As we noted in our companion blog for this day,
Today In Wyoming's History: February 13: 1942, it was a day of some momentous and long-lasting events.
African American engineers working on the Alcan. Note the very high boots.
1942 US and Canada agree to construct the Alcan Highway. This is, of course, not directly a Wyoming event, but it is significant in that it represents the ongoing expansion of road transportation. A highway of this type would not have even been conceivable just 20 year prior. It also is a feature of the arrival of really practical 4x4 vehicles, all Army vehicles at that time, which were capable of off-road and road use for the first time. Such vehicles would become available to the public at the conclusion of World War Two, and would provide widespread, easy winter access to much of Wyoming for the very first time.
1942 All Japanese nationals employed by the Union Pacific Railroad were dismissed.
The AlCan is still with us, of course. It was once one of my goals to drive it, and while that desire has waned over the years, I'd still like to.
The impetus for building the road was the fear that the Japanese would attack Alaska, which was accessible only by sea and air from the lower 48 states and which had no long roads connecting it in any fashion to the lower Canadian provinces. If attacked, it was featured, it was not possible to supply the state.
Linking up the road as it was built in both directions.
Construction commenced on March 9, 1942 and was completed on October 28, 1942, an amazingly short amount of time, but then it was hardly a highway in the modern sense. Being completed in the fall, as it was, use of the highway didn't start until 1943.
Alaska was incredibly remote at the time. With a population of only 73,000, half its residents at the time were natives, many who had very little contact with European culture. Prior European penetration into Alaska had come from Russians interested in furs, Canadians interested in furs, and then Americans interested in furs and gold. Logging had commenced, and during the Great Depression an intentional effort had been made to resettle some displaced farmers to those regions of Alaska temperate enough to engage in crop agriculture. Fishing was also an industry. Oil was not, having not yet been discovered there. It was not a conventional tourist destination.
In context, fears that the Japanese would land in Alaska were accordingly not as farfetched as they would seem to today, and likewise fears that they would land in Australia were not either. Indeed, the Japanese did land within air striking distance of parts of Australia, and they did land in the Aleutians, albeit only as a diversion.
Fear of the Japanese had obviously also extended to the point where employers felt free to fire Japanese nationals in the country.
On the same day, the Germans completed the Channel Dash successfully, although both of their battleships had been damaged by mines.
The Battle of Palembang began on Sumatra and the Battle of Pasire Panjang began in the struggle for Singapore.
