Defending America. Our two-book series We Fought the Road and A Different Race tell a story you’ll want to read. We Fought the Road on Amazon A Different Race on Amazon In 1942 black and white soldiers built a land route 1600 miles long through the most difficult country on earth in just eight months. The …
Continue reading “Defending America, Building the Alaska Highway”
Midway —screaming fighters, torpedo bombers, dying sailors and pilots, changed the course of WWII in the Pacific. But the great battle in the central Pacific had moving parts far to the north on the boundary between the North Pacific and the Bering Sea—Alaska’s Aleutian Island Chain. Even as a Japanese fleet tried to trap the …
Carcross had seen trainloads of soldiers pass through and on to Whitehorse. Now, to little Millie Jones’ delight, the black soldiers of the 93rd Engineering Regiment stopped and climbed down in Carcross. Lt. Price’s platoon came first, brought up the Regimental Chaplain, Lt. Finis Hugo Austin, and set up a post office. Millie Jones and Carcross …
Flight nurses in WWII, took frightful risks and all too often paid for it with their lives. When flight nurse Ruth Gardiner’s plane “mushed” and plowed into the ground on Unmak Island, it exploded and Ruth died. WWII, an equal opportunity disaster, killed women as well as men. Link to another story “Marauding Japanese Forces” …
Mike Gay’s dad landed on Kiska at night. His First Special Service Force unit found plenty of misery—but no Japanese soldiers. Link to another story “Retaking the Islands” In response to their disaster on Attu, the Japanese had abandoned Kiska. Americans had even intercepted and decrypted the evacuation order, but one man on the ground …
Defending Alaska? In the runup to WWII some senior officers in the United States Army thought a lot about that potential problem. Most did not. In August1941 they called the Alaska National Guard to active duty and moved most of it out of Alaska. Territorial Governor Earnest Gruening had seen that coming and he urged …
Retaking Kiska and Attu presented a daunting challenge, but America couldn’t leave the islands to the Japanese. In May 1943 the US Army’s 17th Infantry, sailed north from California, and on May 11, supported by Castner’s Cutthroats, Canadian recon units and the Canadian Air Force, they stormed ashore into a frigid hell. The Japanese had …
Castner’s Cutthroats, a platoon of unique soldiers commanded by Colonel Lawrence V. Castner, launched into subarctic history shortly after the Japanese occupied Kiska and Attu in June 1942. Relentless cold, impenetrable fog and endless hurricane force winds called “williwaws” threatened the Japanese survival on their two captured islands far more than the Americans. The Americans, …
Another naval base bombed by the Japanese? Hearing the story of Dutch Harbor an unidentified man, his face red with rage, stomped six blocks down dignified Chestnut Street… buying newspapers headlining the Japanese attack…and tearing them into shreds. Police said he was within his rights. The Santa Cruz Sentinel reported that story from Philadelphia on …
Lieutenants? Where would the army be without them? In June 1942 Lt. Darrel M. Schumacher of the 340th Engineering Regiment cooled his heels in Skagway. He and his men would walk to the Teslin River as soon as the 93rd built them a trail. In the meantime, they waited. Then the Japanese bombed the American …