Winter in Valdez, Alaska lasts well past April. The David Branch carried 1200 unsuspecting young soldiers 1,600 nautical miles north from springtime Seattle into a vastly different world. Valdez connected the rugged northern interior of Alaska to the oceans of the world. A long wooden dock traversed the mud flats at the edge of Valdez …
Tag Archives: segregated Army
Leaving Florida for Subarctic Alaska
Leaving Florida, the white officers of the segregated 97th Engineering Regiment knew they headed from the Sunshine State to extended duty in subarctic Alaska. Few of the 1200 young black soldiers who worked for them knew their destination or what lay in store. For them a transcontinental train ride meant exciting adventure. At Eglin Field …
Blues and the Highway Project
Blues came to Yukon in the blood and marrow of soldiers from the Mississippi Delta—the soldiers of the 93rd Engineering Regiment. After all, the blues were born in the Delta too. On a wall in the Carcross Depot today hangs a photo of a large group of black soldiers in front of the 1942 depot. …
Buffalo Soldiers in Skagway
Buffalo Soldiers from the 24th Infantry Regiment came to Skagway in 1899, forty-four years before the black soldiers of the 93rd came there to build the Alaska Highway. The Klondike Gold Rush had brought hordes of gold rushers who threatened the community and each other. The Army sent Company L of the 24th Infantry to …
We Fought the Road for Christmas
You or someone you love wants a copy of We Fought the Road for Christmas. You follow my Facebook Author page, or you follow me on Instagram or Twitter, and I hope that means you enjoy the stories of Northern Canada and Alaska that I post there. We Fought the Road, written with my …
Ten Mutineers
Ten young black men from the hot and humid South, Sgt. Heard and his squad had endured the spring and summer of 1942 building Alaska Highway through the wilds of Alaska. In late fall Company F and the squad had crossed into Yukon Territory to work on south through piling snow and plunging temperatures. Back …
Departing Our World, Samuel Hargroves
Departing our world for a better place on November 21, former United States Army Tech 5 Samuel Hargroves, one of the last survivors of a very special group of men, left it a lesser place. Millions of men stepped up during the catastrophe of World War II to defend their country. But black men like …
Balmy Above Zero to Thirty-six Below
From balmy above zero the temperature plunged to 36 below at Big Gerstle, Alaska on March 29. Sergeant Heard and his nine men spent that morning loading three deuce-and-a-half trucks with supplies for Fairbanks. Ten shivering black men in worn and ragged uniforms lifting and packing, working around the snow in the truck beds, …
Winter and Sergeant Heard’s Squad
Winter, 1942-43, a winter natives and old timers in Alaska and Northern Canada remembered as the worst since 1917, found Sergeant Heard and his men enduring at Northway, near the Canadian border. Temperatures reached 72 degrees below zero and the white officers of Company F abandoned their frigid quarters for days at a time, crowding …
The Squad led by Sergeant Heard
The squad, Sergeant Heard’s ten young soldiers, had, like nearly all the men in the 97th Engineering Regiment, grown to manhood in the hot and humid southern United States. Over the last two years, the Army had hauled them over a bewildering path from Florida, to Alaska, and, finally, to the Big Gerstle River. James …