The Path to Leonard Larkins
Last week we made our way to New Orleans to meet a second black veteran of the 93rd.
The way south took us through the forests and fields of Alabama and the swampland of southern Mississippi—quiet, vaguely impoverished country, hot under the afternoon sun. Towns and places glided by us—Birmingham, Alabama; Lowndes County and Philadelphia, Mississippi…
Travelling through the epicenter of the viciously racist convulsion that helped define the 1960’s, raises the hairs on the back of an old man’s neck; invests the innocent terrain with a gothic, evil aura. And events and questions we’re grappling with today—Ferguson, Baltimore, Minneapolis, “Black Lives Matter” and “All Lives Matter”—become more urgent.
Leonard Larkins went to Yukon Territory with the 93rd. But he grew up a de facto slave on a sugar cane plantation in southern Louisiana. His six sons and four daughters came of age in a Deep South convulsed by psychotic racism. His thirty-three grandchildren, whose lives most definitely matter, live scattered across the southern states today.
Two aging white people, pursuing our obsession with the 93rd Engineers and the Alaska Highway, we found ourselves thinking about race—and the Larkins family; realized our ignorance of their world and their concerns; wondered a bit nervously about how to deal with the “elephant” that would surely be in the room when we met Mr. Larkins.
Arriving in New Orleans, we contacted Leonard’s son, Bert Larkins. And we quickly realized that he, too, was thinking about the “elephant”. On the verge of inviting two white strangers into his father’s life and home, he wondered exactly what we proposed to do there.
We met—just the three of us—for coffee in City Park. And we did the unthinkable… We talked about race, about his color and ours. We talked about our feelings and he talked about his. And we talked about the conversation we were having—how easy it was to have once we got it started. Bert is a charming, intelligent man who loves his father deeply. He’s not obsessed with the dismal history of race relations in the United States, but he’s very aware of it—very aware of the impact it has had on his father, himself, his siblings and his children.
He gave us the benefit of the doubt, forgave our ignorance and our awkwardness. And, to our enormous relief, invited us to spend an evening with his family—and his Dad.
Saturday evening found us, nervous as a couple of kids on Christmas morning, ringing Errol Larkins’ doorbell. Errol is Bert’s brother, and, of course, Leonard’s son. He welcomed us graciously; introduced himself and his wife. And then he led us to the media room—and to Leonard.
What a shock! Leonard may be 96 years old, but he looks younger than I do! I won’t try to describe him—you have a photo. But the photo can’t show you the youth and vigor of the man. He shook my hand, hugged Chris.
We made small talk as others assembled, greeted us and introduced themselves. Besides Errol and his wife, Bert and two more brothers—Cantrelle and Leonard Jr.—joined us (Bert’s daughter, Olivia, joined us later). We were meeting, they laughingly assured us, only a small subset of the Larkins family.
Strong individuals, Leonard’s kids have pursued a range of careers—all of them successfully. But the individuals of Leonard’s family fit together; form an incredibly close whole that centers on their father. Their love for him and for each other is palpable, fills the room. And they manage almost immediately to embrace two strangers and make them a part of it all.
Chris has assembled from her collection of Alaska Highway photos, a slide show presenting the progress of the 93rd Engineers from Camp Livingston, Louisiana to Skagway, Alaska, Carcross, YT and on into the woods. Errol’s electronic wonderland of a media room features a projection TV that puts an enormous display on a large white wall. He expertly connects Chris’ laptop to the projector. A heavily laden buffet table attracts some customers. Someone hands me a coke. Perfect.
We assemble around a table, Chris at her laptop, the rest of us in position to see the screen and talk to each other. And, at Errol’s request, before Chris starts the slides, we do that—we talk. We introduce ourselves, describe the trajectory of a project that started with Tim’s photos and letters, led us to the highway, to our book and our website.
They, in turn, introduce themselves. Each tells us something of his background and experience.
And then Chris brought up the first slide–the men of the 93rd boarding the Rock Island Railroad at Camp Livingston. And, beside me, Leonard exclaimed, “Is that us?” And we were off.
We talked about Camp Livingston…
He remembers sleeping on wooden cots in “barracks” with wood floors and canvas roofs. They may have been designed, as we suggested, for 12 men, but they “held a lot more than that.”
