Date of Interview: June 21, 2003 in Nashville Tennessee

Interviewer Ryan MacIvor
Transcriber: Case Mond

Wallace Lytle:
Wallace Lytle.

Ryan MacIvor:
Wallace Lytle. And could you spell your last name for me?

Wallace Lytle:
L.Y.T.L.E.

Ryan MacIvor:
What was your rank?

Wallace Lytle:
I started out as a private, and I ended up as a master sergeant.

Ryan MacIvor:
And how much money did you make a month? Do you remember how much money you made a month?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, when I was in foreign service... When I went in I was a private, when I first went up there a PFC, come out of there as a sergeant. Then, when I formed the new outfit, and I advanced to master sergeant.

Ryan MacIvor:
And what was your home base in the United States. Do you remember what base you left?

Wallace Lytle:
Columbus, Ohio, that’s where I was inducted.

Ryan MacIvor:
Did you volunteer or were you drafted?

Wallace Lytle:
I did volunteer, thinking I’d get more of what I wanted. I’d a been in the army two to three weeks earlier, but I wasn’t called in until right after Pearl Harbor, so that’s...

Ryan MacIvor:
Do you remember how long it took for... Do you remember your trip to Dawson Creek?

Wallace Lytle:
Yes, we left from California, Camp Cook, and well... we loaded some of our equipment on the railroad right there, in Camp Cook, California. That’s how we traveled from California through the northern part of the United States, up into Canada by train, Pullman, and right to Dawson Creek. I’d think we’d gone about a week.

Ryan MacIvor:
Traveling?

Wallace Lytle:
Yeah, the train... a horse could run faster than that train was traveling, when we got up in the... and they had all these wood-structured bridges. They’d stop the train and somebody got out and see if it was all there, or wasn’t part of it missing and we’d run off into the valley.

Ryan MacIvor:
That’s good. Now, do you remember what section of the highway you worked on?

Wallace Lytle:
Yeah, we started at Dawson Creek and worked north to... Oh my... several little towns in there... Oh man... They said it was 260 or 70 miles, and I guess it was that and then it went on up... we got our section done and we went to help another outfit on north of us.

Ryan MacIvor:
Now, Wallace, what was your most memorable experience when working on the highway? Is there a memory that sticks out in your mind, or a story?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, it’s something I have never seen in other construction around the roads in our part of the country, the amount of... Well, all the bridges and culverts in our outfit, we made them all out of the wood right there. We didn’t have any shipped-in culverts or bridges. About the only thing that was shipped in was lots of spikes and cable. We drove piling where you could. And then there’s places that we just had to form a V, and we anchored them the best we could, but then they also took cable and anchored them to another pile or rock, or a tree or something like that. If it was fast-moving water, it would move it right out of there, and we went back and put the bridge in the second time at the Peace River, which is the largest river on the highway. It was in the fall of the year, the ice had formed five or six inches thick at least. Then it come a warm spell and that raised the river, and, of course, the ice broke up and took out three or four hundred feet of that bridge and we went back and I ran the pile driver that drive the piling on that.

Ryan MacIvor:
So you built the Peace River bridge?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, not the present one.

Ryan MacIvor:
Not the present one.

Wallace Lytle:
The first steel bridge went out because it wasn’t engineered right. But there was no way they engineered these fixed bridges, as we called them, made of wood, and twelve foot suspensions, and the ice and snow, melting and freezing, would take them out. We did the second time, it... we cut 55-gallon oil drums apart and nailed them at the water level or a little above. It would help to keep the timbers from being sheared off quite as quick, but I wasn’t there the next spring to see how much of it was left either. They set up sawmills. That was one thing they did in the winter to make timbers to... But all the first bridges that we built were all hand-hewed. There was no sawmills there. That was the quickest way you could do it. Just drug’m in, there was no way to haul’m then. They tried hauling some of the equipment in. The tires would build up so much mud on. It’d fill up against the frame and the wheels’d start sliding and they just slide right off the road. They didn’t have it all figured out to start with, but as we went along, we made adjustments to get the job done.

Ryan MacIvor:
Do you remember what you did when you weren’t working?

Wallace Lytle:
That wasn’t any time up there. It never rained too hard or never was too cold. No. I won’t say they were all that way... Carrying the timbers across the muskeg was a very challenging job and it was a very physical thing. They bodily’d pick these trees up because there was no piece of equipment that could go on that turf. You’d just sink right out of sight, even an animal or a horse. There was very little surveying, it was all aerial photography and when you study the pictures, they knew what was there by just, whatever the photograph told you. Where it was scrubby, it would show up just like a white. This was no problem. The shallow ones, when we hit the shallow ones, we would bore down. You could just take a skin of... take a thin pole and take the limbs and bark off of it and you could just push it in hand by hand, right down in. Well, you put dynamite down there and it would blow that waste out and then you’d get in there with dozers and muck that out and fill it with dirt. And you didn’t build the bridge, or you didn’t... It took less time to do that that to carry all these... cause some of this had to be drug in from quite a ways. Cause, wherever the muskegs were, there was no way that that timber would carry... And see, it was quite a job to put three or four feet of dirt over that and that kept the logs from... if they don’t get air or something, then they don’t rot out. When you pulled a post out of the ground, the bottom is about the same size it was when it was put in there, but they rot out of the top of the ground.

