Gouging a Road through Yukon Clyde S. Deal came to te subarctic north to join the 93rd Engineering Regiment in Yukon in April 1942. Through the summer he helped build the supply road from Carcross to Johnson’s Crossing on the Teslin River, learned to deal with muskeg and airplane sized mosquitoes. Through the late summer …
Continue reading “From the Subarctic North to Burma and India”
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 …
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”
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, 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 …
Food topped the list of sources of unrelieved misery on the Highway in 1942. Other things on the list From day one, everybody, officers and enlisted, white and black, everybody ate C-rations. Gray boxes, C-rations had contents that resembled food you might have had before, strange things that looked sort of like chocolate, olive …
Daylight lasted forever in July, and the North Country continuing to fight back, revealed a new arsenal. The wet heat of summer replaced the wet cold of spring. Morley Bay averaged highs of 90 degrees, Whitehorse 82. And it stayed wet. According to WP&YT railroad records total rainfall in the week of July 5 broke …
Crossing Paths with Sam McGee The US Army Corps of Engineers crossed paths with Sam McGee in June 1942. Hell bent to build a land route from the lower 48 to Alaska, the Corps descended on Northern Canada and Alaska early in the year. By the end of June three regiments had themselves relatively organized …
Bodies, corpses, populated Charlie Lake after Colonel Lane’s raft capsized. The Colonel, determined to bypass the bottomless mud north of Fort St John, had dispatched the raft. Now, horrified, he rushed to the scene. He found Gus, the old trapper who had tried to rescue them, and the two men rowed Gus’ skiff out to …
The rest of the 93rd followed Company C into Skagway; ran into a massive traffic jam. Colonel Russell Lyons was rushing his brand new white 340th Engineering Regiment into Skagway at the same time. By April 25, the little village strained at the seams, hosting two full regiments. And one of the regiments was black. …