Morley Bay, today a beautiful body of water with quiet woods along its shore, teemed and bustled with soldiers and equipment in 1942. Ship dock, supply dump, motor pool—a sizeable military installation occupied the spot where two small, isolated houses now sit.
Link to a story from Morley Bay “Dear Pop”
The operations of the 93rd Engineers and the 340th Engineers in Yukon centered at Morley Bay as they worked their way south toward the Canadian Rockies and the regiments working north from Dawson Creek.
Food and supplies came to Morley Bay and drivers carried them out to the soldiers working on the road. The motor pool at Morley Bay fixed everything from jeeps to bulldozers—and deadlined the ones they couldn’t fix. Keeping other equipment running required cannibalizing parts from equipment on the deadline.
And the motor pool dispatched mechanics and welders with jeeps and trailers to help maintain equipment in the field.
A regiment locates its motor pool and supply dumps where it can support all the field companies. Motor pool and supply had worked out of Jake’s Corner for weeks, but in August the line companies they supported dispersed. Two companies had moved back north of Carcross and the rest had moved across Nisutlin and on to the east. Over a hundred miles of rough road separated the two elements of the 93rd.
Colonel Johnson, commander of the 93rd, left some supply and vehicle support at Johnson’s Crossing, but he moved the bulk of it to Morley Bay.
A letter from the officer in charge of the motor pool at Morley Bay to his girl back home, describes life there from his perspective. ‘Up at seven and in a plane for a 150-mile ride to sector headquarters [Whitehorse] to look over some equipment and then a return trip back to a bay some 60 miles from our supply base to look at a couple of bad tractors and then a flying trip back to our base here by 4:30.”