Singing at their work? Twichell never expected to see and hear that. But he did. Southern Sector commander O’Connor, convinced by his black soldiers’ performance at Sikanni Chief that they could build bridges, gave them more bridges to build, made bridge building something of a specialty for the 95th. Link to the last story in …
Category Archives: Bridges on the Alaska HIghway
McGee, Sam McGee, and the 18th Engineers
McGee, Sam McGee, probably a name familiar to you, couldn’t know he crossed paths, albeit a half century ahead of them in time, with the soldiers of the 18th Engineering Regiment. The soldiers, building Alaska Highway through Yukon, certainly didn’t know they’d crossed paths with him. Sam McGee, the real Sam McGee, not the one …
Kiskatinaw
Kiskatinaw Bridge, one of the true engineering marvels of the Alaska Highway did not get built until the Army had moved on. A river just a few miles out of Dawson Creek, Kiskatinaw may have given the soldiers one of their first clues in 1942 that the north country would fight back. But with the …
Kluane Lake
Kluane Lake presented the soldiers of the 18th with a bridge problem that ingenuity alone would not solve. Fifty miles of their road to Alaska would run along the shore of Kluane Lake. Not a problem. But they had to get themselves and their equipment around the end of Kluane Lake before they could start …
Stockton Bridge
Stockton Bridge awaited the 18th at the Aishihik River about 80 miles north of Whitehorse. A conventional timber bridge, Stockton spanned a deep gorge and water fairly boiled through the deep channel between its solid rock walls. The 18th Comes to Skagway The surging water hadn’t bothered the original builders. Given solid rock walls …
Timber Bridges
Timber bridges installed by Alaska Highway builders speeding through the subarctic region in the summer of 1942 survived their first winter. Well… some of them survived. The soldiers, forced to add building timber bridges to their rapidly expanding skill set, learned speed not quality. North of Whitehorse, just forty soldiers built Jo-Jo River Bridge, forty …
Ice Posed the Biggest Problem in the Winter
Subarctic Cold and Vehicles Ice posed a much bigger problem than snow to the soldiers working on the Alaska Highway into the winter of 1942. When snow came, bulldozers and graders could remove it relatively easily. Ice was a different matter. At more than 250 places between Watson Lake and the Alaska border frequent icing …
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A Box of Rough Planks
A box of rough planks, lined with Army blankets, carried Clyde Hudson home from Yukon Territory in 1943. He had come north, along with thousands of other civilians, because, at the end of 1942, the Alaska Highway, at best a rough draft, needed a lot of improving. When, in the spring of 1943, the baton …
Tanana River Starting Line
On the north bank of the Tanana River, near present day Tok, Alaska the black soldiers of the 97th Engineering Regiment would finally reach the starting gate. The white soldiers of the 18th Engineering Regiment raced north through Yukon Territory toward the Alaska border. From the north bank of the Tanana the 97th would race …
Sgt Lee on the Alaska Highway
Sikanni Chief Bridge Staff Sergeant Otis E. Lee remembered his time with the 95th Engineering Regiment on the Alaska Highway Project succinctly and pungently. A black soldier, Sgt Lee did not enjoy his time in British Columbia. In charge of first platoon he supervised transportation—trucks, tanks (armored personnel carriers, actually), tractors, road graders… His men …