Army Private First Class George Fox was a brave Aleut warrior - Unangax/Aleut - the only one known to be killed-in-action during World War Two. Fox was awarded a Purple Heart, but his proud name is not etched in granite on any of the Alaska military memorials or even on a headstone.
For over 70 years, each Memorial Day respected elder Gertrude Svarny has dutifully placed a small American flag in the dense moss that blankets where George was laid to rest in the Russian Orthodox church cemetery on the east edge of Unalaska Village.
The oversight of honors that should have been bestowed on Fox will soon be rectified due to years of research and action taken by a handful of dedicated Alaskans. Although Fox’s story is unique, it illustrates the challenges faced by our Greatest Generation.
George was born 20 January 1920, the ninth child of 31-year-old Unangax̂ Aleut villager Emma Nellie (Gardner) Fox and 43-year-old Englishman, Thomas Fox, who moved to Alaska after serving in Her Majesty’s Navy. Three of the couple’s young children died of influenza that same year, as the epidemic ravaged the territory of Alaska wiping out entire village populations.
The Fox family lived in a cabin on the north side of McCann’s Point, just outside of Unga Village on Unga Island, a place with a beautiful view of Delarof Harbour. After 500,000 tons of ore was produced, flooding closed the gold mine, and Unga eventually become a ghost town. The family moved to the bustling seaport of Unalaska.
Two days after turning 21, George Fox registered for the Army in 1941 - nearly a year before Pearl Harbor was bombed.
The Army Registrar noted that George was 5’7” tall, 160 pounds, with brown eyes, black hair and a ruddy complexion. Fox initially identified as an Indian on the Registrar’s Report, but then scratched that out and leaned-in to his father’s Northern European linage before signing his name in a clean and decisive script.
Emma Gardner passed away three months after George registered for military service, so his next-of-kin contact was switched to his married sister who lived in Berkeley, California.
In early June of the next year, Japanese planes bombed Unalaska for two days. In her personal history, George’s oldest sister, CIRI Elder-of-the-Year Katherine Kashevaroff, related how her five-year-old son Norman came running in screaming, “They are tooting at us! They are tooting at us!!” before the family took to the island’s rugged hills for protection.
Katie recalled that the villagers were only allowed to take one suitcase each when they were evacuated by the US military for their safety. More than 800 Aleut - nine villages on six islands - were relocated 1,500 miles away to an abandoned cannery and a rundown gold mine camp in Southeast Alaska. One-in-ten would die from food shortages, pneumonia, and tuberculosis.
The women and children of the Fox family were fortunate and able to make their way stateside to Washington and California. When the war was over in 1944, the family returned to Unalaska to find their home in shambles.
George’s father stayed back and served in the Unga Unit, alongside 6,300 other unpaid volunteers in the Alaska Territorial Guard. From June 1942 until it was officially disbanded in March of 1947, the Eskimo Scouts played a defensive role - averaging just under one scout for each mile of the coast of Alaska. Scouts were recruited from over a hundred communities and actively promoted equal treatment for all, regardless of race.
Private George Fox was assigned to Company G, 179th Infantry Regiment, 45th division - which consisted mostly of nationalized Oklahoma National Guard fighting men called the Tomahawks. They were one of the first National Guard units activated in World War II - putting their shoulder to the wheel the same time that Fox enlisted. George served as military police in Africa before being moved to Italy - where the Tomahawks took part in intense fighting during the invasion of Sicily and the attack on Salerno in the 1943 Italian Campaign.
Two weeks before he was killed, George wrote his father from the Anzio Beach Head, asking about the Bristol Bay fishing season and the price of salmon. He lamented that he had missed three seasons and would sure like to be fishing again.
“I’m transferred into the “Infantry” and seeing some action,” George wrote.
He was part of the battle of Anzio, which was intended as a daring outflanking move that would open the way for the capture of Rome. Unfortunately, for a while during Operation Shingle the Allies were unable to drive forward and the Germans were unable to push the invaders back to the sea - creating a gridlock responsible for the deaths of 7,000 Allied and 5,000 German troops.
In fierce combat the Allies advanced, fighting their way along the coast from the Gustav Line, along the right hand side of the Alban Hills, then taking Route 6 to Rome.
Hospital records indicate “casualty, battle” was the reason that Fox was admitted and then immediately discharged from service. 24-year-old George Fox died on 1 June 1944 in Ardea, Italy, a mere 22 miles from the Italian capital.
On June 2nd, the Caesar Line collapsed and Hitler ordered no defense of Rome. In the early hours of June 4th, the Americans marched into Italy’s largest city unopposed. The men of Fox’s 45th Division were the first Allied troops to reach the Vatican.
A great photo op, but a strategic disaster. The mission failed in its objective of destroying the German 10th and 14th Armies, condemned the Allies to another bloody year of Italian combat.
At a critical moment, General Mark Clark re-directed the Fifth Army north towards Rome instead of cutting the German’s escape route and closing the trap that Sir Winston Churchill himself had set.
“General Mark Clark was so eager that the world should see pictures showing him as the liberator of Rome, that he allowed the armies of a delighted Kesselring to escape. He had ignored the orders of Field Marshall Alexander in a decision as militarily stupid as it was insubordinate. This, vain-glorious blunder, the worst of the entire war, lost us a stunning victory, lengthened the war by many months and earned Mark Clark the contempt of other American and British generals. They saw an operation that could have won the war in Italy, thrown away at the cost of many Allied lives, because of the obsession and vanity of one man. If General Mark Clark had been in the German Army, Hitler would have had him shot,” later stated British war correspondent Alan Whicker, who was present during the fighting.
Honor States suggests that George Fox was awarded the Purple Heart medal, and is eligible for the Army Good Conduct medal, American Campaign medal, Euro-African-Middle Eastern Campaign medal, World War II Victory medal, and Presidential Unit Citation ribbon.
After the war ended, in June 1945, Private Fox’s remains were shipped to his sister Mae Fox-Koski in California. That community received official credit for the loss, which is probably why attaching Fox’s records to Alaska’s statistics was a long time coming.
The remains of US Army Private First Class George Fox, serial number 39837801, were forwarded to Unalaska for burial in April 1949. Military funeral services were attended by Alaska Communication System (ACS) Commanding Officer Captain George M. Snead from Adak and held at the Russian Orthodox church. ACS operator Samuel Svarny acted as Color-Bearer in the mile-long march from town to the cemetery. Svarny’s wife has been placing a flag on Fox’s grave each Memorial Day for over seven decades.
With sponsorship from the Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association and support from Senator Dan Sullivan, on May 26, 2021 the US Department of Veterans Affairs approved an order for a traditional upright granite gravestone for George Fox. It is expected to arrive on or before June 14.