Ryan MacIvor:
How did you keep in touch with your family and friends?

Wallace Lytle:
Just by mail. There was no telephone or nothing. In fact, I had a brother that... well, when we got back to headquarters one time, which I’d been away from Maryland, I knew a couple of men there, and I says “What’s the news” but the first thing he told me is the Wasp had been sunk, that’s the aircraft carrier, that’s the one my brother was on. It’s been about 30 days before I knew whether he’d made it or not. And he did.

Ryan MacIvor:
So, Wallace, what do you remember most about the land? Is there... What do you remember most about it?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, it’s mostly wooded, and rocks and rivers and streams, and a whole lot of lakes and rivers that we crossed. I can’t remember... When we went to Missouri that time and they got our plaque down there, they told how many... it tells how many bridges and so forth that we built, but I can’t remember that, but I do have the pictures of it.

Ryan MacIvor:
And what about the people? What do you remember about the people you met?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, we saw very few people, except a few Indians.

Ryan MacIvor:
So, what do you remember about the Indians?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, we had very little contact with any of them. They were with the surveyors. They just... All they did was measuring the... Our marks were just skin the barks on the trees. There was no... very few stakes ever set, as far as... I guess we was allowed to move either north or south, or a little east or west, whichever way we could get across that muskeg or that river, wherever we could cross with the least amount of damage or effort, so that’s what we did. Anything to move this job along as fast as possible.

Ryan MacIvor:
What about the weather? What do you remember about the weather?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, it was pretty wet and sloppy, as in that picture you have there. Every four-wheel drives and... we had chains on every wheel for as long as they lasted. Chains wore out too. There was no time at all or there was no vehicle that had any brakes on it, because they was running with so much mud, it just took the lining right off of them. Brakes always froze up, it was all hydraulic brakes. They wasn’t enclosed like on the caterpillars that we had. Well, I ran the caterpillars and the D8, clearing, and we moved the air compressor along with us. As all the moss and stuff, it was on the trees. If any of us was falling the trees, well, then that would fall off and the fan’d pick it up and plug the radiators, so we had to use the air and blow them out.

Ryan MacIvor:
So I’m going to just jump back a little bit...

Wallace Lytle:
Okay.

Ryan MacIvor:
and, I just want to know, Wallace, when were you born?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, I was born in 1917, February the 26th.

Ryan MacIvor:
And do you remember when you joined the army? Do you remember?

Wallace Lytle:
Yeah, I joined up in December of 42, but then I wasn’t called until, I think until the first or second day of January, when I was actually... I was in the army.

Ryan MacIvor:
Now when you were shipped north to Canada, did you expect to go to Canada?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, we didn’t know even where we was going. We got malaria shots which made it more confusing, as you can imagine. Didn’t know we was going up there. Any time you ever go there, I tell you, you get in the areas where there isn’t any habitation or any clearing, or those trees, the mosquitos are just terrible. You just had to wear head nets. It was days that you’d like to have your sleeves rolled up, but the mosquitos were so bad all the time, you didn’t do it. Especially when you were running equipment, you had your arms out here, shifts and so forth. And the lever to raise and lower the blade, you had your arm out here, they’d just pester you the whole time. (Ryan adjusts microphone on Wallace’s shirt). Am I talking loud enough?

Ryan MacIvor:
Yeah, you’’re doing perfect, Wallace. You’re doing perfect. Like a natural. You were made for TV.
So, what were your first impressions about Dawson Creek?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, it was just a... I’ve never seen a town like it. There was no paved streets, not even the highway. I don’t believe there was even graveled streets. It just seemed to run away from the railroad there. Just very few homes. I remember seeing... there was no, no water pressure. There was a big wooden barrel like on a wagon and they just drove down the street and you got water from them. I don’t think there was any wells there. There was probably a well, but not... We were only there for a very short time till we moved on up the road. But that’s where the equipment, our equipment come in on the railroad there.

Ryan MacIvor:
So how did the people treat you in Dawson Creek? Did you meet any one in Dawson Creek?

Wallace Lytle:
No, not really, no, no.

Ryan MacIvor:
Were they surprised to see you?

Wallace Lytle:
Oh, I don’t think so. I don’t really know. There was probably more people than they’d ever thought they’d see there. [?] I don’t know how well-versed they were on what was going to happen there.

Ryan MacIvor:
So where did you live? When you got to Dawson Creek, you got off the trains. And then what happened?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, we just lived in tents, the whole time up there. I’d never been in the barracks up there. We lived in tents when it was 50 below zero.

