Photographing the soldiers of the 97th on the Highway in Alaska, Sgt. William Griggs had a unique mission. A regiment with 12,000 black soldiers naturally included some with unusual backgrounds and skills. The 97th included Griggs.
Griggs father made photography a hobby and growing up in Baltimore, Griggs learned to love it too. After high school he went on to hone his photographic skills at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania.
Came WWII, Griggs, like millions of other young men, found himself, quite unexpectedly, in the United States Army. A black man, Griggs also found himself in a segregated regiment. When the commander of the 97th learned of Griggs’ special skills, he promoted him and made him the official regimental photographer.
In April 1942, Griggs scored a leave, went home to get married. But, between marriage and honeymoon, a telegram urgently summoned him back to Eglin Field. With the rest of the regiment Griggs travelled by train cross country to the Seattle Port of Embarkation where they crowded into an old troopship, the USS David Branch, and sailed north to Valdez, Alaska.
The Army put a great deal of effort into keeping black soldiers away from the local population and declared Valdez strictly off limits–except for Sgt Griggs who had permission to go to Valdez for film and photographic supplies.
Sgt Griggs served in the Headquarters and Service (H&S) company, first in Valdez, later in the interior. The photographs he took remain some of the best and most dramatic taken anywhere on the Alaska Highway Project. After the war Griggs travelled, spoke, shared his photos widely, did interviews—became an important resource for Alaska Highway historians.
In an PBS interview, Griggs remembered the Army’s attitude toward black soldiers. “It was thought that they couldn’t learn how to operate complicated construction equipment like bulldozers and things like that.” But the men learned and became, among other things, outstanding catskinners.
And Griggs remembered food. Sick of canned chili, the soldiers took can after can to a nearby native village to trade for smoked salmon. “Finally, the Indians told us to bring something else to trade. They were tired of the chili.”
In a later interview he remembered mosquitoes. “There were one thousand per square yard. We slept under netting and wore WWI hats which were covered with netting to protect our faces.”
And he remembered, above all, the cold weather when the regiment stayed in Alaska into the winter. A lieutenant and a black enlisted driver, in February 1943, headed out in a Studebaker truck to pick up gas and diesel fuel. When the truck broke down, the Lieutenant walked ten miles for help, but when help returned they found the driver frozen in a sitting position.