STORIES FROM NORTHERN CANADA AND ALASKA.

The Skagway They Came To

In April 1942, in a desperate rush to build a land route through Yukon, General Hoge jammed thousands of soldiers into Skagway, Alaska. The Corps hit the little town like a hurricane.

A summer visitor to Skagway today can get a sense of the impact the Corps had. Arrive in Skagway in the evening when no cruise ships are in port and you find a quiet, very peaceful little town. At dusk, which is very late in the summer, one can sit on a bench and gaze up at the surrounding mountains and marvel at the peaceful and beautiful isolation of this tiny bit of civilization. The next morning four cruise ships arrive at the dock and disgorge their thousands of passengers and a tidal wave of humanity rolls through, jamming the sidewalks and the streets so tightly that it’s difficult to walk. Imagine each passenger dressed in olive drab and carrying a duffle bag and you get a real sense of what Skagway’s streets must have looked like in April of 1942.

But the people of Skagway today expect tourists and prepare for them. Skagway in April of ’42 certainly didn’t expect the tidal wave of soldiers and certainly didn’t prepare for them.

In 1942 approximately 450 people lived in Skagway. The great gold rush at the end of the 19^th century had created their town. A boomtown of mythic proportions had sprouted on the precarious strip at the mouth of the Skagway River, the boundary between the towering mountains of the coastal range and the water of the Lynn Canal.

When the gold rush ended, as suddenly as it had begun, the thousands disappeared. The saloons and brothels emptied and the little city almost, but not quite, disappeared. The detritus of the boom remained—empty buildings, some of them only shacks, scattered across the little bit of flat land at the edge of the fjord. The gold rush left Skagway with a harbor, a narrow gauge railway to the Yukon interior, an enduring place in the legend of the rush—and a few people who, for a variety of individual reasons, chose to remain.

The Rest of the 93rd

The rest of the 93^rd followed Company C into Skagway; ran into a massive traffic jam. Colonel Russell Lyons was rushing his brand new white 340^th Engineering Regiment into Skagway at the same time. By April 25, the little village strained at the seams, hosting two full regiments.

And one of the regiments was black.

Carl Mulvihill was six years old and lived in Skagway in 1942. Carl recalled that some black troops were quartered across the alley from his house and he remembers his consternation when they ignored his waves and smiles. He learned later that the blacks were under orders not to talk to or visit with their white neighbors.

In the 1990’s journalist Lael Morgan located and interviewed a number of the men who served in the 93^rd. Their memories provide a glimpse of the black soldiers’ experience.

Recalling his trip on the Rock Island, Anthony Mouton remembered a one hour stop in a small Arkansas town. White soldiers had climbed down from their trains, and a patriotic white woman moved along the tracks, passing out doughnuts. Officers on Mouton’s train hurriedly ordered the men to stay aboard—out of sight and without doughnuts.

Former Private Paul Francis of Company B remembered marching to the movie theatre in Skagway; and, for the first time in his life, not sitting in the balcony. That, of course, was only because the black soldiers were the only patrons. The Army wasn’t allowing mingling of blacks and whites.

Private Eddie Waters in Company B of the 93^rd had joined the Army from Selma, Alabama eleven months earlier. What led him to the Army at Fort McClellan, Alabama? We don’t know. His enlistment record only tells us that in May of 1941 something did.

In April of 1942, barely out of his teens, Eddie found himself a long way from Selma on a train going God knows where, passing through the Dakotas. Paul Francis remembered the train ride—and an incident involving Eddie.

On a train ahead of the one carrying Company B, officers ordered all the shades lowered so people along the tracks couldn’t see into the cars. B Company, though, hadn’t got the word. When Private Waters innocently raised a shade, a young white officer rushed over, slapped him and shouted, “You will not pull shades up. We don’t want them to see you Niggers.”

The army’s rules for black soldiers in the 93^rd were the same in Skagway as they were in Louisiana. The Army embraced outright discrimination and made it policy. White residents of Skagway didn’t know quite what to make of that. They reacted to the blacks with curiosity—cautious curiosity.

On one occasion, local residents, checking the credibility of some white officer, asked a group of black soldiers if they had tails. An exasperated soldier dropped his pants and asked, “Do you see it.”

