Chapter VII: The Far North
The outbreak of war with Japan brought the northwestern part of the North American continent very much into the foreground. The disaster at Pearl Harbor meant that the United States had lost naval control of the northern Pacific. It was not known whether the Japanese would attack Alaska, or, if they did so, what size force they would use. The defenses of Alaska would have to be strengthened insofar as it could be done without detriment to the buildup in more vital theaters of war. Engineer operations in the Territory were expanded. At the same time the engineers were called upon to construct projects in northwestern Canada to strengthen Alaska. Soon after the outbreak of war they were directed to build a road—the Canada-Alaska, or Alcan Highway—to link Alaska with the United States, and they were directed to develop the oil resources on the Mackenzie River—a project known as Canol. (Map 15) The Japanese attack on Dutch Harbor in June 1942 and the seizure of Attu and Kiska increased fears that Alaska was in danger and made engineer construction appear even more urgent. The threat was not entirely removed until the Japanese were driven from the Aleutians in mid-1943. In retrospect, the alarm over the danger seems much exaggerated, but to many at the time it seemed very real. Much of the construction at first glance appears to have had little to do with the war against Japan. Yet the fact remains that most of it in all probability would never have been undertaken had the United States not been at war with that country. Because of the war with Japan, the Engineers had to do extensive work in a region with which just a few years previously they had been little concerned.
Strengthening Alaska’s Defenses Plans for Alaska
After Pearl Harbor General DeWitt, who, as commander of the Fourth Army and of the Western Defense Command established in 1941, was responsible for the defense of Alaska, estimated that the Territory might be subjected to surprise attack and, possibly, invasion. He wanted more ground troops and an immediate increase in the number of planes. Washington authorities in considering his demands did not believe Alaska to be in imminent danger. But the possibility that the Japanese might launch an attack could not be ignored. On December the Western Defense Command, including Alaska, was made a theater of operations. The alert of late November was intensified. No new construction was contemplated, but the War Department directed speedy completion of approved or planned projects
Map 15: Alaska and Western Canada
that were considered urgent. In December a number of jobs, some of them under review since July, were quickly approved. Improvements were to be made at Ladd, Elmendorf, Annette, and Yakutat. All airfields, including those built by the Civil Aeronautics Authority, were to have storage for aviation gasoline and tor bombs and ammunition. Army posts were to be enlarged. The camp for the Army garrison at the CAA field at Nome was almost finished; similar facilities were to be built at nine other CAA fields. Eleven of the aircraft warning stations were to be completed. At long last, work was to be started on an airfield and Army post on Umnak; on 9 December Reybold got the signal to go ahead with this construction, which DeWitt had been urging since July. The two fields which CAA was planning to construct on the Alaska Peninsula at Cold Bay and at Port Heiden were to be built by the Army. At all installations dispersion and concealment, hitherto largely ignored, were to be stressed. Refinements, such as family quarters for married officers and fencing around military installations, were to be eliminated. The estimated cost of construction as of 31 December was approximately $90 million. Various projects of benefit to the Army would be undertaken by civilian agencies. The Department of the Interior was getting ready to improve the Richardson Highway, and the Public Roads Administration was preparing to build or improve other roads. The Department of Commerce planned to hard-surface the CAA runways.1
The expanded and accelerated construction program meant a great increase in the workload of the engineers. Lt. Col. George J. Nold as engineer of the Alaska Defense Command and Major Talley as area engineer would have far greater responsibilities than before. The Seattle District under Colonel Dunn would likewise have much more to do. At the close of 1941 there were in Alaska Company D of the 29th Topographic Battalion at Seward, the 32nd Combat Company at Fort Richardson, the 802nd Aviation Battalion at Annette, the 807th Aviation Company at Yakutat, and the st battalion of the 151st Combat Regiment, elements of which were at various Army posts from Dutch Harbor to Fairbanks. Contractors for the Navy were building the posts for the Army garrisons at Sitka, Kodiak, and Dutch Harbor. Projects not being built by troops or Navy contractors were the responsibility of the Seattle District. Most of this work was being done by hired labor. Colonel Dunn had made no large contracts, except the one with the West Construction Company for work on the railroad cutoff. More troops and civilians were urgently needed.2
Shortages
It was difficult to get either troops or civilians for Alaskan projects after Pearl Harbor. Enlistments and the draft cut
deeply into the supply of civilian manpower; deferments were as a rule not granted to men who wanted to work in the Territory. Governor Gruening believed more use should be made of local residents. In his opinion, salmon fishermen and packers, unemployed because of war conditions, would make good construction workers. Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes suggested that the 4,000 prospectors in the Territory, many of whom owned construction equipment, could be of help. The Seattle District, while glad to take any qualified residents, could not draw appreciable numbers of workmen from sparsely inhabited Alaska. Because of the great distances and poor transportation, it would, as a rule, have been more of a problem to assemble a working force within the Territory for a project than to send one in from the United States. Local civilians could not always be relied upon to stay on the job. Some of the fishermen who had been hired were planning to quit when the fishing season began in the spring. With the outbreak of war, many workers from the United States wanted to return home. Even if they could be persuaded to renew their contracts, most insisted on interim vacations. Neither local nor imported civilian labor could fill the need. The shipment of more engineer troops was imperative, but few could be spared for Alaska. The first unit to arrive after Pearl Harbor was the 2nd Battalion of the 151st Combat Regiment, which reached Cold Bay in January. The next was the 42nd General Service Regiment, the first battalion disembarking at Juneau on 28 February, and the second reaching Cordova in the middle
of March. After Pearl Harbor, almost all jobs west of Fort Richardson except those at Kodiak and Dutch Harbor were assigned to troops. To ease the manpower shortage, some work was done by troops of other arms and services under engineer supervision.3
A persistent problem was the shortage of materiel. Almost all supplies and equipment had to be procured in the United States. Before January 1942, Colonel Park’s approval was necessary for all purchases; after that date, the Seattle District was permitted to buy in the open market, but this new freedom was of little value. Despite Alaska’s high priority of A-1-a, sufficient quantities of supplies could not be obtained to meet requirements. The greatest need by far was for heavy earth-moving equipment, but prospects of getting any were slight. “After Pearl Harbor,” Nold wrote later, “we were practically limited to the equipment we had in hand or could obtain locally. ...” All such machinery was kept going around the clock and used under very unfavorable conditions. Tractors churned through mud, snow, muskeg, salt water, and sandy beaches. Many of the operators were inexperienced or untrained in handling equipment under such conditions. Repairs were constantly necessary, and there were no maintenance units in the Territory. Spare parts were scarce. Not enough came in with the
machinery, and follow-up shipments were inadequate. Units had to maintain their equipment as best they could. Efforts were made to cut down on needs; projects not essential to the war effort were discontinued. Local resources were exploited insofar as possible—particularly lumber. Yet it was difficult to curb extravagance. Talley recalled that a number of post commanders insisted on requisitioning “tapered steel flagpoles in a land of tall timber” where “it was only necessary to select and cut a spruce of any height you might desire.” The steel poles were not delivered.4
The shortage of ships, severe enough in the months before Pearl Harbor, was now much more pronounced. Dunn’s office estimated that demand for cargo space would be four to six times as much as that of the last months before the war. As needs grew, the number of ships fell off. Oceangoing vessels that might have been available were put on more distant overseas routes. Fishing boats which had been leased would have to be returned to their owners when the season opened. Deliveries to Alaska were slowed by the threat of Japanese submarines in Alaskan waters; vessels were forced to travel in convoys or to go by way of the Inland Passage. Dunn did what he could to keep supplies moving northward. He rented such barges and tugs as he could find. But, on the whole, the number of ships on the Alaska run could not be increased. More effective use would have to be made of what was available. Early in 1942 the Seattle subport was made an independent port of embarkation to serve Alaska primarily. Increasing quantities of supplies were sent by way of Prince Rupert in Canada, the first and most important of the subports established in western Canada and southeastern Alaska, and activated on 6 April 1942. Shipping stocks to that port via Canadian railways meant a saving of 600 miles in water transportation. Supplies for Alaskan projects began to accumulate on the docks and in the warehouses at Seattle. Some way would have to be found to get them to Alaska.5
Engineer Construction
Despite handicaps, work moved ahead on strengthening the defenses of the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutians. Dutch Harbor and nearby Fort Mears, and installations on the Alaskan mainland as well, had nothing between them and Japan but the ocean and a string of unfortified, largely uninhabited islands. As soon as construction was authorized at Umnak and Cold Bay, Dunn prepared to ship equipment and supplies. The greatest secrecy was maintained. Materials shipped from Seattle to the airfields were marked to indicate they were to be used by private firms for building fish
canneries. On 18 January, sixty-four officers and men of the 807th Aviation Company arrived at Umnak from Yakutat. Since the island had no harbor facilities, supplies were landed at Chernofski Bay on Unalaska to the east and barged twelve miles across the strait. This job was not easy. The repeated loading and unloading of equipment caused a great deal of breakage, and some of the barges sank in the stormy waters. It was not the best time of year for airfield construction. Bulldozer operators, trying to level off a runway on Umnak’s treeless wastes, were sometimes lost for hours in blinding snow storms. Work also began on the Alaska Peninsula. When, in early February, the second battalion of the 151st Combat Regiment reached Cold Bay from the United States, it took over construction of the runway from the CAA. Here, also, the subarctic winter greatly slowed work. More rapid progress was made on Umnak with the arrival of more troops. By mid-March the entire 807th, now an aviation battalion, was working on the airfield, and by the end of the month, helped by men from the infantry and field artillery, the battalion had finished a landing strip of steel mat. The first plane came in on the 31st. By this time a strip was in at Cold Bay, but its surface was soft and full of ruts. No construction had been started at Port Heiden, reported by Colonel Park, visiting Alaska late in March, as “still frozen in.”6
Drastic measures were needed to get supplies to Alaska. Toward the end of March, Dunn estimated that by the fall of 1942 some 150,000 tons of materials would be piled up on the Seattle docks awaiting shipment. Completion of important construction during the summer would be impossible. Dunn proposed an ambitious plan. He suggested sending barges loaded with supplies and equipment up the Inland Passage to Juneau. Seagoing vessels would be taken off the Seattle-Alaska run and assigned to Juneau to ply back and forth across the Gulf of Alaska. The haul of oceangoing vessels carrying cargo to western Alaskan ports would be greatly shortened. On 28 March, Dunn proposed building a barge terminal at Cape Spencer near Juneau, complete with covered and open storage. It would be an expensive undertaking, but unless it were done he did not see how urgent materials would reach Alaska in time. DeWitt was enthusiastic. On L5 May, Somervell gave his approval and the Seattle District began to prepare plans for construction. Meanwhile, additional barges were put into service and began carrying materials to Juneau.7
Problems of Organization
Some of the engineers’ difficulties in the Territory resulted from an apparent conflict in War Department directives. Before the outbreak of war, the right to
authorize construction had been reserved to the Secretary of War. Soon after Pearl Harbor the War Department had directed DeWitt to undertake emergency work on his own responsibility. Directives for construction now came from Washington and from DeWitt. In February the War Department suspended DeWitt’s authority to initiate emergency work, and DeWitt assumed that henceforth he could not start any projects without approval from Washington. On I March the War Department made General DeWitt solely responsible for construction and real estate in the Alaskan theater of operations. Henceforth, the responsibility of Colonel Dunn and, after 15 April, of his successor, Col. Peter P. Goerz, to the Chief of Engineers for work in Alaska was limited to flood control and the improvement of rivers and harbors. The Seattle District, however, continued to do work of a technical and administrative nature for all Alaskan projects. It still prepared designs, made up fiscal, accounting, and cost statements, and took care of civilian personnel matters. The district also continued to purchase supplies and equipment. In the words of Colonel Park, “Though our authority is theoretically nil, our responsibility remains about as before.”8
Further changes in organization were made. On May, DeWitt made the Army commander, Maj. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, Jr., entirely responsible for the execution of military construction in Alaska. Buckner’s headquarters absorbed Talley’s office in Anchorage, and Talley’s title was changed to Officer in Charge, Alaska Construction. Although Talley was now directly under Buckner, his office was not consolidated with Nold’s. No overall organization had been set up in Alaska to repair and maintain buildings which had been completed and turned over to post commanders. In May three colonels, sent from the Corps of Engineers’ Mountain Division office in Salt Lake City to investigate the matter, found a pressing need for repair and maintenance. Two were assigned to Buckner’s headquarters as liaison officers. They began to recruit qualified civilians in the United States and searched for enlisted men to do repairs and utilities work at Alaskan stations. Some delays had heretofore resulted because project engineers lacked authority to initiate construction. Frequently they had to hold up work of even minor scope for months while awaiting approval from Talley’s office, Buckner’s office, the Seattle District, or General DeWitt. Now authority was partly decentralized. After May area engineers could build projects costing less than $20,000 without reference to higher authority, and they could start those costing up to $50,000 without getting prior approval from higher authority.
