Bitter cold could kill a man–softly, even kindly, but very, very quickly. Most of the soldiers who wintered on the Alaska Highway in 1942/43 survived, but the survivors would never forget the miserable experience. Reading their memories today still produces involuntary shudders.
A soldier named Boos spent evenings with his four tent mates huddled next to a little homemade barrel stove that struggled gamely to warm the tent, turning their bodies at frequent intervals because the stove could warm but one side of a man at a time. The outside, and sometimes even the inside walls of the tent sparkled with frost.
Link to another story “What Extreme Cold Does to Equipment—and Beer”
Another soldier named Mouton got his foot stuck in deep permafrost. When, with the help of his friends, he managed to free it, he had to immerse the frozen foot in a bucket of snow to slow the thawing process and avoid permanent damage.
Billy Connor, a civil engineer, remembered the greatest danger—traveling the pioneer road. “If your vehicle breaks down, walking a few miles can actually cost you your life”. And the bitter cold increased the probability of a breakdown.
Traveling the winding, twisting, often single lane, road, drivers faced constant blind curves; preferred to drive at night when oncoming lights would reveal the presence of opposing traffic. But at night, temperatures fell. And a truck that failed its driver in the dark put him in serious jeopardy.
On the way to Ft. Nelson, PRA trucker, Oscar Albanati ran into a convoy of Army trucks stopped along the road. He approached a stalled truck.
There was a black swamper in the cab. I thought he was sleeping.
The other [black soldier] had the hood up and was leaning against a
fender peering into the engine. I tapped the boy on the shoulder and
he fell over. He was dead, frozen stiff. He was trying to repair something. The man inside was so cold he couldn’t move, but he wasn’t dead.
