STORIES FROM NORTHERN CANADA AND ALASKA.

Extreme Geography

Extreme geography awaited the soldiers of the 93^rd Engineers when they left Southern Louisiana in early 1942. From hot and humid Louisiana, they travelled north—way north—to Alaska and Yukon Territory.

The 93rd came to Carcross

Sergeant Albert France, interviewed long after the fact by Donna Blazer-Bernhardt, remembered their time on the Alaska Highway Project. He remembered hard, challenging work and he remembered living in wilderness camps surrounded by wild animals—bears, wolves, moose. France remembered swamps with mud that literally gobbled up heavy equipment. Cutting trees and digging stumps involved digging down through green grass into a cake of solid ice. They solved that problem with dynamite.

African American, like all the enlisted men in the 93^rd, France also remembered the segregation. “The general in charge thought the black soldiers wouldn’t understand what it took to build a highway…”

Their work on the road ended in late November and some soldiers of the 93^rd worked to build log cabins at Judith Creek. Clyde Deal remembered the blast of an air horn overriding the sounds of hammers and saws one afternoon. Startled soldiers ran to investigate and watched a Greyhound bus move by on its way to Whitehorse.

The road was open! And the extreme geography of the Subarctic included more than Yukon Territory. The 93^rd would not winter at Judith Creek.

In December they convoyed back to Carcross and took the train down the mountain to Skagway where they had come in country just eight months earlier. After a short turn to get organized at Chilkoot Barracks. A ship carried them through the wild North Pacific to the Aleutian Islands.

The Japanese threatened the Aleutians and the soldiers of the 93^rd would help defend them, enduring the bitter Aleutians weather, to build and maintain airfields on Unmak.

They escaped the Subarctic in 1944 and discovered that extreme geography offered opposites. After a brief stop in Seattle, they headed south through the Pacific to the opposite end of the world, to Burma.

Cameron Cox

Cameron Cox came up by train from Fort Ord, California and detrained with the rest of the 35^th Engineers into bitter cold at the Dawson Creek depot. They travelled to Fort St John and started building road northwest from there.

Cameron remembered moving constantly, taking down pyramidal tents, moving a few miles, setting them up again. The soldiers built a kitchen on runners so they could tow it with a D-8 bulldozer.

The pyramidal tents they had constantly to move

Cameron drove and operated an air compressor truck, and the compressor powered saws, drills, jack hammers… His truck also served as a makeshift lifting device. With a tall log A-Frame in front, he could run a winch line out over a pully. The soldiers would wrap the line around felled logs and the winch would drag them out to build culverts or lay corduroy.

The 35th at Fort Nelson

The 35th worked past the Liard Hot Springs. Cameron remembered that warm water covered the road in one place. A truck would run through it and get wet—then, just a couple of miles on, its undercarriage would freeze solid.

On the plus side, a tent over a hot pool provided hot baths even if the temperature outside fell well below zero.

The 35^th had no electricity, of course. Cameron remembered the medical officer removing an appendix in a tent lighted by a gasoline lantern. He also remembered a dentist who drilled out a cavity for him using a drill powered by his foot on a pedal.

And he remembered the mountainside that dropped deep into Muncho lake. They had to blast a ledge out of it with dynamite and it took days.

The men ate powdered milk, dehydrated potatoes, powdered eggs, Spam, C-rations—thank God the fish in the rivers were as hungry as the soldiers.

historynet on the biggest hardest job since the Panama Canal

Olive A. Frederickson

Olive Frederickson, as incredible a woman who ever lived, came to my attention through this blog. I posted about the unique individuals who choose to live in the most remote parts of the Subarctic, and I got a comment telling me about Olive—and her book, The Silence of the North.

The book–and its still available on Amazon

In the summer of 1910, Olive’s dad left the family in a small village near Edmonton to explore the Slave Lake country far to the north. Nine-year-old Olive’s mother passed away in December and it took five months to get the message to Dad.

When Dad got home in May he packed up Olive and the rest of the family and headed back north.

