North country lessons sometimes came to the Corps the hard way. In May the North Country taught the Corps that what they didn’t know posed difficult problems. What they didn’t know they didn’t know could lead to catastrophe. Link to another story “Muskeg Flats” On April 31 the 341st had been together less than two …
Category Archives: Alaska Highway
Vanilla Extract
Vanilla Extract turned out to have unanticipated uses… Lt. Dewitt Howell told Donna Blasor Bernhardt about it as he recounted his memories from the construction of the Alaska Highway. More on drinking vanilla extract Howell commanded a company in the 97th Engineering Regiment and his company specialized in building bridges, culverts, and ferries. Howell and …
SS Nisutlin
SS Nisutlin, Canadian steamer, and its Canadian crew transported men and equipment for the 340th Engineers to Morley Bay where they would start their section of the Alaska Highway. Out of Whitehorse the SS Nisutlin flowed with the Yukon, but when it turned onto the Teslin River, it turned up stream. The soldiers they transported …
Larkins—Meeting Leonard, a Veteran of the Alaska Highway Project
Larkins, the name stood out in the roll of soldiers in the 93rd. Leonard Larkins’ son found us through our research site, contacted us and in short order we headed off to New Orleans to meet his dad. Leonard had served with the 93rd Engineering Regiment on the Alaska Highway in 1942. Our Research Site …
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Tech 5 Hargoves
Tech 5 Hargoves had no idea, but events in Washington would change his life profoundly. In early 1942, in the near panic that followed Pearl Harbor, FDR and the War Department ordered the Corps of Engineers to create a land route to Alaska—yesterday! At Camp Livingston, Louisiana Tech 5 Hargroves and the other men of …
Explosion in Dawson Creek
Explosion in Dawson Creek? A year or so ago I posted about Dawson Creek, British Columbia, a tightly knit little community, isolated from the rest of the world by distance and geography and weather. The community had no idea that WWII had put them center stage in the war effort. The invasion of the US …
Chaplain and Lonely Black Officer
Chaplain and Lieutenant Finis Hugo Austin came to the 93rd at Camp Livingston and served with the regiment throughout its struggles in the Yukon wilderness. Austin, 35, had grown up in Virginia, earned a B.A. from Virginia Seminary College and an M.A. from Oberlin College in Ohio. Link to another story “Chappie” It’s hard to …
Out of Dawson Creek
Out of Dawson Creek, one man, Colonel William Hoge, started the Alaska Highway Project when he left on February 12, 1942 in a car, driven by Homer Keith, his Canadian escort. Nearly a month later Lt. Miletich and his men took themselves out of Dawson Creek in a small convoy of trucks, headed for Fort …
Carcross Met the Black Soldiers
Carcross had seen trainloads of soldiers pass through and on to Whitehorse. Now, to little Millie Jones’ delight, the black soldiers of the 93rd Engineering Regiment stopped and climbed down in Carcross. Lt. Price’s platoon came first, brought up the Regimental Chaplain, Lt. Finis Hugo Austin, and set up a post office. Millie Jones and Carcross …
Racism
Racism, not simply wrong but also incredibly inefficient, visited the commander of the Alaska Highway Project, General William Hoge on a regular basis, but never as dramatically as when he put together his plan to get two of his regiments out of Skagway and onto the Highway. Link to another story about Hoge After much …