Ryan MacIvor:
And how was that?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, we survived. You cut... we had these little potbellied stoves in our tents. You cut wood on your own time. It had to be cut in short pieces and split in small pieces to get it in that thing. You couldn’t... Every couple of hours, at least, that fire was out if you didn’t keep stoking it.

Ryan MacIvor:
The stove was your best friend?

Wallace Lytle:
(laughs) Well, we didn’t have any pets or anything, for that matter. A couple did. There was a few bear, little cubs, that got separated or something, but uh... that wasn’t a good thing and then they had to soon get rid of them or they’d get vicious.

Ryan MacIvor:
So you didn’t have any pets yourself?

Wallace Lytle:
No, No. They had no way to feed them. I don’t know why they... If they’d leave them in the wild, they could take care of themselves, but I don’t see how they could have done it. We sure... We never was fed a meal out on... from morning to night. You carried what... from World War I rations to little bar, chocolate bar that supposed to have everything in it, and your canteen for water.

Ryan MacIvor:
So, I’m just going to change your microphone while I can here. Just going to try something different because it’s falling down here. (readjusts microphone). There we go, that should do it.

Wallace Lytle:
If we’d had an extra man or two that could have went fishing for us, we could have had a lot of fish to eat, in all those mountain streams.

Ryan MacIvor:
So, what type of work did you do for the construction of the highway?

Wallace Lytle:
I probably spent more time on a dozer than most anything else. And I ran a grader and a pile driver, but that wasn’t as often as a dozer, because we had the land to clear and the rocks to clear. We had the blade in front and then we had a big ripper on the back of the big dozers. Sometimes you’d get a real heavy rock. Even with one tooth, you’d have a dozer behind pushing on that, and the one trying to pull it too. I don’t know... We’d go up river beds if that wasn’t very deep to keep ahead of the men that was building culverts and bridges and things like that. There’s a handful of men, actually, compared to the man that was building the culverts and the bridges. We’d had something like 14 or 15 dozers. Well, we had two of the smaller dozers, D4s, would have a small trailer on it, and they’d haul the fuel to us and you hand pumped it into your vehicle, whatever. All of the... the bigger dozers were diesel powered caterpillars.

Ryan MacIvor:
So, were you ever skilled, were you trained in the...

Wallace Lytle:
Oh, I had some training before I went but I was no expert, I guess. I don’t want to tell you that. I worked at construction several years before I was up there.

Ryan MacIvor:
Describe the Cat Camps.

Wallace Lytle:
There was no buildings. There was just a... They called it the Cat Camps because that’s... everybody that was... clearing the timber and then you’d muck the peat bog... or the... all the buildup from the leaves and the timbers that fell down. We would run into areas that had been on fire and they were just twisted every way. We looked like we were color paper when we got out of there. That much dirt. And... the fan‘d blow it back on you.

Ryan MacIvor:
So you were Company D, of the Regiment 341st, but, when you were part of the Cat Camp, were you separated from your company?

Wallace Lytle:
Oh yes

Ryan MacIvor:
So describe how that worked, for me.

Wallace Lytle:
They just took certain people out of each of the [line] companies. And we just formed... everybody... and D Company was a cat operator, grader man, or whatever job they had.

Ryan MacIvor:
So you worked with your normal regiment? You were ahead of them?

Wallace Lytle:
That’s right. We were ahead. We had the farthest to walk. We... When we went to camp, err... When we left that camp that morning, you’d roll up your bedroll, and put it out by the road. And then they would move that and the kitchen however far they could get that day. We left our cats and walked back. We walked miles and miles and miles. If you couldn’t get there in a six-by-six, you walked.

Ryan MacIvor:
So when you first started pushing trees, describe how that worked.

Wallace Lytle:
Well, you just raised the blade as a rule. The smaller trees... the cat, a D8, you could push them right over. And then, when they fell, you backed up, you got at the roots, you’d push that back a 100 feet, so you had a clearance of that much and sometimes more. You get in the hillier country and you didn’t have that much. You can see pictures, probably, that some of them were over 50 or 60 feet wide. [I wasn’t over it all, see] They showed some... I’ve seen so many of the pictures they showed Alaskan Highway, they cut these pieces it must have been a 10 or 12 or maybe 15 feet long, but we put the whole tree in, cause you needed as much support... you just put men enough and picked it up and carried it. You cut the stump off and used all the rest of it. And you covered it with dirt... I’ve built a lot of roads, since I got out of there, in different allotments all over out part of the country. They have a fabric now that you put down in soft spots. It saves you from digging holes and then have to haul in..., but there are times that you have to do that.

Ryan MacIvor:
Were you the lead caterpillar that went through and knocked the middle trees down?

Wallace Lytle:
Yes sir, I ran the lead... I were at the head... yes sir...

Ryan MacIvor:
I’m just trying to imagine this in my mind. If you were the lead caterpillar, and you turned around, what would you see behind you?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, we had... we made sure that we was a hundred or better feet away from any other human being, because you don’t want to throw a tree on top of somebody that’s running another dozer, or you got an air compressor some place or a field truck. Those were the things that... We didn’t have any accidents that way, in our outfit.