And so it began…

Alaska Counterpart, Mary Hanson

From their months long trip north, “…we camped beside one of the worst mudholes we had ever seen… The sorry remains of wagons were sticking out of the mud… the skeletons of horses and oxen were scattered along the tracks.”

Olive grew up on Tomato Creek. And she met Walter Reamer. She fell in love with Walter Reamer and he with her. And they eloped; travelled further into the wild in 1920.

In 1922, with a new baby in her arms, Olive followed Walter ever further into the wild. Lake Athabasca in May, 19 miles of open water full of breaking ice. “The wind was churning Lake Athabasca into terribly high seas, and off to the east we could see a white line of ice drifting slowly inexorably toward us. That was no place to be, on a scow pushed by a motorboat… We heard boards break, and water started to seep through.”

The couple survived and produced two more children in the deep wilderness. Restless Walter traveled without them into deeper wilderness. And then, in 1927, his canoe capsized in a cold lake and he drowned.

Olive and her three kids found a homestead. And she raised them alone. “I was twenty-six, a homesteader-trapper’s widow with three little children, one hundred sixty acres of brush-grown land, almost none of it cleared, a small log house, an old .30-30 Winchester—and precious little else.

Olive killed wolves, hunted moose, made a buck whenever and however she could. And she raised the kids.

Kiska in August

The Japanese carried nothing away from Kiska but themselves

Kiska came next. Led by Castner’s Cutthroats the American 7^th, in one of the bloodiest and most miserable battles of WWII, drove Japanese defenders on Attu to suicide and reclaimed the island for the United States. That left the Japanese enemy in possession of Kiska—or so American commanders thought.

Castner’s Cutthroats and Attu

In response to their disaster on Attu, the Japanese had abandoned Kiska. Americans had even intercepted the evacuation order, but one man on the ground didn’t believe it and that man, Admiral Kincaid, was the boss.

On August 15, 1943, thirty thousand Americans and five thousand Canadians piled through the pounding North Pacific surf and invaded Kiska.

Some of the Allied troops screwed up, fired on each other. And the departing Japanese had booby trapped everything in sight. Initial reports from the island, especially casualty reports, looked to Kincaid exactly like the tough battle he expected.

Mike Gay’s dad “served with the First Special Service Force (The Devil’s Brigade). He remembered that his dad and his comrades “invaded the island” at night in rubber boats. But “the Japs pulled out just ahead of their arrival.”

Mike explained that the First Special Service Force, a precursor to the Special Forces, had “trained in Montana at mountain climbing, snow skiing, hand to hand combat, tactics, parachute jumping and demolition. They trained outdoors all week long, no tents and temps as low as -54 degrees F.”

Half were American, the other half were Canadian.

Carrying over 100 pounds of gear and weapons, the soldiers rode pitching rubber boats through the surf onto Kiska. Miserable and spooked they thought they heard Japanese talking near the shore. They thought of bullets sinking the boats, leaving them to sink deep into the icy water.

At the shore they climbed short cliffs and moved inland over cold wet rocks through heavy fog. In the confusion they took fire that killed and wounded some of them. But that turned out to be friendly fire.

Eventually the Allied soldiers sorted things out and the firing stopped. But they remained on the empty, miserable island for several days, short of rations. They resorted to untwisted segments of rope, bent safety pins (from ammo bandoliers) as fishing gear; baited the hooks with the red strips from cigarette packs; and caught small trout from tiny streams.

Retaking American Soil

Castner’s Cutthroats

Castner’s Cutthroats, a platoon of unique soldiers commanded by Colonel Lawrence V. Castner, launched into Subarctic history shortly after the Japanese occupied Kiska and Attu in June 1942.

Few Americans Worried about the Aleutians

Relentless cold, impenetrable fog and endless hurricane force winds called “williwaws” threatened the Japanese survival far more than the Americans. The Americans, too, would fight the weather, but they had to take the islands back. Castner’s cutthroats would deal with the weather.

