The Battle of Dutch Harbor took place on June 3–4, 1942, when the Imperial Japanese Navy launched two aircraft carrier raids on the Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base and U.S. Army Fort Mears at Dutch Harbor on Amaknak Island, during the Aleutian Islands Campaign of World War II. The bombing marked the first aerial attack by an enemy on the continental United States, and was the second time in history that the continental U.S. was bombed by someone working for a foreign power, the first being the accidental bombing of Naco, Arizona in 1929. Overview In this battle, a Japanese aircraft carrier strike force under Kakuji Kakuta launched air attacks over two days against the Dutch Harbor Naval Base and Fort Mears in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. The attacks inflicted moderate damage on the U.S. base. Shortly thereafter, Japanese naval forces under Boshiro Hosogaya invaded and occupied Attu and Kiska islands in the Aleutians. Background The air raid on Dutch Harbor was conducted to support the invasions on Kiska Island and Attu Island by the Japanese military under the AL operation. Its specific backgrounds and purposes are in the Japanese occupation of Kiska. Dutch Harbor was ringed with anti-aircraft artillery batteries from the 206th Coast Artillery (Anti Aircraft) group of the Arkansas National Guard, and was one of the key targets protected by the Eleventh Air Force based out of mainland Alaska. The 206th CA (AA) was deployed to Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands, Alaska, in August 1941 and had been on station for approximately four months when the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7. The 206th CA was equipped with the 3-inch Gun M1918 (an older model with a vertical range of ), .50in (12.7mm) M2 Browning machine guns, and Sperry searchlights. The 206th had one radar in position at Dutch Harbor at the time of the attack. In the harbor were two old destroyers, King and Talbot, destroyer-seaplane tender Gillis, submarine S-27, Coast Guard cutter Onondaga, and U.S. Army transports President Fillmore and Morlen. Battle On June 3, 1942, a Japanese carrier strike force, under the command of Rear Admiral Kakuji Kakuta, comprising the carriers and , plus escort ships, sailed to southwest of Dutch Harbor to launch air strikes at the United States Army and United States Navy facility to support a Japanese offensive in the Aleutians and in the central Pacific