KV Nelson served with the 97th Engineering Regiment on the Alaska Highway in Alaska—until February 5, 1943. On that day he died. He and a fellow soldier named Smith, driving a truck on the icy highway back to camp from the little settlement at Station Creek, slid off the road into a ditch. The truck …
Tag Archives: Alaska Highway in WWII
An Exploded Repair
The tank exploded, and that shouldn’t have surprised the man repairing it. Donald L. Hall drove trucks out of Dawson Creek in 1942. He also fixed trucks. Driving, he brought up the rear of his convoy, piloting a truck full of spare parts and tools. When trucks broke, he fixed them. For more on mechanics …
Swarming Road Builders Need Food and Supplies
Swarming over the mountains and through the woods carving out the Alaska Highway in 1942, thousands of soldiers consumed mountains of rations. They needed underwear, boots, coats, sleeping bags, and toilet paper. Headquarters’ used tables, chairs, filing cabinets, pens, pencils and typewriters. Kitchen’s needed stoves and gas, cookware, seasonings. Medics needed bandages and drugs, dental …
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The Rude Bear
We can excuse a rude bear. They don’t, after all, attend finishing school. Roy Lee of the 140th Quartermaster Truck company would beg to disagree. More on Quartermaster Trucks Roy had passed a very long July day driving a deuce-and-a-half in convoy from Dawson Creek up to Summit Lake. The rough road and the long …
Alaska Highway Churns Up Stories.
The main artery of the North, the great Alaska Highway churns up endless stories. Blogging Far North History Ron Brooks commented on a post that his father had worked on the highway. I messaged him, and we exchanged emails. Like so many of you, Tom has a treasure trove of information about his dad’s service …
Canada’s Reaction
Canada attracts people up from the United States and we carry attitudes and assumptions north across the border. A famously friendly lot, Canadians don’t always challenge our mistaken assumptions. And they don’t take us to task for our attitudes. The things we get up to down here don’t always leave Canada, our oldest and very …
Smitty Schmitt’s War—with the elements in Yukon
Smitty Schmitt, early in 1942, received orders to report for duty at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana. He and his wife packed up and headed south from their home in Schenectady, NY. In camp, he reported to the regimental adjutant of the 93rd Engineers. 93rd Engineers Making Road “Do you have a car and are you married?” …
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Liard Hot Springs
Liard Hot Springs, four hundred seventy miles northwest of Dawson Creek, British Columbia and Mile Zero of the Alaska Highway, provided a thoroughly unusual experience for the soldiers who built the great Highway in 1942. More on the Soldiers Today it still offers an unusual experience for those lucky travelers who get to scratch driving …
Appendicitis
Appendicitis doesn’t normally amount to a major threat—unless you get it on the North Bank of the White River in Northern Yukon in November 1942. The you need bush pilot Les Cook and his Norseman Monoplane. Comrades place the young soldier on a litter and carry him two miles to the river. The bridge …
Spare Parts
Spare parts became precious. The Alaska Highway that spooled out behind the soldiers with their dozers and carryalls and hand tools in 1942 swarmed with smaller vehicles, especially deuce and a half trucks. The equipment plowing through the woods required more than mountains of 55-gallon drums of fuel. Mud pulled hoses loose, tracks and rollers …