Ordinary Men Build A Legendary Road
Black Engineers & The ALCAN Highway
African American, Company F, Alaska Highway. Born: 14 March 1920, Richmond, Henrico County, Virginia Died: 1 May 2010, Baltimore, Maryland. Enlisted: 15 August 1941, Richmond, VA. Discharged: 5 December 1945. Education: four years high school. Civilian Occupation: Miles Cleaning Company [laundry/cleaners]. John stated that he joined the army to escape segregationist life in Virginia and wanted to…
Alaska Highway, Company E. Born: 15 August 1920, Wyoming. Died: unknown. Education: University of Wyoming, Civil Engineer. Occupation: Wyoming State Engineer 1 May 1963 to 1 Dec 1974. June K. Bishop left college in May of 1942 and married Floyd on 9 May 1942. She was a avid golfer. His father, Loren C. Bishop (1885-1961), was a civil…
Alaska Highway, 1st BN. Born: 8 December 1905, Monroe, Wisconsin. Died: 9 April 1993, Sante Fe, New Mexico. His spouse was Freda June Dexter from Dubuque, Iowa. They married on 3 September 1937. In the 1930 census he was listed as an engineer for a gas and electric company. He enlisted in the Army on…
African American Chaplain, Alaska Highway. Born: 20 June 1907, Appomattox, VA Died: 10 May, 2000, Toledo, OH. Buried at National Arlington Cemetery. He married Beatrice Mable Clark (1916-1955) in 1937 and in June 1957 married his second wife Lee Hawkins. He received his PhD at the University of Pittsburgh in the fall of 1959 and taught at…
African American, Alaska Highway, Company C. Born: 25 October 1920, Ruston, Lincoln, Louisiana. Died: 7 March 1997, Clearlake Park, Lake, California. Enlisted: 15 April 1941, Jacksonville Army Airfield, FL Education: grammar school. Civilian Occupation: Waiter. He was the orderly and driver for Capt. Robert P. Boyd, Company C Commander. His father was Willie Levester Anding…
Alaska Highway. Surgeon, Medical Corps, First Battalion. Born: 4 October 1904, Lithuania, and immigrated in 1911. Died: 19 October 1981, New York. His spouse was Helen Ocko Altman (1908-1995), a teacher. Jacob and Helen were married on 27 December 1936. Lt. Squires of the 93rd described Dr. Altman as a very short man, shorter than…
The rapidly expanding Corps of Engineers, activated the 340th Regiment at Vancouver Barracks in March of 1942, ‘seeding it’ with a small cadre of officers from the 18th Combat Engineer Regiment. On March 9, sixty-two enlisted men from Fort Francis E. Warren joined them and in short order several hundred more arrived from Fort Leonard…
The rapidly expanding Corps of Engineers, activated the 340th Regiment at Vancouver Barracks in March of 1942, ‘seeding it’ with a small cadre of officers from the 18th Combat Engineer Regiment. On March 9, sixty-two enlisted men from Fort Francis E. Warren joined them and in short order several hundred more arrived from Fort Leonard…
On April 12, 1942, the 93rd Engineers boarded five trains and left Camp Livingston, Louisiana in the early afternoon. They arrived at Camp Murray, Washington on April 16. From the 15th to 25th of April, three ships transported the regiment through the Alaska panhandle up the fjord to dock at Skagway Harbor in Alaska. At Skagway the…
The armed services of the United States expanded as fast as possible during the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. Few among the country’s civilian and military leaders doubted that war was imminent. Among thousands and then tens of thousands of new recruits who poured into the Army were thousands of black men, and they presented…