Most horrific event in recorded history, World War II has no real competition for that title. But horrific events challenge those who face them and epic challenge inspires epic response. The construction of the Alaska Highway offers a perfect example. The words, “World War II”, familiar, prosaic, have long since lost the power to convey …
Tag Archives: Alaska Highway in WWII
Entertainment
Entertainment did not come easy to young men stuck in camp in the deep woods along the Alaska Highway. Edward “Whiskers” Frankenberg and his fellows found that getting bears to eat out of their hands definitely provided entertainment. Whiskers told Donna Blasor-Bernhardt about it for her book, Pioneer Road. Link to another story “The Rude …
Mutiny?
Link to another story “Send Food or Send Coffins” Mutiny, the Army’s most serious crime, visited the 97th at Big Gerstle, Alaska in March 1943. Or did it? The answer depends on your perspective and how you define mutiny. In March at Big Gerstle, Headquarters Company commander Lt. Dewitt Howell received a routine order to …
Uniforms
Uniforms presented the soldiers of the 97th their single worst problem during the awful Alaska winter of 1942/43. Senior commanders, the men ultimately responsible for providing adequate clothing and equipment apparently had other things on their minds—until the Washburn Report landed on their desks and the desks of their superior officers back in Washington. H. …
Send Food or Send Coffins
Send food or send coffins. Regimental Supply received that message from Company F’s commander at the beginning of January. A joke? Probably. But the 97th Engineers had endured a truly horrific winter and January threatened to take horrific to a whole new level. In November, thinking they had a brand-new land route to Alaska, Headquarters …
Two Bulldozers
Two bulldozers parked nose to nose. Two operators reached across between them to shake hands. Their picture went out on the news wires, and the army’s publicity machine launched. Link to another story “The Press and Beaver Creek” Two bulldozers and the photo be damned, a significant piece of the road still did not exist. …
The Pressure Ratcheted Up a Notch
The pressure on the 97th and the 18th Engineers, working toward each other at the northern end of the Alaska Highway, ratcheted up on September 24. On that day, down in British Columbia, the 35th and the 340th Engineers met at Contact Creek and completed the Alaska Highway from Dawson Creek to Whitehorse. LInk to …
KP’s (Kitchen Police) Discovered the Problem First
KP’s, soldiers on what the army called Kitchen police duty, discovered the catastrophe looming ahead of the 18th Engineers first. KP’s had to dig garbage pits, and, as the regiment moved north past the Big Duke River and on toward the Donjek River, they found themselves digging in a vastly different kind of ground. They …
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The Last Obstacle–The Tanana River
The last obstacle, the Tanana River. The soldiers of the 97th had to build access road to it and cross it before they could turn south and finally start building Alaska Highway. At the beginning of August 1942, a new commander launched a fired-up regiment into the Tanana valley with sixty miles to go to …
Little Tok River
Little Tok river doesn’t amount to much. But it meant a lot to the soldiers of the 97th Engineers in August 1942. Their assigned portion of the Alaska Highway lay on the north bank of the Tanana River, 266 miles from where they left the ship that brought them to Alaska. Over the last eighty …