Spiritual guidance, Chaplain Brown’s specialty; difficult to deliver on the Alcan. Thousands of the Chaplain’s “parishioners” scattered along the length of the Highway, scattered over a lot of the most difficult miles on the planet. And they brought every kind of spiritual need to the Chaplain. His routine included marriage requests/investigations, problems, complaints, morale, hardship transfers…
At Camp Haines 103 one day the chaplain wished aloud that he had a good way to transport himself and his equipment up and down the Highway. The men promptly appropriated a Dodge 4 X 4 and converted it into a mobile chapel by building a pitched-roof replica into the bed of the truck.
He stopped at Cathedral Bluffs one day for lunch and there the men installed a steeple on his chapel. Later, at Canyon Creek, still other men cleaned the truck and then painted the new steeple.
The soldiers of the 388th Ordinance Company topped the rolling chapel off by coating the steeple with a second layer of paint and then painting crosses on the doors of the truck.
Chaplain Brown travelled as many as 2,000 miles a month up and down the Highway. And no one travelled it with more style, or in a classier vehicle, than he did.
Another great read. Thank you so much.