Colonel Castner handpicked 66 tough men–trappers, hunters, fishermen, dogsledders, miners—men who knew all about Aleutians weather and terrain. Major William J. Verbeck taught them to fight. And Castner’s cutthroats sallied forth.

In August 1942 a team of Cutthroats paddled rubber boats through the frigid surf from a submarine onto Adak. Another did the same onto Amchitka. On both islands they scouted airstrips the air force used to bomb Kiska and Attu.

When the Army sent the 7^th Infantry Division north from Fort Ord to invade Attu, Castner’s Cutthroats led them ashore.

On May 11, 1943 Cutthroats in a plastic whaleboat rowed through thick fog to recon Beach Red on Attu, then, as the soldiers of the 7^th struggled ashore, the Cutthroats climbed the steep, rocky ridge, ahead of them, looking for the enemy.

The scouts spent a bitter night high on the mountainside, and in the morning, they discovered that the Japanese had climbed the other side of the ridge to the top. The Japanese shot one cutthroat, Bad Whiskey Red, through the heart while the others dove for cover.

After two days of bloody stalemate, the Cutthroats attacked up the mountain as a diversion so the soldiers of the 7^th could advance through the valley. The scouts crawled, under heavy machine gun and artillery fire, to the top of the ridge then rained death on the Japanese. The soldiers of the 7^th stormed past them and by May 15 they had won the battle.

But they didn’t know it.

Dug deep in caves in the mountainside, cut off from supplies, low on ammunition, the starving Japanese had no chance, but their commander Yamazaki would not surrender.

On May 29 the cutthroats stood on the edge of a cliff overlooking the soldiers of the 7^th in the Chichagof Valley. Quite suddenly the 800 remaining Japanese soldiers launched a hopeless but deadly banzai attack. “Plunging their bayonets into sleeping American soldiers, the Japanese screamed. ‘We die—you die, too’”.

When the attack finally petered out, the surviving Japanese soldiers pulled pins on their grenades, held them under their chins, and gave their bloody last for the Emporer.

The Americans captured but 28 of them alive.

Few Americans Worried about the Aleutians

Few people in The United States or Canada knew the Japanese posed a threat to America through the Aleutians—until, on June 21, 1942 the Navy issued a press release. “The enemy has occupied the undefended islands of Attu and Kiska…” Americans scurried for their globes and Atlases and few suddenly became many.

Task Force 2

The occupation galvanized public opinion. The Salt Lake Tribune headlined, “Coast Cities Redouble Vigilance Against Jap ‘Sneak’ Attack”. The story reported dramatic responses up and down the west coast of the United States and Canada.

Few Canadians objected when the Canadian government silenced radio stations and placed defense forces on high alert in British Columbia and Yukon Territory. And few Americans objected when their authorities ordered radio silence along the entire Pacific coast from Canada to Mexico; placed all Pacific coast civilian defense agencies on high alert. Civilians, they suggested, should use blackout curtains or, at least, window shades after dark along the western coast.

In a Washington press conference, Secretary of War Henry Stimson declared, “I warn you this is not the only and last raid we many expect.” A reporter asked him whether his warning applied to the Continental United States as well as to outlying possession. He declined to place geographical boundaries on his opinion.

The Santa Cruz Sentinel reported from Philadelphia, “An unidentified man, his face red with rage, stomped six blocks down dignified Chestnut Street last night, buying newspapers headlining the Japanese attack on Dutch Harbor and tearing them into shreds. Police said he was within his rights.

Japanese subs lurked off the west coast.

The Japanese stoked public fear as much as they could. On June 20th, a Japanese submarine torpedoed a Canadian lumber ship off Cape Flattery and shelled a telegraph station on Vancouver Island. On the 21^st it bombarded the naval base at Astoria, Oregon and three days after that it shelled Ft. Stevens.

Crater at Ft Stevens left my shells from a Japanese submarine

And the land route to Alaska vaulted onto front pages and into newsreels. The spotlight of public attention zeroed in on the Alaska Highway Project.