Ryan MacIvor:
And that’s... Did you enjoy your work?

Wallace Lytle:
Oh yes, I thought it was... I don’t begrudge... I learned there, and it’s helped me in life. It was a lot of hard work, but, eh... there’d been a lot of that.

Ryan MacIvor:
You mentioned something about you didn’t have any accidents yourself. You didn’t get your bulldozer stuck in the...

Wallace Lytle:
(interrupts) Oh, I don’t say... I don’t say... I mean, sure, there were a lot of us we got stuck, but we always knew we had somebody close who could help you out. There was quite a chore to make sure you could keep ahead of all these other man that were like building culverts and things like that. Sure there was... We pushed a lot of dirt besides this, cause this was like walking in a haystack, halfway to your knees. It wasn’t just plain walking down the sidewalk.

Ryan MacIvor:
Do you remember anyone ever having an accident, hurting themselves at all?

Wallace Lytle:
Yeah, we had one man that didn’t have any protection. If a limb went off the dozer, and it could come back, and it did hit one man and he had to go to the hospital somewhere.

Ryan MacIvor:
So it hit him in the chest area?

Wallace Lytle:
It hit him in the face. A limb come off around the A-frame of the curler. See, most of our curlers there were cable-operated, and that had a different frame than you see on a dozer today. You don’t see any of that... They did have... They did have roll-over protection cabs there, or that’s what they’d call them today, but that never was put on the machines.

Ryan MacIvor:
So it was just an open cockpit, so to speak?

Wallace Lytle:
Yeah, there was no cover over your head, or...

Ryan MacIvor:
So did you end up putting a covers over your head?

Wallace Lytle:
No, they never did. That would have taken time.

Ryan MacIvor:
So, what type of clothing did you have?

Wallace Lytle:
Oh, just ordinary, work... the fatigue clothes that they issued.

Ryan MacIvor:
And was that warm enough in winter?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, we did get sheep-lined... but eh... See, we had most of that dirt moved, and trees and so forth... a lot of cleanup. But then when we got most of that done, we moved back to Dawson Creek. That’s when we was building railroads... and ... that’s where they built storage buildings there too.

Ryan MacIvor:
So, what do you remember about the winter, besides being cold?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, very cold. You had to almost always have your face... just enough that you could see out... and your nose so you could breathe.

Ryan MacIvor:
Did you like the winter?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, no, I can’t say I enjoyed it that much. You just had a job to do and we got it done.

Ryan MacIvor:
Did you ever get frostbite?

Wallace Lytle:
No, I never had to be treated for frostbite. You just had to be careful.

Ryan MacIvor:
What about some of your colleagues?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, we were miles apart at times. I won’t say that there... I’d imagine there’s... You had wet feet a lot and I can’t understand that we didn’t have more feet trouble. Cause your feet was wet, a lot of times in the summer time, cause it was so wet We didn’t have any boots... just... didn’t have insulated shoes at that time. They had a shoe built that the lower part, the toe or where your... that was raised, and they had felt pads issued with that shoe. That helped to keep your feet warmer.

Ryan MacIvor:
So what was the food like?

Wallace Lytle:
It was all canned or dehydrated.

Ryan MacIvor:
Was it good?

Wallace Lytle:
(laughs) I guess... It was all you had. You’d eat it anyhow.

Ryan MacIvor:
So how did you spice it up, like did you...?

Wallace Lytle:
Night life?

Ryan MacIvor:
Yeah.

Wallace Lytle:
I never seen any night life, except... no, no.

Ryan MacIvor:
So, did you have your birthday up there?

Wallace Lytle:
Yeah.

Ryan MacIvor:
Describe your birthday.

Wallace Lytle:
Just another day.

Ryan MacIvor:
Just another day...?

Ryan MacIvor:
That’s right.

Ryan MacIvor:
So was it tough for you to plow through the forest to make the road a reality, do you remember?

Wallace Lytle:
No, it wasn’t. I’ve had challenges before. I didn’t have any problem with it.

Ryan MacIvor:
Did you have any quota to meet during the day?

Wallace Lytle:
No, you just kept moving, the best you could.

Ryan MacIvor:
What about... So tell me about your equipment. You used a D8 caterpillar?

Wallace Lytle:
We had all new equipment.

Ryan MacIvor:
All brand new?

Wallace Lytle:
Yeah.

Ryan MacIvor:
So did it break down much, or...?

Wallace Lytle:
No, we didn’t have a whole lot of... There was no major... in our outfit... We didn’t have any engine problem... I mean... we had a man from Caterpillar themselves there for several weeks, to help, I guess, so we’d done what they’d like to see us do, which was, probably, very important.

Ryan MacIvor:
Do you remember hearing other stories from the other companies, or the other regiments.? Did you meet any of the other men?

