At Ft. Belvoir Engineer Center, the 95th Black Engineer Battalion was organized by their education and their hometown. During basic training they practiced landing in assault boats, building pontoon bridges and floating rafts. On February 28, 1942, the 95th Battalion was activated as a General Service Regiment. Colonel David L. Neuman, Civil Engineer, graduate of Columbia University, New York, assumed command on March 7. The next assignment for this new regiment was road construction at Camp AP Hill, Virginia. Their work earned them a nick name, the “snappy outfit.” When the work had been completed, they convoyed to Ft. Bragg, North Carolina and participated in the North Carolina Maneuvers. These enlisted men had been together for a year operating heavy duty trucks, D8 bulldozers, graders and Osgood shovels and many attended Diesel Mechanic School.
General Hoge, Commander of the Highway Project, asked General Sturdevant for a third engineer regiment. The 95th was assigned and Sturdevant informed Hoge that the regiment was very experienced and had operated on stateside military projects for a year. Sturdevant also assigned General O’Connor, West Point engineer graduate, to assist Hoge with the Highway project. General O’Connor the newly assigned Commander of the Southern Sector and the White 341st Engineer Regiment arrived at Dawson Creek, British Columbia, Canada on May 1, 1942. Hoge ordered General O’Connor to have the White 341st, a brand new regiment fresh from basic training and only had been together for two weeks, to begin a rough truck trail and the 95th would follow improving the pioneer road, grading, building bridges and culverts.
For thirteen days, the 341st made many attempts from their encampment at Charlie Lake to begin a pioneer road, but their equipment mired and sank into the thick gooey mud. It became difficult to operate and repair their equipment. Colonel Lane, their commander, made a decision for a different approach to begin the road. His orders were to load equipment and seventeen men on a pontoon raft and cross Charlie Lake, a distance of twelve miles. to begin the road on the other side. The overloaded raft met high winds and waves. It flooded and overturned. Twelve men drowned and five were rescued. A local native later told Lane that he should have taken the trail surrounding the Lake. General O’Connor was not pleased with the lack of progress.
On May 24, 1942, Companies A, B and C of the 95th boarded a train from Ft. Bragg, traveled across the States and arrived at Dawson Creek on the 30th. The next day they crossed the Peace River and met Company D and F who had arrived the day before. The two companies had started setting up a regimental camp located eight and a half miles north of Charlie Lake and north of the White 341st Regiment. Company E left Ft. Bragg on May 27 and arrived at the much improved camp on June 2nd. The train arrived soon afterwards at Dawson Creek with the 95th’s full complement of equipment.
General O’Connor believed that the Black soldiers, regardless of their proficiency, did not need nor were they capable of operating heavy equipment. He stripped the 95th of its best equipment and gave it to the inexperienced White 341st. The Black soldiers were left with hand tools, a few trucks, a couple of bulldozers and one grader to begin their task and O’Connor order the black soldiers to follow the 341st.
Morale plummeted.
Throughout the month of June and by mid July, the 95th improved their camp area and began work on the future Alaska Highway better known as the pioneer road. They hauled gravel, graded and ditched surfaces extending the road sixteen miles north from camp. Other men traveled along the road by foot through thick, sloppy mud caused by the incessant rain. Mosquitoes swarmed and invaded their food and attacked uncovered skin. With hand tools, the men built culverts and trestle bridges, removed stumps and cleared trees. They layered rows of long logs as corduroy and ditched the road so water would drain. The pioneer road now was thirty miles from camp.
Military censors read letters written by the black soldiers before they were mailed home. Morale of the men was at a new low. It was only when Lt. Sincavage wrote a letter to his wife on July 15 that General Sturdevant, Hoge’s boss, realized that there was a serious problem. “We have a few officers in the company that are a disgrace to the service. I still can’t get over the awful sight I saw in my own tent of an officer lying in bed and giving his Black platoon Sergeant orders for the day while the lazy scum loafed in bed. Strange as it seems these dastardly punks are southerners. The Army works for them and the colored man is still his slave.”
Regimental Commander, Colonel David Neuman, was that officer. He had injured his leg and spent most of the day laying on his cot with a bottle. On July 18, a telegram was sent relieving him of command. The next day Colonel Heath Twichell of the 35th White Engineer Regiment replaced him. On Twichell’s first day, he faced one of many problems. Five enlisted men decided to go on a hike, failed to return and now were presumed lost.
On a Sunday, the five from Company C rested, washed clothes and wrote letters home. They looked out across the landscape to a Pink Mountain. They thought it would be a good idea to take a hike. They followed a stream which initially led them in the correct direction, however the mountain was father than they realized. They split up, three went one way and two the other. Occasionally someone took a bearing by climbing a tree, but they still got lost. Soldiers and Indian trackers searched for the lost men.
Twichell needed something else, something more to boost the Regiment’s morale. He convinced O’Connor that the 95th could build the trestle bridge across the Sikanni Chief River, a 300-foot-wide cold glacial river with a running current of ten miles an hour. O’Connor wanted the bridge built in one week. The college educated engineers at Headquarters said it would take two weeks to do the job. Twichell assigned Company A to the task and they in turn bet a month’s pay that they could finish the job in less that four days. This bridge was completed in a historic 84 hours. The pride of the troops was demonstrated when Cpl. Timothy Wamack played “I’ll Never turn back” on a hand organ and Chaplain Edward G. Carrol played a recording of Marian Anderson singing “Ave Maria.” Most of all, the men celebrated drinking beer and dancing. A keg had been brought to them from Dawson Creek.
