Biography of Edward Huey
CCCMan, Alaska
My grandfather, Edward Huey, served in the CCCs in Alaksa and in turn was given his citizenship.
Everything about my research is based upon stories and a few pictures. My grandfather died when my mother was in high school, my grandmother died a few years back. My mother and uncle do not remember many distinct details about my grandfather, and all we have is a few pictures. I found this article which lead me to believe he was in the CCC...
"The port of Prince Rupert was deemed to be especially important, but Canada's ability to defend it against attack was very limited, with only a seaplane base. By the time an American sub-embarkation port and ammunition dump had been opened at Prince Rupert in April 1942, an airfield had been constructed on Annette Island, only 60 miles to the north. The airfield had been started as a project of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which had a very high profile in Alaska in the late 1930s.
The project apparently was conceived in response to a suggestion... that the Alaska CCC undertake a specific defense-related project. The armed forces in Alaska wanted to improve air service between the states and Alaska. In order to shift from amphibious planes to larger and faster wheeled aircraft they needed a runway and refueling station between air bases in Seattle and Anchorage. Annette Island, a flat, boggy island of about ten square miles, located twenty-five miles south of Ketchikan, was chosen as the site of a ten-thousand-foot runway and refueling station.
...In August 1940, a twenty-man CCC crew from Ketchikan prepared quarters on Annette for the advance crew of army engineers. The main body of CCC enrollees and army engineers [400 of each] arrived on the army transport "Leonard Wood" later that month. The Ward Lake CCC camp outside Ketchikan served as one of the staging areas for the CCC and engineer troops, their one hundred trucks, five thousand tons of cargo, and one hundred prefabricated houses bound for Annette Island. Construction on the island involved the erection of a camp to accommodate twelve hundred men (four hundred additional engineers came later), and the construction of a five-mile truck road to haul rock from a quarry, as well as a pipeline (partly below sea level) to bring water to the camp. Bogs and lakes were filled with rock to provide a solid base for the runway itself. The Annette Island base was completed within a year. The first plane landed on a not-quite-complete runway in September 1941. (Sorensen)
Work was continued on the field through the winter of 1941-1942 by the Army Corps of Engineers, under the command of Major George J. Nold. "
My grandfather was NOT a US citizen at the time. The "jingle" to working in alaska was that citizenship would be received for the work. I know my grandpa was buildng airfields, though .
----- lisa_m_moy@hotmail.com
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