While a great deal was done to improve organization, little could be done to increase the number of troops or civilians. Only two engineer units arrived during the spring. In March the 639th Engineer Camouflage Company reached Fort Richardson and began construction of a
depot for the newly established Eleventh Air Force. In May the 813th Engineer Aviation Battalion arrived to begin work on satellite fields for Elmendorf. By June, approximately 4,500 engineer troops and 3,000 civilian workmen were in the territory.9
Construction Progress
The engineers could show considerable progress by June. Annette and Yakutat were virtually complete. Cold Bay had a good gravel runway which, while not finished, tvas usable. No work had as yet been done at Port Heiden because of bad weather. Since their arrival in February, the 42nd Engineers had been building camps for the Army garrisons at the CAA fields at Juneau and Cordova. Facilities for gasoline storage were being erected at major airfields, At all projects the engineers were putting in access roads. By the end of May drilling of the tunnels for the railroad cutoff was about half finished, and work on the roadbed was about one-fourth done. With the beginning of spring the strategically important Seward Peninsula began to receive more attention. In March and April Air and Engineer officers made a reconnaissance of that area for a site for an airfield away from the coast where weather conditions would be better than at Nome. A site was found sixty-five miles to the north of the city. In May several groups from Talley’s office made a 3-week air and ground survey of the almost unknown region west of Fairbanks in an effort to find a route for a highway or railroad from Fairbanks to the coast and a site for an ocean terminal. The preliminary investigation indicated a route along the Yukon Valley would be feasible. Two locations were found on the Bering Sea deep enough for port construction.10
Progress on the eleven aircraft warning stations approved for construction was disappointingly slow. Differences of opinion still existed over where some of the stations should be located. In March the Eleventh Air Force wanted, at its major bases, additional information and filter centers to receive signals from and transmit signals to nearby detector stations. Work was further retarded when a new type of radar detector was developed that permitted 360-degree coverage. Buckner believed 20 of these would be required, but the War Department would allow only to; after plans for installing to of the devices had been prepared, only 5 turned out to be available. Work on the aircraft warning stations, most of them in isolated places, was difficult. At some, cableways had first to be built so that supplies could be brought up. At most stations, the Alaskan winter slowed construction; at four, work was impossible before spring. By the beginning of May only the mobile
station at Anchorage and the fixed one at Kodiak were in operation.11
Concentrating on the Aleutians
The attack on the Territory, which many had regarded as almost inevitable, was soon to come. Early in May Navy intelligence learned that the Japanese were planning to strike at Midway and the Aleutians. On 3 June two enemy carriers launched their planes for an attack on Dutch Harbor. (Map z6) Despite the bad weather 17 aircraft got through to their target, demolishing barracks and killing about 25 men. On the afternoon of the next day about 30 planes came in and again caused some loss of life and considerable damage to installations. Eight men of Company C of the 151st Engineer Combat Regiment were killed. After the attack some of the enemy airmen chose a rendezvous point near Umnak almost directly over the airfield, of whose existence they were unaware. Here U.S. fighters shot down 4 enemy planes. Meanwhile, two Japanese occupation forces approached the Aleutians. On 7 June one landed on Attu, the most remote island of the chain, and the next day the other came ashore on Kiska. As soon as enough planes could be concentrated on the strip on Umnak, bombing of the Japanese foothold on Kiska began.12
Although the Japanese thrust at Alaska, as is now known, served mainly as a feint, preliminary to the major strike against Midway, General DeWitt saw in it the possible beginning of a full-scale invasion and suggested to the War Department on 14 June that an expedition be launched against the Japanese in the western Aleutians. DeWitt’s recommendations evoked no enthusiastic response. As far as the Joint Chiefs were concerned, there were more urgent combat theaters than the North Pacific. DeWitt then proposed that an airfield be built on Tanaga Island, about 200 miles east of Kiska, so that the Japanese-occupied islands could be effectively bombed. No time was lost in making a reconnaissance. Talley, together with an Air officer and a Navy officer, landed on Tanaga on 27 June. They found the island to be similar to Umnak and estimated that a runway could be built in three weeks. But the Navy preferred Adak, 60 miles farther east, because of its good harbor. Whichever site was chosen, the engineers would have a formidable construction job. The islands of the Aleutian chain extended south-westward for 1,100 miles. Peaks of a partially submerged mountain range, they were treeless and much of the time shrouded in fog. They were uninhabited; the natives, about 1,300 Aleuts, of Eskimo stock, had been evacuated by the U.S. Navy after the attack on Dutch Harbor. Those on Attu and Kiska had been removed by the Japanese. During the summer the Joint Chiefs ordered airfields put in on Atka and Adak, and on small St. Paul Island in the Bering Sea, 300 miles north of Umnak. Airfields on these various islands would
Map 16 Aleutian Islands
provide a fairly effective harrier against Japanese air fleets operating from carriers or from Attu and Kiska.13
Work began first on Adak. Having completed its job on Umnak, the 807th Aviation Battalion, less a company which had begun work at Port Heiden, was scheduled to start the new undertaking. At Unalaska, the men assembled a motley collection of some 250 craft, including tugboats, barges, fishing scows, and a four-masted schooner, to take them to their new destination. They were to go with the task force which would occupy the island. On 26 August, the engineer “fleet,” escorted hy five destroyers, headed into the Bering Sea in the teeth of a rising gale. The crews worked hard to keep their supplies from being washed overboard. A route well up into the Bering Sea was taken to avoid enemy aircraft and submarines. During the night some vessels became separated
from the convoy, and the destroyers had a busy time locating and bringing back the wanderers. One barge was lost. After five days, Adak was sighted. Destroyers and boats headed into Kuluk Bay on the island’s eastern shore, just as a heavy fog closed in. Several of the barges were beached and some of the tractors and light cranes unloaded. The tractors dozed sand ramps to two scows sunk in tandem to provide access to an oceangoing barge being used as a floating dock. Troops, bivouacked in tents, found living conditions extremely uncomfortable.14
The mountainous island seemed to have no good location for an airfield. The sand dunes along the shores of Kuluk Bay appeared promising but would require much more earth moving than could be done with the small amount of machinery on hand. Beyond the dunes was a low, flat area of firmly packed sand, about two miles long. Along the western edge flowed Sweeper Creek, which emptied into Kuluk Bay through a narrow gap in the dunes just to the south of the flat. Tidal waters which entered through the mouth of the creek covered the area twice a day. If the tide could be shut out and, at the same time, the waters of the creek controlled, a strip could be provided quickly. On September the engineers, after bulldozing dikes along the banks of the creek, dozed a sand dam across its mouth to shut out the tide. To keep the pent-up waters from overflowing the dikes, they gouged a new channel into the bay through the dunes, two and one-half miles from the creek’s original mouth. On o September the sand strip could take a B-18 bomber. In order that planes might operate more effectively, 3,000 feet of landing mat were laid down. On the 13th forty-three planes took off to bomb Kiska. A second runway was ready five days later. To allow water accumulating in the lower reaches of the creek to escape, bulldozers had to break open the dike across the mouth of the creek daily. To eliminate this repeated opening and closing, culverts with gates were installed. Sometimes the accumulated water flooded the runways, especially when rainfall was heavy during high tide, and the gates had to remain closed. The airmen, ignoring shallow flooding, would take off in a cloud of spray. In November water pumps arrived and were put in operation later that month. In dry weather, the sand was kept moist and stable by means of controlled pumping.15
In September construction began on Atka and St. Paul. On the 17th Company A of the 802nd Aviation Battalion came ashore on Atka near an abandoned fishing village of some fifteen buildings. The men took over a number of the empty structures. As the dock was too small, the engineers provided a temporary pier by turning a barge upside down at the water’s edge. They were soon at work leveling nearby sand dunes for an airstrip with mat surfacing. Work was soon well in hand on Atka; two days after Christmas a 3,000-foot runway was ready. One company of the 42nd General
Service Regiment reached St. Paul late in September, its job to build a fighter strip surfaced with steel mat. The men found a deserted village of fifty-five buildings. Some of the 1,400 officers and men of the garrison were sheltered in the houses, with about one-third living in winterized tents. On 14 November the runway, surfaced with volcanic ash, was completed. From this time on, little work could be done, for blizzards, occurring almost daily, filled the roads with drifts so high that equipment could not get through. Rough seas and masses of floating ice destroyed or damaged almost every boat and barge moored to the island.16
Alaska: July–December 1942
During the last half of 1942 the engineers did a substantial amount of work on the defenses of the Alaskan mainland. They undertook additional construction at Ladd and Elmendorf, most of it to house more troops. During the summer elements of the 176th General Service Regiment arrived to build camps for garrisons at the remaining CAA fields in the interior of Alaska. At the naval air stations, Seabees took over from the contractors and finished the facilities for the Army garrisons. The runways were in at Cold Bay and Port Heiden by the end of the year. At long last, work had got under way on the seacoast batteries. Before Pearl Harbor, Alaska’s only seacoast defenses were a few 155-mm. gun batteries on Panama mounts at Dutch Harbor, Kodiak, Sitka, and Seward. Work on additional defenses authorized in late 1941 had been held up by delays in site selection and revisions in the numbers and sizes of the batteries. It was finally decided to have the Navy build the defenses at the naval bases and to have the Engineers improve the harbor defenses at Seward. The Corps made a contract with the West Construction Company for this job and work began in September. Work on the railroad cutoff was shaping up well. The 714th Railroad Battalion, men from the 42nd and 177th General Service Regiments, and employees of the Alaska Railroad were laying the tracks and the job was expected to be finished by the end of the year. A dock terminal was under construction at Whittier on Prince William Sound. Late in July the War Department authorized going ahead with the barge terminal which Dunn had advocated in March. Plans called for establishing a terminal for nine oceangoing vessels on the eastern shore of Excursion Inlet on Icy Straits to the west of Juneau. In August the Engineers awarded the contract to the Guy F. Atkinson Company of San Francisco. Toward the end of the month the contractor’s employees began work on piers and warehouses. In October the 2nd Battalion of the 331st General Service Regiment, about 1,300 officers and men, arrived to help the civilian forces. Meantime, the port of Juneau was being enlarged so that it could be used until the barge terminal was operational. Still far behind schedule were the air warning stations. After the Japanese defeat at Midway, previously chosen sites in the Alaskan interior and on the
west coast in the Bristol Bay and Norton Sound areas were abandoned for sites on the Alaska Peninsula and in the Aleutians. Construction plans had to be revised and work started anew.17
Interest in improving communications within Alaska heightened in the summer and fall. At the time of Pearl Harbor, Canada was building a string of airfields in the western part of the Dominion from Edmonton to Whitehorse. These fields, soon being used to fly planes from the United States to Alaska, formed part of the Northwest Staging Route. Six fields in Alaska—Northway, Tanacross, Big Delta, Ladd, Galena, and Nome—formed the other part. After the attack on Dutch Harbor, the Engineers got the task of improving the runways at the fields in Alaska. Since the fall of 1941 negotiations had been under way with the Soviet Union to fly planes from Alaska to Siberia. In September 1942 the Russians accepted the first planes via the northern route. Work on the Alaskan fields of the route, now called the Alaskan Siberian Ferry Route (ALSIB), was pushed even more, so that larger numbers of planes could be ferried to Siberia in the spring. Much thought was now given to developing ground communications westward from Fairbanks. During the fall of 1942 the Seattle District made additional surveys for a road or railroad and a pipeline from Fairbanks to the Seward Peninsula. Since building a road or railroad would take too long, a study was made of the possibility of developing river routes. Two were planned—one from Fairbanks to Tanana on the Yukon and another from Fairbanks to McGrath on the Kuskokwim. Supplies could be stored at these two points and, after the spring thaws, loaded on barges and sent down the rivers to the Bering Sea, whence they could be forwarded to various points on the Seward Peninsula. In order to have transportation out of Fairbanks as soon as possible, General Somervell in January 1943 instructed the Engineers to build the winter roads to Tanana and McGrath and develop and operate the barge lines on the Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers when the ice broke up.18
Amchitka
In early November 1942 Admiral Nimitz, conjecturing that the Japanese might be planning to occupy Amchitka Island, between Kiska and Adak, advised sending an American force there to develop an advanced air base. The Joint Chiefs tentatively approved this move on 18 December, providing a good site for an airfield could be found on the island. Colonel Talley, with a party of engineers, went to Amchitka by Navy plane on 17 December, and after a 2-day survey reported finding a site on which a fighter strip could be built in less than three weeks. Accordingly, on January
1943 the first U.S. troops, including the 813th Aviation Battalion, came ashore at Constantine Harbor. The engineers, finding the flat coastal area excellent for airfield construction, began to put the strip in on a tidal flat, using the methods employed on Adak. The heavily overcast skies required the use of artificial lighting even in the daytime. Operations were not too onerous because the men had an adequate amount of heavy construction equipment. Almost daily visits by Japanese patrol planes with intermittent bombings made it highly urgent to complete the runway quickly. The first American plane landed in mid-February. Henceforth, there was only light enemy activity. Earlier that month, the 1st Battalion of the 151st Combat Regiment had arrived to construct base facilities on the island, and in March the 2nd Battalion of the 177th General Service Regiment arrived to build storage tanks for aviation gasoline. The aviation engineers meanwhile began work on the main bomber runway on a high, flat area above Constantine Harbor.19
Supplies, Equipment, and Spare Parts
By early 1943 the most critically needed supplies were reaching Alaska in fairly adequate amounts. During 1941 the Seattle District had sent 182,531 measurement tons of construction materials and equipment. In 1942, the amount rose to 585,443 tons. Still larger and speedier shipments to the Territory were possible in 1943 because of improved transportation. By the beginning of that year the expanded rail facilities at the Canadian port of Prince Rupert were being put into use. Additional docks had been built at Juneau, Seward, and Anchorage. The cutoff to the Alaska Railroad and the port of Whittier were finished by June. The barge terminal was in use. Shortages had so stimulated production of local materials that some surpluses accumulated. More lumber was being produced than was required, and Alaskan strip mines were furnishing more than enough coal. But the procurement of some items not produced locally became difficult during late 1942 and early 1943 as needs became greater and Alaska lost its relatively high priority to more active combat theaters. The short shipping season added to the troubles. Supplies for many projects west and north of Juneau had to be delivered after July and before mid-October, when the ice pack began to form. To complete a project during a given year, it was necessary to have most of the materials on hand by the previous fall. But this was extremely hard to do because of the shortage of vessels and the lack of adequate planning in the scheduling of shipments. “It was impossible,” Nold later wrote, “for agencies and authorities within the United States to visualize the necessity for ... early shipment of supplies to permit construction ... in the short working season.”20
Especially severe was the shortage of spare parts. Maintenance of equipment under adverse operating conditions was a formidable task and for the most part had to be carried out by the using units in any way they could. Soon after Pearl Harbor, Nold wanted to send the better equipment to Seattle for repair, but was informed that, if sent, it would probably be shipped to theaters with higher priorities, and no replacements for Alaska would be forthcoming. In August 1942 the 468th Maintenance Company arrived at Dutch Harbor. It took over the repair shop there, began building additional facilities, and started repairing machinery on an around-the-clock schedule. Its first job was the rehabilitation of the equipment of the 802nd aviation engineers. In January the 2nd platoon of the 468th Engineer Maintenance Company went to Adak and found that, as elsewhere in Alaska, maintenance facilities were inadequate and spare parts scarce.21
Maps
Work on the three major mapping projects started before Pearl Harbor—the making of maps of the Seward–Anchorage region, mapping the area traversed by the Richardson Highway, and making maps of the major air routes—continued. In the spring and summer of 1942 Company D of the 29th Topographic Battalion established ground control for the Seward–Anchorage region. By December photomapping of this part of Alaska was about three-fourths complete and reproduction of initial editions about one-third done. The engineers were not able to show much progress in mapping the area traversed by the Richardson Highway—an area comprising about 7,000 square miles—or with the making of maps of the major air routes, mainly because poor weather kept the airmen from furnishing adequate quantities of good photographs. By late 1942 the Aleutians were much more important than the Alaskan mainland. The principal effort now had to be concentrated on preparing maps for the troops who would eventually assault enemy positions on Attu and Kiska. The 29th Topographic Battalion at Portland, Oregon, did all the mapping for the planned operations in the Aleutians. It produced a 1:25,000 series from aerial photographs with a coverage of 1: 10,000 for critical areas. Again because of bad weather, the Air Forces found it hard to supply good photographs in sufficient numbers. The engineers had to make a large part of their maps from obliques, which were not especially suitable material for the multiplex. Meanwhile, the Army Map Service supplied copies of such maps as it had of the Aleutians.22
Camouflage
Within a few months after Pearl Harbor, a comprehensive camouflage program was authorized for Alaska, funds being allotted in excess of $6 million. Great quantities of camouflage materials
were shipped to each of the projects under way, but little effective work was done. Except for the dispersal of structures, concealment was as a rule neglected in the haste to complete construction. When the 639th Camouflage Company arrived at Fort Richardson in March 1942, it was put to work not on what it was trained to do but on the building of a depot for the Air Forces. As the likelihood of a Japanese attack increased, more attention was given to camouflage. Nevertheless, by June 1942 so much of the construction had inadvertently made the installations conspicuous that little could now be done to hide them. To make Army posts less noticeable, nets and garlands were hung and trees and shrubs replanted, and at some posts camouflage discipline was observed. In the interior of Alaska, camouflage was limited to dispersing buildings and toning them down with paint. Concealment, highly important in the Aleutians, was at the same time most difficult to accomplish. The absence of trees made effective camouflage seemingly impossible. Ingenious treatments were sometimes devised. Buildings and other installations were dug into hillsides, and the more brightly colored buildings were toned down, often with the use of mud. Driftwood, weeds, grass, tin cans, and chicken wire were used to blend structures into their surroundings. In the winter deep snow often hid installations more effectively than any camouflage could have done. On the whole, camouflage, even in the Aleutians, had very low priority; at a number of bases it was all but ignored.23
Building in Subarctic Regions
After two years in Alaska and the Aleutians the engineers had acquired considerable experience in building in subarctic regions. They had gained most of it after Pearl Harbor. Before the war engineer work, not very extensive, had been restricted almost entirely to a few points along the coast where conditions, on the whole, were similar to those in the northern United States. In the interior the engineers had worked only at Ladd, where much of the construction had already been done by the Quartermaster Corps. After hostilities began, the engineers had to build at many points in both the Alaskan interior and the Aleutians. They constructed airfields, wharves, gasoline storage, seacoast fortifications, roads, utilities, barracks, warehouses, shops, mess halls, and hospitals. Information about the various areas was scanty. Since speed was of paramount importance, there was no time to make on-the-spot investigations. “In designing facilities for the Aleutian bases,” wrote one of the men working in the Seattle District office, “interesting and perplexing difficulties were encountered, which called for every trick in the engineer’s bag.” The engineers likewise had to use many “tricks” in actual construction, both in the Aleutians and on the Alaskan mainland, in order to deal with the unusual conditions they encountered.24
One of the great hindrances was the long Alaskan winter. During this time of the year, daylight hours were few.