Experience Operating Railroads

The officers and men of the 770^th Railway Operating Battalion had long experience operating railroads; thought themselves prepared for just about any challenge. Warnings from the civilian railroaders of the WP&YR fell on deaf ears.

Then they met the little railroad that could.

Captain Richard L. Neuberger told the story of the worst storm of the winter in the November 27, 1943 Saturday Evening Post.

“The mercury plummeted out of sight… Couplings that were wet had to be separated with acetylene torches. Metal became brittle and drawbars snapped under the loads. Fire doors in snorting, straining locomotives were coated with half an inch of frost. Exhaust steam pouring back into engine cabs froze the overalls of the G.I. crews as stiff as planks. Only one injector could be used, the second being turned into the water tank to keep the water from freezing…

“One by one, the desperately puffing narrow-gauge engines quit… On the wind-swept basalt near Fraser Loop, Colonel Wilson and twenty-two soldiers with him shoveled snow into the tanks of engines No. 81 and 62 to maintain water in the boilers; the water towers along the track were frozen as hard as granite. The coal in the tenders ran out and the soldiers began to chop up stacks of spare ties to keep the engines alive. When 81 and 62 at last succumbed to the blizzard, Colonel Wilson and his G.I. railroaders were marooned. They took refuge in a tiny cabin near the line…”

Four days on, food ran perilously low. The Colonel pinned his hopes for rescue on Engines 66 and 69 in the shops at Skagway or a new locomotive making its way up the Inside Passage from Prince Rupert.

The fifth day dashed his hopes.

Neurenberger continues:

“…Colonel Wilson received word by telegraph, the only mechanical facility functioning in the storm, that 66 and 69 were frozen fast on the mountainside, midway between Skagway and Fraser… The storm was preying on them at sea as well as on the land. Wilson and his men learned that the barge en route from Prince Rupert had become overloaded with ice and that No. 253 [the new locomotive] was at the bottom of the bay near Chilkoot Barracks.

“From Carcross a D-4 cat bucked high winds across the frozen surface of Lake Bennett, ascended the pass and got through to the cabin with a load of food. ‘That bulldozer,’ said Wilson, ‘looked to us like six regiments with colors flying.’

Hoge’s Invasion

Headquarters for the Alaska Highway Project mushroomed in Whitehorse in March and April 1942 — Alaska Highway Project Whitehorse Headquarters

By the end of March Hoge’s headquarters in Whitehorse had geared up and was pushing hard, not just in the Southern Sector, but all along the route of the Highway. Hoge had long realized four regiments would not be enough. He needed seven.

The Corps didn’t have enough white regiments, and the desperate need for the Highway rolled right over the color bar. Secretary of War Stimson authorized three regiments of black troops for Hoge’s provisional brigade–the 93^rd, the 97th and the 95^th. On March 27, 1942 Colonel Hoge became General Hoge.

A flood of men and equipment just like the one that had already inundated Dawson Creek, Fort St John and Ft Nelson was quickly building, preparing to inundate Skagway, Whitehorse and Valdez, Alaska.

Hoge had ordered Ingalls to get the troops to Ft. Nelson—they would figure out what to do with them when they got there. Now they were there and the urgent problem of finding a route through the Rockies and on to Watson Lake, replaced the urgent problem of getting there. Read More Getting Them There

The North Country hit the surveyors with unique problems. Few maps or aerial photos existed. Worse, they found their compasses of limited use. “This far to the north, they don’t behave right.” Army Air Corp pilots flew 50-mile-wide flight patterns out of Ft. St. John recording the topography from Dawson Creek to Watson Lake.

Eschbach of the 648^th made a four day foray with three of his surveyors into the wilderness northwest of Ft. Nelson. Traveling on snowshoes with packs and pup tents in subzero weather, they found an endless expanse of steep mountains and deep canyons. “No way a road could be built there.”

Frantically busy organizing his flood of men and equipment, Hoge delegated solving the Southern Sector’s route problem to Colonel Ingalls in Fort Nelson and Major Welling at Fort St. John.

By March 31, even though most of his troops were getting organized in California, North Carolina, Florida, Washington and Louisiana, Hoge had, for better or for worse, mounted his invasion of the North Country.

