[2] Despite facing difficult weather conditions and continual bombing attacks from the Japanese, Army engineers managed to build a runway.

18th Fighter Squadron P-40 Warhawks began to arrive from Adak and surprised the Japanese by launching counter-attacks to their raids from Kiska.

[4] The military eventually built numerous buildings, roads, and a total of three airstrips on the island,[5] some of which would later be renovated and used by the Atomic Energy Commission in the 1960s.

Without unloading the bombers and adding external tanks, the 73d Bombardment Squadron B-25 Mitchells and B-26 Marauders on Amchitka would have insufficient range to attack the Japanese in the battle area.

[1] From its bases on Amchitka and Adak, Eleventh Air Force conducted continual bombing raids on the Japanese on Kiska and Attu.

Between 1 April and 11 May, the Eleventh Air Force bombers and fighters, joined by PBYs of Navy Fleet Wing Four reached its highest peak of operational activity during its bombing campaign.

The close proximity of Amchitka allowed the fighters to participate in the attacks and run low-level sweeps over the Japanese positioned on Kiska.

The battle, which lasted for more than two weeks, ended when most of the Japanese defenders were killed in brutal hand-to-hand combat after a final banzai charge broke through American lines.

The mission of Amchitka AAB was that of a communications facility and also refueling for support and combat aircraft headed to and from Alexai Point Army Airfield on Attu and Shemya Army Airfield where long-range B-24 Liberator bombing attacks were carried out on Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands of northern Japan.

[5] Amchitka Air Force Base today is largely intact, although abandoned in most part for the past sixty years.

Runways, taxiways, aircraft parking dispersal revetments remain along with a large support base with deteriorating buildings.

Due to its remote location, it rests undisturbed with ice and snow covering the base most of the year, exposed to the elements in the short summers.

The aircraft parking is dispersed over a wide area almost to the south shore of the island connected by a taxiway and road network.

To the north of the main World War II runway are a large number of roads and what appear to be Quonset huts.

The large number of access roads and Quonset huts are intermixed with new facilities built in the 1960s by the AEC which apparently used the old AFB as its main base station.

The AEC built a series of roads, base camp facilities and support buildings for the nuclear workers over the south part of the island in a similar manner to the Nevada Test Site.

[12] This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency Download coordinates as: