No irony accompanied the fact that in early 1942, the Aleutians offered the marauding Japanese a back door to America. America’s leaders decided she needed a road to Alaska to defend it, and some of them realized the road wouldn’t do a lot of good if convoys had to dedicate the bulk of their …
Category Archives: Alaska Highway in Yukon
Millie’s First White Men Were Black
Millie Jones, born in Whitehorse, grew up in Carcross, Yukon Territory—about as remote a place as the world had to offer. People in Carcross ordered their groceries in bulk–had staples shipped to Skagway and then up to them by the White Pass and Yukon Territory railroad. Clothes came from the Sears catalogue. Millie shared the Carcross …
Whitehorse, Headquarters City
Whitehorse, Yukon Territory headquartered most of the Alaska Highway Project throughout 1942. Decisions coming out of the little city shaped the lives of the men on the highway. More important, the organization that controlled everything their lives depended on—from food and supplies to equipment and medical care—centered there. Whitehorse Yukon 1942 In a contemporary newspaper …
Opening Ceremony, the Publicity Machine Launched
Two bulldozers met in the woods and the publicity machine launched. Colonels and generals had got bulldozers from the 97th and the 18th in the same place, therefore they had completed the Alaska Highway. End of story. On to a dramatic opening ceremony. Two Bulldozers in the Same Place Secretary of War Henry Stimson …
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What Extreme Cold Does to Equipment—and Beer
Extreme cold does things to equipment that the soldiers of the 97th and 18th Engineers never imagined. As the last two regiments working on the Alaska Highway, in October and November 1942, working in northernmost Yukon Territory, they became experts on the subject. The 18th Combat Engineers Young Black Soldiers of the 97th Even in …
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Gangplanks and Leonard Cox
Gangplanks punctuated Leonard Cox’s time with the 340th Engineers. A gangplank in Seattle carried him onto the ship that took him up the inside passage to Skagway. He didn’t know it, but his regiment would defend America by helping build the Alaska Highway through Northern Canada. More from the 340th The Army drafted Leonard …
Segregation came to Skagway in 1942.
Segregation meant that soldiers, at least the black enlisted soldiers, in Skagway in 1942 lived separate, not just from their officers, but from everyone else as well. Six year old Carl Mulvihill spotted black soldiers quartered across the alley from his house. Excited, he waved and called. They ignored him. Only later did he learn …
Smitty Schmitt’s War—with the elements in Yukon
Smitty Schmitt, early in 1942, received orders to report for duty at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana. He and his wife packed up and headed south from their home in Schenectady, NY. In camp, he reported to the regimental adjutant of the 93rd Engineers. 93rd Engineers Making Road “Do you have a car and are you married?” …
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From the Subarctic North to Burma and India
Gouging a Road through Yukon Clyde S. Deal came to te subarctic north to join the 93rd Engineering Regiment in Yukon in April 1942. Through the summer he helped build the supply road from Carcross to Johnson’s Crossing on the Teslin River, learned to deal with muskeg and airplane sized mosquitoes. Through the late summer …
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Appendicitis
Appendicitis doesn’t normally amount to a major threat—unless you get it on the North Bank of the White River in Northern Yukon in November 1942. The you need bush pilot Les Cook and his Norseman Monoplane. Comrades place the young soldier on a litter and carry him two miles to the river. The bridge …