Using KOCOA Military Terrain Analysis for the Assessment of Twentieth Century Battlefield Landscapes

Military terrain analysis serves as a tool to examine a battle commander’s view of a battlefield and permits to hindcast some of the rationale for actions taken. This can be augmented by physical evidence of the remains of the battle that still exist in the cultural landscape. In the case of World W...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Heritage
Main Author: Dirk HR Spennemann
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute 2020
Subjects:
battlefield archaeology
military heritage
cultural landscapes
Kiska
Alaska
Aleutian Islands
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage3030042
Description
Summary:Military terrain analysis serves as a tool to examine a battle commander’s view of a battlefield and permits to hindcast some of the rationale for actions taken. This can be augmented by physical evidence of the remains of the battle that still exist in the cultural landscape. In the case of World War II-era battlefields, such terrain analysis has to take into account the influence of aerial warfare—the interrelationship between attacking aircraft and the siting of anti-aircraft guns. This paper examines these issues using the case example of the Japanese WWII-era base on Kiska in the Aleutian Islands (Alaska).

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