Castner's Cutthroats: Saga of the Alaska Scouts

Castner's Cutthroats: Saga of the Alaska Scouts by Jim Rearden. paperback edition. ISBN: 9781575100845.

Innokenty McBratney, the half-Aleut son of a Scot trader from the Aleutian island of Attu Talky LLoyd, a renegade Colorado Cowboy turned Alaska guide/trapper; Jonny Blackwolf, and Athapaskan from the arctic Koyukuk valley; Short the Bear, a trapper from deep in the Wrangell Mountains; Silver Fox Will Rooney, a trapper/commercial fisherman from Bristol Bay. These are the heroes of this exciting tale of the Alaska Scouts who played a key role in the Aleutian Campaign of WWII. World War II was imminent in 1941, when, searching the ranks for woodsmen for his new Alaska Scout Platoon (later nicknamed Castners Cutthroats), Col. Lawrence V. Castnet handpicked these men and others of their ilk. The usual draftees couldnt cope with Alaskas harsh wilderness--these Alaskans could. We accompany these adventurous Alaskans as they gain their wilderness skills. We learn how they were selected for Castners elite platoon, and how their wilderness backgrounds prepared them for scouting and the terrible battle of Attu. Although it portrays the Aleutian Campaign with historical accuracy, this is more than a war story. It is a story of early 20th-century Alaska and how a handful of extraordinary Alaskans participated in the war.