The Land of the Midnight Sun could offer a traveler the spectacle of a golden lavender sunset in the west and a rising moon, dusted with the same hue in the east. Oversized and spectacular, the land dwarfed every living thing in it—mosquitoes, moose, grizzlies and, very occasionally, men. Winters surrounded everything in this country …
Tag Archives: Corps of Engineers
Morale Leads the 95th to Sikanni Chief
Morale among the black soldiers of the misused and abused 95th Engineers confronted their new commander, Lt. Colonel Heath Twichell, with his biggest problem and he proposed to fix it. Link to the last story in this series “Pink Mountain and the 95th” The Army, Twichell knew, considered his new troops substandard; didn’t trust them …
North Country Lessons
North country lessons sometimes came to the Corps the hard way. In May the North Country taught the Corps that what they didn’t know posed difficult problems. What they didn’t know they didn’t know could lead to catastrophe. Link to another story “Muskeg Flats” On April 31 the 341st had been together less than two …
Explosion in Dawson Creek
Explosion in Dawson Creek? A year or so ago I posted about Dawson Creek, British Columbia, a tightly knit little community, isolated from the rest of the world by distance and geography and weather. The community had no idea that WWII had put them center stage in the war effort. The invasion of the US …
The Subarctic North Lay in Wait
The subarctic north lay in wait for the soldiers of the Corps of Engineers at the end of the 1940’s. A few daring men flew over it. A primitive system of primordial trails traversed it from the farming village of Dawson Creek through a string of tiny settlements to the almost city of Whitehorse and …
The Fairbanks Freight
The Fairbanks Freight would, if senior officers had anything to say about it, make scheduled runs north to Fairbanks from the Dawson Creek railhead through the winter of 1942/43. Convoys making their way over the brand new road that winter traversed a very rough draft of a Highway. Link to another story, “Awards, Celebrations and …
Horses vs Mosquitos
Horses struck the soldiers of the 340th as a fine idea but not as a personal gift to Yukon’s mosquito population. The mosquitos thought that part up for themselves. Working south out of Teslin, the bulldozers of the 340th could knock trees down but not out of the way. Downed trees left an unacceptable pile …
Scrapers–or Carryalls
Scrapers or carryalls, in 1942 in Northern Canada the Army called them both. The big machines scraped mud and dirt, but the soldiers also pressed them into service to carry almost anything. The big machines, most from LeTourneau, made the Alaska Highway Project possible in 1942. This story consists of photos because photos tell it. …
Relations
Relations between Canada and its tightly coupled neighbor to the South, generally but not always good, influenced the Alaska Highway Project in 1942. Even today, the things we get up to down here don’t always leave Canadians, our oldest and best international friends, with a warm fuzzy feeling. And the things we get up to …
Inexperience and Consequences
Inexperience can have consequences. The fuel tank exploding under his bottom shouldn’t have surprised Pvt. Hall, but it did. Inexperience… Donald L. Hall drove trucks in convoy out of Dawson Creek in 1942. He negotiated the Alaska Highway at the rear of the convoy, piloting a truck full of spare parts and tools. When trucks …