Engineers dressed for -37° F
For about four months, the sun shone less than eight hours a day; at Fairbanks, in December, there were three hours of sunshine out of twenty-four. In the interior, probably the greatest obstacle was the extreme cold, with temperatures from 50 to 70 degrees F. below zero not uncommon. Drums of pure antifreeze were sometimes frozen solid. The engineers used steam to soften the ground for excavating and to keep newly prepared concrete from freezing. At many Alaskan projects, they placed water and sewerage pipes on the ground in heated wooden conduits called utiladors. “The ‘Old Timers’ said work could not continue through the winter,” Talley wrote later. The engineers proved them wrong. As Talley said, “We poured concrete ... at -15° F., erected steel at -20° F. ... We stopped wooden construction sooner since the wood froze.” The 176th engineers, who worked on camps for garrisons at the CAA fields in central Alaska, had more experience than most units in living and working in the frigid Alaskan interior. At Northway “... frostbitten ears, noses, and feet were common during the first part of the winter,” the 176th reported, “but we gradually learned from the Indians and through experience how to prevent this.” The men found that keeping their feet warm was their hardest job. Shoes were soon discarded, since “any use of leather or rubber footwear was asking for trouble.” Wearing three pairs of socks and Indian-made hide moccasins helped. On one occasion, when the thermometer stood at -60° F., a group of men was sent out to cut wood, with instructions to come in when the cold became unbearable. The men stayed out for two hours. Such assignments were rare. “Only the Indians venture out in these periods and their health shows the results,” the unit historian wrote. “... approximately 90 percent ... frost their lungs and develop T.B.” At the various stations in the interior, work was usually so arranged that when the temperature fell to -35°F., the men were put on inside jobs.25
Building in areas of “permafrost” or permanently frozen ground was a new experience for most engineers. In a
large part of the Arctic and subarctic regions, permafrost, possibly a remnant of the Ice Age, was encountered from 2 to 5 feet beneath the surface of the earth and it extended downward sometimes to a depth of 1,500 feet. It was invariably found in regions where the average annual temperature was below 32 °F. Permafrost was widespread in Alaska, but there was little of it in the Aleutians. If the thin layer of topsoil which thawed in the summer and froze in the winter was removed, the permanently frozen ground underneath was left without its insulating cover. If subjected to heat, it became soft and lost its bearing power. Unpredictable results followed; the ground might shrink, crack, slide, or creep. When permafrost froze again, it produced an upward thrust. A number of buildings constructed by the engineers were heavily damaged when warm currents of air from the heated structures softened the underlying permafrost and caused parts of the structures to sink. Flowing water presented a constant hazard because it might cause the permafrost to melt. One of the runways at Ladd Field was believed to have failed because the waters of a nearby river inexplicably seeped into the frozen ground underneath the runway. Little was known about permafrost. No scientific studies of it had been made before World War II, except by the Russians as a consequence of structural failures on the Trans-Siberian railroad. Attempts to get information from the Soviet Government were fruitless. The engineers had to learn from experience how best to deal with permafrost. Before constructing buildings and runways, they had to make a thorough study of the conditions at the building site. The most effective treatment generally consisted of excavating the top layer of the permanently frozen ground and replacing it with insulating materials. Sometimes the damage caused by settling could be remedied rather quickly. At Fairbanks a well was drilled in one corner of a powerhouse through more than zoo feet of permafrost to water-bearing gravel. The passage of the water through the pipe softened the permafrost and caused the corner of the building to settle. The pumping was stopped, the soil refroze, and the settling ceased. “Thereafter,” Talley wrote, “we located wells from 00 to 200 feet away from buildings.”26
Muskeg and tundra were troublesome obstacles until the engineers learned how to deal with them effectively. Muskeg was the heavy growth of moss found in bogs, sometimes to a depth of twenty feet, and often extending many square miles in area. In many instances, the semi-decayed matter at the bottom had turned into peat; often buried in the muskeg were logs and branches. The surface was spongy. A man walking on it had the feeling of treading on a mattress. Once its surface was broken, muskeg could sustain little weight, and anyone venturing across would sink in to his knees or even deeper. Shallow patches were not a serious hindrance and neither were deeper ones, provided sufficient precautions were taken. If heavy machinery was to be moved across
Digging out tundra
muskeg, the engineers usually dumped gravel or laid mats over the route beforehand. Sometimes they built trestles over the more treacherous sections. If a runway was to be constructed or a building put up, the muskeg had to be scooped out and replaced with rock or sand. Rare on the Alaskan mainland, tundra was common in the Aleutians. Tundra was the term used by the local inhabitants for the heavy, wet, partly decayed masses of grass from two to ten feet deep. When left undisturbed, tundra could support considerable weight. Like muskeg, once its surface was ruptured, it lost its bearing capacity. It usually had to be removed so that runways and buildings could be constructed on the solid base of sand, gravel, or rock underneath. When it could not be easily taken out and extensive construction was not called for, tundra was covered with sand or gravel and would cause no further trouble.27
During much of the year, and especially from October to March, violent winds, called the williwaws, swirled over the Aleutians or sped across Alaskan
wastelands, sometimes reaching speeds of more than a hundred miles an hour. Frequently they were accompanied by heavy snow. Transferred to Adak in March 1943, the 18th Engineer Combat Regiment, although used to subarctic weather, found living on the island extremely uncomfortable. “This was the day of the Big Wind,” the regimental historian wrote under the date of 7 April. “At breakfast a man emerging from a ... tent with hotcakes in his messkit saw them take off and gain altitude. ...” By noon, men were getting lost in a raging snowstorm. By mid-afternoon it was hard to see a tent at twenty-five yards. Walking against the wind was almost impossible. “The sleet driving against your eyeballs was extremely painful,” the writer continued. “You involuntarily turned your back and then with nothing visible but snow you started in a wrong direction.” Soon almost every tent had a whirlpool of snow forced in through even the smallest openings. A major job was to keep men and tents on the ground. Similar accounts came from other islands. At one project in the Aleutians nine men trying to reach the mess hall during a snow storm were lost for five hours. At some camps, men followed ropes stretched from one building or tent to another, though the distance was only a thousand feet. Buildings of conventional design were quickly leveled. Some caught fire from downdrafts in chimneys.28
Many projects remained virtually isolated despite efforts to improve communications. Even some near the coast were hard to reach because the shallow waters prevented oceangoing vessels from approaching closely. Much lightering and transfer of supplies was necessary. Construction materials for the airfield at Naknek had to be transferred from oceangoing vessels to barges at high tide and then towed 15 miles up the Naknek River to the construction site. After the supplies were ashore, they had to be moved across the muddy flats. Lumber needed at Bethel had to be floated 85 miles down the Kuskokwim River; gravel had to be barged down the same river for too miles. Supplies needed at Galena were brought by two small steamers and by barges which plied the distance of 435 miles down the Tanana and Yukon Rivers from Nenana, the transfer point on the Alaska Railroad. Supplies and equipment for the base at Northway were barged from Big Delta via the Tanana and Nabesna Rivers. These out-of-the-way places were readily accessible by plane, but aircraft could carry only limited amounts of supplies. And during Alaska’s frequent winter storms, the airplane was often of less use than the Eskimo’s dog sled. It sometimes took thirty days for mail from an engineer project to reach Talley’s office in Anchorage. To provide an even partially adequate road network would ‘nave been impossible. Road construction was limited principally to the areas around important installations at Fairbanks,
Anchorage, Yakutat, Kodiak, and Unalaska.29
Designs
Charged with preparing designs for buildings to be erected in Alaska, tile Seattle District was faced with unusual and sometimes perplexing problems. Designs often had to be based on scanty information supplemented by an extensive use of the imagination. The district prepared a set of “typical drawings” for airfields, buildings, docks, gasoline storage, electric utilities, and other installations which could be used as a basis for the procurement of supplies and as a guide in construction. About five hundred copies of this set were made. In Alaska these drawings usually had to be modified to make them suitable for local conditions. As long as the modifications did not affect key points, the designs were useful. The Seattle District also furnished plans for hundreds of specific installations which were built at various projects.30
Practically all work the engineers did in Alaska was in some way related to the development of a network of airfields. As a rule, runways were built according to prewar designs. If two or more were put in at one field, they were almost always crossed in the direction of the prevailing winds. Whether built in the coastal, interior, or Aleutian areas, runways, taxiways, parking areas, and
revetments were similarly constructed. Although the Seattle District designed airfields for the Alaskan interior, the engineers built only one there. This was the field southeast of Fairbanks known as Mile 26, where contractors put in two parallel 6,000-foot runways. CAA was responsible for building or improving all other runways in the interior for military use. The engineers gained most of their experience in airfield construction on the Alaska Peninsula and in the Aleutians. Here pumice stone, volcanic cinder or ash, gravel, and sand were all used for surfacing. Extensive use was made of steel mat. Concrete and asphalt were rarely used. The only runways of either type put in by the engineers were those at Annette, Yakutat, and Elmendorf.31
In the erection of buildings the emphasis was on speed. Prewar types of troop housing, such as permanent structures of brick and stone and mobilization-type buildings requiring skilled labor to put up, were discontinued with a few exceptions, as for example, the reinforced concrete barracks which had been started at Ladd before the outbreak of war. Troops arriving in Alaska or the Aleutians were usually housed in tents for the first few weeks or even months. Several types of housing to provide more adequate shelter, especially in winter, were developed. Among these were winterized tents, consisting of floors and sides of wood, topped with a light skeleton framework over which the 16’ x 16’ Army pyramidal tents could be placed.
Various types of prefabricated structures were developed. Among the most popular were the boxlike Stout houses, built of panels 8 feet high and 8 feet wide. Very satisfactory was the Pacific hut, the prefabricated sections of which were manufactured near Seattle, almost entirely of noncritical materials. The arched sides and roof, inexpensively built of plywood, were lightweight and highly windproof and waterproof, and could be easily assembled. Equally satisfactory was the theater of operations type, which had prefabricated panels of rough lumber and tar paper. The panels could be manufactured and assembled even by inexperienced workmen or troops to form almost any kind of building. Widely used were the Yakutat and Quonset huts. All structures had to be especially designed to make them suitable for Alaskan conditions. The thickness of structural members had to be increased, additional bracing put in, diagonal sheathings applied, and the distance between studs narrowed to reduce the possibility of damage from the wind. Sidings almost invariably had to be put on all important buildings because the wind tore the tar paper off. Air exhaust systems were added to larger heating units to eliminate downdrafts in chimneys. Special chimney caps were put on stoves. Vapor barriers were built into buildings to prevent damage to insulation and interiors which might result from the high humidity. Buildings used as offices or quarters had to be provided with vestibules or storm entrances.32
In building harbor facilities, the engineers had to contend with extremely rough seas, particularly in the Aleutians. Before tackling the job of building docks, they had to put supplies ashore as best they could. The 807th aviation engineers, when they landed at Umnak, were among the first who had to deal with this problem. The heavy surf pounded the beach even in calm weather. Before barges bringing supplies and machinery across the strait from Unalaska could be unloaded, a way had to be found to keep them on the beach. At first they were held by winch cables of tractors placed well back from shore, but this kept badly needed equipment from construction jobs. Mooring lines from the barges were then attached to piles driven into the ground back from the shore line. Unloading the barges was even more difficult than keeping them near the shore, and at times almost impossible. At first, the troops unloaded their supplies by hand and put them on tracked trailers. They then installed a trolley hoist which permitted unloading even when the waves rose to tremendous heights, but this method was not entirely satisfactory because only one barge could be unloaded at a time. Three months after the first barge landed the first dock, a T-shaped affair, was near enough to completion to permit its use. The dock was built about ten feet above high tide level so that it would not be flooded by the pounding waves. Barges were tied
Constructing a Pacific hut on Kiska
up alongside and cranes hoisted the supplies directly into trucks. The dock withstood the battering of the sea, but its excessive height made unloading extremely slow. Two docks built later at a lower level were destroyed, when heavy seas floated the decking off the posts. It was found that it was easier to unload barges in the turbulent surf if they were docked perpendicular rather than parallel to the beach.33
By the beginning of 1943 the defenses of Alaska, particularly the airfields, had been built up sufficiently to make it highly improbable that the Japanese, especially after their defeat at Midway, would be able to expand their foothold in the Aleutians or launch a successful attack on the Alaskan mainland. While the engineers were strengthening Alaska and helping to prepare the Territory as a possible springboard for an offensive, they were at the same time at work on two important projects in northwestern Canada, the purpose of which was, at least in part, to strengthen Alaska. One project was the construction of the Alaska-Canada, or Alcan Highway; the other was the development of Canol.
