The battle for Attu.

It was north, but certainly not North Africa which the U.S. Army 7th Infantry Division and supporting elements had been training for in the California desert.

Instead of putting a stop to Hitler's "Desert Fox" in Africa, soldiers boarded transport ships and sailed north to the Aleutian Islands where the freezing waters of' the Bering Sea and the North Pacific Ocean collide, a place where storms, called williwaws, grant no mercy, and mistakes can send ships and men to icy graves on the ocean floor.

The cold seeped into everything, a damp bone-chilling cold. It numbed fingers and hands and seeped through leather boots stiffening toes and feet. Metal railings, hatches, and deck plating were frigid to the touch, and the wind and dense fog sucked the warmth from bodies on deck.

The Americans were on their way to do battle with members of the Japanese 301st Independent Infantry Battalion who had attacked Attu Island in early June 1942, overwhelmed its inhabitants, and forced them into slave labor camps in Japan. Attu Island belonged to the United States of America, and the Americans were coming to take it back in May 1943.

Among the young soldiers preparing to invade Attu were William S. Jones and Victor J. Unrein. Both would be wounded in action in one of the fiercest battles of World War II, a battle second only to Iwo Jima in the number of casualties suffered.

Mr. Jones is now retired in Florida and a member of DAV Chapter 5, Newark, Del. Mr. Unrein is retired in Las Vegas, Nev., and a member of DAV Chapter 18, Hays, Kan. But, in the bitter years of World War II they were two of the hundreds of thousands of young heroes who saved the world from Axis domination.

Severe weather postponed the original plan to invade the island until May 8. It was only the beginning of what nature had in store. Blinding log and had weather continued to postpone the invasion until Tuesday, May 11, 1943, when the USS Pruitt (DM-22), equipped with the new radar technology able to see through the fog, was directed to guide the invasion to shore.

The big guns of the USS Pennsylvania, which roared smoke and flame as their rounds pounded Attu prior to the U.S. attack, fell silent, and soldiers moved down cargo nets into the waiting landing craft (LCPs), filling one after another. By early afternoon, the Pruitt slipped into the I cad. Using her radar and searchlight, Site guided the LCPs nine miles through the fog and rough waters toward Beach Red and Massacre Bay.

The U.S. soldiers of the northern force began landing at Beach Red by mid-afternoon without resistance from Japanese forces. They followed the coastline along with an Army scout unit, which had landed from a submarine transport earlier. Their goal: to destroy the enemy and look up with the U.S. southern force for final victory over the Japanese.

The U.S. southern force, landing at Massacre Bay, was not so lucky. Several LCPs hit undetected outcroppings of rock and sank: others collided with each other. In the icy, rough waters, each mishap was deadly for soldiers and crews.

As soldiers moved onto the beach at Massacre Bay, nature immediately began to take a toll. Men and equipment began to chum through the crust of tundra turning it into a muddy mess. Heavy equipment became mired in the mud, and artillery pieces bogged down once fired. The most effective part of the U.S. invasion remained the infantryman, the tried and true foot soldier. Attu was to be his battle.

Even the sky refused to cooperate. Law cloud cover and storms all but eliminated air support. Still, the men of the 7th Infantry Division. the "Fighting Fourth" Infantry Regiment, and attached units plowed into the battle. Above them, hidden between clouds and fog, the entrenched Japanese waited for the soldiers to come out of the fog into their gun sights.

The Americans had made it to shore, many wading through chest-deep, bone-chilling waters, and the cold immediately started taking a toll on the shivering men as they moved into Massacre Valley. Many of the infantrymen would remain cold and wet for all or most of the battle. Leather boots issued to the soldiers got wet, stayed wet, and broke down fast in the constant cold. For many infantrymen, the conditions led to frostbite claiming toes, feet, and worse, even as Japanese snipers began picking off the soldiers pushing toward them.

"I landed on Attu a private," William Jones said. "Three days later my squad leader was wounded, and the platoon sergeant promoted me to sergeant and squad leader."

"The fog hung at about 154 feet. The Japanese couldn't see us from their higher positions, so they didn't fire at us as we advanced up a hogback between the mountains the first day," Mr. Jones recalled. "Lucky for us, because we had no cover, no trees, just tundra grass to lie down in."

The days passed, and the battle pressed on as casualties on both sides mounted. On the fifth or sixth day of the battle Mr. Jones received his first wound. Shrapnel hit him in the right cheek. He got patched up and continued to lead his squad.

During those first days of the battle Mr. Jones' squad stayed in the same basic area, moving only 600-700 yards.

"The Japanese had dug tunnels for strong points that we couldn't see through the fog," Mr. Jones said. "They sniped at us every time the fog lifted. As soon as we concentrated our lire back where we thought they were firing from they pulled back into the tunnels. They were also using smokeless powder, and that made it hard to see where they were firing from."

Kansas native Victor Unrein was a T-5 (technical sergeant, E-5) with Company E, 50th Combat Engineer Battalion.