Task Force 2

Task force 2 still lurked, on June 4, 1942, in the fogbound waters of the North Pacific. Japanese Pilots from the first task force had bombed Dutch Harbor, not once, but twice. But task force 2 carried troops who intended to invade and occupy the Islands of Adak and Kiska—American territory. The Americans hadn’t heard from them yet.

Icy Fog Defended Dutch Harbor

And even as the mortal enemies struggled with weather and confusion in the Aleutians, far to the south at Midway Island, American pilots found Yamamoto’s carrier fleet. Battling warplanes swarmed above the Japanese ships and American bombers rained fire. The American Navy all but destroyed Yamamoto’s fleet that day.

In shock, his grand strategy in shambles, Yamamoto debated for a time. At first blush, the assault on the Aleutians looked like a waste of time. He considered withdrawing task force 2. But Japan still needed to defend itself at the north. And an Aleutian victory might help counter the impact of the Midway disaster on the Japanese public.

He ordered Admiral Hosogaya to proceed with his invasion.

Knowing that the American Air Force had planes on Umnak, in range of Adak, Hosogaya struck further west. On June 7^th Japanese troops occupied Kiska and the following day they waded onto Attu.

At Dutch Harbor, taking stock on June 5, American commanders judged the battle of Dutch Harbor a draw—good enough. But four days later they learned that the Japanese held Kiska and Attu.

Clearly Dutch Harbor and the Aleutians remained in play and at risk.

Time Magazine Photos from the War in the Aleutians

Icy Fog Defended Dutch Harbor

Icy fog, on June 3, had defended Dutch Harbor more effectively than Admiral Theobald’s pilots and sailors. Half of the Japanese pilots couldn’t find the base.

Theobald Did His Best

But if icy fog helped the Americans, luck helped even more. Knowing little about the layout of the base, Japanese pilots engaged targets at random. Flames and billowing smoke obscured their view and their targets became more random.

They killed fifty Americans—most of them in a smashed barracks. They destroyed a tank farm and its fuel dump. But as the fires died down and the smoke cleared, vital facilities emerged largely unscathed.

To fight back the Americans had to find the carriers, and on June 4, Theobald dispatched lumbering seaplanes, PBY’s, to do that. He ordered them to find the carriers and then guide the warplanes of Butler’s Eleventh Air Force to the attack.

But most of the seaplane pilots guessed wrong; flew north over the Bering Sea. One who did fly west found Junyo’s combat air patrol instead of Junyo; the patrol planes blew him out of the sky. Another flew west and spotted the Japanese carriers. But atmospherics garbled his radio call to the pilots of the Eleventh. Alone in a lumbering PBY, he had no chance against darting Japanese fighters. His plane, too, plunged into the icy North Pacific.

Another Take

Luckily their target, the Japanese carrier force, spent its day in equal confusion while its commander, Admiral Kakuta, tried to decide what to do next. Intending to make a ‘softening up’ attack on the proposed landing site at Adak, he initially steamed west—directly away from Dutch Harbor. But icy fog intervened again.

Realizing that the weather would make an attack on the island impossible, at mid-morning Kakuta changed his mind; reversed course and headed back. And late on the afternoon of June 4, seventeen bombers and fifteen fighters pounded Dutch Harbor again.

The Americans had cleared the harbor except for the old ship Northwestern, deliberately beached and used as a civilian barracks. The bombers pounded the old ship. And the attacking planes found more targets on shore. Smoke rolled, and flames darted, a steel building collapsed, one wing of the base hospital came down. When four fuel storage tanks went up, personnel at Umnak, forty miles away, heard the explosion.

This time American fighters from Umnak shot down two Japanese dive bombers. But the bulk of the Japanese force escaped once again into the fog.

One Japanese pilot wouldn’t make it home.

Theobald Did His Best

The men on the ground did what they could

Theobald, Admiral “Fuzzy” Theobald, knew that two Japanese attack forces steamed north through the Pacific in late May, headed for Alaska. Bull Halsey had sent him north to stop them. He deployed his few ships in an arc across the water to face them, but the arc covered way too many miles of water. The Japanese would almost certainly slip through.