Wallace Lytle:
No. We were miles apart. In 15... It was supposed to be 1,500 and some miles, the first... Of course they started taking out some of the switchbacks... cut off here and there... they’ve got it down to something like 1,400 now. But there’s different avenues when you got into the mountains.

Ryan MacIvor:
So, what were some of the dangers you faced while you were up there?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, the trees. You had to watch when you was pushing them trees, you had to watch to see that they wasn’t coming back over you. That’s... that tree’s a hundred feet tall, they give you quite a wallop. There’s hardly any branches when you get in the thick forest, they was all on the top. If you’d hit them too hard, they could break it in the middle and one part go one way and the other part would fall back on you.

Ryan MacIvor:
Did that happen a lot?

Wallace Lytle:
Oh, it happened some, oh yeah.

Ryan MacIvor:
How did you blow off steam, or have fun while you were up there, at the end of the day? Did you fish, or...?

Wallace Lytle:
Oh, never, no. You had no equipment. Like I say, if they’d had people there... extra... that could’ve went fishing or hunting, or something like that, we wouldn’t have had all spam and dehydrated potatoes and pea soup, that all come in a tin container, like a five-gallon bucket. And that was all sealed. It was like the old coffee cans. You used to have a little wind-up thing on the side, and that’s how you opened them. And I used to carry one of them so you could heat some water or take a bath once in a while (laughs).

Ryan MacIvor:
So, tell me about those living conditions.

Wallace Lytle:
We lived in pup tents.

Ryan MacIvor:
How did you bathe? How often? How often did you bathe?

Wallace Lytle:
You was lucky to get a... You might just kind a [cold horse] if you crossed the stream and you was walking back... that get your... you know... just eh... you know, in the summer time, it wasn’t that seriously cold.

Ryan MacIvor:
And what about laundry. Did you do laundry often?

Wallace Lytle:
You had to do it on your own. There was no laundry service, that was for sure. You had to take care of your stuff.

Ryan MacIvor:
So in terms of... did you read any books while you were up there, write letters home?

Wallace Lytle:
Oh, I wrote lots of letters home. But no books. You had no time.

Ryan MacIvor:
So, you built bridges. You pile-drove, as you said. Do you remember those bridges?

Wallace Lytle:
I can’t remember. A lot of them had no names on them, you know, they were just streams, little creeks here and there. And then some... there was a lot of... there’s a lot of river bridges up there.

Ryan MacIvor:
So when you drove your bulldozer up to the banks, what happened next?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, you crossed... you crossed wherever you was able to cross, where the water weren’t too deep. That’s the only way you got across. We did do that.

Ryan MacIvor:
So how long did it take you to build a bridge, on average?

Wallace Lytle:
Oh, it varied cause every one seemed to be different. And if it was rock, you made a different base, wherever your center... wherever the flow, you made a taper there so the water would glance around it. Then you’d fill that inner circle with rock to hold it there. And you’d cable that rock to whatever you could find to fasten it too, that wasn’t in the river. They’re not all rivers, there just some small wherever there was water running, we had to build a bridge of some kind.

Ryan MacIvor:
And were they tough to build?

Wallace Lytle:
Oh, it was heavy work and time consuming. It was all... there was no automatic equipment, any nail drivers or anything like that. Didn’t even have any... I’ve heard people say: “I bet you had a lot of chain saws up there.” The chain saw wasn’t invented then. They had some air-powered ones, but they didn’t last very long.

Ryan MacIvor:
So, was there any similarities between building a bridge and building a road, or was it completely different?

Wallace Lytle:
Oh yes, it was different, totally different, that’s right. Every bridge is a little bit different too. And how far away the timber was... You had to drag that in, you didn’t haul that in. There was no trucks. A truck couldn’t maneuver in those areas.

Ryan MacIvor:
Did you take pride in what you did?

Wallace Lytle:
I think, I think we did. Yeah. No, there was no goofing off. You didn’t have any 10-minute coffee breaks. There was no such thing. You were there to work and that’s what we did.

Ryan MacIvor:
Do you remember the northern lights?

Wallace Lytle:
Yes sir.

Ryan MacIvor:
What do you remember about them?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, it kinda... remember... if you just have a series of... like a storm coming up, just thunder storms. And they just shine on a... just so many more places than a thunder, a lightning would be - just light up the sky. I mean, not totally, but you could definitely tell there was something.

Ryan MacIvor:
Do you remember the hot springs?

Wallace Lytle:
No, I never got into that.

Ryan MacIvor:
You never got into the hot springs?

Wallace Lytle:
No. I knew there was. There was thermo... they heat buildings from far off that way. (interruption, someone at the door talking about going to the mall). Yeah, that’s my son Jim. He’s a wonderful kid, son.

Ryan MacIvor:
You have a construction company right now, don’t you?

Wallace Lytle:
Yes sir.

Ryan MacIvor:
Someone told me that you still work.

