The Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base and Fort Mears were two military installations built next to each other in Dutch Harbor, Alaska.

Dutch Harbor occupies the central portion of Amaknak Island in Unalaska Bay. It was joined by a bridge connecting the city of Unalaska to the southern portion of Amaknak Island. Unalaska is approximately 1,000 air miles southwest of Anchorage.

During World War II, the entirety of Amaknak Island was used by the United States Navy as an operating base and by the United States Army, which manned coastal defenses on the high ground at the northern and southern parts of the island.

The United States built them in response to the growing threat of war with Japan during World War II. In 1938, the Navy Board recommended the construction, which began in July 1940.

The Japanese task force reached its launching position early on June 3 and, despite the fog, launched its planes. At 5:45 a.m., the first Japanese fighters flew over the island, followed five minutes later by bombers. Fourteen bombs fell on Fort Mears, destroying five buildings, killing 25 soldiers, and wounding 25 more. A second strike caused no damage, but a third damaged the radio station and killed one sailor and one soldier. Later in the day, the weather became so foul that the Japanese force turned back.

In the late afternoon, June 4, a force of nine fighters, eleven dive bombers, and six-level bombers struck, this time concentrating on Dutch Harbor. They hit the 3,000-ton S.S. Northwestern, a beached vessel near Dutch Harbor dock that served as housing for civilian workers. The vessel caught fire and was destroyed, as was an adjacent warehouse. Bombs destroyed four new steel fuel tanks and 22,000 barrels of oil — a month’s supply for Dutch Harbor.

In the attack, 43 Americans and at least 10 Japanese died. Another 50 were wounded. American air losses during the two-day battle amounted to five army aircraft and six naval Catalinas. The Japanese also reported a loss of eleven planes.

After the bombing, military planners began housing people in small, randomly dispersed cabanas, Quonset huts, and Pacific huts to be less of a target for enemy attacks. The white barracks and other buildings in the primary grid were camouflaged with olive-drab paint, nets on the roof, and rubbing the exterior with mud and water. Additional buildings were set into hillsides and covered with sod.

At its peak operation, over 5,600 Navy personnel and almost 10,000 Army personnel were stationed side-by-side on Amaknak and Unalaska Islands on Margaret Bay. The Naval Operating Base provided a naval air station and a deep-water port.

Housing was predominantly two-story dormitories, each of which housed 63 men and were built according to the standard quartermaster plans. The buildings were modified to accommodate drying rooms, arctic entries, and blackout windows. Additional civilian contractors were housed in the refurbished 1889 freight and passenger ship, S.S. Northwestern, which was beached for easy access and provided power.

Socializing, entertainment, and recreation occurred in mess halls, theaters, officers and enlisted men’s clubs, and beer halls. United Service Organizations entertainers sometimes performed with the 206th Coast Artillery Band, stationed in Dutch Harbor. Other times, individual comedians, actors, or musicians performed on stage. These acts were to promote troop morale, which could be low in the cold, windy, dangerous Aleutian Islands. Famous actors, comedians, and singers, including Joe E. Brown, Bob Hope, Frances Langford, and Olivia de Haviland, visited the Aleutian Islands.

Chapels and military chaplains offered solace to soldiers and sailors, while morgues and cemeteries housed the dead. Other buildings included warehouses, repair shops, ammunition storage and magazines, bunkers, a powerhouse, hospitals, command posts, administrative buildings, training buildings, post offices, radio buildings, hangars, and others.

The Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base, which included an air station, submarine base, ship repair facility, and fleet provision facilities, was commissioned on January 1, 1943.

Dutch Harbor continued to have essential missions throughout the war. The naval air station expanded into a naval operating base. Among its many tasks was controlling the steady stream of Soviet shipping that passed through Dutch Harbor and adjacent Akutan Pass en route to and from Siberia and the United States.

Shortly after the end of World War II in September 1945, the U.S. military decommissioned Fort Mears and the Naval Operating Base. Residents repurposed abandoned building materials, canned goods, clothes, and ammunition. The building materials helped repair war damage and looting to their homes, churches, and other buildings.

For decades, the buildings remained standing, generally abandoned. With the growth of the king crab fishery in the 1970s, many of these buildings were used as warehouses, bunkhouses, and family homes.

In the late 1980s, the U.S.U.S. government finally funded a site cleanup, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers demolished most of the remaining military buildings. The island was then turned over for commercial use.

The site is one of eight historic landmarks commemorating World War II in Alaska.