Ordinary Men Build A Legendary Road
Black Engineers & The ALCAN Highway
I constantly search various sources – especially Ancestry.com – for relatives of soldiers who were in the 93rd Engineers in 1942. And a couple of months ago I found an Alfred O. Spencer, Jr. who lives in Sweetwater, Tennessee. An Alfred Spencer had served as a line officer in the 93rd. I copied a photo…
My dad’s days on the Alaska Highway left a collection of photographs, and most of them are available on this website. Three of them, though, presented me with a conundrum. In these three photos, three different men pose proudly next to a scrawny dead bear. Clearly there has been a bear homicide, but equally clearly…
They say it never rains but it pours… Just a few days before we left to meet with Samuel Hargoves, Bert Larkins typed “93rd Engineers” into Google, and found his dad’s page under 93rd Personnel on this site. His father, Bert tells us, is a healthy 96 and remembers his military experience very well. Pvt….
Read More “Another Living Veteran of the 93rd–Leonard Larkins” »
When my father, Tim Timberlake, graduated from the University of Maryland’s Engineering School and entered the Army as a brand new 2nd Lieutenant, he had no idea what lay in store for him. The year was 1941… Marking time at his first duty station he found his thoughts turning to a young lady he knew…
Soon after this website went on line, we posted a story about Company A’s first sergeant, Ashel Honesty. Working on the site and on our book, We Fought the Road, we kept crossing Sgt. Honesty’s trail. And he fascinates us. Enlisted soldiers live and work in platoons commanded by commissioned officers—usually second lieutenants, fresh from…
If Captain Finis Austin was arguably the most interesting man in the 93rd, Company A Top Kick Ashel J. Honesty was one of the most important. In a way that only Army veterans can truly understand, a company commander commands, but his first sergeant runs the company. ASHEL J. HONESTY WW1. Honesty CollectionFood, clothing, shelter, morale, religious…
I constantly search various sources – especially Ancestry.com – for relatives of soldiers who were in the 93rd Engineers in 1942. And a couple of months ago I found an Alfred O. Spencer, Jr. who lives in Sweetwater, Tennessee. An Alfred Spencer had served as a line officer in the 93rd. I copied a photo…
In early 1942, in the near panic that followed Pearl Harbor, FDR and the War Department ordered the Corps of Engineers to create a land route to Alaska—yesterday! At Camp Livingston, Louisiana Samuel Hargroves and the other men of the 93rd Engineers knew nothing of this; had no idea of the frantic decisions coming at…
A relative of Mortimer Squires was doing genealogical research when, frustrated with her results from Ancestry, she entered his name in Google. . . and found him on our travel blog. As Turner G. Timberlake’s fellow motor officer and very good friend, Mortimer is all over this blog. She called Mortimer’s daughter, Susan, and suggested…
On August 15, 1941, my father, Turner “Timber” Timberlake and Ted Laputka, brand new 2nd Lieutenants, found themselves assigned to Company D of the 1307th Quartermaster Unit at Camp Lee, Virginia. They became best friends. Ted was dating Audrey “Mac” McNiff, a coed at Jackson College in Boston. Mac visited Ted frequently at Camp Lee. …
