Hope McKenney

Officials with a U.S. Department of Defense agency are preparing to exhume the remains of an unidentified WWII soldier known simply as “X-3” who is buried in the Sitka National Cemetery. They say it could be a man named Eugene Christensen, a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Forces who they believe died in a plane crash in the Aleutian Islands Campaign in 1942.

The grave of an unidentified soldier known as “X-3” at the Sitka National Cemetery.

Mt. Edgecumbe serves students from across the state, the majority of whom are Alaska Native from rural communities. (KCAW/McKenney)

Sitkans marching down Lincoln St. on June 27, 2026. (KCAW/McKenney)

A team carries the goose-beaked whale fetus to their boat. (Photo courtesy of Ellie Schmidt, taken under NOAA Stranding Agreement number SA-AKR-2025-01 issued to UAS Sitka Campus)

The Kruzof stranding wasn’t the only one this summer. A second beaked whale was found beached in Yakutat in early June.

The remains of an unidentified WWII soldier buried in Sitka have been successfully exhumed and are now headed to a Midwest forensics lab for possible identification. The unknown serviceman, known simply as X-3, was disinterred by a Department of Defense agency team over the course of five days.

A section of Halibut Point Road was closed to traffic for two hours on Saturday (7-4-26) after an unsecured trailer carrying a boat flipped near Sitka’s downtown roundabout.

A Sitka vet is asking Sitkans to leash their dogs when exploring some local beaches. That’s after her clinic treated several dogs that became seriously ill over the Fourth of July weekend.

Nicholas Galanin in his studio on July 8, 2026. (KCAW/McKenney)