Departing our world for a better place on November 21, former United States Army Tech 5 Samuel Hargroves, one of the last survivors of a very special group of men, left it a lesser place.
Millions of men stepped up during the catastrophe of World War II to defend their country. But black men like Samuel stepped up to serve in segregated regiments and served under Army regulations that incorporated Jim Crow. Samuel and his fellows endured, accomplished and defended a country that couldn’t bring itself to thank them. As one of the last of these good and brave men to pass, Samuel stands in for all of them.
Segregation came to Skagway in 1942.
The 1940 census found Samuel in Varina, Virginia working as a farm hand. In 1941 his draft board found him there too. The Army dispatched him to Camp Livingston, Louisiana and the brand new 93rd Engineers.
In early 1942, he got leave to go home and marry the love of his life—the lovely Mayola Pleasants. But elsewhere, in the near panic that followed Pearl Harbor, FDR and the War Department had ordered the Corps of Engineers to create a land route to Alaska—yesterday! The Corps needed soldiers in Yukon and on April 7, Samuel’s wedding day, the 93rd received orders to prepare for immediate “overseas assignment”.
Mayola’s honeymoon lasted three hours.
The ship carrying Samuel arrived in Skagway Harbor at the end of winter. On deck he saw an icicle as big as his arm, hanging off a hawser. He’d never seen such a thing.
Samuel rode in a packed railroad car from Skagway up into the rugged mountains of Yukon Territory. Through summer and on to the following December he worked repairing vehicles for Company F and, seventy-five years after the fact, Samuel remembered, more than anything, the bitter cold. Gas lines froze up on the trucks, so they kept them running—all the time. Oil congealed in the trucks’ differentials, so they set cans of burning gasoline under them to warm the oil in the morning.
Samuel didn’t mind food from cans, but it froze in his mess kit.
In December 1942 Samuel traveled with the 93rd to the Aleutians; the regiment spent the rest of the war building and maintaining airfields, helping defend the Aleutians from the Japanese.
Back home in Henrico county, Samuel never discussed his time in Yukon and the Aleutians. His daughter, Shirl, knew nothing about any of this until the family threw him a surprise 90th birthday party at his church. That night he told his friends and family about being a 21-year-old soldier standing guard in dreadful cold.
“We had to go up there and build a road.”
Three years ago, Dr. Shirl Leverette, typed “93rd Engineers and Alaska Highway” into Google’s search bar and found our research website. She hit “contact us” and dispatched an email. “Samuel Hargroves served with the 93rd Engineers with Company F during WWII. He is my father. Dad will be 97 years of age in September.”
Chris contacted Dr. Leverett the next day, and the following Saturday we met Mr. Hargroves; spent the better part of the day with him and his incredible wife Mayola, his lovely daughter and several of his great grandchildren. He taught us a great deal about a black man’s life in Yukon in 1942. More important, he granted us the privilege of being in the presence of one of the unsung heroes of the Highway.
Chris cried when she hugged him; and, truth to tell, so did I.
Samuel wore a sweatshirt with the proud words “U.S. Army” across his chest. Shirl told us about a cap he wears frequently that proclaims him a WW2 veteran. Today when he wears it, “people always stop to thank him for his service; sometimes pay for his coffee…” At Yorktown, VA one afternoon, an Army Colonel knelt, reverently, and spoke with Samuel for 45 minutes.
It’s about damned time.
Just a year before our visit, Shirl had dug an old green canvas bag out of Samuel’s closet. She had never seen it before. If her mother, Mayola, had seen it, it had been a very long time ago. They opened it; found faded photos, letters, an ancient, cracked leather wallet and other things they couldn’t identify.
That old green bag accompanied Samuel from Camp Livingston to the Yukon and beyond. In frigid tents across the North Country, the bag hung from rope to keep it off floors slimy with mud. Samuel Hargroves endured the unendurable and defended his country. He didn’t whine or complain. He just stepped up, day after day after endless day. In the green bag he carried the things behind his stoic exterior, the things of his heart.
For seventy-four years, a hidden shrine in the back of Samuel’s closet, the little green bag preserved the heart of a hero.
It preserves it still.
Wonderful article, what a great, good man. My grandfather was mixed race, and therefore dark skinned enough that he was in the Pioneer Infantry in WW1. His artifacts were donated to the Herbert Hoover Museum for their WW1 collection.
This post meant a lot to me and I struggled with it. Your comment reassured me greatly. You got it. Your grandfather sounds like much the same sort of man.
Thank you sir, glad it conveyed how I saw Samuel. There’s so much more to all these great people’s stories than can be captured, I very much appreciate your great efforts to bring it to us. I will reply again with a small thing I witnessed, hauling cattle feed this morning. All the best to you folks!
Thank you sir for your service, you are truly an American hero, once again thank you sir.
What an amazing story. My Dad, too, spent his WWII service in Alaska, at Dutch Harbor. It was a tough, often ignored, theater of war, but those who served there did great things under miserable conditions. In Vietnam we didn’t have to face the brutal cold. God bless Samuel Hargroves and his wonderful family.
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