Chester Russell

Cover of Chester Russel's memoir — Chester Russel’s Book on the Construction of the Alaska Highway

When the 35^th Engineers came through Dawson Creek, crossed the barely frozen Peace River and moved on up toward Ft Nelson, their number included Chester Russell.

An ex rodeo bronc rider, 6’4” Chester Russell, had once worked the rodeo circuit with a future star of Hollywood westerns, Slim Pickens. In the Army in 1942, Chester worked the Alaska Highway.

I posted last night about the rotting ice of the Peace River. In his memoir, Tales of a Catskinner, Chester remembered it vividly. A flatbed carried an Osgood Shovel down the 10 percent grade toward the river until the heavy trailer pushed the tow vehicle sideways and the shovel and the flatbed rolled over into the icy mud along the trail.

Chester also remembered the winding winter trail to Fort Nelson—at best a two track. An endless stream of men, trucks, dozers and other equipment crawled over it through snow and ice for three weeks in March, and with the spring thaw, the trail behind them disappeared. If they hadn’t brought it with them, they wouldn’t get it for awhile.

The men got by on rations barely fit to eat. On July 4^th Chester Russell killed two mountain sheep at Summit Lake—the first fresh meat in months.

Precarious River Ice

Planks Across Rotting Peace River Ice Signal Corps Photo

Four separate trains hauled the 43 officers and 1230 enlisted men of the 35^th Engineering Regiment to Dawson Creek. The last train arrived in late afternoon on March 16. Everyone confronted the Peace River.

The First Soldiers on the Highway

Colonel Hoge had flown to Fort St. John and set up temporary headquarters in a local log cabin; directed Colonel Ingalls to divide the regiment, send half immediately to Fort Nelson and keep the other half at Ft. St. John. Realizing that Peace River ice wouldn’t last much long, he changed his mind; would send them all.

Bundled in frozen parkas, faces frosted and noses blanched white, the 35th waddled up the trail like a flock of penguins. Shivering operators of tractors and trucks led the march.

Short periods of early spring warmth might have been welcomed, but they softened the river ice—a bigger problem than mere comfort. Crossing troops encountered large cracks and the ice undulated and heaved under the weight of a heavy tractor. The slightest bit of melting made these phenomena immeasurably worse.

Troops collected sawdust from every sawmill they could find and spread it over the frozen river hoping to blanket and insulate the precious ice. Planks over the sawdust kept the tracks and wheels from scattering it. Colonel Ingalls ordered soldiers and equipment to cross the Peace River only during colder night time hours. The ice held, wavering menacingly, as men and machines worked their way across.

The Peace River

Soldiers in British Columbia Got Cold

Icy Home on the Alcan 1942 Timberlake Collection

The soldiers coming through Dawson Creek in March 1942 got cold, really cold. They would pitch a tent as best they could and bring in a wood fired Sibley stove. Fired, the stove brought warmth, but the warmth proved elusive. A soldier had to be within a foot of the stove to feel it.

And in a short time, the warmth melted the frozen ground, creating a floor of cold, slimy mud. To deal with the mud, a soldier created a ‘soldier’s closet’ by hanging his belongings from a string across the tent ceiling. Maybe then he could bundle up, crawl into his sleeping bag hugging his boots so they would be flexible enough to put on in the morning and go to sleep. While he slept, the cold frosted canvas ceilings and walls despite the best efforts of the stove.

And, of course, they had important requirements besides sleep. ‘Volunteers’ dug latrine ditches into the frozen ground—downhill from the camp and, hopefully, downwind. Miserable soldiers muttered that if a man didn’t do his business quickly enough, his urine would freeze on the way to the ground.

The cold didn’t go away when they woke up.

Ollie Willis, from Miami, complained that his feet “…damn near froze in those knee-high leather boots they issued us”. He recalled that “we lost no time hitting the winter road, ‘walking’ graders and Cats which had no cabs for protection from the cold. They sent us out on that trail with no mechanics-just a bag of tools.”

The first troops to Dawson Creek

35th Engineers Base Camp at Ft Nelson Signal Corps Photo

Flying above, driving over, and thinking about the massive challenge facing his soldiers, Hoge began getting organized. And even as he and his staff worked to create a plan, his troops in the Southern Sector rushed in to implement it.

