Kanaga Diary: Lost in the Aleutians, 1938

It was the winter of 1937-‘38. World War II was brewing. At a remote duty station on Kanaga Island, Alaska, in the middle of the Aleutian chain, eight men were engaged in a U. S. Navy mission whose aim was secret even from them.

The medic, Chief Pharmacist’s Mate Royse Gibson, had little to do – no one in the small contingent got sick, no one was injured. There wouldn’t be a mail boat for months. So Gibson kept a diary in the form of letters to his wife and two young daughters at home, to be mailed if ever it was possible. He wrote of his daily routine, and his far more interesting spare-time activities on the island.

Then one day Gibson and the cook went seal hunting, and disappeared without a trace.

Gibson’s letters home, finally delivered to his family months later, comprise half of Kanaga Diary. The other half of this double memoir is his daughter Estelle’s story of the family, struggling, eventually moving on, but keeping his memory alive. In 1995 Estelle and her husband set out for Kanaga on a pilgrimage to investigate her father’s disappearance and to finally say goodbye.

The book is illustrated with photos, maps, and ephemera of the times, both long past and recent, on Kanaga Island. The story of the secret U. S. Navy aerological station on Kanaga is one that’s new and surprising even to those familiar with the history of World War II in the Aleutian Islands. Though it began eight decades ago, the story of the family at home and uncertain will resonate with military families even today.