The Alcan Highway
Plans for a Highway
For many years groups of Americans and Canadians had urged their governments to construct a highway through British Columbia and Yukon Territory to Alaska. They advocated such a project primarily for the purposes of developing the resources and promoting the settlement of those regions. In the Imo’s the United States and Canada established commissions to investigate possible routes. The Alaskan International Highway Commission, headed by Warren G. Magnusson, Congressman from the State of Washington, favored a route as near the Pacific coast as the terrain would permit. The British Columbia—Yukon—Alaska Highway Commission of Canada preferred locating the highway farther east, in the Rocky Mountain Trench. Both commissions advocated starting the highway at Prince George in east central British Columbia and terminating it at Big Delta, Alaska, a town about ninety miles southeast of Fairbanks and on the Richardson Highway. In February 1941, Anthony J. Dimond, delegate from Alaska in the House of Representatives, introduced a bill for a road through Canada to Alaska along whatever route President Roosevelt would consider best in the interest of national defense. The War Department, questioned on the military value of such a road, and believing it could continue to rely almost exclusively on ships for transporting troops, equipment, and supplies to Alaska, concluded that while such a highway might be desirable as a “long-range defense measure,” it could be justified “only under low priority.”34
The disaster at Pearl Harbor caused military planners to take a stronger interest in an overland link with Alaska. The War Plans Division now recommended building a road to provide an emergency overland supply line to isolated Alaskan outposts. Such a road could also be used to supply the airfields which were under construction as the Canadian part of the Northwest Staging Route. These fields were located at Edmonton, Fort St. John, Fort Nelson, “Watson Lake, and Whitehorse. The Air Forces were already using the partially completed runways, but flights were restricted because of the shortage of supplies and servicing facilities. In a Cabinet meeting held on 16 January 1942, President Roosevelt asked Secretaries Stimson, Knox, and Ickes to study the need for a highway to Alaska, and, if construction appeared practicable, to decide on the best route. Heeding the advice of the General Staff, the Air Staff, and the Engineer members of the War Plans Division, the three Cabinet members recommended building the road along the line of the staging fields from Fort St. John to Big Delta. Construction would begin at Dawson Creek, the end of the rail line fifty miles southeast
of Fort St. John. The Chief of Engineers would be responsible for the work. On 2 February the War Plans Division informed Brig. Gen. Clarence L. Sturdevant, Assistant Chief of Engineers in charge of the Troops Division, of its decision to build the road and directed him to submit within the next few days a plan for surveys and construction.35
General Sturdevant at once. consulted with members of his staff and with Thomas H. MacDonald, Commissioner of the Public Roads Administration (PRA). Two days later, he submitted a plan that called for building the 1,500-mile highway in two phases. First, the Engineers would push through a pioneer road. Public Roads would then transform it into a permanent road. The main obstacle to building any kind of highway would stem from the fact that there were so few points of access from which the construction forces could start working. To avoid losing any of the short subarctic working season, Sturdevant advised using engineer troops rather than taking time to assemble and organize a civilian construction force. If the troops could be moved over the frozen expanses of the north before the spring thaws made the terrain impassable and could begin work at several points at once, it might be possible to finish a pioneer road by fall. Along with construction units, topographic units would have to be moved in to reconnoiter the terrain over which the road would pass, and ponton units would have to transport men and equipment across rivers and lakes. Through the access afforded by the pioneer road, civilian contractors, working under the Public Roads Administration, would soon be able to work on many stretches and put in a permanent highway. On 14 February, three days after Presidential approval of the program, the War Department directed the Chief of Engineers to proceed with the project. Because most of the route passed through British Columbia and the Yukon Territory, the consent of the Canadian Government had to be obtained. On 26 February the Permanent Joint Board of Defense, Canada-United States, reported favorably on the project, and less than two weeks later William L. Mackenzie King, the Canadian Prime Minister, announced his government’s approval of the board’s recommendation.36
Organizing for Construction
While discussions between the Canadian and the United States Governments were under way, General Sturdevant organized a task force for Wilding the highway. In mid-February ;Col. William M. Hoge was named commander and ordered to report directly to Reybold. Two combat regiments, the 18th, commanded by Lt. Col. Earl G. Paules, and the 35th, under Col. Robert D. Ingalls,
were the first units assigned. They were to start work on the highway and, at the same time, furnish cadres for new regiments which would move up later for work on the road. On 9 March Maj. Alvin C. Welling, executive officer of the task force, arrived at the town of Dawson Creek, at the end of the rail line from Edmonton, and proceeded northward by way of the provincial road to Fort St. John, situated on the far bank of the Peace River. Here he set up a command post from which Colonel Hoge would supervise the construction of 650 miles of the highway northwestward from Dawson Creek to the town of Watson Lake. A second command post for the remainder of the route was to be set up later.37
No time was lost in moving the first troops up. Elements of the 35th Engineers under Colonel Ingalls, forming the vanguard, were on the train with Major Welling. Company A of the 648th Topographic Battalion reached Dawson Creek on the 13th, and the 74th Light Ponton Company came in the next day. The last elements of the 35th arrived on the 16th. Men, vehicles, and supplies were moved northward to Fort St. John. At this point, the Peace River was 1,800 feet wide. There was no bridge, and ice on the river ruled out ferrying men and equipment to the other bank. Speed was imperative because a warm spell made the crossing of the troops with their heavy machinery hazardous. The 35th Engineers laid planks and sawdust over the ice and drove across to Fort St. John without mishap. The men then pushed ahead over 265 miles of frozen muskeg in an effort to reach Fort Nelson before the thaws set in. A drop in temperature from 50 degrees above to 35 degrees below hardened the winter road sufficiently to permit the equipment to move forward easily. But the men suffered greatly from the cold, the bitter wind, and the roughness of the trail. Truck drivers, hauling load after load of troops and supplies, went for days with little rest. The most grueling task was driving the tractors, graders, and power shovels. Frostbitten and shivering operators approached the limits of physical endurance in “walking” their ponderous machines for 40 to 80 miles at a stretch without relief. Upon reaching Fort Nelson, the men were so exhausted from cold and exposure that they could scarcely move. On 5 April the last of the equipment crawled into Fort Nelson, shortly before the spring thaw made the trail impassable. The 35th Regiment and its auxiliary units were ready to begin work westward out of Fort Nelson.38
Meanwhile, in a formal exchange of notes on 17 and 18 March, Canada and the United States agreed to cooperate in the construction, maintenance, and use of the highway. The United States agreed to make surveys and to send in engineer troops to construct a pioneer road; to have contractors, Canadian or American, complete the highway under the supervision of the Public Roads Administration; to maintain the road for
six months after the war, unless Canada should prefer to assume maintenance of the Canadian portion sooner; and to turn the Canadian part of the highway over to Canada at the end of the war with the understanding that citizens of the United States would not suffer discrimination in its use. The Canadian Government, in turn, agreed to provide the right of way, to permit the use of local timber, gravel, and rock, to waive all import duties, sales taxes, and license fees in connection with work on the road, and to exempt American citizens employed on the project from paying Canadian income taxes.39
Early in April, Hoge, now a brigadier general, set up his second command post at Whitehorse, a point from which he would direct construction of the 850 miles of road from Watson Lake to Big Delta. On the 9th of the month, the 73rd Light Ponton Company disembarked at Skagway and during the next two weeks set up camp at Whitehorse. Soon thereafter Company D of the 29th Topographic Battalion reached the town. Meanwhile, the 18th Combat Regiment under Colonel Paules, the 340th General Service Regiment under Lt. Col. F. Russel Lyons, and the 93rd General Service Regiment under Col. Frank M. S. Johnson had sailed from Seattle. The 18th Engineers, the first to arrive, set up their headquarters at Whitehorse on the 15th and, with the little equipment they had, began work on the wagon trail leading westward to Kluane Lake. The next week the other two units disembarked at Skagway. They had none of their heavy equipment, though it was expected shortly. Weeks passed with no sign of it. In mid-May, General Hoge flew to the United States to find out the reasons for the delay. In Seattle, he came across tractors, graders, and trucks lined up on the docks and in nearby yards because too few vessels had either sufficient space to carry the machinery or booms capable of putting it aboard. To relieve the overburdened facilities at Seattle, Hoge arranged to have the E. W. Elliott Company send some heavy equipment by barge out of Prince Rupert. After mid-May prospects that the equipment would soon arrive at Skagway were brighter, and, late that month, it began to appear. A major feat was to get it from the docks to its destination. The White Pass and Yukon Railroad, an antiquated, narrow-gauge line, miles long, was the only link between Skagway and Carcross and Whitehorse, the transportation hubs of the Canadian North-west, both of them on the route of the highway. During the latter part of May the railroad, which had but twelve locomotives, was taxed far beyond its capacity to transport the machinery needed on the highway. But despite the difficulties, the equipment began to arrive for work on the road.40
The 18th Engineers, having received
General Hoge (center) with staff officers
most of their machinery by late May, continued working on the trail leading to Kluane Lake. The 93rd Engineers had about 60 percent of their machinery by the end of the month; with this and two tractors borrowed from the 18th, they began clearing a trail eastward out of Carcross toward the Teslin River, some fifty miles away. The 340th Engineers remained at Skagway till June, when they received enough trucks and equipment to make work on the highway practicable. One platoon remained at Skagway and another went to Whitehorse to do stevedoring. The remainder of the regiment went by train to Carcross,
then marched to the Teslin River, part of the way over the trail being blazed by the 93rd Engineers, and sailed up the river to Lake Teslin. The men arrived at their destination east of the lake on 18 June and started hacking out a trail. Work had also begun on the part of the route in Alaska. On 7 May, the 97th General Service Regiment, commanded by Col. Stephen C. Whipple, disembarked at Valdez, the southern terminus of the Richardson Highway. The men had brought only a few items of heavy equipment. Before embarking at Seattle they had turned in their wornout trucks and requisitioned new ones. They
Skagway Harbor
spent their first weeks in Alaska in maintaining the Richardson and Nabesna Highways. Early in June their equipment arrived, including the same trucks they had turned in, still in need of a complete overhauling. The men began working on a pioneer road from the village of Slana, on an arm of the Richardson Highway, northeastward toward the Tanana River.41
As overall commander, General Hoge found he was needed at both Whitehorse and Fort St. John for resolving many important matters regarding construction. There were neither telephone lines nor passable trails between the two towns, which were 600 miles apart by air, and atmospheric disturbances made communication by radio uncertain. To remedy the situation, Reybold late in April split the project into two independent commands, placing Col. James A. O’Connor in charge of the Fort St. John, or Southern Sector, and leaving General Hoge in charge of the Whitehorse, or Northern Sector. Watson Lake was the dividing point. Colonel O’Connor assumed command at
Fort St. John on 6 May. Both he and General Hoge reported directly to the Chief of Engineers.42
Construction Progress
In the Southern Sector little progress could be made during the first weeks. Rain and mud held up the 35th Engineers, working westward out of Fort Nelson. In May, two more units arrived, the 341st General Service Regiment, commanded by Col. Albert L. Lane, reaching Dawson Creek on May, and the 95th General Service Regiment, under Col. David L. Neumann, arriving on the 3 1st. Both units were assigned to the section between Fort St. John and Fort Nelson. The 341st bulldozed the pioneer trail through forests of alder and poplar; the 95th, directly behind, improved and maintained the completed trail. Both units had come without their road-building machinery. Of all the units on the highway, only Colonel Ingall’s 35th Engineers had arrived adequately equipped. But shortages were no major obstacle in the Southern Sector, for excellent rail connections permitted a fairly steady flow of machinery and supplies from Chicago and other centers of the industrial Midwest. More difficult to contend with was the unpredictable weather. At times, the temperature soared to 80 degrees and frozen earth turned into sticky mud. This dried up and became dust, which, under heavy rain, turned into mud again. Soon the men ran into many patches of muskeg. Insofar as possible, the route was detoured around them. Short strips proved to be unavoidable. Shallow patches were usually scooped out and filled with gravel; deeper ones were corduroyed.43
Meanwhile, Sturdevant and MacDonald prepared a plan whereby the Engineers and the Public Roads Administration would cooperate on building the road. MacDonald envisioned a smoothly surfaced highway for two-way traffic, with gentle grades and curves, built according to specifications for roads in national forests. It would normally be 36 feet wide but, where construction was difficult, would be temporarily limited to 20 or 22 feet. Local materials would be used for surfacing and for small culverts and temporary bridges. If desired, permanent structures could be put in later. Public Roads would help make reconnaissances for routing the permanent highway, but the military commanders would have the final decision on location because their mission required opening a road for military traffic as soon as possible. If time permitted, engineer troops could improve any section beyond pioneer road standards if this could be done without interfering with the contractors’ operations.44
Construction had begun before a thorough investigation of the route could be made. Considerable information existed on the sections located in Alaska and the Yukon Territory and on the section between Fort St. John and Fort Nelson, but for the remainder, almost
Trucking supplies through the mud by tractor train
all terrain data had to be gotten from small-scale, incomplete, and contradictory maps. On these, “lakes were out of position and critical elevations almost wholly useless. ... The indicated courses of many considerable rivers were largely schematic.” Promising trails used by guides and hunters often passed over swampy terrain and were serviceable only when the ground was frozen or were confined to tortuous river valleys where game was most plentiful. The men from the 648th and 29th and surveyors from Public Roads had more than enough to do during the first few weeks. Military and civilian
surveyors dovetailed their efforts in order to incorporate as much of the pioneer road as possible into the final route for the highway. Of great help were the local “bush flyers,” who knew considerably more about the terrain than most other inhabitants. Going aloft with them, Army and PRA engineers got a general impression of the lay of the land. A bright spot in the picture was that the engineers had a great deal of latitude in locating the road. Restrictions as to the right of way were not a problem.45
By early June, all engineer troops scheduled for work on the highway had arrived. Colonel O’Connor at Fort St. John had a combat regiment, 2 general service regiments, a light ponton company, and a topographic company, totaling 4,354 officers and men. General Hoge at Whitehorse had a combat regiment, 3 general service regiments, a light ponton company, and a topographic company, totaling 5,806. Auxiliary signal, finance, quartermaster, and medical troops numbered approximately 340 in the Southern Sector and 165 in the Northern. Two gaps remained in the building of the highway. One, at the extreme northern end, extended from Big Delta to Tanacross, a distance of a hundred miles. The other ran south-eastward for fifty miles from Whitehorse to Jake’s Corner, midway between Carcross and the Teslin River. It was planned to assign these stretches eventually to PRA contractors.46
