Flipping through the 1945 cruise book of the 138th Naval Construction Battalion (NCB), it’s easy to get lost in the detailed etchings of daily life “On Island X.” Produced by the Welfare and Recreation Department and 138th NCB, the book contains images paired with descriptions of various objects, events, and colloquial phrases familiar to the Construction Battalions (C.B. or “Seabees”) during World War II. As one 138th Seabee notes in the beginning, “This is my book…it is an insight into the conditions of my work, my diversions, and my fellowships as a member of a military unit at its assigned station.”i The book accomplishes this intended task. It also provides an arguably overlooked window into the impact of isolation and harsh climates on morale and mental fortitude that still affects today’s Navy.ii
Some sections of the book show common experiences of nearly all Seabees and Sailors, regardless of location, including images entitled “Beer” and “Seasick.” Other renderings, however, had specific application to the Aleutians, where the 138th spent the last years of World War II.
iii While some images focus on the environment of the Aleutians, including “Williwaws” (strong storms), others such as the “Aleutian Stare” require additional context to unpack their meaning. Sketched in black and white, this image shows a wide-eyed figure staring off-center of the page, with a thumb’s up symbol and a seagull lurking overhead. The figure’s gaze gives the impression that if you waved your hand in front of their face, they would not react. On the page prior, the authors describe the Aleutian Stare as a “lockjaw of the eyes” and explain how the vacant stare progresses in stages. With a touch of humor, the final lines note that “…at eighteen months [of being on the island] you began discussing personal matters with the seagulls…at any time after that the birds began to talk back…it was positively amazing what some of those gulls had to say.”
iv While the men of the 138th NCB chose to make light of the conditions on the island, the sketched image and accompanying description allude to a more abstruse history of how the weather and monotony of daily life in the Aleutians affected those stationed there.
A Tale of Two Aleutians
During World War II, the Army and Navy conducted joint operations in the Aleutians as a response to the Japanese invasion of Attu and Kiska during the Midway campaign of 1942.
v Public understanding of the Aleutian campaign relied heavily on government efforts, which did not always accurately reflect the state of personnel throughout WWII. Comparing the 1943 War Department film, “Report from the Aleutians” and the “Aleutian Stare” found in the 138th cruise book just a year later offers the opportunity to grasp a more realistic picture of how environment influenced personnel and the various factors that impacted morale.
In 1943, the U.S. Army Signal Corps released a film entitled “Report from the Aleutians” to inform the American public of the day-to-day operations in the North Pacific. Directed and narrated by John Huston, the documentary style film shot in Technicolor relayed the daily lives of service members on Adak Island during World War II. John Huston and his team of six filmmakers lived and worked on Adak for six months, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated the film for Best Documentary.
vi
The War Department utilized clips of daily life and missions shown in the film to relay the Aleutians as an action-packed duty station. Just over 400 miles from Attu, Adak sits on the far western portion of the Aleutian archipelago in the Bering Sea. With the island serving as a crucial base from which the US recaptured Attu from the Japanese, the proximity was undeniably important. As the camera pans to two men wrestling in tall grass and sitting in a tent playing the harmonica, Huston’s voice explains to viewers, “The extraordinary fact is that morale actually gets strong the closer the troops come to the enemy. On Adak proper, morale is first rate.”
vii Given the continuous action, direct proximity to enemy forces, and strong sense of mission, it’s not a stretch to say high morale characterized the island during the 1943 filming.
“Report from the Aleutians” offered a generally propagandistic viewpoint of the war raging in the island chain during a very short timeline to drum up support on the Homefront. The documentary did, however, include clues regarding the reality of extended living and working conditions in the Aleutians. As Huston explains early in the documentary, “Remote as the moon and hardly more fertile, Adak is next to worthless in terms of human existence.”
viii Those who served in remote locations such as the Aleutians encountered specific challenges to morale and mental health as the war waged on, with the realities of war exacerbated by the additional burdens of isolation and adverse climate.
While fighting the Japanese promoted a direct sense of mission and morale boost in 1943, the men of the 138th encountered a different circumstance by 1944. According to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, some service members in the North Pacific during World War II were lucky enough to be reorganized in island-hopping campaigns or transferred to the European Theatre. Others “were left to molder in the Aleutians, then the backwater of World War II. Some came to appreciate the raw beauty of the landscape; some succumbed to the weather and isolation and turned to alcohol. Others cracked, and were sent home in straightjackets, their eyes fixed in the ‘Aleutian Stare.’”
ix Differing from the earlier depictions of life on Adak shown in Huston’s film, the 138th NCB cruise book’s inclusion of the Aleutian Stare suggests conditions on the islands, and morale, continued to deteriorate throughout the war.