Sucker Punch

To defend the Dutch Harbor naval base Theobald needed the untested pilots and planes of Brigadier General William O. Butler’s Eleventh Air Force. Butler resisted, but Theobald prevailed, and Butler reluctantly moved his precious air force from Elmendorf Field in Anchorage.

Half went to Cold Bay and the airfield at Fort Randall, 180 miles east of Dutch Harbor. The other half went to the island of Umnak and the airfield at Fort Glenn, 40 miles west.

At 2:43 on the morning of June 3, 1942 the two Japanese carriers launched thirty-five warplanes. The pilots from the Junyo lost their bearings in the icy fog; got lost and turned back. But fifteen planes from the Ryujo made it to Dutch Harbor.

At 5:40 a radar operator on the seaplane tender USS Gillis saw them coming and signaled the base. Air raid sirens howled. The six ships in the harbor started their engines and went to battle stations.

Telegraph wires to Umnak and Cold Bay hummed, urgently summoning Dutch Harbor’s air defense. Unfortunately, the wires to nearby Umnak hummed in vain, the pilots there didn’t get the message. The message did reach Cold Bay and pilots there scrambled their P-40’s, but they scrambled 180 miles from Dutch Harbor. The Japanese would be long gone before they could get there.

At about 5:50, the eye of the storm passed over Dutch Harbor and cleared the rain and fog just as the Japanese pilots descended to attack. They had a clear view of the base and harbor that they hammered for the next twenty minutes.

American batteries launched puffs of flak into the sky. Machine gun tracers arced up from the ground, seeking the range. Two lumbering PBY’s, seaplanes, moored in the harbor managed to get into the air. Japanese pilots shot the first PBY down immediately, but the second managed to down one of them, the only Japanese casualty of the attack.

The Japanese pilots bombed and strafed into the churning smoke and flame boiling up from the ground. American Flak and machine gun bullets found only empty sky.

The damage, fortunately looked worse than it was

Another Perspective

Sucker Punch

Thousand-mile Arc

A sucker punch with many moving parts, the Japanese plan for June 1942 aimed simultaneously at Midway Island in the South Pacific and at the Aleutians in the North Pacific. The Japanese hoped to ambush the American carrier fleet at Midway, and they wanted a foothold in the Aleutians. In Alaska they would occupy Kiska and Attu and, at the same time, destroy the heart of the American defense at Dutch Harbor.

The success of the sucker punch depended on surprising the Americans, but that wouldn’t happen. On May 15 a team of crypto analysts at Pearl Harbor had broken the Japanese naval code and American intelligence knew at least the outline of the Japanese plan. The American Navy wouldn’t fall blindly into Yamamoto’s ambush at Midway, and American commanders had a little bit of time to organize a defense in the Aleutians.

The Japanese dispatched two naval forces to assault the Aleutians. First, a carrier group, the brand-new carrier Junyo, the somewhat older Ryujo, two heavy cruisers, three destroyers and an oiler would bomb Dutch Harbor. Second, three troop transports surrounded by three cruisers, nine destroyers, and a screen of submarines would deliver 2500 soldiers to occupy Kiska and Attu.

Anticipating the sucker punch, Admiral Nimitz dispatched the bulk of his limited resources to Midway. To defend the Aleutians, he dispatched Rear Admiral Robert Theobald north with a token force of nine ships and instructions that amounted to ‘do your best with what you can scare up’.

American folklore offers a hoary bit of advice about the wisdom of bringing a knife to a gunfight that applies to Theobald’s mission. The Japanese were bringing carriers to the fight; Theobald was not. Luckily, in the Aleutians Mother Nature had Theobald’s back.

Peaks of a submerged mountain range, the Aleutian Islands traverse the coldest, most turbulent portion of the North Pacific. Thick fog shrouds the treeless islands all but constantly, and “williwaws”—gale force winds up to 80 miles an hour–come and go frequently and unpredictably.

Both sides discovered in June that in the Aleutians men fight Mother nature first and each other second.

Another Take on War in the Aleutians