In all sections, the pioneer road was pushed through in more or less the same manner. As stretches were located and surveyed, clearing crews, driving 23-ton D-8 tractors with bulldozers, smashed a corridor through brush and woods. The shallow-rooted trees of the north were easily toppled. While the lead dozer opened a pathway, others widened the clearing and shoved aside fallen trees and debris. General Hoge had originally specified a clearing thirty-two feet wide, but it soon became evident that in wooded areas a corridor two or three times as great was necessary to admit enough sunlight to dry out the ground. Clearing crews readily accomplished this additional work without excessive effort because most of their time was spent in turning and lining up for new cuts. By June the many hours of sunlight of the northern summer day made it possible to work two and sometimes three shifts every twenty-four hours. Working around the clock, crews could clear from three to four miles a day. Behind the clearing echelon, engineer units built log bridges and culverts over gulleys and small streams. Using hand tools and the versatile air compressor with attachments, a platoon could build a bridge, or a squad a culvert, in less than a day. Farther to the rear, other units smoothed the trail with scrapers and graders, corduroying where necessary. Still farther back, others widened narrow spaces, reduced the worst grades, and filled soft spots with gravel. The tactics of rapid construction depended on the use of special equipment, particularly the heavy bulldozer. Every other piece of machinery was auxiliary to this item. Strenuous efforts had been made to supply the units with plentiful amounts of equipment. Under normal circumstances, a combat or general service regiment was furnished 8 medium tractors, but on the highway each regiment was allotted 20 heavy and 24 medium tractors with bulldozers and winches. Equipment lists further included 6 12-yard carryalls, 3 motor patrols, and 2 power shovels; from 50 to go dump trucks and many other vehicles; one portable sawmill, two pile drivers, water purification sets, electrical generators, and radio receivers and transmitters. Men sent to northern
Canada and Alaska were also furnished arctic clothing, sleeping bags, and tents, as well as mosquito bars and head nets for protection against the great swarms of mosquitoes and flies which infested the northern regions in the summer.47
Back in the United States, critics were waging a vigorous campaign against the construction of the highway. Their most violent attacks were directed against the route which had been selected. After the bombing of Dutch Harbor, the project attracted unusual interest. In response to various charges, among them that the road was an “engineering monstrosity because of the muskeg swamp along the major portion of the route,” the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee held hearings in June to consider a formal probe of the matter. Witnesses appearing before the subcommittee contended that in the Southern Sector a road might be built for a few miles out of Fort St. John, but it would be swallowed up in the hundreds of miles of muskeg near Fort Nelson. The engineers had obviated most of these criticisms before they were made. They had relocated the pioneer road westward on the foothills of the Rockies and thus avoided the poor drainage along the original route. They blazed the trail on the ridges west of the Blueberry River and then east of the Minaker and Prophet Rivers into Fort Nelson. By painstaking care in routing, they bypassed a great deal of muskeg, save for scattered stretches from 200 to 400 yards in length. In the last sixty miles into Fort Nelson, where much muskeg was expected, less than four miles of it were encountered. On 17 June the Senate subcommittee recommended that no further investigation be made of construction on the Alcan Highway.48
Reconnaissance
To make rapid construction possible, reconnaissance had to be continuous. Since it was difficult to remember all the features of the ground from a swiftly moving plane, the engineers turned to aerial photography. Photographic aircraft became available to the Southern Sector in May; to the Northern, in June. Examining aerial photographs, sector and regimental commanders were able to avoid locations that involved extreme elevations, long stretches of swamp, or excessively rugged terrain. Location parties made low-altitude flights for on-the-spot inspections of critical areas. Ground survey parties went forward on foot, or by dog sled, horse, or tractor-drawn trailers. To investigate likely river crossings, the parties sometimes used improvised ponton rafts, powered by outboard motors, or flew in with aircraft equipped with pontons. After they decided upon the location of the route, the surveyors blazed a center line to guide the leading bulldozers. In
many instances, operators swung around obstacles that would cause excessive cutting and blazing. Where the line of least resistance was followed, the road, it was said, “had more curves than Hollywood.”49
West of Fort Nelson, the engineers ran into innumerable obstacles. The initial route of the highway lay to the north-west along the Fort Nelson River, along the Liard and Crow Rivers, along the southern shores of the Toobally Lakes, and then across open country to Watson Lake. Aerial reconnaissance and closer observation from ponton rafts indicated that this fairly level route had much soft ground and little material for surfacing. In May a pack train sent out by Colonel Ingalls to reconnoiter the country more thoroughly found a better route farther south. It led directly west out of Fort Nelson along the Muskwa River to Muncho Lake and then veered north-ward to the Liard River. It followed the north bank of that river for 150 miles into Watson Lake. From Watson Lake to Whitehorse, a distance of 300 miles, lay another most forbidding section. It included the Continental Divide separating the Mackenzie and Yukon drainage systems. Maps indicated mountain ranges from 6,000 to 7,000 feet high, which would necessitate prohibitive grades. Heavy snowfall would block a road for many months of the year. Critics freely predicted the engineers would not be able to put a road through this region unless they made a sweeping southward detour, which would add 500 miles to the highway. Aerial reconnaissance revealed that the ranges were not continuous as the maps indicated but were interspersed by low-lying areas and broad valleys. A bush flyer, Les Cook, observed at one point on the Continental Divide a fairly extensive growth of trees which in this latitude could not thrive much above 4,000 feet. Engineer ground parties, exploring the area, located a route which crossed the divide at a maximum altitude of 3, 100 feet. This section could be built far more readily than had been anticipated. West of Whitehorse, the route stretched for 318 miles to the Alaskan boundary. Part of it was along the old wagon trail to Kluane Lake. Between the lake and the international boundary, the engineers would undoubtedly encounter some of the roughest terrain between Fort St. John and Big Delta. The most careful reconnaissance indicated it would be impossible to avoid entirely the treacherous permafrost which would make a mockery of normal construction.50
Progress During the Summer
By the end of June progress on the pioneer road was encouraging. In the Southern Sector, the 34 st Engineers had completed 36 miles out of Fort St. John,
which the 95th was improving and maintaining. The 35th had reached a point 48 miles west of Fort Nelson. This unit had perhaps the most trying section of all. “The sloppy soil conditions which prevailed ... near Charlie Lake [north of Fort St. John],” O’Connor wrote Sturdevant late in May, “were almost of minor magnitude in contrast with the sloppier conditions which prevailed ... in the vicinity of Fort Nelson. At this latter point the soil was in general nothing better than pure mud.”51 In the Northern Sector, the 93rd Engineers had finished 33 miles from Carcross to Lake Teslin and the 340th had completed o miles east of the lake. The 18th had pushed 112 miles along the wagon road west of Whitehorse. Working in difficult terrain in Alaska, the 97th General Service Regiment had completed only 6 miles, but it expected to make more rapid progress once it got into the Tanana River valley. Most of the route had been determined, at least tentatively, in both sectors. Detachments of the ponton companies were fully occupied ferrying men and equipment across the many streams. With the beginning of summer, progress could be more rapid. Temperatures ranged up to 84°F. The frost was gone from the ground, save in heavily wooded sections. PRA’s operations were gaining momentum, and its contractors were already at work on the permanent road out of Fort St. John. Some of the contractors’ men and equipment had been flown from Fairbanks to Tanacross and Gulkana. PRA expected to begin construction in the Northern Sector in July.52
Between the 7th and the 18th of July General Sturdevant inspected the entire route by airplane and traveled 500 miles by car over the part under construction or already completed. He observed that the troops, instead of putting in a rough access trail, were building a fairly well-drained and graded highway. This was necessary because the road was the only line of supply the troops had with their bases. It appeared that the pioneer road, besides providing access for PRA contractors, could also be made to serve the airports during the coming winter. To operate vehicles over the entire route the year round would require not only pushing 1,000 miles of pioneer road to completion, but also constructing rest camps, telephone lines, and fuel supply depots. Sturdevant decided to modify existing arrangements with PRA so that the contractors and engineers could merge their forces to expedite work on the pioneer road. So far, PRA had done no work on the permanent highway except for short distances out of Fort St. John and Whitehorse. The contractors were still spending most of their efforts in setting up camps and collecting equipment. Early in August, Sturdevant and MacDonald agreed that for the remainder of the working season the contractors would help put the pioneer road in shape for winter traffic. Sturdevant asked PRA to give precedence in construction to the sections between Big Delta and Tanacross and between Whitehorse and Jake’s Corner.53
On 8 August MacDonald directed his
field offices to comply with the new policy. During the next weeks, he set up additional offices at Edmonton, Whitehorse, and Gulkana. Public Roads meantime enlisted the services of four management contractors, who, by August, had under them forty-seven American and Canadian construction firms, working under cost-plus-a-fixed-fee contracts. The E. W. Elliott Company of Seattle, which had helped the engineers get equipment to Skagway, was now called upon to transport men, supplies, and machinery for PRA. In August, some of the contractors began to clear the sections which PRA was to construct. Other contractors’ crews, upon arriving at the highway, moved in behind the troops to widen, improve, and gravel the roadbed. Relieved of heavy maintenance on stretches of road to the rear, the engineers could henceforth apply most of their efforts to the construction of new road.54
During the summer, favored by warm, clear weather, and with most of their equipment now on hand, the troops made rapid progress. By 20 August the 35th Engineers had blazed 209 miles of one-way trail to the Liard River and were pushing forward along the river’s northern bank. At the end of the month, the 341st and 95th Engineers, having turned their section of the road south of Fort Nelson over to PRA, moved in behind the 35th Engineers and began to convert the pioneer road into a two-lane highway. The 340th Engineers, working eastward from Teslin Lake, first put in a trail for two-way traffic and after mid-July for one-way traffic. By the first week in September, the 340th had pushed through to Watson Lake. Thereupon, one of the battalions widened the last fifty miles of the trail while the other continued eastward.55
West of Whitehorse, work was proceeding at an equally fast pace. By mid-August, the 18th Engineers had swung past the western shore of Kluane Lake and had reached the Duke River, 200 miles from Whitehorse. Fording the river, the regiment came up against the forbidding terrain that the survey parties had described. It was at first “heavily wooded and creased with many small ridges.” Beyond lay a desolate area of burnt trees that “stood together like thousands of scarecrows.”56 This burnt timber stood on permafrost which defied heretofore tried and tested methods of road building. Once the surface of the ground was disturbed, the sun brought on as much mud as heavy rains could produce. Uprooted trees left gaping holes that deepened as the subsurface thawed. Unaware at first that the permafrost extended for another hundred miles, Colonel Paules on 17 August prodded his troops to push through this final stretch by early October, before the Yukon winter set in. The regiment was unable to attain such a pace, but did find ways of coping with the frozen subsoil. Instead of clearing by bulldozer, the men chopped trees level with the ground. To keep sunlight off the exposed area, they cut a corridor of
medium width which they immediately corduroyed with small trees and branches. One company spread gravel over the corduroy, while another, using almost all the dump trucks of the regiment, hauled rock day and night. The graveled strip crept forward at the rate of half a mile a day. Meanwhile, in Alaska, the 97th Engineers had by 25 August finished the stretch of pioneer road from Slana to the Tanana River. The regiment then worked southeast along the river toward the international boundary in the direction of the 18th Engineers.57
Bridges
Every one of the more than oo major streams which crossed the route between Dawson Creek and Big Delta was a hindrance to rapid construction. The two light ponton companies had from the first supported the road-building regiments at the water crossings. Wherever possible, equipment was forded across. If streams could not be forded, ponton bridges were used. If there was insufficient equipment for bridging, the pontoniers made rafts by lashing pontons together and decking them with timber. To power these rafts, they generally used outboard motors. As soon as possible, the rear elements of the regiments moved up to build timber bridges. When these were finished, the ponton units moved on to the next crossing. At the wider waterways, the pontoniers operated ferry lines until bridges could be erected. One of the major barriers was the Peace
River at Fort St. John. After the ice broke up, the provincial government operated a 20-ton ferry from shore to shore, but this craft was too small to handle the great quantities of equipment that had to be carried over the river. From June on, a detachment of the 74th Light Ponton Company hauled men and supplies across on the Alcan, which consisted of a tug and a 65-foot barge, capable of carrying up to sixty tons. In the Northern Sector, detachments of the 73rd Light Ponton Company manned tugs and barges which plied back and forth on the Teslin River and on Teslin and Tagish Lakes.58
Unfamiliar with the quirks and vagaries of the northern rivers, the engineers believed it best to build only temporary structures at first. They expected spring floods to damage or even carry away many of these spans. The troops used local timber, originally cut and trimmed by hand and later prepared with portable sawmills. Forward bridging crews built simple stringer spans by hand over small streams, leaving the construction of the longer pile and trestle structures to troops with cranes, pile drivers, and other heavy equipment. In Yukon Territory, a number of streams had cut narrow channels through wide valleys, which were strewn with heavy deposits of boulders and gravel. These streams would rise to unpredictable levels. Here the temporary bridges, as a rule, were built only across the channels. To keep the approaches open necessitated considerable maintenance. A
number of structures of more than 500 feet were built. In July, the 18th Engineers built a pile and trestle bridge across Slim’s River, a tributary of Kluane Lake. Toward the center of the channel the gravel was frozen so solidly that the piles splintered under the impact of the 3,000-pound hammer. Blasting proved ineffective. Steel caps were radioed for and flown in, enabling the engineers to drive the piles into the bottom. Other engineers, working from the opposite bank, improvised a hydraulic pile-driving machine which consisted of a hose fastened to an iron pipe. Men in boats held the pipe against the bottom near the pile and pumped water under high pressure through the hose and pipe, thus loosening the frozen gravel. When finished, the bridge was 1,040 feet long, had 86 bents, and despite the frozen river bottom and the swift current, took only a month to erect. In August elements of the 35th Engineers constructed a 730-foot combination crib, pile, and trestle bridge across the Muskwa River, just west of Fort Nelson, finishing it shortly before the arrival of construction troops working north from Fort St. John. All these structures were temporary. Once the behavior of the streams was better known, PRA contractors would install the permanent structures.59
Preparations for Winter Traffic
During the summer the engineers also had to construct the facilities required for operating the highway and the staging route during the coming winter. To improve the communications system, Somervell authorized a telephone line from Edmonton to Fairbanks, parallel to the highway. Although a private corporation would install the line, the engineers were to build repeater stations at 00-mile intervals. To supplement the fields of the Northwest Staging Route, the Army Air Forces requested that the Corps of Engineers construct eight flight strips and weather observation stations along the highway. Realizing that considerable quantities of supplies and equipment would have to be moved over the pioneer road as soon as it was opened, General Sturdevant made arrangements during August and September for winter traffic. He planned to build barracks for maintenance and snow-clearing crews, way stations for changing drivers, and repair shops for servicing vehicles.60
Northwest Service Command
The additional construction, together with the rapidly expanding activities in connection with Canol, made it desirable to have one man in command of all U.S. projects in northwestern Canada. On 2 September the Northwest Service Command was activated to direct work on the highway and related undertakings. O’Connor, now a brigadier general, was placed in command. General Hoge left for the United States and another assignment. Col. W. J. Wheeler took direct charge of work on the highway. The
Northern Sector was henceforth under Colonel Paules; the Southern, under Ingalls. The Chief of Engineers retained technical supervision over the work.61
Closing the Gaps
By mid-September, the road in the Southern Sector was almost complete. The 35th and the 340th Engineers had nearly closed the gap between them. On the 24th, “amid the roar and thunder of the big ‘cats’ and the swishing crash of the giant trees as they bent to the ... will of the big dozer blades, there was a strong feeling of suspense and anticipation,” wrote the unit historian of the 340th Engineers. While the men waited on the west bank of Contact Creek, about fifty miles east of Watson Lake, the 35th Engineers, on the opposite side of the stream, blasted rock from the side of a steep hill which was the last obstacle to the completion of “two long and treacherous stretches of the road through the northwest wilderness of Canada.” One of the bulldozers made a run down the yet unfinished cut on the hill and pushed forward through brush and trees. It moved into the creek and met the leading bulldozer of the 340th in the center of the stream. Colonel Lyons, commander of the 340th, and Maj. James A. McCarthy, commander of the 35th, standing on the tracks of their bulldozers, shook hands amid the shouts of the men and the blare of the band of the 340th. Everybody was milling about on land and in the water to get snapshots. Several days later, a truck which had started out from Dawson Creek crossed the stream and continued on its way to Whitehorse. It made the trip of 1,000 miles in seventy-one hours.62