Modern historians who have studied the Aleutians during WWII emphasized how environmental factors hurt morale. According to Galen Perras’ account, “troop morale was fast crumbling in the desolate islands, with manifold cases of severe clinical depression, suicide attempts, and numerous assorted disciplinary problems.”
x Speaking of those who served on Umnak Island in particular, Brian Garfield describes how “Their expressions faded; their stoic fortitude became the bland apathy of boneless sprawls and glazed, opaque eyes—the Aleutian Stare. They looked like veteran commuters waiting for a train that would never come.”
xi These conditions took their toll on personnel’s mental and physical health. The weather, combined with the tedium and sense of boredom rendered the impacts of the Aleutian Stare noticeable. “In the end,” Garfield notes, “some of them [personnel] reached the worst kind of desperation—a total unfeeling calm. One by ones and two by twos, they began to disappear, sent back to the States under sedation.”
xii
In addition to the NCB World War II era cruise book and historical assessments of the Aleutians campaigns, references to the “Aleutian Stare” also appear throughout descriptions of fishing communities and fictional narratives set in the Aleutians.
xiii Each work paints a picture of the harsh climate and the Aleutian Stare as a state one enters when the conditions are too much to bear. As the 2004-2006 Poet Laureate of Alaska, Jerah Chadwick wrote, “I’ve heard what these islands can do to a man’s eyes. Stares of water and weather, as if the barrenness were echoing.”
xiv Such accounts and the pervasiveness of the term suggest location and climate have a direct bearing on the wellbeing of armed services personnel. When paired with historical sources and literature, the description of the Aleutian Stare in the 138th NCB cruise book challenges the depiction of high morale throughout the war promoted by “Report from the Aleutians” and offers a different take on the reality of living and working on Adak or Attu.
The Aleutian Islands during World War II provide an extreme example of how adverse environmental conditions could damage morale. As Chairman of the Committee of National Morale during World War II, Arthur Upham Pope underscored that “Morale wins wars, solves crises, is an indispensable condition of a vigorous national life and equally essential to the maximum achievement of the individual.”
xv Although Seabees used humor to describe the Aleutian Stare in their cruise book, the widespread testimony about the gaze and its recurrence in secondary literature after the war establishes the condition undoubtedly had an effect during wartime on the degradation of morale. While “Report from the Aleutians” captures the victorious spirit of the Aleutians campaign, the Aleutian Stare offers a realistic picture of environmental impact on personnel by analyzing change over time.
Increased Focus on Morale and Mental Health
The impacts of the Aleutian Stare can be broadly characterized into a larger understanding of morale and mental health in the US. By the postwar period, medical professionals treated “morale” and mental health as related concepts that underscored mental readiness as an essential component to the health of all armed services. Following World War II, the National Mental Health Act “authorized the Surgeon General to improve the mental health of U.S. citizens through research into the causes, diagnoses, and treatment of psychiatric disorders.”
xvi In 1949, after veterans from World War II contributed to increased numbers of diagnosable mental illness, the U.S. Congress designated May as National Mental Health Awareness Month.xvii As Dr. R.F. Tedgold explained, “Morale is interlinked with mental health and contributes to it…”
xviii While serving on board ship, in submarines, or in isolated duty stations, individual and group morale have been vital components of well-being and readiness since World War II and remain a critical factor in establishing the health of the fleet.
Morale and Mental Health in Modern Day
Nearly eight decades after the publication of 138th NCB’s cruise book, morale continues to play a key role in how the Navy gauges the readiness of the force and the health of all warfighters. Open from June through August 2023, the Health of the Force (HoF) Survey invited all active-duty personnel to fill out a survey that would help Navy leadership assess the state of the force. According to the survey fact sheet, “Together with the Defense Organizational Climate Survey (DEOCS), the HoF is a way to measure whether Navy Quality of Service is getting better or worse.”
xix While survey results revealed that perceptions of morale increased from 2021, most respondents would not describe their command’s morale as high or very high. These metrics underscore the continued influence of morale and room for improvement.
xx They also necessitate a deeper consideration of environmental factors. While the 2023 HoF survey focused on work environment (HoF-W), it did not consider differing duty environments when measuring burnout, stress, command morale, sleep, or work life balance.
With May serving as Mental Health Awareness Month, history reminds us that morale and mental health are not synonymous, but they are intrinsically linked and remain necessary considerations for the overall well-being of the Fleet. While some sources such as “Report from the Aleutians” can color our interpretation of previous conflicts, the 138th NCB’s inclusion of the “Aleutian Stare” in a 1945 cruise book underscores of the reality of war, the cost of isolation, and the impact of environment as a significant contributor to the morale, and overall health, of a fighting Naval force.
i On Island X: 138th Naval Construction Battalion Maintains Island “X,” Cruisebook, (Seattle: The Deers Press, 1945), 5 (digital file), https://www.history.navy.mil/content/dam/museums/Seabee/Cruisebooks/wwiicruisebooks/ncb-cruisebooks/138%20%20NCB.pdf.