Chris asks if he ever went into town… He laughs. Town wasn’t a friendly place. MP’s could get mean.
A memory hits him. “One time, state police beat us up—hit us on the head with sticks. Sure did.”
That gets everybody’s attention; inspires a flurry of conversation and questions. Chris remembers the Lee Street riots; asks “Lee Street?”
“Yes, Lee Street.”
Soldiers on pass from Camp Livingston typically made their way into nearby Alexandria, Louisiana and to the leisure activities available on Lee Street. Black soldiers didn’t thrill the good citizens of Alexandria, but their dollars did—as long as they kept to Lee Street.
One night in early 1942, trouble broke out on Lee Street. White MP’s responded, local police and state police joined them… A police riot ensued.
“I sure was scared.”
“You were scared?” Bert interjected, obviously surprised by the concept.
“Sure was. I didn’t get hit, but guys next to me did.”
Leonard doesn’t remember the train ride across the continent from Louisiana to Prince Rupert, British Columbia—except that it lasted a long time.
But he remembers leaving Prince Rupert on the luxury liner USS Princess Louise. The Corps grabbed any shipping it could get to transport men up the Inland Passage. Company A of the 93rd lucked out in the draw. Leonard slept on a soft bunk and ate food served by waiters on tables covered with linen tablecloths. That information surprised his sons as much as it had surprised us when we first learned of it.
Chris brings up a photo of Skagway Harbor; brings up another. Leonard recognizes it… But he doesn’t. I mention Samuel Hargroves’ comment about the big icicles on the hawser, and that sparks Leonard’s memory. He definitely remembers cold—and big icicles. “One time, up there, it got 72 degrees below zero!”
He remembers the train tracks down the middle of Skagway’s main street. When Chris shows a photo of Skagway today, he notes “a big improvement.” But, clearly, he only vaguely remembers Skagway.
The 93rd’s lead company, Company A didn’t linger there very long.
Leonard remembers when the white soldiers of the 340th came to Skagway, but that memory seems vague too.
I explain General Hoge’s convoluted plan for getting the 340th from Skagway across seventy miles of wilderness to the Teslin River where ferries could carry them south to their starting point in the interior. The 93rd would build seventy miles of road for the 340th to travel! While they did that, the white 340th would cool their heels in Skagway.
“We think we know why…” I start. “We know why,” Errol finishes.
If men had to stay in Skagway and help the ladies with their flower beds, Hoge and the good citizens would make damned sure they were white men.
Leonard knows nothing of this.
He remembers the breathtaking ride on the White Pass and Yukon Territory Railroad from Skagway up to Carcross. And he recognizes the photo of Carcross that Chris flashes on the screen. He remembers the beached paddle wheeler Tushi. And he remembers the ramshackle hotel.
Lt. Charles Parker left his family a photo of black soldiers getting off the train at the Carcross Depot. Chris has a copy; puts it on the screen. A group of uniformed black men stand on the platform. Several of them carry guitars and other musical instruments. Two of them dance, jiving in front of the group.
The photo has fascinated us for three years. Leonard shakes his head; can’t remember anything like that. We realize, quite suddenly, that Lt. Parker chose the soldiers for his shot—staged it. That should have been obvious.
I tell him about interviewing Millie Jones in Carcross; tell him that 8 year old Millie and her schoolmates had rushed, excited and thrilled, to the depot when the first soldiers arrived. That makes him grin.
The people in Carcross didn’t understand what race meant to the Americans. Didn’t understand why black soldiers couldn’t come into the hotel. But they came to the back door for water, and the cook, Millie’s mom, would sometimes hand out bread and cookies. Smiling and nodding, Leonard remembers, confirms that.
I tell him Millie’s story about the soldier who, spotting a piano, sat down and banged out “Pistol Packin’ Momma”. He laughs, delighted. Doesn’t remember that, but the story clearly rings true.
He also confirms that the men often sang spirituals while they worked. His sons and I, remembering marching and counting cadence during our days in the Army, try to convince him that’s what he remembers. It’s not. The men sang just like they did in the fields of the plantation back home. He seems surprised that we are surprised.