Wallace Lytle:
Oh, I worked till nine o’clock the day before we started down here.

Ryan MacIvor:
Really? And you’re how old? Your 86?

Wallace Lytle:
I’m 86.

Ryan MacIvor:
And you still run a caterpillar?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, we got two Champion graders that are good size there. They weigh 25 tons a piece. And we got a smaller Gallion grader, that we do odd jobs with too. But we’re spread out pretty wide. My son John, he runs one of the graders and... reclaimer and... we’ve got about a 100 pieces of equipment.

Ryan MacIvor:
Um... I just got to... (interruption in the recording.)

Wallace Lytle:
We’ve done the finish, and the basement work and the asphalt work.

Ryan MacIvor:
So, have you ever been back up on the highway, Wallace?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, yes. My wife and I took a trip 47 years after we, after I was up there... Inside Passage, and we went up the Scenic Railroad, and back the Inside Passage. And we drove to Dawson Creek from Fairbanks, err... Fairbanks to...

Ryan MacIvor:
Dawson City?

Wallace Lytle:
Dawson City... No... on south there... huh... my oh my... I can’t say that now...

Ryan MacIvor:
So, are there any memories that go through your mind when you went back up there?

Wallace Lytle:
Oh, I... There’s a lot of different formations. I mean, you get into Alaska, where the Gold Rush... there were trails there visible (Referring to Dawson City?) that was built in the Gold Rush days. But you take the southern end off of Dawson Creek there, and it wasn’t long leave, you didn’t see any evidence of anybody that had every been there. Some of the river bottoms, we took out some huge trees. They was flooded, there was floods over the years and that silted in around the roots of certain trees and that was really something... some of those trees were three feet in diameter. That took a lot of digging around. You didn’t just walk up to them and push them over.

Ryan MacIvor:
So what did you think about the North?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, it’s beautiful country. I guess if we ever get short of water in our part of the world, you go up there and all those clear-bottom lakes and all those rivers, it might be the only way that you’re going to survive, with all the pollution we have here.

Ryan MacIvor:
Do you remember the people you worked with on the highway?

Wallace Lytle:
I can’t name too many of them anymore, but some of them are right down here, that I worked with.

Ryan MacIvor:
What about your tent mates.

Wallace Lytle:
Well, I haven’t heard from him for years.

Ryan MacIvor:
And what was his name, do you remember?

Wallace Lytle:
Clyde Lashaway.

Ryan MacIvor:
And do you remember where he was from?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, he was raised in Utah, and... We got a Christmas card once from him when he was in Michigan, but we lost contact. We never... never...

Ryan MacIvor:
Did he work on a cat as well?

Wallace Lytle:
Yeah, yeah.

Ryan MacIvor:
Cause you were, like you say, in a cat camp?

Wallace Lytle:
Yeah.

Ryan MacIvor:
Is there any other sort of memories that I haven’t touched on, that you like to share?

Wallace Lytle:
No, it was mainly a work project, and that’s what we made it, a work project. We didn’t... we didn’t think, well, we just do this today and forget it... just leave it... We just kept working. I don’t think we every had anybody desert the outfit. I never heard about him. As far I was away from our company, I didn’t get paid for six months because I wasn’t there to sign the payroll. You always have to sign the payroll to get paid. Well, I got my money, but I went a whole lot... (knock at the door, interruption in recording)
...that I know off. Well, Hall-boy, he was our cook, one of them. (Referring to Charles Hall)

Ryan MacIvor:
He did a good job of the canned food?

Wallace Lytle:
For what he had to work with, yeah. One of the others, he’s passed away, but Charlie Hall, he’s still... yeah... They can’t make... They didn’t have any ovens... We didn’t have any roast beef and that sort of thing. It was all spam and... There was... The potatoes were all dehydrated, pea soup... nothing that you would ever get in a restaurant that I’ve ever been.

Ryan MacIvor:
When you, um... Do you remember getting the call back, to say that you were gonna go back home?

Wallace Lytle:
Well they... I don’t know who picked out that we could go back and form a new outfit. I don’t know who... It had to be the officers. But just who they were, I never knew.

Ryan MacIvor:
When you left Dawson Creek, do you remember leaving, finishing the highway and leaving?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, they still had... they had... there was still... I mean, the highway was open, but there’s always this and that to fix too. Whether you get into the mountains and making the passes wider, or some of the hills not quite so steep. They said there wouldn’t be anything over four per cent grade, but I’m sure that was... It might have ended up that way but it wasn’t always that way.

Ryan MacIvor:
Is there anything else that I might have missed?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, we did have permafrost. We did end up running into that on some of the north slopes, and that is very treacherous. I mean, that’s... You hear on the news, they have a tremendous amount of rain, maybe in California or somewhere where it’s mountainous, and trees and everything, earth just slides down the hill, closes the road. Well, you get on permanent frost, I don’t care what kind of equipment you got, that is very dangerous, cause you got no control over your machine. It just slides with you. And if you try to drill up with air compressors, then you have a time... a hard time blowing that what you’re digging, that’ll melt, and it just don’t blow out like rock. See, mostly when you’re trying to... You can get through clay, but when you get into rock that’s thick and hard, you’ve got to use dynamite and you’ve got to drill holes to get the dynamite in the holes. That’s why we could blow out these muskegs, because you could just take a pole and skin the bark off of it and wiggle it around and put your dynamite right in there, just trample it over a little bit, and...

