Seven regiments powered through the wilds of the North Country in the summer of 1942, gouging the Alaska Highway out of the wilderness. Equipment broke. The regiments chewed through axles, rollers and tracks. One cat broke down, then another, parts from one fixed the other and the cannibalized tractor sat at the side of the …
Continue reading “Seven Regiments Trashed the New Alaska Highway”
Menace confronted the soldiers building the Alaska Highway at every turn. But the black soldiers of the 97th had to conquer the most fearful menace of them all—Mentasta Pass. At the turn of the century the Army had built a pack trail from Valdez to Eagle. Alaskans found the trail dangerous, impossible to maintain and …
Suddenly climbing into Keystone Canyon, a truck driver found himself working his clutch, hurriedly shifting down through the gears to the lowest one. Driving from the Port of Valdez toward the interior of Alaska he had just covered about 15 miles of rough, muddy, but misleadingly flat road. Now as his truck struggled up into …
Emerging Alaska Highway, in June, had finally started rewarding the strenuous efforts of thousands of soldiers and civilians working through subarctic wilderness from Alaska south to Dawson Creek. Now came word of the Japanese in the Aleutians. None of them knew what to make of that. For some, of course, the Japanese assault justified their …
Chickens. How do you get fresh chicken to men building a highway through subarctic wilderness? Leo Perra’s dad found a way. Leo reads my blog and one night he commented that his dad delivered food to workers on the Alaska Highway. I asked if he had information to share, and he certainly did. Here is …
Mild-mannered hero, Staff Sergeant Charles Davis, turned up in a story in the Pittsburgh Courier in early 1944. The reporter actually described him as a “slight and mild-mannered” black soldier and then went on to relate not one, but two incredible stories about mild mannered Sergeant Davis. Link to another story “Rough Draft of …
All hell broke loose when the US Army invaded little Skagway, Alaska in the spring of 1942. Endless ships of every description came up the Lynn Canal, tied up in Skagway’s harbor and disgorged soldiers—thousands of soldiers—then turned and went back for more. For old timers the sudden arrival of the Corps brought memories of …
Link to another story “Dumb Going Up There” Lunging dozers tried hard to solve a big problem for the soldiers of the 35th Engineers at Muncho Lake, four hundred sixty miles out from Dawson Creek. The Lunging dozers failed. But one very creative and damned courageous soldier, Lt. Miletech, succeeded. Tall mountain cliffs bordered Muncho …
Video About Tuskegee Airmen Thad grew up knowing little beyond his black community in Old Fort, North Carolina. He lived in a two-room house on a small farm. Nobody in North Carolina expected much from a young black man, and it did not occur to young Thad to expect much from himself. He vaguely knew …
Henry Horn’s sore throat posed little problem to an imaginative Alaska Highway Doctor. Henry’s tonsils had been removed years ago, but one grew back. And every winter he suffered from a constant sore throat. A winter along the Alaska Highway did not help the problem. Link to another story “Injured, Sick or Worse on the …