In the Northern Sector additional work was needed to complete the road. By October a considerable gap still remained at the Alaskan-Canadian border. Realizing that the construction season would not last long enough for the 18th and 97th Engineers to complete their sections and bring them to pioneer road standards, Colonel Paules sent two platoons of the 18th across the White River on 10 October to build a trail that would be suitable for winter travel. This region had many hillocks, covered with tall grass which slowed travel on foot or horseback. To avoid damaging the ground on which the permanent road would be built, a trail was blazed parallel to the line already surveyed by PRA engineers. The 18th Engineers cut many of the clumps of grass by hand. When the ground was sufficiently frozen, they took bulldozers and “walked down” the heaviest growths.63
By November prospects were bright that the remaining gaps in the pioneer road would soon be closed. On 25 October the lead bulldozers of the 18th and 97th Engineers had met at Beaver Creek, a few miles east of the Alaskan-Canadian border. The two units had joined their sections by means of a winter road which would be passable until broken up by the spring thaws. During
the next weeks the engineers and the contractors’ forces graveled this road east of the international boundary as far as the White River. Still to be finished was a trestle bridge across the river. It was to be a makeshift affair, the frame bents being placed directly on the ice except in the stream’s channel. Meanwhile, PRA contractors finished their sections from Big Delta to Tanacross and from Whitehorse to Jake’s Corner; on 20 November, the 18th and 97th Engineers completed the bridge over the White. The Alcan Highway was open from Dawson Creek to Big Delta. A pioneer road, 1,450 miles long, had been pushed through in eight months. That same day Canadian and American officials assembled at Soldier’s Summit, overlooking Kluane Lake, to hold a short ceremony in celebration of the completion of the pioneer road. The next day the first trucks from Dawson Creek rolled into Fairbanks.64
Winter on the Alcan
Although the pioneer road was finished, the engineers still had many jobs to complete, some of which they had started in September. In the Southern Sector a major task was building a number of connecting roads from the highway. One was put in to the radio station at Toobally Lakes. Another was being run from Fort Nelson to Fort Simpson on the Mackenzie River, to be used as a supply route for the Canol project. Bridges required a major effort, and the engineers built a number of long structures during the fall. The 35th Engineers spent nine days in September erecting a pile-bent structure, 1,270 feet long, across the Liard River 209 miles west of Fort Nelson. Two months later the 340th built a pile-bent bridge 750 feet long across the same stream, 15 miles east of Watson Lake. PRA also put in temporary structures. Late in September the Oakes Construction Company began work on a 2,200- foot timber structure across the Peace River at Fort St. John and finished it in three weeks. In November a sudden thaw hurled huge floes of ice against the bridge, tearing out a 200-foot section. The gap was closed, and traffic resumed within a few days. That same month, the 340th Engineers joined contractors in building a 2,300-foot pile-trestle bridge across Nisutlin Bay. Many of the piles were driven through ice. While temporary bridges were under construction, PRA studied sites for the permanent structures, and contractors prepared to begin work on several late in the year.65
As the cold weather set in, many of the troops were shifted to work on camps and shelters. During the summer . the men had slept on the ground in tents, but by October, better quarters were needed, for the temperature had dropped below freezing in both sectors. Hundreds of steel huts and prefabricated buildings were shipped from the United States and distributed along the route. Most of the camps and shelters, however, were built by the troops from standardized plans and specifications prepared by the Construction Division of the Office
A view along the Alcan highway
of the Chief of Engineers. Except for hardware, windows, wallboard, and tar paper, all materials were obtained locally. Stoves were improvised from gasoline drums. Shortages of materials delayed putting in some of the final touches; spells of intense cold held back logging, milling, and outdoor carpentry work even more.66
On December 1942 the Northwest Division was organized under the North-west Service Command. Its first chief was Colonel Wyman, who, after his transfer from Hawaii, had taken charge of the Canol project. As division engineer, Wyman was to direct all engineer projects in northwestern Canada. Work on the Alcan Highway went on. The relatively few engineer troops and contractors’ forces struggled to keep the pioneer road open during the winter in order to move the seemingly endless quantities of supplies and equipment that were needed for future operations. Ice, snow, and cold were the main impediments. In the Northern Sector water from underground warm springs flowed into culverts and ditches and, upon freezing, formed solid mounds of ice across the road. Near Kluane Lake a glacier
blocked a half-mile stretch of road. After attempts to dynamite an opening failed, the obstacle had to be completely detoured. At subzero temperatures diesel fuel solidified and gasoline lines froze. It was frequently impossible to start an engine without first warming it with a torch, and drivers kept their engines running whenever they stopped to eat or sleep. At one time, 1,600 trucks were deadlined. With the aid of repair shops, way stations, and camps along the road, some traffic kept going even under the worst conditions. Work began during the winter on the Haines cutoff, running 150 miles from the coastal village of Haines, about 15 miles from Skagway, to Champagne on the Alcan Highway west of Whitehorse, in order to provide another point of access to the highway. In January the first engineer units to leave, the 18th and 93rd Engineers, moved out. In February, the 35th, 95th, and 97th Engineers and the 73rd Light Ponton Company departed. The 340th and 341st Regiments and the 74th Light Ponton Battalion were scheduled to remain on the road for several months longer.67
As spring approached, Public Roads prepared to build the permanent highway without the aid of engineer troops. Since the road, at least until the end of the war, would serve primarily as a military supply line, General Reybold on 25 March discussed with officials of the Federal Works Agency the possibility of lowering, at least temporarily, PRA’s
standards for the permanent highway. It was agreed that Colonel Ludson D. Worsham, slated to replace Wyman as Northwest Division engineer on April, should for the time being determine the location and standards of design for the highway. On 2 April Colonel Worsham arrived at Edmonton and within a week had formulated drastic revisions in construction policies. By eliminating unnecessary refinements, he planned to complete rapidly a highway that would meet all military requirements. He directed PRA to follow the pioneer road unless deviations would involve less work. The width of the highway was to be reduced from thirty-six to twenty-six feet, shoulder to shoulder, with a 20- to 22-foot-wide lane for traffic, surfaced with local materials. The maximum grade would be 10 percent. Aside from thirty-four steel bridges already on order, Worsham directed that no other bridges be replaced except those which were unsafe or would not survive the breakup of the ice during the next few months.68
During the spring, maintenance of the road and bridges was the most important of the tasks assigned the engineers. After the thaws began, the winter trail west of the White River disappeared entirely. Many temporary trestles and portions of pioneer road were destroyed by rains and floods and repeatedly had to be repaired. Expecting such troubles, contractors had stockpiled replacement timbers at bridge sites and were able to make repairs with minimum loss of time. Despite unfavorable conditions, the
Alcan Highway was serviceable as a military road during the winter and spring.69
Canol
The second extensive Engineer project in northwest Canada was Canol. It was undertaken to supply fuel to vehicles on the Alcan Highway and to planes using the Northwest Staging Route and at the same time make available to Alaska supplies of gasoline which would not be at the mercy of enemy sea attacks or naval blockade. There was but one known source of oil in the northern part of the continent—the oil field on the Mackenzie River at Norman Wells, just below the Arctic Circle. The Imperial Oil Company, a Canadian subsidiary of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, had drilled the first producing well there in 1920. By 1940 three wells, operating during the summer months, yielded 800 barrels of crude oil a day. All of this went to nearby mines. The War Department had given some attention to Norman Wells during the period of the defense buildup. The desirability of developing the field had been pointed out on several occasions by the well-known Arctic explorer, Dr. Vilhjalmur Stefansson, serving as a special consultant to the War and Navy Departments on cold weather and other Arctic problems. In a conference with representatives of the War Plans Division on 8 August 1940, he had called attention to the oil field as a source of supply for Alaska. Again in January 1941, Dr. Stefansson, in reply to an inquiry from General Marshall regarding construction of a road to Alaska, pointed out the desirability of developing Norman Wells for national defense. No action was taken, as the War Department saw no need at that time to build the road or develop an oil field in such a remote and almost inaccessible region. Even after the outbreak of war, the War Plans Division paid little attention to Norman Wells. The Canadian Government considered using the field to supply oil to planes flying the Northwest Staging Route, but gave up the project because there were no refineries in the area to produce 100-octane gasoline.70
Canol Approved
The need for oil appeared more crucial early in 1942 as the exposed position of Alaska became increasingly apparent. The matter became particularly critical after the decision was made to build the Alcan Highway. General Somervell, then G-4, was responsible for supplying not only Alaska but also military installations along the Highway. He directed his special assistant on transportation, Col. James H. Graham, to study the problem. Many in the War Department now suggested making use of Norman Wells. Among them was Brig. Gen. Walter B. Pyron, formerly vice president of the Gulf Oil Company and
at the time serving as a special assistant to Mr. Patterson. Some members of the War Plans Division now believed, as Stefansson had already suggested, that a winter road might be built from Norman Wells to Mayo Landing, on the Stewart River, a tributary of the Yukon, to make possible emergency shipments of oil by barge from there to Alaska. Somervell discussed the possibility of developing the oil resources at Norman Wells with Graham, with various members of the War Plans Division, and with General Marshall. President Roosevelt in a Cabinet meeting held on 2 April explained the need for developing oil resources near Alaska, emphasizing that military necessity fully justified exploring the possibilities of developing such resources. On 15 April Stefansson again expressed the view to Somervell that local resources should be exploited. During the rest of April, discussion of the merits of Norman Wells continued. Brig. Gen. A. H. Carter, chief of Somervell’s Fiscal Division, held a conference on 29 April at which representatives of the War Department and officials of Standard and Imperial were present and the various problems were considered. The conferees agreed that the project was feasible but that it would be a most difficult undertaking. No Engineer officers had so far participated in the planning and none were present at the conference.71
After the meeting, Graham wrote a memorandum for Somervell in which he recommended that the Chief of Engineers be charged with undertaking the development of Norman Wells. The Engineers, he said, should arrange with Imperial Oil to drill at least nine new wells to boost production to 3,000 barrels of crude a day by September 1942. To make possible such an expansion, the Engineers should have in operation a system of transportation on the Mackenzie and its tributaries from the railhead at Waterways in Alberta to Norman Wells by 15 June. They should build a 500-mile-long pipeline from Norman Wells to Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory by 15 September and erect a refining plant at Whitehorse capable of taking 3,000 barrels of crude a day. This plant should be in operation by October. Somervell approved this memorandum at once. The next morning, General Reybold received “a preliminary directive” containing the Graham recommendations with instructions to carry them out. Canol, as the project was soon to be called, was thus authorized with a minimum of delay. That afternoon, representatives of the two oil companies arrived at the Office of the Chief of Engineers to confer with Maj. Gen. Thomas M. Robins, head of the Construction Division. Robins thought that if oil was to be gotten to Whitehorse it would be simpler and much cheaper to send it by barge from Seattle to Skagway and then by rail. But as he later told a Senate Committee, “... we had a job to do and ... we were going to do it.”72
Work Begins
On 5 May Colonel Wyman was placed in charge of Canol, and was directly responsible to General Reybold. Construction was to be by contractors under cost-plus-a-fixed-fee contracts. No time was lost in making the contracts. In May, OCE made one with Imperial Oil, whereby the company agreed to drill at least nine new wells, operate them, and construct additional storage tanks at the oil field. The production goal was to be 3,000 barrels a day. The War Department agreed to reimburse Imperial for this expansion program. The fixed fee was one dollar. Title to all wells drilled would remain with Imperial. For architect-engineer services, the Engineers made contracts with the firm of Sverdrup and Parcel and with J. Gordon Turnbull, a consulting engineer of Cleveland, Ohio, who had had extensive experience in designing industrial plants. These firms were to make plans for a crude oil pipeline, together with pumping stations, from Norman Wells to Whitehorse, capable of delivering 3,000 barrels a day, and for a refinery at Whitehorse, capable of producing 100-octane gasoline. It was planned to purchase an existing refinery in the United States, dismantle it, and ship it to Whitehorse. Wyman opened negotiations with the W. E. Callahan Construction Company of Dallas, Texas, and the H. C. Price Company of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, the latter recommended by Standard Oil as an experienced pipeline constructor. On the recommendation of the Price Company, the W. A. Bechtel Company of San Francisco was also brought into the negotiations. Various combinations of these and of a number of other firms were considered, but final negotiations centered on a combination of Bechtel, Price, and Callahan. In May, a cost-plus-a-fixed-fee contract was signed, according to which the co-adventurers were to construct the crude oil pipeline and refinery “in the shortest reasonable time.” All work was to be completed by 31 December 1942. Secretary Stimson recommended that Standard Oil of California act as consultant and operate the pipeline and refinery after they were finished, and on 28 May, Standard accepted. Meanwhile, since the work would have to be done largely on Canadian soil, permission of the Canadian Government was necessary. On 16 May, Canada gave informal approval.73
When the Canol project was first discussed, officials of Imperial Oil had warned of the difficulties. It would be impossible to boost production to 3,000 barrels a day unless adequate amounts of supplies and equipment were brought in at an early date. This would require a long journey northward from Edmonton—300 miles by rickety railroad to Waterways and then from the adjacent town of Fort McMurray, 1,170 miles by steamer down the Athabaska, Slave, and Mackenzie Rivers. A continuous voyage from Fort McMurray was impossible
because of a series of rapids on the Slave River between Fort Fitzgerald and Fort Smith. Supplies and machinery would have to be unloaded at Fort Fitzgerald, transported 16 miles over dirt roads, and then reloaded on other steamers at Fort Smith. The river boats, dating from the pre-World War I period and the 1920s, and serving mainly prospectors and trappers during the four and one-half months of the late spring and summer, were incapable of moving thousands of men and tons of supplies and equipment during a single season. To expedite the flow of men and materials, the War Department planned to activate a special task force made up of engineer units proficient in stevedoring and in operating barges and pontons and send it to northern Canada. As soon as the transportation system had been sufficiently improved, civilians would replace the troops.74
On 28 May Colonel Wyman, together with a small party of civilians from the division office in San Francisco, arrived at Edmonton, where he set up his headquarters. At the same time, the contractors opened their offices in that city. Five days later, Wyman organized an advance headquarters at Fort McMurray. Soon after his arrival, he got an idea of the magnitude of his task. Camps would be needed for troops and civilians; storage areas and depots, for supplies and equipment. Boats would have to be imported from the United States and large numbers of barges and rafts built or improvised to move the supplies and equipment. Docks would have to be constructed at Waterways, Fort Fitzgerald, and at other points on the rivers so that the great tonnages about to arrive could be forwarded expeditiously. Construction of landing strips would be necessary so that some men and supplies could be moved by air. Eventually winter roads would have to be pushed through so that supplies could be shipped northward after the rivers froze over early in October.
