Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
So, we made our tour, came back, and General Wilson went on his way, and I had an
interesting experience.
After that, then, I closed out. We finished the project and it was time to go. One other nice
thing happened to me then. Colonel Sawyer said, "You know, if you just stay one more
week, now, my new deputy district engineer's arrived and we're going to send him on his
introductory tour around Alaska. Since you've been stuck off in Kodiak all along and since
you stayed those extra couple of weeks for General Wilson, you know, I'll give you a slot on
that airplane and you'll get to see a bit of Alaska you wouldn't otherwise."
That sounded like an awful good idea, and so I did and had a tremendous trip. We went up to
Fort Greeley and into Galena Air Force Base, saw those permafrost piles that the Cold
Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory had developed years before, that I had read
about. It was right out in the middle of nowhere. I mean, absolutely nowhere. From Galena
we went to Unalakleet and then to Kotzebue up north beyond the Arctic Circle where they
had early warning radar stations that had been built by the Corps. We came south and landed
at Nome, thinking of all that I'd ever read about Nome. We saw the old gold dredges still
sitting out in the lakes around there. We flew down to King Salmon, flying a little
amphibious airplane the whole way through fog, for hours. We landed there, then flew on
back into Anchorage. So, I had a really nice trip around, got to see a lot of Alaska, got to see
a lot of Corps projects, and got to see the kinds of things you do when you send people out in
small groups, out at the end of the supply line to do good work. It was a very nice experience.
Then I flew back to Chicago and finished up my tour as deputy district engineer.
Q:
Did you have to do any kind of an after-action on your project or experience?
A:
I don't recall. I'm sure I had to write something up to send to the Alaska District. Usually I
keep something of everything, and I didn't keep anything from there. So, maybe it was just
project notes.
Q:
Was the work pretty routine, restoring the harbor? Did you have any particular problems or
difficulties?
A:
We had difficulties because the contractor was trying to do it on a shoestring. He tried to do
the project too quickly. He got into the quarry and pushed his overburden down and then he
loaded his shot and dropped the rock right on top of the overburden. Then he put his crane
shovel in on top of that, and the shovel sank down into the overburden that he had pushed
down there. So, he had a mess and he fell behind schedule. Then his trucks were supposed to
be equipped for safety with a secondary brake system. He drug his feet on doing that and kept
putting it off day by day till I stopped his project. Four days later he had them all done so he
could finish up his project.
I learned a lot about dealing with contractors and working with them. We had to reject many
loads of rock because he was throwing in some of the overburden. So, we had to play a little
hardball with him here and there.
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