An advance party, Company B of the 35^th, under Lt. Miletich completed their 5 day–2,000-mile journey to Dawson Creek in the very early morning of March 10. Even as they climbed down from the train, the remainder of the 35^th was boarding trains back at Ft. Ord.

Miletich and his officers set up a temporary headquarters in a local Hotel while the enlisted set up camp—much easier said than done. The cold stiffened soldier’s hands and fingers as they tried to pound tent pegs into the frozen ground. Some found trees or other external structures to anchor their tent ropes. They fumbled to unfold cots and blanket them with down sleeping bags, stuffing duffle bags and trunks on the floor beneath the cots.

For Company B the miserable encampment lasted only one night. The following morning, they were up and crossing the frozen 1,800-foot-wide Peace River. Their trucks chugged through the snow about 40 miles north to Fort St. John.

Arriving just a few days behind them, the rest of the regiment moved through Dawson Creek just as quickly.

The First of Hoge’s Soldiers Arrive in Dawson Creek

35th Engineer Truck on Muddy Hill Signal Corps Photo

Hoge’s recon was revealing the breath-taking scale of the problems he and his soldiers were about to take on. Elsewhere, especially in Washington, the Corps of Engineers was convulsing. The chaotic storm of planning and planning again, of organizing and reorganizing intensified accordingly. The telephone lines burned with requests and orders and fingers bounced over typewriter keys trying to follow up—and keep up–with formal orders.

On the ground in Canada, the rugged country and the vast distances his men would have to work in and over would have overwhelmed Hoge—had he been a man given to being overwhelmed. He didn’t even have maps!

The only way Hoge could see the country and plan his effort was from the air.

Barely a month before the first troops arrived at Dawson Creek, planes were flying over wilderness and mountains shooting the aerial photos that would allow the Corps to plan a route.

The first of Ingalls’ troops, a quartermaster detachment of 5 officers and 125 men arrived at Dawson Creek at 1:20 am on March 9^th. The troops detrained into a temperature of 35 below, a biting wind and six inches of drifting snow. They hurriedly began construction of immense, if crude, storage buildings and a refrigerator plant for food storage.

The troops could build the road only if they had supplies and equipment—lots of supplies and lots of big equipment. Back in the states, the desperate effort to procure the equipment and supplies was already pushing bulldozers, tents and winter uniforms northward. The National Alberta Railway (NAR) ending in Dawson Creek offered transport to the southern portion of the route. The White Pass and Yukon RR (WP&YT) from the fjords of Skagway, Alaska to Whitehorse, YT provided it to the middle portion. The port at Valdez, Alaska offered it to the northern portion. But dozers and tents and food supplies in Dawson Creek, Skagway, Whitehorse and Valdez were still a hell of a long way from the remote places where Hoge’s troops would need them.

Hoge met McCusker in February

Scenic British Columbia 1842 Signal Corps Photo

In February, tasked to command the Alcan Project, Colonel Hoge raced from Washington to Dawson Creek and found Knox McCusker. As they drove the winter trail up from Fort St John, McCusker made his first major contribution to the project; warned the colonel that the trail he travelled would disappear in the March thaw. Clearly Hoge needed even more speed.

Colonel Robert Ingalls, commander of the 35^th Combat Engineers, had accompanied Hoge to Canada, and now Hoge turned him around, sent him back to Fort Ord to collect his regiment, get it to Dawson Creek by rail and push his men and equipment on to Fort Nelson before the thaw. They would figure out what to do with them and how to feed and supply them when they got there.

Returning to Fort Ord, Ingalls wrote to his wife, “The regiment is going up there soon to construct some four hundred miles of a new road [their segment] through a trackless wilderness. . . It is going to be a huge job, with many hardships and adventures no doubt, but probably the chance of a lifetime.”

Meanwhile Hoge’s quartermaster, Lt. Colonel Mueller back in Dawson Creek found the local expert who had helped McCusker create the winter trail in the first place—E.J. Spinney.

Spinney had established “service stations” every 70 miles along the route; proposed that the 35^th do the same. And Spinney and his friend McGinnis signed on to deliver fuel and supplies to the engineers around Fort Nelson. As many as a hundred Canadian truckers were ultimately hired to haul supplies and fuel.