Frank Hinkel, T4 bulldozer operator, pushing dirt over the wall of a canyon, got too close to the edge. His dozer followed the dirt over. Hinkel tried to jump but banged his head and sat back down; rode his steel mount down to the floor of the canyon. Luckily, the dozer landed on its tracks. …
Tag Archives: Catskinner
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 …
Nature Could Beat the Dozers
Nature fought the Alaska Highway builders in 1942—fought them hard. And, for all their awesome power, sometimes even the monster dozers lost a battle. At mid-summer, the soldiers of the 93rd Engineers struggled through Yukon. Nature opened her spigots and endless rain fell day after day. Long stretches of road turned to thick mud with …
Caterpillar Dozers
Caterpillar dozers did jobs on the Alcan project that Caterpillar never imagined. One night a sergeant of the 18th Engineers, working his D8 into and through the trees, acquired a determined grizzly bear guide and companion. He swerved toward the giant bear and it ran away, but as soon as he returned to his work, …
“My uncle, Chester Russell, worked on the Highway.”
“My uncle”?! Jim Price’s comment on one of my blogs a couple of years ago grabbed my attention. Chester Russel, an icon for historians of the Alaska Highway, had turned up repeatedly in our research for our book, We Fought the Road. We Fought the Road on Amazon The Most Colorful Soldier In early 1942 …
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Young Lieutenants
Young lieutenants often need, in addition to formal Army training, serious training from their enlisted subordinates. Chester Russell’s memory yielded a story for interviewers Brown and Bridgeman that describes how that training happens. Enlisted Soldiers like Chester Earl Brown asked how many miles a day they built; did they have a quota? No quota, but …
Enlisted Soldiers like Chester
Enlisted soldiers like Chester fought the mud, mountains, cold and mosquitoes; did the actual work of building the Alaska Highway in 1942. The stories that pour from Chester Russell’s memory tell us what it felt like to actually do the epic job. The Most Colorful Soldier Speaking of Chester Russel In the last episode, Chester …
Private Russel at Ft. Nelson
Private Russel and his fellows at Ft. Nelson not only struggled to find food to eat, they also struggled to fix the trucks and tractors that their winter road trip up from Fort St. John had all but destroyed. Ft. Nelson, Chester Russell’s Passage The army rushed mechanics from Union Tractor Company in from Edmonton …
The Most Colorful Soldier
The most colorful soldier on the Alaska Highway Project, Chester Russel, came with the 35th Engineers to Dawson Creek in March 1942. Colonel William Hoge had come to Dawson Creek, in February. His country, suddenly at war with the Empire of Japan, its Alaska outpost in dire danger, needed a land route from the railhead …
Permafrost
Permafrost proves conclusively, if we actually needed more proof, that in the Far North, Mother Nature fights back with endless creativity. The mileage champions of the Alaska Highway Project, the 18th Engineering Regiment, faced and bested every challenge. Then they passed the Big Duke River, and Mother introduced them to permafrost—muskeg on steroids. Slims River …