ii The 138th NCB was part of a new, vital component of the wartime U.S. Navy. Established in 1942, the Seabees were organized under the Bureau of Yards and Docks (BUDOCKS). In 350 units across more than 400 locations, 325,000 men served with the Seabees during World War II.ii While their primary duty was to build military facilities, by 1945, the 138th NCB was tasked with maintenance of infrastructure in the Aleutians.\
iiiThe cruise book does not name the island, as “military security necessitates the omission of certain place names and dates that would ordinarily be used in our story” (On Island X, 3; digital file). Unit lists from the 138th NCB, however, show the battalion was reactivated on Attu Island in the Aleutian chain beginning 1 February 1944 with a detachment of 3 officers and 144 men ordered for temp duty at Naval Operating Base Adak Island on 31 January 1945 (“138th Naval Construction Battalion Historical Information,” https://www.history.navy.mil/content/dam/museums/Seabee/UnitListPages/NCB/138%20NCB.pdf). Given the timeframe of these events and the publication date of the cruise book, the images and accompanying descriptions are representative of experiences on Attu as “Island X” with the detachment to Adak Island sharing in many of the experiences that characterized life on the Aleutian chain.
iv On Island X, 101-102 (digital file).
v For a detailed overview of the Aleutians Campaign see: Colin G. Jameson, The Aleutians Campaign, June 1942-August 1943 (Washington: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1993).
vi Damon Stuebner, “Report from the Aleutians,” Alaska State Library, 3 April 2018, https://library.alaska.gov/hist/report-from-the-aleutians.html.
vii Office of War Information and U.S. Army Signal Corps, “Report from the Aleutians,” 1943, available via C-SPAN, https://www.c-span.org/video/?425481-1/report-aleutians.
viii “Report from the Aleutians,” 1943.
ix U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Battle for the Aleutians: A Brief Illustrated History (Anchorage: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Alaska Region, 2011): https://www.google.com/books/edition/Battle_for_the_Aleutians/2azU5-eX-woC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=aleutian+stare&pg=PP36&printsec=frontcover.
x Roger Galen Perras, Stepping Stones to Nowhere: The Aleutian Islands, Alaska, and American Military Strategy, 1867-1945 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2003), 159.
xi Brian Garfield, The Thousand Mile War: World War II in Alaska and the Aleutians (New York: Bantam Books, 1969, 162. Accessible in part via Googlebooks.
xii Garfield, The Thousand Mile War, 163.
xiii Literature contains several references to the Aleutian Stare, including Harry B. Dodge, The Hunts (Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2011); Francis E Caldwell, The Search for the Amigo (Port Angeles: Anchor Publishing, 2000); Spike Walker, Working on the Edge: Surviving the World’s Most Dangerous Profession: King Grab Fishing on Alaska’s High Seas (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991).
xiv Jerah Chadwick, “Aleutian Stare,” Cutbank: Vol. 1: Iss. 19, Article 16 (Fall 1982), available at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1843&context=cutbank.
xv Arthur Upham Pope, “The Importance of Morale,” The Journal of Educational Sociology 15, no. 4 (1941): 195. https://doi.org/10.2307/2262466. For more on Pope and his work with the Committee of National Morale, see his papers located at the New York Public Library, https://archives.nypl.org/mss/2454.
xvi “NIMH Legislative Chronology,” National Institute of Mental Health, https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/what-we-do/nih-almanac/national-institute-mental-health-nimh#:~:text=1946%E2%80%94P.L.%2079%2D487%2C,and%20treatment%20of%20psychiatric%20disorders. Accessed 13 May 2024.
xvii “Benefits.gov spotlights Mental Health Awareness Month,” accessed 14 May 2024, https://www.benefits.gov/news/article/163. See also “Our History,” Mental Health America, https://mhanational.org/our-history; “Mental Health Awareness Month,” SAMSHA, https://www.samhsa.gov/mental-health-awareness-month.
xviii R.F. Tedgold, M.A., M.D., D.P.M., “Morale and Mental Health in Modern Society, read at the Annual General Meeting of the National Association for mental health, January 6, 1950. Accessed via National Institute of Health on 1 April 2024, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5078410/pdf/menthealthlond70509-0005.pdf.
xix Navy Health of the Force Survey Fact Sheet, June 2023, https://www.mynavyhr.navy.mil/Portals/55/Messages/NAVADMIN/FACT_SHEETS/Fact_Sheet_NAV_141_23.pdf?ver=IuTLT-RTCwN04TR2MT1Qdg%3D%3D.
xx United States Department of the Navy, “Health of the Force Report,” CY2023, 8, https://www.mynavyhr.navy.mil/Portals/55/Reference/Publications/CY23%20Health%20of%20the%20Force%20Report.pdf?ver=WHbsCTZ3wzR-NBgzyQa-3Q==