Captain Bill Choate sits with passengers in front of his commissioned tour boat, the Pukuk, on July 2, 2013. (Audrey Carlsen/KUCB)

A travel company specializing in military history has set its sights on the Aleutian Islands. A WWII-focused cruise from Attu to Unalaska marks the beginning of what may be a new wave of interest in "the Forgotten War."

Unalaska is the last stop on the twelve-day cruise, which started in Adak, went west along the Aleutian chain to Attu, and then back again, visiting important WWII sites along the way.

Although travel company Valor Tours offers over 20 military history expeditions every year, trip leader John Cloe says that this tour was the first of its kind.

"This is obviously a hard-to-get-to place and we had to overcome a lot of logistical problems," he says.

But Cloe, a retired WWII historian, was so set on making the tour a reality that he even helped to finance it by paying several thousand dollars for his own spot as trip leader. He says that it’s important to keep telling the story of WWII in the Aleutians – a piece of history often referred to as "the Forgotten War."

"I bought a book [on] WWII for Dummies and it didn’t even have anything about the Aleutians. It kind of gets ignored," says Cloe. "Everybody thinks Normandy and Iwo Jima and [forgets] that the second bloodiest battle of the war was fought up here in the Pacific."

As important as it may be to keep the history of the Aleutians alive, it takes a certain kind of person to leave their books at home and embark on this kind of expedition. Passenger Suellyn Wright Novak says you have to be ready to rough it – just like the soldiers did 70 years ago.

"You would have your tall rubber boots on, your XtraTufs or whatevers, and you would be crawling over muskeg and sinking into the terrain," says Novak. "A lot of places had big rocks that you had to crawl over. And it just brought the whole thing to life, it really did."

Novak is the executive director of the Alaska Veterans Museum in Anchorage. She says that for her, being out on the islands, especially Attu, was an almost mystical experience.

"The winds speak to you," she says. "And one of the things they ask is: tell our story, don’t let us be forgotten, tell our story."

Of the nine people on the cruise, many were historians, interested in seeing with their own eyes the places that they had spent their lives writing about. Most of the travelers were also from Alaska. But there were a few people on the trip who had no prior connection to the Aleutians at all.

"My husband got me coming for our 40th wedding anniversary gift!" says passenger Kim Keltner.

Keltner and her husband – a self-declared history buff – are from Missouri, and joined the trip simply to bring to life an obscure chapter of history.

Tour leader John Cloe says he is confident that there are plenty of others out there like the Keltners.

"I’m sure that there are millions and millions and millions of people in the United States, people who really want to go on this tour that have seen everything else," says Cloe. "They want to see the Aleutians. Just a matter of connecting with them."

Cloe already has the dates set for next year’s trip and he hopes that people will continue to be interested in what it has to offer – namely, good memories, and an education.