WWII Japanese machine gun from the battle of Attu is returned to Alaska

WHITTIER, Alaska (KTUU) – An important part of Alaskan history is now back in Alaska.

On Tuesday, the Prince William Sound Museum in Whittier accepted a 1939 Japanese machine gun — called a Nambu — used by Japanese military forces in the World War II Battle of Attu along the Aleutian Islands.

Museum Director Ted Spencer said having the gun displayed at the military museum was a lifelong dream, but getting it there was quite a journey.

It started with Lt. Colonel William Lucas, who led the charge to recapture Attu from the Japanese in 1943, earning a silver star in the process. The battle itself was bloody; the museum has the names of more than 500 American soldiers who died in the only World War II battle to be fought on North American soil.

The Americans prevailed and the Japanese retreated, leaving some of their weapons behind.

That, Spencer said, was how Lucas got the gun. It went with him to his home in Virginia where it stayed in a closet for nearly 80 years until it was eventually passed down to a granddaughter.

“So she contacted us and said, ‘Hey, would you like to have this gun for display?’ And of course, it was a big dream for me to have something from the battle of Attu,” Spencer said.

But there were complications; because the machine gun had never been registered with the federal government, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives wanted to melt it down.

Elaina Spraker, a staffer with Sen. Dan Sullivan’s office, worked to convince the agency the gun was a historic relic. It eventually agreed to transfer ownership to the City of Whittier.

On Tuesday, Sullivan toured the Whittier Museum, seeing the gun for the first time in person.

“To be able to have an original machine gun, [a] Japanese machine gun that was in that battle, you know we lost a lot of American service members,” Sullivan said. “To have that as a remembrance of the service and sacrifice — which is really what this museum is all about — it’s really powerful.”

Spencer said he hopes the gun will shed new light on a battle that many Americans are unfamiliar with. He called it an important piece of history in which Alaska played a vital role.

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