Thread by @USArmyCMH

8 MARCH 1942 - ALASKA HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION BEGINS
After the United States entry into #WWII Alaska was vulnerable to attack. The only means of supplying military forces there was by air or sea, both of which were vulnerable to Japanese interdiction.

With the agreement of Canada, the U.S. government moved on plans to build an overland supply route from the Canadian railhead and road junction town of Dawson's Creek in British Columbia, across Yukon to Fairbanks, Alaska.

Work began on 8 March by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) along with civilian contractors and Canadian military personnel to create a "primitive road" before winter. The need to finish accelerated when Japanese forces invaded the Aleutian Islands in June 1942.

Working from both ends toward the middle, the engineers had to construct the road over inhospitable terrain that included the Canadian Rockies, forests and tundra in climates that ranged from 70 degrees above to 70 degrees below 0 f.

The leading bulldozers of the converging 18th and 97th Engineers met in the vicinity of Beaver Creek near the Alaska-Canada border on 25 Oct 1942, and was officially dedicated on 20 Nov. The Alaska - or ALCAN (Alaska-Canada) - Highway was open to civilian traffic after the war.

The Army engineers built more than 200 bridges and 8,000 culverts along the route of the Alaska Highway.
In the segregated U.S. Army of World War II, three of the seven Engineer regiments in the Provisional Engineers Brigade were all-black, or "colored" units.

Of 10,607 U.S. Army Corps of Engineer (USACE) soldiers who worked on the road, 3,695 were African American.

#Armyhistory #USArmy #TRADOC #AlaskaHighway #USACE #ArmyEngineers #CorpsofEngineers @USArmy @TRADOC @TradocCG @FORSCOM @AlaskaCorps