June 1942, Yukon

June 1942 in Yukon.

What was going on

The black soldiers of the 93^rd Engineers hit their stride. Moving rapidly east from Tagish, Company A led the three companies of First Battalion on a mad dash through the woods.  On June 4 Company A moved to bivouac seven miles east of the Tagish River just three miles short of the peaceful bit of woods that would become Jakes Corner.

Jake’s Corner lay dead center in the 93^rd’s area of operations. On the 4^th, with Company A still three miles short of that spot, the commander’s staff, his Headquarters and Service Company piled themselves and their supplies into trucks at Carcross and negotiated the miles of mud and stumps to Tagish.  H&S would live in Tagish for just twelve days–until June 16.

Yukon Territory offered a community at Tagish—just barely.  About fifty Tlingit Natives made their homes there—fishing the river they called “Six Mile River”.  The Dickson family ran a trading post and a fox and mink farm.  Still living on boxed rations, the men of H&S welcomed the fish.

Between June 4 and June 6, the First Battalion ‘train’, led by Company A, raced through Jakes Corner—hell bent for the Teslin River.  The rough road in their wake provided access from Carcross through Tagish to the motor pool site—just in time.

Heavy equipment finally appeared at the Skagway docks; came up on the WP&YT to Carcross.  Precious trucks and jeeps and D8 dozers moved off the ships, on to rail cars, up the White Pass.  The regiment welcomed the equipment, of course, but in the first week of June its arrival took chaos to a new level.  The regiment fought to get the precious machines out of Carcross and over the muck and stumps of the primitive road still under construction to the line companies that so desperately needed them.

Yukon Territory, of course, fought back. It greeted the heavy equipment invasion with heavy rains and thick mud. But the engineers, sweating and cursing, prevailed.  With a brutal schedule hanging over their heads, Hoge and his commanders needed the equipment in place and working.  Their soldiers made it happen.

At Tagish the 73^rd Pontoon Engineers’ ferry operated eighteen hours a day, hauling equipment and supplies over the river.  In the first three weeks of June, they moved 1050 vehicles including D8’s and gas shovels and supplies across the 1200-foot River.

Former Lieutenant Squires, motor officer for the 93^rd, vividly remembered watching a string of new D8’s slew and grumble through Tagish toward Jake’s Corner. “Now they could make headway.”