Last Letters from Attu

At the conclusion of her own thirty-four year teaching career, Mary Breu set out to write the story of her great-aunt, Etta Jones. After doing extensive research, Mary used Etta's letters, old photographs, Etta's unpublished manuscript written after her captivity, and her research to write this book. She holds a bachelor's and master's degrees. She lives with her husband Jerry in South Carolina.

Etta Jones was not a World War II soldier or a war time spy. She was a school teacher whose life changed forever on that Sunday morning in June 1942 when the Japanese military invaded Attu Island and Etta became a prisoner of war.Etta and her sister moved to the Territory of Alaska in 1922. She planned to stay only one year as a vacation, but this 40 something year old nurse from back east met Foster Jones and fell in love. They married and for nearly twenty years they lived, worked and taught in remote Athabascan, Alutiiq, Yup'ik and Aleut villages where they were the only outsiders. Their last assignment was Attu.After the invasion, Etta became a prisoner of war and spent 39 months in Japanese POW sites located in Yokohama and Totsuka. She was the first female Caucasian taken prisoner by a foreign enemy on the North American Continent since the War of 1812, and she was the first American female released by the Japanese at the end of World War II.Using descriptive letters that she penned herself, her unpublished manuscript, historical documents and personal interviews with key people who were involved with events as they happened, her extraordinary story is told for the first time in this book.

TABLE OF CONTENTSPreface 9To Alaska 13Tanana: 1922-1923 27Tanana: 1923-1930 37Tanana, Tatitlek, and Old Harbor: 1928-1932 53From Kodiak to Kipnuk: 1932 70Kipnuk Culture: 1932 79Letters from Kipnuk: 1932-1933 91Kipnuk School: 1932-1934 112Letters from Kipnuk: 1934-1937 119Old Harbor: 1937-1941 135Attu: 1941-1942 148Invasion: 1942 167The Australians: January-July 1942 181Bund Hotel, Yokohama: July 1942 193Yokohama Yacht Club: 1942-1943 203Yokohama Yacht Club: 1943-1944 213Totsuka: 1944-1945 227Rescue: August 31, 1945 245Return to the United States: September 1945 255Home: 1945-1965 266Afterword by Ray Hudson 279Acknowledgements 281Notes 283Bibliography 305Index 307About the Author 317About the Afterword Writer 319