General William Hoge’s boots first crossed the platform at the Dawson Creek Railroad station early in 1942. He came to lead thousands of Army Engineers into and through the far north wilderness. He led them to accomplish the near impossible, to construct 1600 miles of road through some of the most unforgiving terrain on the planet.
Dawson Creek and the North Country
In February, the emergency assignment to build the Highway powered through the chain of command to the Chief of Engineers, General Reybold, who handed it to his assistant, General Sturdevant, who dispatched General Hoge north.
Elsewhere in Washington Major General Brehon Somervell ran the Construction Division in the Office of the Quartermaster General; commanding the frantic effort to build a physical infrastructure for the rapidly expanding Army. In March, even as Hoge launched his assault on the North Country, newly minted Lt. General Somervell, ascended from the Construction Division to overall command of Army Services and Supply.
At the end of August, the new ‘head knocker’ made his way north to visit the Alaska Highway Project. General Hoge bluntly disagreed with some of Somervell’s ideas for the project. Worse, he didn’t spare the time to wine and dine and be deferential. A thoroughly offended Somervell left Whitehorse determined to “amputate the project’s head.
In September, Army Services and Supply took control of the Alcan Highway project from the Corps of Engineers. General Hoge, and his boss, General Sturdevant, quite suddenly—and briefly—found themselves reporting to Somervell’s office of G-4 in the War Department—and to Somervell. A handwritten note attached to Sturdevant’s September report, noted, “Somebody has pulled some underground dirt which I can’t put my finger on.”
On September 4 Somervell fired them both; installed Hoge’s subordinate, General ‘Patsy’ O’Connor in Hoge’s place.
More than any other man, Hoge had made the completion of the road to Whitehorse, the climax at Contact Creek, happen. But he wasn’t around to see it.
On September 12th, twelve days before the triumph at Contact Creek, Hoge regretfully relinquished his command.
The self-proclaimed ‘son-of-a-bitch’ had struck.
He sounded very instrumental in the construction of the highway. Thank you for the good reading material.
There was 3000 black men that did most of the labour work There was one soldier a day kill on the hi-way Their biggest problem was the rain .mud mud I drove on part of it when they were building it and a cat tractor got stuck between Ft St John and Charley Lake The engineer said He’ll build the road over It will be the hardest part of the road .
There was 3000 black men that did most of the labour work There was one soldier a day kill on the hi-way Their biggest problem was the rain .mud mud I drove on part of it when they were building it and a cat tractor got stuck between Ft St John and Charley Lake The engineer said He’ll build the road over It will be the hardest part of the road .
There were indeed 3,000 black men who worked on the highway, and I love your quote from the Engineer who said the hardest part of the road would be the part over his buried cat tractor. When did you drive over it? I’m very curious.
There’s one book that properly covers the construction with interviews and quotes from those who worked on it “This was no #&@=+%& Picnic “ by John Schmidt, “ 2.4 years of wild and woolly mayhem in Dawson Creek.” This includes little known story of Canadian Greyhound running 12 buses from Dawson Creek to Fairbanks when the US didn’t have drivers who could handle that tough trail.
We have that book and researcher and I have studied it thoroughly. It might be a good idea to publicize it a bit. Maybe I will do a post about Schmidt’s book and include a link to where it might be bought.
What do you think?