Ryan MacIvor:
I’m sure it made a hell of a mess...

Wallace Lytle:
What?

Ryan MacIvor:
I’m sure it made a hell of a mess.

Wallace Lytle:
Well, it... There was no buildings around, there was no people around, there was no danger to anybody. The men that was doing it, you knew what to do and get out of there. Give yourself clearance and nobody got hurt. Today, if you had a rock out here or a place you had to drill, you couldn’t use dynamite because you couldn’t control it. Well, you could if you’re a truly expert.

Ryan MacIvor:
What um... Is there... Wallace, do you have any pictures, journals, the letters from home, poetry, old newspapers, or other pieces of information that you might be willing to share with us?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, I’d have some pictures, I suppose... so many of my pictures... I did have a pretty decent camera when I was up there, but then I gave... I get pictures made and I give it to this guy or that guy and I ended up with a bunch of film that was scratched and ended up with very poor pictures. I had hundreds of pictures, but, you don’t have the cameras you got today, or the film.

Ryan MacIvor:
Would you be willing to share those pictures with us?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, I might some of them. I wanna keep some of them, my family probably would. I’d be here...

Ryan MacIvor:
We’re just pretty much done, Wallace. Is there... I guess in terms of the interview, that’s it for now. That’s what I have for you for questions. You’ve given me quite a bit of information and some of your stories...

Wallace Lytle:
How does mine go with... cause, Mr. Snyder, you see, he wasn’t with me at all while I was on the highway. But I remember him from back... getting there, but... he didn’t run equipment that I know of. They had jeeps and weapons carriers, six-by-sixes. They had to have them to get their men out of the... Every night, if you wanted a dry bed, you cut a bunch of those small trees and laid down and laid on those limbs, to keep your blankets dry. That’s the only way you could... and my theory is, I don’t care how they... I know there’s a lot of math and that, but they’ve got to be on the job to learn, and that’s what they haven’t done.

Ryan MacIvor:
So your experience in building a highway...

Wallace Lytle:
Well, that started me. I can see, when you make these fills, they’ve got to be done right, or you’re gonna have trouble from then on. The compaction, you’ve got to understand that. And you’ve got to understand the moisture content. That has so much to do with whether you’re gonna get the compaction you need.

Ryan MacIvor:
One thing I didn’t mention here was the corduroy roads.

Wallace Lytle:
Well that’s... physically, that was probably one of the hardest jobs there was.

Ryan MacIvor:
That was what, cutting the trees and...

Wallace Lytle:
(interrupts) carrying them. You just can’t imagine how tiring and how heavy that was. Where you was carrying them was not like out here on the street, or even a gravel road, or anything like that, it was just... just mud and tremendous hard work. I would say it’s close to slave labour. For a way we was... I think they could have done some better, the way they fed us... I don’t say you’re much overweight, but you’re some. I’m not here to criticize you, but men that came in, about your built, soon lost 10, 15, 20 pounds. And we had a serious... got yellow jaundice. Have you ever been around anybody that had that? I’ll tell you, it’ll take something out of them. I never happened to get it, but I’ve seen... from guys that... it was really hell for them to keep going. Just tired, wore out. Young men. In fact, I’ve been the oldest man to the reunion for the last... I don’t know how many years now. Some of them are very close to my age. I don’t mean I’m a 100 years old and they’re 70 or 80, but, this... How it happened, I don’t know that either.

Ryan MacIvor:
So how old were you when you joined up with the...?

Wallace Lytle:
I’ve been 22, I guess.

Ryan MacIvor:
You would have been 22... What would have you done... I guess my... one of the last questions I have is... I’ve been sort of listening to everything and looking back here. What would have you done differently?

Wallace Lytle:
I’m satisfied with my life. I don’t need to work now.

Ryan MacIvor:
You still do though?

Wallace Lytle:
I do. I wanted to make... I never got to college, but I wanted to make sure my boys and my daughters did, and they all have. I’ve got two grandsons, err... a grandson and a granddaughter that’s in college. I hope I’ve helped them and I hope I can continue to help the rest of them. I’m not here to... I never went off on a golfing tour or stuff like that. When we had work to do, I was there to help.

Ryan MacIvor:
Is there anything else that I haven’t touched on? Any stories that you can remember?

