Colonel Twichell commanded a regiment on the Alaska Highway Project. His son, Heath, immortalized the Alaska Highway Project.
Colonel Twichell came to the Highway with the 35th Engineers in early 1942 then commanded the segregated 95th. When he retired from the Army, many years later, he started work on a book documenting the Alcan project. Health problems, though, intervened; he never finished it.
But Colonel Twichell had a son.
Heath Twichell graduated from West Point in June 1956. He travelled as a young lieutenant with the 101st Airborne to Little Rock Arkansas where President Eisenhower had dispatched them to supervise the Arkansas National Guard in desegregating Little Rock Central High School in 1957.
In this interview Heath described that experience.
Heath took advanced degrees, taught at West Point, served two tours as an infantry officer in Vietnam, served on the Army Staff in Washington and completed a PhD in history. And in 1980 he suffered a heart attack.
He turned to his father’s research, completed it and wrote the book that made him the dean of Alaska Highway historians– Northwest Epic: The Building of the Alaska Highway.
In his meticulously researched book, Heath did what no one had done before. He told the whole story, put it in historical context and made eloquently clear just how “epic” the project had been. For the past 25 years, Northwest Epic has been the ‘go to’ book for anyone interested the construction of the Alaska Highway.
When researcher Chris became mesmerized by the Highway Project she, of course read Heath’s book. Her copy has been highlighted, annotated—even weathered! It rode with her in the front seat of the truck throughout our first trip up the highway in 2013. She wrote more words in it than Heath did.
Heath became a friend, mentoring us through our effort to write our book, We Fought the Road. We finally met him in person at his Rhode Island home in 2015. At the conclusion of our visit, he smiled broadly as he carefully opened Chris’ dog-eared copy of Northwest Epic, heavily annotated and highlighted in a rainbow of colors.
And he signed it.
Heath passed away on June 10, 2017. He was an officer and gentleman in the truest sense of those words. Our book, indeed the very direction of our lives, owe so very much to this man…
The world is a lesser place without him.
Very good reading material. This sort of history should of been taught in schools.