Fuel, the bulldozers plowing through the North Country wilderness in 1942 had an enormous appetite for it. If supporting the men in the woods and their furious labor meant, first and foremost, getting supplies to them, getting fuel to the big dozers posed the single biggest supply challenge. More on getting supplies into the woods …
Tag Archives: Alaska Highway in WWII
Our Book, We Fought the Road
Writing our book, We Fought the Road, started Christine and I on the story telling adventure that led to this blog. Many of you have asked abou the book and where to get it. You’ll find the it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and in your local bookstore. More on We Fought the Road In …
D8 A Bucket of Olive Drab
“A Bucket of Olive Drab,’ the Caterpillar Company called the D8 Bulldozer they shipped to the Army. They also called it the “indispensable, all-purpose weapon of the Engineers”. The big crawlers made the Alaska Highway Project possible in 1942. The Big Machines Could be Delicate Too The D8 weighed in at twenty- three tons. Its …
Civilians on the Alaska Highway Project
Soldiers and Civilians Civilians work different. The Army can dispatch soldiers, organized into military units with equipment more-or- less-in hand, relatively quickly in an emergency. Soldiers in wartime face danger and endure hardship. Speed trumps quality. In 1942 at the point of the spear, soldiers plowed into the Far North wilderness, endured, survived and carved …
Food and, Inevitably, Latrines and Garbage
Food topped the list of things every soldier on the Alaska Highway in 1942 absolutely despised. Without exception, the soldiers hated their monotonous and dismal meals. Fresh food supplemented endless field rations, but only intermittently. One company of the 93rd Engineers actually had no cook stove; the mess sergeant made do with an open fire …
Continue reading “Food and, Inevitably, Latrines and Garbage”
Old Fort, Thad Bryson’s Return
Old Fort, North Carolina. Thad Bryson grew up there, but in the run up to WWII, the Army reached out for him. He wound up with the 97th Engineering Regiment at Eglin Field in Florida where he met the Tuskegee Airmen. Black men had more choices than he had dreamed. Thad Bryson meets the Tuskegee …
Thad Bryson Winter
Thad Bryson, a young black man from Old Fort, North Carolina met the Tuskegee Airmen. Shortly after that his regiment, the 97th Engineering Regiment quite suddenly left Florida—for Alaska! Thad Bryson meets the Tuskegee Airmen Thad’s son Fred shared with us his dad’s stories. Like a lot of veterans, Thad didn’t talk about it much; …
The Road to Fairbanks
Richardson’s road to Fairbanks replaced Abercrombie’s trail to Eagle on the Yukon, but nobody replaced the Richardson Highway until the US Army Corps of Engineers, in a feat many had considered impossible, installed a totally new way to get to Fairbanks—a land route from the railhead at Dawson Creek, British Columbia. More on the …
Humble, Vaguely Malodorous Canvas
Humble, vaguely malodorous, canvas, on the Alaska Highway in 1942, supported life in bivouac. Canvas 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 canvas enclosures, soldiers transformed empty fuel drums into stoves, showers and bath …
Routine but Not Easy
Life settled into a routine by the first of August. That didn’t mean it got easy. All the soldiers, white and black, had worked in the woods for weeks. The racial issues that plagued the black regiments hadn’t gone away, but by August they lurked in the background–part of the routine. New Plan and new …