Traffic Jam in the Woods

In June 1942 a traffic jam followed the black soldiers of the 93^rd Engineering Regiment as they raced through woods and mud toward the Teslin River, building a road to get the white soldiers of the 340^th Engineers into the interior.

More on the Race to the Teslin River

Colonel Lyons, commander of the 340^th, far behind schedule, had progressed as far as he could; had positioned men along the river route from Skagway through Carcross and Whitehorse to Morley Bay, prepared to receive and move his heavy equipment into the interior when it came. Lyons’ focus had shifted to the soldiers who waited in Skagway for the 93^rd’s road. He and his soldiers burned with impatience.

The long river route for his supplies and heavy equipment ended at Morley Bay, but his road would start at the shore of Nisutlin Bay seven miles back to the west. The soldiers at Morley Bay started building that seven miles of road on June 4^th.   Seven miles didn’t amount to much in the larger scheme of things, but men from the 340^th finally made road.

The 93^rd worked as a train. The men of Company A raced toward the Teslin River. The rest of the regiment strung out behind them all the way back to Jacoby and Crag lakes just outside of Carcross. On June 4 the men of the 340^th started to move out of Skagway. First battalion headquarters rode the train to Carcross; pitched their tents at the airfield for one night then moved directly into the rear of the 93^rd train.

On June 6^th the little railroad from Skagway up into Yukon began transporting the rest of the 340^th to the airfield encampment at Carcross. As the men arrived, they jammed the encampment, formed up, and moved out in pursuit of the 93^rd’s train.

Lyons and his headquarters had moved up to Whitehorse, but the Japanese attack at Dutch Harbor, interrupted their plan to move out to Morley Bay. (link)  Finally, on June 6, they boarded the SS Whitehorse. The crusty old Scotsman named McDonald who captained the Whitehorse held an early morning church service on the boat, then pushed off into the rough current.

The soldiers of the headquarters company enjoyed a leisurely passage.  But the strenuous efforts of the crew of the Whitehorse, making excruciatingly slow progress against the powerful river currents, fascinated them.  One soldier described the currents as the “Roaring Bull Rapids”. In the early morning of June 9^th the Whitehorse entered the smoother waters of Teslin Lake.

Back in the woods east of Carcross, the men of the 340th crowded up behind the lag companies of the 93^rd and then began passing them, working around and through. The woods along the seventy mile stretch to the Teslin River suddenly got really crowded.

Another Source on Black Soldiers on the Alcan