"I remember the first guys in were the infantry," Mr. Unrein said. "When their landing craft moved off, we could hear them, but we couldn't see them because of the fog.

"We started boarding about 4 p.m. I can still see the little landing craft going up and down, You had to be careful not to fall between the landing craft and the transport ship.

"We landed at Massacre Bay with no opposition and didn't move up the valley until the fourth day. It rained or snowed about every day, and we had no shelter except fox holes for days, but I never fired a shot for five or six days."

Mr. Unrein and the other engineers were told to lock and load their weapons on the sixth day, as they lugged up and down a mountain supplying mortar crews with ammunition.

"We finally made it to Engineer Hill where we set up camp," Mr. Unrein said. "From there we ran supply missions to the infantry."

Combat engineer units do their running via track or wheeled vehicles, but because of the terrain conditions art Attu, most re-supply missions were packed in on foot. As the battle moved higher into the mountains, Japanese machine gun crews intensified efforts to pick off the advancing troops and those attempting to re-supply them.

For the American soldiers who came to battle the Japanese on Attu, each new day became more grueling than the previous day, and the casualties on both sides grew as bitter fighting and nature bit deeply into both forces.

On the 17th day of the battle, Mr. Jones and his squad were attacking the enemy on a hill under machine gun and mortar fire. Mr. Jones was moving forward, when he was shot in the right leg and knocked to the ground. His wound was field treated, and he was placed in a trench and covered with blankets to wait until he could be taken off the hill.

"The next morning, they told anyone who could to walk off the hill, because the Japanese had been firing at the litter bearers," Mr. Jones said.

That morning, Mr. Jones started making his way back to the 7th Division clearing station for medical treatment. He staggered, limped, and crawled along with other "walking wounded" back to the clearing station. Once there, he was placed in the middle tent of three set up to handle the casualties.

The battle for Attu raged on, but the Japanese were clearly losing ground and men in greater numbers. Any hope for the Japanese to be reinforced with men and materials had been smashed along with the North Pacific Japanese fleet on March 26 when they went up against Rear Admiral Charles "Soc" McMorris and U.S. Navy Task Group 16.6 in the Bearing Sea.

On May 28, the Japanese commander on Attu implemented a plan to drive his surviving 800 men through the U.S. defenses to capture an artillery emplacement and use it against U.S. forces long enough to evacuate his forces.

Shortly after 3 a.m. on May 29, the Japanese came through the fog breaking the American line. Within sight of the artillery battery on Engineer Hill where Mr. Unrein was camped, the Japanese began a banzai attack. Between them and the artillery lay the three tents at the clearing station and Mr. Jones.

"I remember bullet holes in the tent as the banzai attack came through," Mr. Jones said. "That's when they bayoneted and shot the soldiers in the tents beside us."

"I was on the left flank when they came at us," Mr. Unrein said. "There must have been 600 or 700 of them in the attack."

In the heat of the attack, Mr. Unrein was shot. The bullet tore through his flesh, exiting near his kidney.

"The battle was over by 9 a.m., but I went down in a trench, and they didn't find the until about 5 p.m.," Mr. Unrein said. "I thought I would freeze to death. I pinched myself from time to time just to see if I was still alive."

When the medics started to move Mr. Unrein back for medical treatment they found a frozen clot of blood about the size of a baseball at the exit wound. The frozen mass had probably staunched his bleeding and saved his life.

The misery and ferocity of the battle left a staggering number of casualties. The American force of more than 11,000 suffered 3,829 casualties. Among them 549 killed, 1,148 wounded and injured; 1,200 suffered frostbite and other severe cold injuries. The American burial parties accounted for 2,351 dead Japanese soldiers; hundreds of others were believed previously buried, and less than 30 Japanese were captured. None were officers.

Today, two monuments mark the battlefield that is Attu. One, a monolithic, titanium starburst rising nearly 20 fleet into the air on the crest of Engineer Hill, is inscribed, In memory of those who sacrificed their lives in the islands and seas of the North Pacific during World War II and in dedication to world peace. Erected by the Government of Japan in cooperation with the Government of the United States of America on July 1, 1987."

When Mr. Jones and six other American veterans of the battle for Attu saw the starburst memorial, during a return to the island in June 2000. They were not pleased, especially when they discovered the only other monument was a granite slab, shorter than a man of average height and devoid of any plaque or inscription. Unable to rally support for their cause, the veterans took it on themselves to produce and have a plaque added to the granite monument.

Though ill health prevented Mr. Jones from attending the dedication of the plaque on June 12, 2001, his words make up the inscription on the plaque which reads, "This plaque inscribed and placed here by those who fought by your side or served in the defense of this island during World War II to honor the boys--men who prematurely gave their lives during the Battle of Attu and in remembrance of the mothers, fathers, wives, children, and sweethearts whose lives were forever changed due to their loss."

Today, only the fog and williwaws visit the emplacements and rusting machines of war wasting away oft the tundra and treeless mountains, but here was a battle pitting warriors against each other and nature against all--a battle not to he forgotten in a place called Attu.