The last week of July, Company A and B crossed the Sikanni River completing the pioneer road another twenty miles north of the river. Company C, D and E worked on the road to thirty miles from camp, crossed the Sikanni and continued construction on the other side of the river for fourteen miles. Company F moved via truck convoy to the river’s shoreline and crossed the next day. They were followed by several companies of civilian contractors with the Public Road Commission.
The searches for the lost five soldiers continued for seven weeks. All but one of the men were found and returned to their Company, tired, hungry but safe. Indian trackers attempted one more search, but Pvt. Thomas Bonsten eventually was listed as “missing in action.”
Hungry black bears, friendly but bothersome, rummaged through the trash for food. One big black bear raided and destroyed their mess tent, a pseudo court-martial was held and they shot the bear. The cooks served bear meat for supper, however there were few takers of the stringy, strong-tasting meat.
It was a hot and dry August and the woods were tinder dry. Traffic on the road became heavy between the soldiers and the contractors. Most likely someone threw a burning cigarette into the woods and a fire broke out at one of the company camps between Wonowon and Pink Mountain. The high wind rapidly spread the flame and in thirty minutes it covered and blocked two miles of road. The fire traveled along the tree tops in the dense woods. It took one hundred soldiers to fight and extinguish the fire.
Company A worked on the road through Trutch Mountain Pass toward Prophet River. They built the bridge over Racing river. Company B followed building culverts and constructing other bridges. Company C and D pulled stumps, ditched and improved drainage. Company E and F continued road construction and grading toward Ft. Nelson. By September Company F was twenty miles west of Ft. Nelson operating a logging and sawmill operation.
The 35th White Regiment pushed through to Contact Creek, a small tributary of the Liard River. At 5pm on September 24, 1942, two bulldozers met. One from the 340th White regiment heading south from Teslin, Yukon Territory and the other, the 35th from Dawson Creek heading north. The southern portion of the Highway was connected.
Many men of Company B, C, D and E of the 95th were attached to the 140th Quartermaster Truck Company. They drove heavy duty trucks delivering supplies from Dawson Creek to Ft. Nelson and beyond. The remainder of the enlisted men in these companies continued road construction and maintenance from 150 to 260 miles from Ft. St. John. Several platoons of Company C traveled to 67 miles northwest of Ft. Nelson and operated a truck station.
In November Company A traveled beyond Ft. Nelson to Summit Lake, elevation 2,300 feet. They built Nissen Huts, a garage and constructed cots for civilians for a repeater station and a rest stop for truckers. In the second week of that month, the road was closed due to a washout of ice flows. They built a trestle bridge. In early December, the men completed six more Nissen Huts, a 16×24 foot root cellar and dug a latrine.
During construction the black soldiers lived in tents while white civilians and officers stayed in the huts. On December 17, 1942, temperatures well below zero at 3am at Summit Lake, Cpl George E. Woodson, Pfc James K. East and Pvt. Joseph Shepard snug in their sleeping bags covered with multiple blankets, awoke with their tent ablaze. All suffered from burns and were taken to a hospital for treatment. James East was most severely burned and remained in the hospital until the end of the year. The Army investigated and most likely found that sparks from their stove started the fire.
Company B during November and December built Nissen Huts at mile 171 and mile 192. Many men returned to Dawson Creek and began construction of warehouses and a bakery. Pvt. Morgan was killed in a truck accident on November 12 driving supplies north. A heavy snow fall the night before contributed to the accident. On November 24 Pvt William Watson was injured in a truck accident and three days later Tech 5 John R. Taylor was also injured in another truck accident. Three platoons of Company D traveled to mile 40 and 67 west of Ft. Nelson to help with logging, operating the sawmill and the truck station.
January and February of 1943, the regiment continued driving over the pioneer road delivering supplies. Contractors from the Public Road Administration took over the road construction as soldiers returned to Dawson Creek. These soldiers built the rail depot, a theater, the sewer and water system while other enlisted stationed at mile 20, 40 and 67 west of Ft. Nelson started building their winter quarters. However they too were ordered to return to Dawson Creek.
It was late afternoon on February 13, 1943, when Glen Barnhardt, a civilian employee of Smith Construction Company parked his truck carrying sixty cases of dynamite at one end of the livery stable. The livery stable was located near the center of Dawson Creek. Glen walked to a local restaurant for dinner before he would drive his truck north to the camp at Ft. St. John. Several other contractors parked their vehicles in the same livery stable and met Glen at the restaurant. One of their trucks carried twenty cases of blasting caps. A fire started in the stable and rapidly spread to adjacent buildings.
The fire department and many soldiers responded with buckets of water, brooms or whatever they could find. It roared hot and out of control when suddenly the caps and the dynamite exploded. A large plume of smoke and fire engulfed everything within 100 feet. Shards of glass and fiery debris shot into the air and landed on people injuring them. Those not injured fought the fire throughout the night. By morning the block where once stood stores, restaurants, hotels and a barber shop smoldered in a large heap of ash. It was a disaster that killed five and injured 164 people. With the help of the U.S. Army, the downtown area was rebuilt.
April 1943, the 95th Regiment received travel orders. They boarded trains and traveled to Camp Claiborne, Louisiana. From bitter cold weather and voracious mosquitoes to hot, humid weather and poisonous snakes. In July 1943 they shipped out on Edmund Alexander USAT to join the war in Liverpool, England.