Burn’s ‘War’ misses opportunity
It is no wonder that for over two decades (half the duration of its statehood), Alaska has been home to a viable political party seeking independence from the Union. When one spends time here, one begins to notice the many ways that Alaska is ignored by the rest of the nation, unless, of course, oil is the topic of conversation. What politicians call a “bridge to nowhere” we call Ketchican’s bridge to the airport - crucial to the community’s long-term economic viability. They call ANWR a snow-covered void, we call it productive and diverse landscape from which people have subsisted for millennia. And the documentary that Ken Burns calls The War, I call a gross oversight of more than a year of Japanese occupation, of the territory’s role in the Pacific Theater at large, and most importantly, of the forced internment of 881 Alaska Natives by the United States government.
So extensive is this omission of Alaska, that the territory doesn’t even appear on the maps of Japanese and US occupied regions in the Pacific Theater. This reminds me of a world map which appears the 1953 version of War of the Worlds, bearing makers for alien landings everywhere, except of course in the frozen Alaskan wasteland.
So Burns copped out. Rather than taking this opportunity to use his singular style of documentary filmmaking to tell a new history of the war, he instead filled the narrative with familiar historical firsts and superlatives: ” the largest retreat ever by American forces,” “the biggest attack ever on American soil,” “the first Japanese naval defeat in 300 years,” and so-on. He is attempting to tell what is a very complicated story through the lenses of four American communities: Sacramento, CA; Luverne, MN; Mobile, AL; and Waterbury, CT. And overall, I will admit, the documentary is engaging and even at times moving. But omissions and inaccuracies start with the narrator’s introduction of the first part, and recur throughout the two-and-a-half hour review of the WWII’s first year.
For example, in the introduction to this first chapter, narrator Keith David comments how no civilian on American soil was ever really in danger. Not true: the Japanese bombed the Dutch Harbor military installation on Unalaska Island just six months after Pearl Harbor, and three days later began to invade many of the Aleutian Islands, beginning with Kiska, Atak and Attu, taking 42 Aleut prisoners-of-war from the island of Attu. And though Burns devotes much of the time in Sacramento to the communities of Japanese Americans who suffered much as a result of their relocation to internment camps, no mention is made of the 881 Alaska Natives that were forcibly evacuated from the Aleutian and Pribiloff Islands, or that they watched as U.S. soldiers burned their homes so that they wouldn’t fall into the hands of the Japanese invaders.
Though the evacuation happened under the guise of humanitarian reasons, racism and generalizations linking the Aleutians with the Japanese are impossible to ignore. They were forced out often without as much as a suitcase, and spent the next two years in “duration villages” in Southeast Alaska, living in canneries and mining facilities with no electricity, heating or plumbing. Food was poor and scarce, the water was tainted, and the camps were not equipped for the cold winters. The administrators of the camps largely ignored the internee’s pleas for assistance. Medical care was non-existent, so Pneumonia and Tuberculosis took both the youngest and the oldest. 74, by one count, died in these camps. And with the passing of each elder, part of that culture’s heritage died with them - lost in the tales not yet told, the skills not yet passed on and the wisdom not yet given. An apology and financial restitution came from the U.S. in 1988, too little too late. But the damage to these Aleut communities was irrevocable and the trajectory of their lives and culture changed for ever.
The University of Alaska’s Museum of the North has a permanent exhibit titled “Forced to Leave: The Detention of Alaskan Japanese Americans and Aleuts During World War II.” Though I myself have only made a handful of visits to the museum, without fail I overhear tourists comment that “they had no idea,” that the war came to Alaska. Burns found a deeper history in The Civil War that made that series a landmark achievement. I wonder, if he’ll be judged this time by the tales he’s failed to tell, or if our collective blindness to Alaska will persist.
