Spare parts became precious. The Alaska Highway that spooled out behind the soldiers with their dozers and carryalls and hand tools in 1942 swarmed with smaller vehicles, especially deuce and a half trucks. The equipment plowing through the woods required more than mountains of 55-gallon drums of fuel. Mud pulled hoses loose, tracks and rollers …
Category Archives: Alaska in WWII
Fuel for the Monster Dozers
Fuel, the bulldozers plowing through the North Country wilderness in 1942 had an enormous appetite for it. If supporting the men in the woods and their furious labor meant, first and foremost, getting supplies to them, getting fuel to the big dozers posed the single biggest supply challenge. More on getting supplies into the woods …
D8 A Bucket of Olive Drab
“A Bucket of Olive Drab,’ the Caterpillar Company called the D8 Bulldozer they shipped to the Army. They also called it the “indispensable, all-purpose weapon of the Engineers”. The big crawlers made the Alaska Highway Project possible in 1942. The Big Machines Could be Delicate Too The D8 weighed in at twenty- three tons. Its …
Civilians on the Alaska Highway Project
Soldiers and Civilians Civilians work different. The Army can dispatch soldiers, organized into military units with equipment more-or- less-in hand, relatively quickly in an emergency. Soldiers in wartime face danger and endure hardship. Speed trumps quality. In 1942 at the point of the spear, soldiers plowed into the Far North wilderness, endured, survived and carved …
Thad Bryson Winter
Thad Bryson, a young black man from Old Fort, North Carolina met the Tuskegee Airmen. Shortly after that his regiment, the 97th Engineering Regiment quite suddenly left Florida—for Alaska! Thad Bryson meets the Tuskegee Airmen Thad’s son Fred shared with us his dad’s stories. Like a lot of veterans, Thad didn’t talk about it much; …
Soldiers and Civilians
For More on the Effort in Alaska The Army sent both soldiers and civilians to the Alaska Highway Project. The Army can dispatch soldiers, organized into military units with equipment more or less in hand, relatively quickly in an emergency. Soldiers in wartime face danger and endure hardship. Speed trumps quality. In 1942 at the …
Troopship
The troopship USS David Branch met the young black soldiers of the 97th at the Port of Seattle. They got off their trains at Ft. Lewis and one company moved directly to the port to deliver their few small trucks for loading on the ship. More on Getting to Seattle Through the day on April …
Mentasta
At Mentasta Pass the black soldiers of the 97th met their toughest, most dangerous problems; met them and solved them. Back in March, Generals Sturdevant and Hoge hurriedly planning their assault on the North Country wilderness, ordered the 97th from Florida to Valdez, Alaska. From Valdez they directed them up the Richardson Highway to Slana, …
Sikanni Chief Bridge
The Sikanni Chief River, glacial, 300 feet across, pours through a canyon between two mountains and directly across the route of the Alaska Highway north of Fort St. John. The grade down to the river and back up exceeds ten percent. And The Alcan builders needed to bridge it. The segregated 95th Engineers, working north …
One Ramshackle Dock
The SS David Branch, carrying the segregated 97th Engineering Regiment to the Alaska Highway dropped anchor in Valdez Harbor on April 29, 1942. Valdez offered one ramshackle dock and no harbor pilots. On April 30 her captain, forced to an unassisted docking, managed to ram her bow into and through the end of the dock. …