A one-mile stream in Alaska dubbed “Nazi Creek” after it was reclaimed from the Axis Powers during World War II has finally been renamed after more than seven decades of debate.
Kiska Island and Little Kiska at the far western end of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska were taken over by the Japanese military in June 1942, mere months after the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor 1,000 miles away.
Nazi Creek was originally named by US soldiers while using an alphanumeric grid system for their maps. Bettmann Archive Alaska Department of Natural Resources
The occupation lasted a year. But it wasn’t the Japanese who gave the creek its hotly contested name.
Instead, American soldiers dubbed the stream “Nazi Creek.”
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The title was “arbitrarily applied to features” around the area by the US Army Air Forces for tactical