On 26 May, the War Department activated Task Force 2600 and placed it under Wyman’s command. It included the 388th Engineer Battalion (separate) and the 89th and goth Engineer Heavy Ponton Battalions, together with signal, quartermaster, finance, and medical units—2,500 men in all. Their job was to improve transportation from Waterways to Norman Wells. The troops and seventy civilians from the Kansas City District Office reached Waterways during the first two weeks in June. It was cold and rainy and the frost was not completely out of the ground. The men lived in pup tents in Camp Prairie, as their bivouac was called. The first jobs of the 388th engineers and the civilians were to build more adequate living quarters, unload the great quantities of equipment already arriving from Edmonton, and cut and stack firewood for the two somewhat dilapidated steamers tied up at Waterways. The ponton engineers lashed their boats together to make rafts and floating docks. To get materials and supplies to Norman Wells would require using the two steamers and as many pontons, rafts, barges, and other
kinds of craft as could be procured or improvised.75
The pontoniers lost no time in loading supplies and equipment on their improvised rafts. On 6 June a crew from the 89th, with Indian guides, started down the Athabaska with the first raft, which was so heavily loaded that its deck was only six inches above water. The trip down the river was successful, but while crossing Lake Athabaska, the craft ran into a windstorm, was swamped by the 3-foot-high waves, and sank. The engineers had no better luck with a second raft, which went down near the first, but a third one managed to get across the lake. It proceeded up the Slave River to Fort Fitzgerald, where supplies and machinery were unloaded and transported over the portage roads. By 15 June, as the ice was breaking up on Great Slave Lake and the Mackenzie, the engineers had a base at Fort Smith, sufficiently far along to make operations to Norman Wells practicable. Great quantities of equipment were pouring into Waterways. Thirty to seventy-five carloads were arriving daily and were being unloaded by troops working around the clock. “The time limit imposed by the directive for the Canol project,” Sturdevant wrote to Somervell on 25 June, “has necessitated an extravagant amount of equipment for the actual work to be accomplished.”76
Changes in Plans
Doubts as to the advisability of undertaking Canol continued to be expressed on all sides. Both Imperial and Standard had been dubious about the project from the start. On 2 May, R. V. LeSueur, vice president of Imperial, had written to General Carter that the production of 3,000 barrels of crude a day was optimistic in the extreme. On 4 June, J. L. Hanna of Standard wrote to Secretary Stimson, expressing his views regarding the impractical nature of the undertaking—it would probably take at least nine months to get Canol into operation. Various agencies of the government were also opposed. On 29 May Secretary Ickes wrote to President Roosevelt, stating that by mere chance he had heard of Canol and that he considered the project impractical. If there was some danger in the first months of 1942 that communications with Alaska might be cut, the danger seemed much greater after the Japanese attack on Dutch Harbor on 3 June and the landings several days later on Attu and Kiska. All doubts were swept aside. Roosevelt remained strongly in favor of .Canol. Replying to Ickes on 10 June, he stated that he recognized the project was not commercially feasible, which seemed to be the implied objection of many. “The recent attack on Dutch Harbor,” the President wrote, “discloses the possibility of great military need for this additional source of supply. ... We are daily taking greater chances and, in
view of the military needs of Alaska, the project has my full approval.” Still, by mid-June, it had become fully apparent that Canol could not be finished by the end of the year. A more expeditious and yet fairly dependable method of getting oil to the northwestern part of the continent would have to be found.77
Many had advocated shipping gasoline by barge from Seattle or Prince Rupert to Skagway and transporting it from there by rail to Whitehorse. The Engineers had suggested this alternative when Canol was first discussed. On 25 June Sturdevant wrote Somervell that the most optimistic date for starting production of 00 octane gasoline at Whitehorse was January 1943. By the following July 65,000 barrels could be produced. One tanker could carry twice that much. That same day Somervell authorized the organization of an oil barge line to operate from Prince Rupert to Skagway, the laying of a pipeline from Skagway to Whitehorse, and the erection of storage tanks at Whitehorse. Construction of the pipeline would mean diverting some workmen and about 1 o miles of pipe from the original Canol project. Completion of the refinery and of the crude oil line from Norman Wells to Whitehorse, called for under the original directive for Canol, would have to be postponed from October 1942 to December 1943. On 27 June the Canadian Government gave informal consent to the new project, soon referred to as Canol 2. It would not provide a local source of gasoline, but it could be put into operation much sooner than Canol 1. Late in June, Reybold informed Wyman that the completion of the original Canol project in 1942 was not desired; the remainder of the year should be spent in drilling at Norman Wells to determine if enough crude could be produced to warrant putting ‘in the refinery and the pipeline.78
Progress During the Summer
Great quantities of supplies continued to pour into Waterways, and were forwarded by steamer and raft. By the end of June, 5,450 tons had been shipped out. Having gotten their preliminary jobs out of the way, the civilians from the Kansas City District office began to build Missouri River-type barges and to assemble trailers to transport barges and rafts over the portage roads. By early July they had completed twelve of the barges. With the arrival of men and equipment at the oil field, the drilling of additional wells began the first week of July. The first well was in production on the 18th, and four others were being drilled. The outlook was optimistic that the goal of 3,000 barrels a day could be reached. OCE meanwhile procured 550 miles of 4-inch pipe for the crude oil line from Norman Wells to Whitehorse. That month the first aerial reconnaissance of the route was made. To get enough well-drilling equipment and pipe to Norman Wells
was a most arduous task. Since the rivers would be frozen over within a few months, Wyman had to begin at an early date to develop other means of supply. He arranged with the Air Transport Command and a Canadian airline to operate a modest aerial transport system from Waterways to Norman Wells, to be fully operational by autumn. To facilitate air transport, he planned in late summer to construct fourteen landing strips from Waterways to Norman Wells. Meantime, Canol 2 was not neglected. Laying of the pipeline from Skagway to Whitehorse began on 17 August.79
Transportation remained the main bottleneck. By far the greatest problems were encountered in connection with getting materials and equipment to Norman Wells. In many places the channels of the meandering rivers were shallow and obstructed by shifting sandbars. No charts were available, and Indian guides often had to be used to pilot the engineer craft. The lakes were especially hazardous. In stormy weather Lake Athabaska was dangerous even for the river steamers which regularly made the run from Waterways to Fort Fitzgerald. Sometimes the ships had to wait for days near the entrance of the lake until calm weather set in. Great Slave Lake was just as treacherous. “The lake is difficult to navigate,” Wyman wrote to Sturdevant on 3 August, “and during high winds the turbulence approximates ocean conditions, except that the waves are very choppy in character. ... The approach to the Mackenzie River is very dangerous due to submerged rocks.” After the debacles resulting from the first attempts with rafts, the pontons were decked with canvas and boards; later, all rafts were provided with wave breakers. Nevertheless, during the summer of 1942 a number of rafts were swamped by waves or badly damaged by rocks or snags. Several more piled up on sandbars. Only heavy barges of from 200- to 300-tons capacity proved suitable for crossing Great Slave Lake and making the trip down the Mackenzie to Norman Wells.80
Canol Is Expanded
On 17 and 18 August, Somervell and Reybold made an inspection of the Alcan Highway and the Canol project. Wyman informed them that Imperial Oil now freely predicted that 3,000 barrels a day would be attained. On the 18th, Somervell, in a conference with Wyman and representatives of the contractors at Edmonton, directed that work on Canol be expanded. The pipeline for Canol 2 was to be finished at the earliest practicable date. Canol I was to be continued as planned. During the coming winter Task Force 2600, which had been scheduled to return to the United States, was to remain and help the contractors transport equipment and materials to Norman Wells. A suitable refinery was to be found in the United States, dismantled, and shipped to Whitehorse. A plan for distributing gasoline from
Whitehorse to Fairbanks, Nome, and Anchorage was to be devised. Formally directed by Sturdevant on 28 August to carry out these decisions, Wyman consulted his architectengineers and several days later recommended laying a pipeline along the Alcan Highway from Whitehorse to Fairbanks and thence westward to Tanana. From here barges could carry petroleum products down the Yukon to the Bering Sea. To carry gasoline east of Whitehorse, he proposed putting in a pipeline to Watson Lake, which could transport 800 barrels of gasoline a day to various points along the Alcan Highway.81
On 4 September the Transportation Corps sent a report to Somervell concerning the possible use of Alaska as a springboard for an attack on Japan. If such a strategy were adopted, large supplies of oil would be needed, and the continuing scarcity of shipping indicated the necessity for developing resources in or near Alaska. If Norman Wells could produce 20,000 barrels of crude a day, Alaska could be made well-nigh self-sufficient with regard to gasoline. Somervell forwarded this report to General O’Connor, who passed it on to Wyman. On 15 September, Wyman recommended to O’Connor that a wildcat drilling program be undertaken north and south of Norman Wells. Imperial could do some of the drilling, but an additional firm would have to be brought in. On 25 September Wyman signed a contract with the Noble Drilling Corporation of Tulsa, Oklahoma, which called for drilling 100 wildcat wells; Noble was to begin work with the arrival of its equipment at the oil field in mid-November. Although the Transportation Corps report also emphasized the need for more pipelines, Wyman’s major emphasis during the fall was on increasing production at Norman Wells, in order to make sure that there was sufficient oil to warrant going ahead with the rest of Canol. Ground reconnaissances of the route for the crude oil pipeline were started. The first party to begin a survey of the route, led by an American surveyor, Kent Fuller, left Whitehorse in September and headed northeast for Sheldon Lake, the midway point. In November a party headed by a Canadian set out from Norman Wells in a southwesterly direction.82
In September construction began on the first of the fourteen landing strips between Waterways and Norman Wells. Air transport alone, however, could not bring in the tonnages needed; most freight would have to be moved overland. Wyman began work on a system of winter roads, which could be cleared and smoothed quickly by bulldozers. Without roadbed or surfacing, they could support traffic as long as ground remained frozen but would break up in the spring thaws. Because the routes crossed swamps, construction could not be undertaken until freezing weather set in. Employees of Bechtel, Price, and Callahan and such troops as were available were to bulldoze the main road from the railhead at Peace River northward
to Norman Wells—a distance of 1,000 miles. One company of the separate 388th Battalion and one company of the 90th Heavy Ponton Battalion began working out of Peace River on 23 October. The 35th Engineers, after finishing their part of the Alcan Highway in October, started work on a winter road leading northward from Fort Nelson to Fort Simpson, a distance of 248 miles. When completed, this road would connect the Alcan Highway with the road being bulldozed from Peace River. Drilling at Norman Wells was by now so successful that 3,000 barrels a day was assured, and 20,000 barrels a day seemed possible. On 19 October a directive was issued to the architect engineer to dismantle a refinery at Corpus Christi, Texas, and ship it to Skagway. Work on the pipeline from Whitehorse to Watson Lake—Canol 3—began in October.83
In view of the unfavorable war situation in the fall of 1942, Somervell believed that the full development of Canol as planned was justified. Allied fortunes seemed to have reached a low point. In the Pacific, the battle for Guadalcanal was raging indecisively. By November it appeared that the Germans might capture the Caucasian oil fields. Should the USSR seem to be on the verge of collapse, Japan might move into Siberia, and Alaska would then be of even greater strategic importance. Early in November Somervell reviewed the entire Canol project; on the 16th he issued his “final directive.” Drilling was to be continued at Norman Wells until 20,000 barrels a day were produced, and a pipeline capable of carrying 3,000 barrels a day, together with a road, was to be built from Norman Wells to Whitehorse. The pipelines from Skagway to Whitehorse—Canol 2—from Whitehorse to Watson Lake—Canol 3—and from Whitehorse to Fairbanks—Canol 4—were to be completed, and the refinery was to be erected at Whitehorse. The landing strips were to be put in between Waterways and Norman Wells. All construction was to be finished by December 1943.84
Progress During Winter and Spring
During the winter work was pushed on all the projects except Canol 4, which was to be started in the spring. Canol 2 was perhaps the easiest job. One hundred and ten miles of pipeline were laid alongside the railroad tracks. The final weld was made in December, and by the end of January the line was carrying gasoline. Work continued on Canol 3, but slowly. Additional wells were being drilled at the oil field, despite the freezing weather. The refinery at Corpus Christi was dismantled, packed, and shipped on 275 freight cars to Edmonton. Most of the parts were sent on by way of Prince Rupert and Skagway. Those too bulky for the 11-foot tunnels of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad were trucked over the Alcan Highway from
Dawson Creek. The winter roads showed rapid progress. By the beginning of January, the 388th and 90th engineers had bulldozed 374 miles from Peace River to Alexandra Falls, and by the end of February, the contractors’ men had completed the road to Norman Wells. Additional roads were bulldozed across the Arctic expanses. Company B of the 388th completed one zoo miles long from Fort Smith westward to the Hay River. The reconnaissance parties meanwhile continued their exploration of the route for the crude oil pipeline. In December the party that had set out from Norman Wells finished its survey of the eastern half of the route; the one which had set out from Whitehorse reached Sheldon Lake on 28 February. The route finally selected was 577 miles long, running southwestward, usually along the valleys of streams, from Norman Wells across the Mackenzie Mountains to Johnson’s Crossing on the Alcan Highway, 80 miles east of Whitehorse. The maximum elevation was 5,000 feet. In January 1943, elements of the 35th Engineers at Johnson’s Crossing began the difficult job of building the road to Sheldon Lake, which would parallel the pipeline, and had to be put in first so that trucks could haul pipe to the welding crews. Employees of Bechtel, Price, and Callahan began work on the other half of the road from Norman Wells. Work also moved ahead on the airfields. Troops and civilians had finished eleven by the end of January.85
Despite all efforts to improve transportation to Norman Wells, sufficient materials could not be shipped in to expand crude production as scheduled. Planes could do no more than bring in supplies of food, clothing, fuel, and other necessities to the men stationed at the northern posts during the winter months. To keep trucks going on the rough roads during the bitter cold proved to be an almost impossible task. “The winter roads,” the engineers reported, “were nightmares both to the men who built them and to those who operated vehicles over them.” Nevertheless, about 8,000 tons of supplies were trucked from Peace River as far as the Mackenzie and stored to be sent down the river when the ice broke up in the spring. Wyman planned to turn traffic on the rivers over to civilians during the coming year. On 2 February he signed a contract with Marine Operators, an association made up of the firms of C. W. Cunningham and Peter Kiewit of Omaha, Nebraska, and Paul Grafe,’ president of the W. E. Callahan Construction Company. The Marine Operators were to run barges and rafts on the rivers and operate docks and portage equipment between Waterways and Norman Wells.86
In the spring of 1943 work on Canol, carried on under Colonel Worsham’s direction after Wyman’s departure on 25 March, was accelerated. That same month Canol 4—the pipeline from Whitehorse to Fairbanks—was started.
Although the route paralleled the Alcan Highway, construction was not easy. There were lot water crossings. Permanent highway bridges would carry the pipeline over the major rivers, but over the smaller ones the pipe had to be laid on stream bottoms or carried across on A-frames or cable suspension bridges. Often glaciers of ice covered the low temporary bridges, which in the spring were torn out by floods. When the thaws set in, the highway beyond the White River became an impassable quagmire. More rapid progress was made on the pipeline from Whitehorse to Watson Lake, and on 21 May, the line was completed. Sections of the refinery began to arrive at Whitehorse in the spring, and the job of reassembling it began on 19 April. But with the beginning of the spring thaws, work on the crude oil pipeline and the parallel access road came almost to a standstill and was not resumed until May. When the Arctic summer began, Canol was still far from finished. By this time, the tactical situation in the Aleutians had changed the thinking regarding the Pacific north-west. The Japanese were being driven out of the islands, and it appeared that the threat to Alaska would be eliminated.87
The Danger Passes
Attu and Shemya
The Joint Chiefs of Staff had begun to make definite plans in late 1942 to expel
the Japanese from the Aleutians. Kiska was to be recaptured first. An Army-Navy planning staff was set up at San Diego, and during the winter the 7th Infantry Division began training at Fort Ord. The role of Alaska in the war came under close scrutiny at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943. Roosevelt and Churchill decided that efforts made in the North Pacific should be aimed not so much at driving the Japanese from the Aleutians as preventing them from expanding and consolidating their holdings. Rear Adm. Thomas C. Kinkaid, commander of the North Pacific area, was informed that the ships required for the planned attack on Kiska would not be forthcoming. Since Attu was believed to be less heavily defended, Kinkaid suggested that Kiska be bypassed and that available forces be used to capture Attu and occupy the nearby Semichi Islands. Such a stratagem would isolate Kiska and provide a fine site for an airfield on Shemya Island, 50 miles east of Attu and one of the Semichi group. On 22 March the Army and Navy ordered preparations begun for the capture of Attu. Elements of the 7th Division were to make the landing; the division’s i 3th Engineer Combat Battalion would support the infantry, while the 50th Engineer Combat Regiment would act as shore party. Lt. Col. James E. Green, commander of the 13th, was named Force Engineer.88
When the task force left Cold Bay on 4 May, D-day was set for the 8th. Because of fog at the landing beaches, the assault was postponed till the th. On that day the troops came in at two places on eastern Attu: at Massacre Bay on the southern shore and near Holtz Bay on the northern. (See Map 16.) They were to move inland, meet at Holtz Bay pass, and then drive eastward against the enemy troops concentrated in the valleys and peninsulas. At Massacre Bay four companies of the 50th Engineers and three companies of the 13th went in with the infantry. At Holtz Bay, one company of the 50th landed with an infantry detachment. Both forces encountered no resistance at the time of the landings.89
During the next few days the troops advanced inland against stubborn enemy opposition. The engineers with the larger force at Massacre Bay had a hard time because of the difficult terrain. Inland from the beach, swamp and tundra extended for about a mile up Massacre Valley to a hogback ridge. Moving equipment across the tundra was impossible. The engineers decided to use the rocky bed of a creek as a road, and lines of heavily laden tracked vehicles were soon moving up this novel highway. The forward movement stopped abruptly at the ridge. Struggling for two days to get a bulldozer to the top of the tundra-covered slope, the men finally succeeded. They then turned the machine around and cut a trough down through the tundra in five minutes. A tractor with a winch was moved up and anchored on top of the ridge. Supplies were hauled up in toboggan sleds attached to a cable. Meantime, the infantry advanced up the valley, along both sides of the hogback toward Sarana Pass.
