aleutian Islands in World War II — an almost-overlooked conflict sometimes called the "forgotten battle" by historians.

The wrecks of the vessels — two Japanese freighters and the American cable ship SS Dellwood, which laid undersea cables during the war — were discovered last month during an expedition to Attu Island, at the westernmost tip of the Aleutians.

The Japanese ships were sunk by bombs from American aircraft after Japanese troops invaded the island in June 1942, roughly six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the American ship sank about a month after the Japanese invasion had been defeated almost a year later, during efforts to reinforce the island's defenses.

"The original [Japanese] idea was to turn Attu into an 'unsinkable aircraft carrier'" for attacks on other American locations, maritime archaeologist and project co-leader Dominic Bush told Live Science.

"But as things started to change in the Pacific, they were abandoned by the Imperial command and basically told to hold out for as long as they could — essentially, to die with honor," added Bush, who was a doctoral student at East Carolina University (ECU) at the time of the expedition and is now a researcher for the archaeological nonprofit Ships of Discovery.

Related: 30 incredible sunken wrecks from WWI and WWII

Image 1 of 4

Battle of Attu

Attu and the nearby Aleutian island of Kiska were the only parts of North America invaded and occupied by a foreign enemy during World War II, although Japanese warplanes also bombed other Aleutian islands. In response, the United States spent roughly a year bombing the Japanese there with warplanes and, eventually, drove out the Japanese with a force of almost 35,000 American and Canadian soldiers.