Link to another story “Dumb Going Up There”
Lunging dozers tried hard to solve a big problem for the soldiers of the 35th Engineers at Muncho Lake, four hundred sixty miles out from Dawson Creek. The Lunging dozers failed. But one very creative and damned courageous soldier, Lt. Miletech, succeeded.
Tall mountain cliffs bordered Muncho Lake but along most of the shore the mountain kindly provided a rock ledge that the soldiers could build a road on. About halfway along the shore, though, the Mountain ceased to cooperate. The ledge disappeared and the vertical rock cliff simply disappeared into the lake.
At first the soldiers did not see a problem. They didn’t need much of a ledge, so they would just build one. They worked dozers around and up the backside of the mountain drew up to the edge of the cliff and commenced pushing dirt, rocks, trees over the edge to splash into the water far below. Sooner or later the debris would pile up from the bottom to form a ridge along the cliff. For days, the water at the edge of the cliff swallowed debris and finally the lunging dozers gave up. They had failed to reckon with Muncho’s depth.
Enter Lt. Miletich.
Colonel Ingalls the regimental commander personally recorded the Lieutenant’s incredible solution to the problem.
Fastening a long rope to a projecting rock up on the cliff, stripping to his skivvies and tying himself to the rope, Miletich dove into the frigid lake; located a hole in the cliff wall.
Shivering back on shore, he removed from a box of dynamite, one stick and laid it aside. The rest of the box of dynamite sticks he placed under his arm and swam it down to push it into the cliffside hole. On shore again, he inserted a blasting cap into the stick of dynamite he had laid aside, attached a waterproof fuse, lit the fuse, put the dynamite with its sputtering fuse between his teeth and swam back down to insert it in the hole next to the box. Swimming clear, he watched with the others as the dynamite detonated, blowing a geyser of rock and water up and out of the cliff.
Repeating this incredible maneuver several times, Miletich provided the 35th enough roadbed to get around the cliff and on up the road.