To improve supply, the engineers started to build a road along the top of the hogback. Here the bulldozers easily stripped the tundra, from one to two feet deep, exposing the rock or hardpan base. The road was pushed through all the way to Sarana Pass, which was reached on 24 May. By this time, the infantry had driven the Japanese out of the pass and forced them to retreat up Chichagof Valley.90
On 25 May three companies of the 50th Engineers and elements of the 13th set up their camps on a high point to the east of Sarana Pass, on the south side of Sarana Valley, a site that soon became known as Engineer Hill. Infantry, artillery, and service troops were encamped on both flanks. In order to get supplies into Chichagof Valley, the engineers began to build a switchback road down the steep slope of the hill, a job that would take several days. A cableway would speed supplies forward even more expeditiously. To operate such a contrivance a tractor would have to be gotten down to the valley floor, attached to the cableway, and run back and forth. Additional tractors would be needed below to move supplies forward. The problem was to get a machine into the
valley. The 1,000-foot slope of Engineer Hill, the most feasible route, was steep, rocky, and partly covered with tundra. Equipment could not descend under its own power. The engineers tumbled six tractors down, hoping that one or two would be in running condition after hitting the bottom. All six were. A cableway was rigged up and attached to one of the tractors. Run back and forth across the valley floor, the tractor lowered and raised the sleds attached to the cable. By the morning of the 29th, a road had been completed down the slope, replacing the cableway.91
By this time the enemy’s position in Chichagof Valley was hopeless. Despite the heavy odds, the Japanese commander decided to counterattack. At 0300 on 29 May nearly a thousand screaming Japanese who had broken through American infantry lines stormed up Chichagof Valley and within two hours were at Engineer Hill. An attack at this point was wholly unexpected. Some men in the engineer camp were killed while asleep. Confusion and panic gripped many of the others as, partly dressed, they stumbled out of their tents. Company officers and noncommissioned officers hastily organized small groups to form makeshift defense lines. The men fought back as best they could. Some crouched behind tractors and piles of wooden cases, lobbing grenades into the darkness. Others, taking positions behind piles of earth and rock which they had excavated in the course of road construction, fired their carbines and rifles at the onrushing enemy. Some of the machine guns that the 13th engineers brought into play proved highly effective. The fighting continued during the morning but by noon the routed enemy troops were fleeing to the gorges on the far side of Sarana Valley. When wounded or cornered, many of the Japanese killed themselves with their own grenades. By nightfall the enemy had been practically wiped out. Over 250 Japanese bodies were found around Engineer Hill, many of them armed only with bayonets tied to sticks. The engineers had borne the brunt of the attack—29 had been killed and 47 wounded.92
The fierceness of the fighting on Attu is attested to by the fact that about 2,350 Japanese were killed but only 29 prisoners taken. Some 550 American lives were lost. The wounded numbered approximately 1,150. Disease and nonbattle injuries claimed another 2,100 men. Certain inadequacies in training and tactics made the fighting on Attu costlier than necessary for the engineers. Lt. Col. Virgil M. Womeldorff, commander of the 50th Engineers, reported that “realistic training in combat tactics, night patrolling, outpost duty and uses of terrain features would have saved many of the casualties encountered and
reduced firing at imaginary enemy movements.” Training for combat had been neglected because so much time was spent in training for amphibious operations. Colonel Womeldorff also noted that information as to the disposition and movement of friendly troops and units was not available to the men at the outposts.93
Late in May, work on the base and airfield began. Colonel Womeldorff, put in charge of construction after the end of the fighting, had, besides the 50th and 13th engineers, Company A of the 807th Aviation Battalion and a detachment of the 349th General Service Regiment, both of which had reached Attu while the battle was raging. The aviation engineers began work on a field at Massacre Bay. They drained a lake and replaced the soft tundra with sand and gravel. Three tractors were sometimes needed to pull a scraper usually hauled by one machine. On 8 June, eleven days after work began on the runway, the first plane landed. By this time, substantial progress had been made in providing the Massacre Bay area with a network of roads, a dock, and other facilities. Meantime, work had begun on Shemya. Colonel Talley with a group of eighteen officers and men had made a preliminary reconnaissance on 28 May. Two days later a task force, including the 18th Combat Regiment, came in. Heavy seas slowed the disembarking of the troops and the unloading of equipment. But Shemya’s narrow beaches were soon cluttered with troops and with amphibious tractors towing barges through the water and on to the beaches. By 3 June the engineers had begun work on a fighter strip, which they later lengthened for bombers.94
Kiska
Even before the recapture of Attu, DeWitt had asked Nimitz to join him in requesting the Joint Chiefs to approve an attack on Kiska. On 24 May the Joint Chiefs directed that planning start at once, and on 2 2 June they approved the assault. The target date was set for 15 August. Plans called for building an airfield and a base for 15,000 troops. Kiska appeared to be well fortified, and it was thought to have a garrison of at least 10,000 men. The main enemy forces were believed to be on the south-eastern shore at Kiska Harbor and at Gertrude Cove, several miles to the south. The plan was to land on the opposite side of the island and attack these areas from the rear. A task force numbering 34,000, including 5,500 Canadians, would make the attack. The 2nd Battalion of the 50th Engineers was to go in with the attacking troops for shore party work. Maj. Gen. Charles H. Corlett, the task force commander, reorganized his force in June for the assault. The basic unit was the battalion landing group. Each was divided into a forward combat team and a beach combat team. The forward team, one of whose components was a platoon of combat engineers, had the mission of
defeating the enemy’s forces. Each beach combat team, with one company of combat engineers, was to unload ships, establish dumps, and move supplies inland. Both teams were organized and equipped to fight.95
On the evening of 12 August the task force left Adak, arriving off Kiska two nights later. Soon after midnight, in the light of a bright moon, the troops clambered into their landing craft, “grimly expectant” as they saw the “fog-obscured mass of Kiska for miles ahead. ...”96 The first landings were made without incident, and the men advanced over the rocky beaches “with nothing but mysterious silence as welcome.”97 Each combat team moved forward to attack the enemy as it had been directed to do. Defenses were considerably stronger than on Attu. Barbed wire and mines were encountered on most of the beaches. Further inland the men ran into pillboxes, radar installations, and searchlights. But none of the defenses were manned. “Each objective taken without contact of enemy caused the men to be even more tense,” wrote the historian of the 50th Engineers, “for the fear of moving into a trap was common.”98 Fog, rain, and strong winds heightened the feeling of apprehension. No enemy troops were ever found. “The impossible had been accomplished,” the historian of the 50th Engineers continued, “Japan had completely evacuated the island in spite of
our constant naval blockade.” At Gertrude Cove, where the Japanese had located some of their important installations, “five ravens as large as turkeys, scratching about in a pile of rotting food, proved to be the only living things there.”99
Soon after the island was retaken, most of the 7th Division left for Hawaii. The battalion of the 50th Engineers, which had engaged in shore party work, remained behind. The men had plenty of work to do, even though the size of the base that had been planned for Kiska was reduced drastically and no air force units were to be stationed there. Some of the Japanese installations could be used. On a high ridge near the north-ern part of the island the enemy had partly finished a runway, the two ends of which sloped downward. Considerable cutting was required at the center and fill was needed at both ends. The engineers had only light equipment and had to haul dirt in push carts, but eventually they managed to even up the strip to the proper grade. They also improved the Japanese-built road between Gertrude Cove and Kiska Harbor. In many places it had to be entirely reconstructed. They blasted rock from the hillsides, and carried much of it by hand to the road-way because trucks were not to be had. “This was by no means a pleasant project, or one on which desired progress could be made,” the 50th Engineers reported. Late in September, the 50th moved to Hawaii. The 223rd and 521st Combat Companies, recently arrived on
the island, remained to construct base facilities.100
Engineer Reorganization
The expulsion of the Japanese ended the immediate danger to the Aleutians and Alaska. It was not likely that Japan would again try to seize any of the islands. But the North Pacific area was still important because it was near the Soviet Union. Whether the USSR might become an ally in an offensive against Japan was not known. In any case the military forces were kept strong and were reorganized to meet changing conditions.
The engineer organization was revamped. The anomalous situation of having two engineer organizations in the Alaskan Defense Command had worked well in practice. But, as General Nold wrote later, the War Department had not liked it and had objected to it “at intervals of about three months because it did not follow the diagrammatic pattern of relationships that applied to other theaters.”101 The first changes in the engineer setup had been made in the previous June. Colonel Talley’s organization with its 250 officers, enlisted men, and civilians, together with the Utilities Engineer Section, was consolidated with Nold’s office. Talley, as scheduled, then returned to the United States, and Nold henceforth had technical supervision over all engineer work in the Territory. The three units of his office were the Military Division, the Utilities Division, and the Construction Division. There was little change in the way the engineers carried on their work, apparently the only difference being that correspondence formerly exchanged between Nold and Talley over Buckner’s signature vvas now forwarded in memorandum form among the three divisions. The duties of the Seattle District office remained as before. No new projects were in prospect for the mainland, but additional work was to be undertaken in the Aleutians. When, in November, the Alaska Defense Command became a separate theater of operations and was renamed the Alaskan Department, General Nold became the first department engineer.102
Work on airfields and bases in the Aleutians continued. On Kiska, the engineers labored on the docks, the runway, gasoline storage, and quarters for the troops. On Shemya, their main concern was coping with the extremely rough seas. During 1943 most supplies and equipment had to be brought ashore by barge and landing craft; a few could be flown in. In 1944, the engineers built a dock out to deep water, 1,400 feet from shore, and to protect it erected a 2,000-foot breakwater. A violent storm wrecked breakwater and dock. Landing mats, laid on the slopes of the breakwater to give added protection, were tossed about on the boiling seas. Fifty-foot sections of the dock were torn off their piles, some of which broke as the sections were wrenched loose. Tons of rock were thrown on the beach. The
engineers subsequently built a cellular sheet metal dock, 60 feet wide, for a distance of 300 feet out into the water. They filled the outer end cell with concrete, the others with rock. The deck was 22 feet above mean low water—above the crest of all but the highest waves. This height made for cumbersome unloading, but the dock remained in place and the deck did not have to be cleared of equipment and supplies, except during the most violent storms. On Adak, the engineers did a considerable amount of construction. After the Japanese were cleared from the Aleutians, the Alaska Defense Command made preparations to build a supply base on Adak capable of equipping and maintaining an expeditionary force of 50,000 men. Work began in October 1943 and continued well into 1944.103
Alcan Highway
As soon as the danger to Alaska had passed, work on the Alcan Highway was no longer so critical. The last engineer troops left the road in July 1943. The Public Roads Administration continued construction. The contractors concentrated their efforts in the period between the end of June and the beginning of October. At the peak of operations, 81 contractors had on their payrolls 14,000 men, who were working on the highway from Dawson Creek to Big Delta. Using more construction equipment than ever before marshaled on a single job, the workers leveled and straightened the roadway and greatly improved its drainage. The summer rains played havoc with the bridges. The worst floods came between 9 and 12 July, shortly after the construction season was in full swing. In the Southern Sector twenty-four temporary bridges were washed out, including every structure within 160 miles west of Fort Nelson. Construction workers began at once to repair the damage and by 20 July had reopened the road to through traffic. The floods left no choice but to relocate certain stretches of the highway and to replace many temporary structures. Consequently, Brig. Gen. Ludson D. Worsham authorized the restoration of the earlier bridging program. It was too late, however, to procure all the prefabricated steel in time for construction that season. By the end of October, contractors had completed 99 major bridges with spans high above ice and flood waters and had 34 others under construction. Probably the most impressive was the 2,130-foot-long suspension bridge over the Peace River, which replaced the earlier timber trestles that had been washed out so many times. Before the war, it had taken the contractor eight months to construct an almost identical bridge in the Midwest. On 2 August, four months and one week after the first tower was started, this new high-level bridge was opened to traffic, and thus a major bottleneck at the southern end of the route was eliminated.104
Canol
Canol, during the summer of 1943, became wholly a civilian project. The troops of Task Force 2600, having finished their job of developing transportation facilities to Norman Wells, began to leave in July. The 35th Engineers, who worked on the access road for the crude oil pipeline, were pulled out in July and August. By midsummer, gasoline was moving through the Canol 3 pipeline. Two hundred twenty-five miles of the 600 miles of pipe required for the Canol 4 line had been laid, and it was hoped gasoline would be flowing through it by the end of November. Work on the refinery at Whitehorse was continuing and was to be finished by the end of the year. Great difficulties were encountered in building the road and pipeline between Norman Wells and Whitehorse. At the western end, the 35th Engineers had completed about 160 miles of road and the contractors’ employees had laid and welded about 106 miles of pipe. In the eastern half, about 50 miles of all-weather road had been completed and 1o miles of pipe welded. An immense amount of work still had to be done—367 miles of all-weather road had to be built and 461 miles of pipeline laid and welded.
Drilling by Imperial at Norman Wells seemed to bear out the most optimistic forecasts. By the end of August 23 wells were in production and the total potential yield was estimated at 4,159 barrels a day. It was now believed possible that wildcat drilling would raise the daily yield to 20,000 barrels a day. The Noble Company had not been able to begin wildcat drilling before the summer of 1943 because its rigs could not be transported to Norman Wells until after the rivers were open for navigation. Drilling proved to be difficult for Noble. The rigs could not be moved to the sites unless roads were first put in. Little progress could be made during the short summer season. Canol was still a sizable project; in October, the number of civilian employees reached a peak of 10,629.105
During the summer and fall of 1943 the question as to whether or not work on Canol should be continued was hotly debated. Now that the Japanese had been expelled from the Aleutians, there seemed little point in going on with the project. Various civilian government agencies were still sharply critical of Canol. The special committee of the Senate investigating the national defense program—usually called the Truman Committee—looked into Canol in the fall. A subcommittee held hearings at Whitehorse; the full committee, in Washington. Because the pipelines were already in operation from Skagway to Whitehorse and from Whitehorse to Watson Lake and part of the way to Fairbanks, the committee focused its attention on the as yet unfinished crude oil pipeline and the uncompleted refinery. It was soon apparent that the members of the committee were opposed to Canol. The War Department took the stand that work would have to go on. On 26
The Peace River suspension bridge
October, the Joint Chiefs declared that the completion and operation of the project were necessary for the war effort, and two months later, Secretary Stimson informed the Truman Committee of the War Department’s intention to continue work. On 8 January 1944, the committee issued a highly critical report, charging among other things that Canol had been authorized after insufficient study and was continued contrary to the advice of government and industry. One of the criticisms was that a production goal of 20,000 barrels a day was the aim at Norman Wells when the crude oil pipeline would be able to carry only 3,000 barrels. The committee’s attacks were directed entirely at the conception and scope of the project and not against the way it was executed. The committee agreed that the War Department should decide whether or not Canol should be completed.106
Work moved ahead. By November
Refinery at Whitehorse
1943, Imperial had twenty-nine wells in production. Noble found little oil. On 23 November the latter company was told to discontinue all drilling outside the proven field, and later its contract was terminated. The exploratory operations showed that the oil deposits were larger than originally assumed; reserves, once estimated at 2 million barrels, were now believed to range from 60 to 100 million. By the end of the year, the road from Norman Wells to Whitehorse was finished, together with some of the bridges over the many streams, including the 600-foot-wide Pelly River. Completion of the road enabled the contractors to speed up work on the pipeline, 470 miles of which had now been completed. Since tests indicated the oil would flow even at –75° F., the pipe could be laid directly on the ground. A telephone line was installed which connected Norman Wells with the pumping stations and Whitehorse and tied in with the line along the Alcan Highway. In mid-February 1944 the last two pipes were welded. Ten pumping stations were in place. On 16 April the first oil from Norman Wells reached Whitehorse. Two weeks later the refinery
A pipeline carried on a Whitehorse and Yukon Railroad trestle
was completed and turned over to Standard Oil for operation. Thirty-nine wells were in production. The pipeline from Whitehorse to Fairbanks had been completed in the fall of 1943, and the first oil had reached Fairbanks the following February.107
It had taken two years to build Canol. Some 4,000 engineers and 10,000 civilians, at an estimated cost of $133,000,000, had developed the oil field at Norman Wells, laid 1,600 miles of pipeline, installed a refinery for processing crude oil, and greatly improved the transportation facilities in a subarctic region half the size of the United States. Canol provided a feasible means of supplying gasoline and oil to the Alcan Highway and the Northwest Staging Route. From April 1944 to April 1945, 1,102,000 barrels of crude oil were sent through the pipeline from Norman Wells to Whitehorse. The pipelines out of Whitehorse proved to be more economical to operate than other means of
petroleum distribution in the areas in which they served. To ship a barrel of gasoline from Skagway to Whitehorse by rail cost $8.40; by Canol 2 pipeline, 23 cents. Nevertheless, Canol could supply the North Pacific theater with only a fraction of its gasoline requirements, and on 1 April 1945, operation of the crude oil pipeline and refinery was suspended.108
The Canol project, pushed through at the insistence of General Somervell, served little practical purpose. To many, Canol had seemed a visionary and expensive undertaking. But it was also true that the possibility of an attack on Alaska could not be ignored in early 1942. Many of those who supported Canol were of the opinion that if oil shipments from the United States had been cut off and a local source of oil that existed in the northwestern part of America had not been developed, the War Department might well have come under more severe criticism than it did for having built Canol.
The Engineers had made an extensive effort in Alaska and northwestern Canada. Their work was not altogether futile. Alcan remained as a permanent link between the United States and Alaska. Canol was abandoned, but a great deal had been learned about construction in the far north. And much of the engineer work in Alaska was of permanent value because of Alaska’s important strategic position in the postwar world.