Last Letters from Attu: The True Story of Etta Jones, Alaska Pioneer and Japanese POW
- ISBN-10
- 0882408526
- ISBN-13
- 9780882408521
- Category
- Biography & Autobiography
- Pages
- 319
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2009-11-05
- Publisher
- Graphic Arts Books
- Author
- Mary Breu
Description
Etta Jones was not a World War II soldier or a war time spy. She was a school teacher whose life changed forever on that Sunday morning in June 1942 when the Japanese military invaded Attu Island and Etta became a prisoner of war. Etta and her sister moved to the Territory of Alaska in 1922. She planned to stay only one year as a vacation, but this 40 something year old nurse from back east met Foster Jones and fell in love. They married and for nearly twenty years they lived, worked and taught in remote Athabascan, Alutiiq, Yup’ik and Aleut villages where they were the only outsiders. Their last assignment was Attu. After the invasion, Etta became a prisoner of war and spent 39 months in Japanese POW sites located in Yokohama and Totsuka. She was the first female Caucasian taken prisoner by a foreign enemy on the North American Continent since the War of 1812, and she was the first American female released by the Japanese at the end of World War II. Using descriptive letters that she penned herself, her unpublished manuscript, historical documents and personal interviews with key people who were involved with events as they happened, her extraordinary story is told for the first time in this book.
Get the book
Similar books
-
Attu Boy: A Young Alaskan's WWII Memoir
By Nick GolodoffOther voices join Nick's to give the book a broad sense of the struggles, triumphs, and heartbreak of lives disrupted by war.
-
The Storm on Our Shores: One Island, Two Soldiers, and the Forgotten Battle of World War II
By Mark ObmascikOfficers had confiscated the Joneses' house for themselves, which meant that Foster and Etta were ordered into an empty cabin. When Etta didn't walk fast enough to suit her guard, the soldier rammed her to the ground with the butt of ...
-
Attu: the forgotten battle
By United States. National Park Service, John Haile CloePrendergast Ridge 32 Terrible Mtn Photo V - 31 : The movement of troops to. Map V - 7 : May 19-22 , Clevesy Pass and Siddens Valley Secured ( NPS Map ) Photo VI - 3 : Another cemetery was established for.
-
The Thousand-mile War: World War II in Alaska and the Aleutians
By Brian GarfieldThe 1942 Japanese invasion of two of the Aleutian Islands, the thousand-milerchipelago west of Alaska, represents the only time in modern history thatmerican territory has been occupied by a foreign power.
-
Converging Empires: Citizens and Subjects in the North Pacific Borderlands, 1867–1945
By Andrea GeigerFor an example of a instance where a Japanese figure was incorporated into a dance performed at a potlatch held, in this case, at the Gitksan village of Gitsegukla, see Margaret Anderson and Marjorie Halpin, eds., Potlatch at ...
-
The Capture of Attu: A World War II Battle as Told by the Men Who Fought There
By Robert J. Mitchell, Nelson L. Drummond, Sewell T. TyngIn May 1943 US forces clashed with Japanese invaders in an epic battle on the Alaskan island of Attu.
-
A Land Gone Lonesome: An Inland Voyage Along the Yukon River
By Dan O'NeillDescribes the odyssey of an Alaskan adventurer by canoe down the Yukon River to Circle City, Alaska, chronicling his expedition into the history of the region, his encounters with the colorful inhabitants who exemplify the pioneer spirit of ...
-
The Aleutians 1942–43: Struggle for the North Pacific
By Brian Lane HerderFeaturing the largest Japanese banzai charge of the war, first use of pre-battle battleship bombardment in the Pacific and the battle at the Komandorski Islands, this is the full story of the forgotten battle to liberate American soil from ...
-
Ghosts in the Fog: The Untold Story of Alaska's WWII Invasion
By Samantha SeipleOnce the sea otter was hit with a dart, the hunter raised the throwing board and showed the black side to the other hunters. This was a signal of success and symbolized the color of the sea otter's fur. The hunter whose dart was the ...
-
The Aleut Internments of World War II: Islanders Removed from Their Homes by Japan and the United States
By Russell W. EstlackThis book, one of the first ever written on its subject, focuses on Russian America and American Alaska and their impact on the native population.