A Japanese machine gun used in the Battle of Attu during World War II has returned to Alaska and will be displayed in a Whittier museum.
On Tuesday, the Prince William Sound Museum in Whittier accepted a 1939 Japanese machine gun — called a Nambu — used by Japanese military forces in the World War II Battle of Attu along the Aleutian Islands.
It started with Lt. Colonel William Lucas, who led the charge to recapture Attu from the Japanese in 1943, earning a silver star in the process. The battle itself was bloody; the museum has the names of more than 500 American soldiers who died in the only World War II battle to be fought on North American soil.That, Spencer said, was how Lucas got the gun.
But there were complications; because the machine gun had never been registered with the federal government, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives wanted to melt it down. Spencer said he hopes the gun will shed new light on a battle that many Americans are unfamiliar with. He called it an important piece of history in which Alaska played a vital role.Coast Guard ID’s 4 boaters missing in Homer waters
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