Two books, We Fought the Road and A Different Race, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and your local bookstore will appeal to people who enjoy my stories. Christine and I wrote them.
An Epic project comparable to the construction of the Panama Canal, the construction of the Alaska Highway left behind a treasure trove of stories—funny, tragic, sad–every kind of story imaginable. Our two books describe the great project from the ground up–from the perspective of soldiers in the mountains, mud, woods, and subarctic cold building road. The world has enough books telling the story from the perspective of senior officers who figured out and organized the project from heated offices.
The Empire of Japan, in 1942, threatened America through Alaska and its Aleutian Islands. To mount a defense, the army needed to get men and the material of war there. That required 1600 miles of Highway through the mountains of Northern Canada. The scope of the project and its urgency required seven regiments so with only four white regiments available the army reluctantly sent three segregated regiments—black soldiers led by white officers.
We Fought the Road, released by Epicenter Press in 2017, tells the story of the whole road but focuses on the 93rd Engineers working through Yukon. A Different Race, released by Little Lands End Publishing in January of this year tells the story of the 97th Engineers, building the northern end of the road in Alaska.
Racism made the experience of the 97th especially difficult and culminated after they completed the road in a trumped-up charge of mutiny against 10 black men of the regiment. To set an example for black men the army officially considered dangerous if not disciplined effectively, a court-martial convicted nine of the ten and sentenced them to long prison terms at hard labor.
Link to a story about the “mutiny” “Ten Mutineers”