When Generals plan, they transform the lives of thousands of subordinates. When Senior Washington officials panic, they transform the lives of generals.
For more on the 97th
https://www.chrisdennis111.com/young-black-soldiers-of-the-97th/
Alaska’s strategic vulnerability worried Washington in 1941, and Pearl Harbor transformed worry to panic. The Navy had suffered grievous losses and a flood of new commitments stretched its resources to the breaking point. Clearly it could not guard the sea lanes leading to Alaska and the Aleutians and at the same time ferry supplies to land-based defenders there. They turned to the Army Corps of Engineers and demanded a road to Alaska—1600 miles through a vast subarctic wilderness. And they needed it in eight months—before the next winter.
Two Corps of Engineer generals, General Sturdevant in Washington and General Hoge on the ground up north, developed plans that reverberated through the Corps of Engineers.
In April the Army ordered the 97th Engineering Regiment from Florida to Alaska by way of the Seattle Port of Embarkation. Twelve hundred black enlisted men packed their barracks bags. The 97th convoyed to Pensacola, boarded two trains and headed out of Florida on April 15. Captain Walter Parsons, in charge of one of the trains, recorded the trip in letters to his wife.
Memphis, Tennessee then St. Louis on April 16. Kansas City then Dodge City on the 17th. A Hollywood movie in 1939 had made Dodge City famous as the epicenter of the historic Wild West. “…since some of the boys had seen the picture show about the place, they got a big kick out of being there.”
For More on the Movie
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1006042_dodge_city
In Leadville, Colorado on the 18th it snowed. “They opened all the windows they could and let the snow blow in… They had snowball fights. It was the first time some of these boys had seen snow.” That same afternoon they got off the train in a Utah desert, got caught in a sandstorm and had to get back on in a hurry.
Idaho and then Oregon on the 19th. Fort Lewis, Washington on April 20, 1942. At Fort Lewis they stopped briefly to get organized and move to the Port of Seattle and their troopship, the USS David Branch.