I ask him about orderlies. We know that junior officers in the 93rd had orderlies; that army regulations specifically forbade orderlies, even for senior officers.
The Army I knew in the seventies would have found the idea of a 2nd Lieutenant with an orderly preposterous. Leonard’s sons reacted to the idea just as I did. Our reaction surprised Leonard. Of course the officers had orderlies—black man-servants.
I ask him about local people… He didn’t know any. I suggest that the Army ordered black troops not to “fraternize”. He confirms that but adds that they wouldn’t have had time anyway. They worked non-stop… “…had to keep up.”
Out on the road, desperate to make progress, the Corps needed heavy equipment, especially the big D-8 bulldozers. Leonard volunteers that it took a long time to get equipment; confirms that when equipment finally came up to Carcross, they had the devil’s own time getting it through the woods to the road.
“They turned over easy. Two guys died.”
Chris puts up a photo from the road; a muddy gash through a hill, covered with slash and fallen trees, black soldiers working with axes and shovels to clear it up. Leonard reacts strongly. “That’s what I did.”
One of his sons asks about his specialty. He struggles to answer—didn’t have one. He painted numbers on mileposts, shoveled, swung an axe, dragged brush. He wrapped TNT in the form of primacord around difficult trees—to explode and drop them. His sons hadn’t heard about that. We hadn’t either.
Chris puts up a map that traces Company A and the regiment’s progress from Carcross to the Teslin River. I trace the route across it with my finger on the screen. Leonard appears interested—almost as though this were new to him.
He has a vague memory of crossing a big river on a ferry. That would have been the Tagish River. I mention Big Devil’s Swamp—Company B losing a bulldozer forever, deep in the muskeg. He grins, remembering hearing about that. “That was a bad place.”
The 93rd’s most heroic moments came when Company A made a last desperate dash to the Teslin River with the white 340th hot on their heels. Company A built the last 20 miles in just six days, and men from the two regiments reached the river together.
I ask him about that last 20 miles, and the question puzzles him. I describe the six days virtually without food or sleep, the white soldiers coming up with them and boarding boats… That he remembers.
Epiphany!
The Corps had given Leonard and his fellows the “mushroom treatment”—kept them in the dark and fed them a lot of ‘fertilizer’. He’d had no idea where he was or why he was there.
I ask and he confirms “absolutely right”.
Leonard definitely remembers life in the woods.
He remembers voracious mosquitoes.
He talks about pup tents and stoves in cold weather—“had trouble with the stoves all the time.” He confirms that tents frequently burned.
And the subject of tents brings to mind the subject of cold. “One time it was so cold the gas froze in the lines.”
He also remembers fighting drainage and muskeg. Company A built bridges, “Lots of bridges.” And they built culverts.
One of his sons asks about baths. He laughs, “No time for that.” But, when pressed, he describes portable showers made from 55 gallon fuel drums. Queried about how often the men used them, he guesses, “every four days or so.”
Captain Robert Boyd of Company C of the 93rd wrote a book, many years after the fact, about his company’s time on the Alcan—Me and Company C. Boyd writes well, and his book is an invaluable source of information. We suspect, though, that the good captain is prone to a certain amount of embellishment.
Boyd tells a delightful story about turning his men loose for a quick dip and a bath in a Yukon Lake. I run that by Leonard, and he laughs, delighted. “No way. Too cold.”
For that matter, Leonard doesn’t remember Boyd, nor does he remember a canyon along the road known as “Boyd’s Canyon.”
Boyd writes of improving the diet of his troops with salmon and moose. Leonard remembers tasting moose once… And some of the guys fished for salmon.
Mostly Leonard remembers C-rations and, later, Spam and corned beef hash.
If Boyd’s book takes a hit from Leonard’s testimony, so does ours. We have been captivated by our image of Company A’s tough old First Sergeant, Ashel Honesty. There’s a story about him elsewhere on this site.
Leonard remembers Honesty vividly—as a mean S.O.B. “Some guys said if this was a shootin’ war they’d kill him.”
Oops. Note to selves—revise section on Honesty.
In October General Hoge had a problem… He had just learned that his men would have to stay in the North Country into the winter. And they lived in tents!
