Departures of note

In 1942, the day before Walker's 25th birthday, Japanese forces occupied Attu and Kiska, beginning the Aleutian Islands Campaign. Walker and thirty‑six scouts were in Anchorage when they received erroneous reports of a Japanese attack; the next morning Castner's Cutthroats set out from Anchorage, the Navy commandeered their yacht at Kodiak, and Walker and twenty‑one Alaskan Scouts boarded a submarine that took them to Adak Island, where Walker, armed with a Browning Automatic Rifle, was among the first to make landfall and secure the beach.

A two‑man American boat next to the submarine exploded just offshore from Adak. Walker recalled the accident in a 2008 interview, describing how the boat blew up about 200 yards from the submarine, how they stayed afloat, and how the submarine turned inland while a line was thrown to the scouts, who clung to welded pipes on the fantail as they were helped aboard.