A thousand pair of Army boots had tromped across a railway platform into northern Canada in March at Dawson Creek, British Columbia. The second set of a thousand pair to tromp into northern Canada warmed—sort of—the feet of the 18th Engineers at the depot in Whitehorse, Yukon. The first troops to Dawson Creek When FDR …
Tag Archives: Alaska Highway in WWII
Reinstalling a Tread
Reinstalling a tread back onto its drive sprocket, relatively routine on flat ground, became something very different when doing it on a 23-ton machine that was teetering on the edge of a crumbling slope of glacial debris. That called for great skill and calm nerves. In a better world, the catskinners of the 97th wouldn’t …
Stoves in Tents
Stoves, homemade stoves, in tents? Subarctic weather demanded that each tent have one. Green Wood and Chester’s Solution The heat, of course, thawed the dirt floor into slimy mud. Soldiers festooned their tents with strings, ropes and rigging from which hung clothing, rifles, photos–anything the soldier did not want on the ground. Less valuable gear …
Essential but Not Enough
Essential soldiers in a stream of trucks arrived at the Slana sand hills. And now equally essential heavy equipment, especially bulldozers began unloading at the Valdez dock. Before the soldiers could start building road, that equipment had to get to Slana. To men operating bulldozers, the trip from Valdez out to Slana presented a whole …
Slana
Slana, Alaska lay 190 miles up the Richardson Highway from where the soldiers of the 97th jammed into their tent cities near Valdez. Assigned to start building road at Slana, they first had to get there. The trucks that would haul the soldiers to Slana began to make their way through Seattle, onto a motley …
Twelve Hundred Black Soldiers
Twelve hundred black soldiers jammed the hold as the David Branch pulled into frigid Valdez Harbor on April 29, 1942. The next morning when the ship tied up to the dock and dropped its gangplank, they waited to get off the ship and find somewhere to eat and sleep. To complicate things, strict orders …
Winter Still Gripped Valdez
Winter in Valdez, Alaska lasts well past April. The David Branch carried 1200 unsuspecting young soldiers 1,600 nautical miles north from springtime Seattle into a vastly different world. Valdez connected the rugged northern interior of Alaska to the oceans of the world. A long wooden dock traversed the mud flats at the edge of Valdez …
Leaving Florida for Subarctic Alaska
Leaving Florida, the white officers of the segregated 97th Engineering Regiment knew they headed from the Sunshine State to extended duty in subarctic Alaska. Few of the 1200 young black soldiers who worked for them knew their destination or what lay in store. For them a transcontinental train ride meant exciting adventure. At Eglin Field …
Malodorous Canvas
Malodorous Canvas supported life in bivouac on the Alaska Highway in 1942. Tents provided barracks, mess halls and offices. Men slept on folding canvas cots. Canvas “lister bags” stored treated drinking water. Canvas enclosures became mechanical repair shops. In malodorous canvas enclosures, soldiers transformed empty fuel drums into stoves, showers and bath tubs. Bivouac in …
Rough Draft of a Highway
Rough draft or not, the Army proposed to use its new Alaska Highway. Cpl. Gronke and Pvt. Bowie had thrilled reporters and their readers by driving its length in a half-ton weapons carrier. The convoys of 2 ½-ton cargo trucks that followed got far less attention. Awards, Celebrations and Giving a Damn A good thing …