Leonard and Company A climbed into deuce and a half trucks and headed north—far north past all the country they had worked through, past Whitehorse and on north onto the section of the highway being built by the white 18th Regiment. There they continued to live in tents—while they built winter quarters for the white men of the 18th.
Leonard remembers the long, cold trip. He remembers building barracks in the cold. He has no idea where he was.
He remembers moving again in November and building barracks for white civilians in Whitehorse—while he lived in a tent.
The scattered companies of the 93rd reassembled in November and December—their work on the highway complete. In January they moved by ship from Skagway to nearby Haines, Alaska where they finally moved into heated barracks.
Leonard remembers the boat to Haines and he definitely remembers the barracks—he didn’t know his location. And his North Country adventure had not ended.
The Corps had sent the 93rd to Haines to re-equip and prepare to venture forth, early in 1943, to the Aleutian Islands. Leonard would spend most of the rest of the war there, building and repairing infrastructure for the Army and the Army Air Corps. From the end of a shovel, the work in the Aleutians didn’t seem very different from that in Yukon Territory.
The end of the Highway project, though, means the end of our slide show.
We turn to follow up questions.
Did they the troops get R&R (Rest and Recreation)? Not really.
Leonard remembers being marched to the theater in Skagway to watch a movie; confirms that they didn’t have to sit in the balcony because they had the theater to themselves. He doesn’t remember the movie, but he remembers leaving the theater in a snowstorm so thick they got lost.
On the highway, the men didn’t get days off.
One of Leonard’s sons asks about how they “maintained their sanity”. Leonard thinks about that a minute. Sometimes the guys would pass a medicine ball. He remembers baseball and softball—but not in the woods.
Another son asks about buddies—special friends. He remembers some of the names on the personnel rosters Chris copied at the Army Records Branch in St. Louis—Joseph Prejean, Bobby Mouton…
“Who was the Company Clown?” Leonard thinks again… “Just about everybody. We kidded each other about wives, sisters, mothers…”
“Was there a company braggart? Leonard couldn’t remember a name, but “some did all the talking.”
“Who was the toughest, meanest guy?” Leonard doesn’t hesitate. “Sergeants.”
And finally… “Of all the memories, which was the worst?”
Leonard’s answer completely floors me. Sub-zero temperatures in a tent, mosquitoes the size of hummingbirds, muskeg that could swallow a D-8 Cat whole, endless days swinging an axe or a shovel “from can to can’t”… None of those things bothered Leonard as much as his initial training at Camp Livingston.
Leonard enlisted at “Napoleon Field”, a little crossroads town near the sugar cane plantation where he had spent his life. The Army transported him from there to Camp Livingston, issued uniforms and equipment, yelled him into formation and commenced training. And Leonard remembers the training—formations, marching, PT (army speak for calisthenics “Physical Training”), rifle range, breaking down and reassembling his rifle—as the worst part of his Army career. He explains that it was “unpredictable”. And that floors us—the Army? Unpredictable?
I’ve struggled for two weeks to understand that choice.
Leonard grew up on a Sugar Cane Plantation. Bert told us about the endless hard work, the absolute dominance of “the Man on the White Horse” before we ever came to New Orleans. Bert remembered that, if he asked his dad how much more work they had to do, Leonard would respond, “don’t worry about how much more, concentrate on what’s in front of you.”
I think that answer came from the very core of Leonard Larkins—and the very core of black men of his generation in the Deep South.
Born into a horrendous reality, Leonard and most of the black men who accompanied him to the North Country, didn’t think about it, they just lived it. First of all life was work—endless, grueling work. Second, everything that was not work was a dangerous threat.
The injustice, the grotesque unfairness, of the situation is important to us—maybe not so important to those young men. Survival meant doing what was expected.
At Camp Livingston, for the first time in their lives, they had no idea what was expected. That experience Leonard remembers as the worst, and his fellows would probably agree.
Advancing into the Yukon wilderness confronted them with mosquitoes, mud, and frigid cold. But these men were tough beyond anything we can imagine. They knew Yukon—and the Aleutians. This was just a different version of the plantation—with First Sergeant Honesty on the White Horse