Wallace Lytle:
No, not up there. I think we’ve covered that pretty good. I don’t say I covered everything that we’ve done. I wasn’t at every project, that’s for sure. See, they ran into quicksand too that had to be dealt with, and... You couldn’t get in there with big equipment, with quicksand, you just keep going down. Just watery, miserable ground to work with, is what it is. You take any place there’s peat bogs, there was a lake. I had at our college [Wuster] there in my hometown. It wasn’t many years after I got back, that they had a hearing there, it was on a weekend, and I went too. And this professor, he talked about the Alaskan Highway and why these were there and that’s why he brought that up. There’s a clay bottom that holds the water and then over the years and years and years of foliage and grass and weeds and whatever, makes that material, that’s what you end up with. Whether that’s 20 feet deep or four feet deep, or, I don’t know. We had them up there they said they was 25 and 30 feet deep. We had no way to really measure that. Although, [? the poles] all we could ever have.

Ryan MacIvor:
So when you left Canada and went back down to the States, what rank were you when you left?

Wallace Lytle:
Sergeant.

Ryan MacIvor:
So you... So, by the time... Your time up in Canada (WL: I was a Master Sergeant), you went from (WL: PFC) Private First Class(WL: well, we made... Private First Class) up to Sergeant.

Wallace Lytle:
Yeah.

Ryan MacIvor:
So you went through the ranks in a very short time?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, I guess too, yeah. Well, a lot of them. In 1,200 men, there’s only two Master Sergeants, in the two battalions.

Ryan MacIvor:
Now you went from there, you went over to Europe?

Wallace Lytle:
Well, I was in the States for... We formed a new outfit there.

Ryan MacIvor:
What was the new outfit?

Wallace Lytle:
1261st.

Ryan MacIvor:
And that was an engineering outfit?

Wallace Lytle:
Yeah. Landed in England, went from there to... cross the Channel, Europe... France, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg and Germany.

Ryan MacIvor:
So, did you... Was it the Battle of the Bulge that you were with?

Wallace Lytle:
We were that, but not in the 1261st that I was in over there. Yeah, the 341st is recognized as one of the... They had this big doings down at Fort Leonard (Wood), Missouri, and presented us with the big plaque and it will be there forever. Not everybody got that, by any means.

Ryan MacIvor:
When you look back with your regiment, with the 341st. Good bunch of men?

Wallace Lytle:
Good bunch. Good men, yeah.

Ryan MacIvor:
Good memories, good friends?

Wallace Lytle:
Oh yes. Yeah, we just lost Leo Moody. I was in base... in camp with him from the start. He was from Kansas, a wonderful man. His family, I learned to know his brother and his sister. When we had the... they had the annual reunion at Wuster, his sister... he wasn’t in very good health... and his sister came and she writes to us and she’s just one of the family anymore now. And different ones that way. Hell, there’s even some of the grandchildren are coming to the 341st reunion. There’s some of the mothers and granddaughters here, sons, that dad isn’t able to come or he’s gone. That’s how... it’s just... When you read or hear on the news, they say how many World War II veterans are dying every day, you know, we can’t last forever. But, it’s a job we had to do. And anybody who hasn’t seen a war-torn country don’t... it’s something nobody can tell you what it’s like. Some of these countries that’s been at war practically all their lives. I can’t imagine what’s it’s like either, but... I saw what Europe was like. And see, people will say too: “What are they building that road up there for? Ain’t nobody up there.” Well, did they remember that the Aleutian Islands were invaded by the Japanese? You talk to them, they don’t know that. I don’t know if there’s much in the history. One of John, my son John’s, neighbors, his boy, wanted to write a letter, or had to write a letter to school for some reason now, I can’t remember now, but this goes back several years ago. And how he knew that I had this book about the Alaskan Highway. And he took it and he wrote a nice write-up, he’s a pretty smart boy, and his teacher didn’t know anything about the Alaskan Highway.

Ryan MacIvor:
Really?

Wallace Lytle:
Yeah, that’s how little they study their history. And that’s what I say about... some of the engineers, they’ve got to get out on the job, whatever it is, to know what’s gonna work or what’s not. Different soils, it’s got so much to do with what it takes to build a highway. The drainage... something that’s gonna last, it can be done. You take the railroad bridges. How many times have you seen a railroad bridge being rebuilt?

Ryan MacIvor:
I don’t know.

Wallace Lytle:
How many?

Ryan MacIvor:
None.

Wallace Lytle:
I bet you can’t name me one. Now you can in Canada, where they had them built of native wood, over a big ravine. When we was on our way up there, like I said, it’d stop the train and they’d get out and see if it looked like it was safe to cross. They had water barrels at the end, so that the wooden structures, with a forest fire or something like that, maybe they could put it out. It was just like the old farmer, he had spouting on his house or barn, he had a rain barrel there and that’s where you get the good [?] water if you had a well that didn’t produce good water.

Ryan MacIvor:
Wallace, I don’t have anymore questions for you, so...

Wallace Lytle:
Well, I get down to the boys, and... spend another day and tomorrow we’re gonna leave for home, so...

Ryan MacIvor:
Sure. Well, I don’t want to take up any more of your time. I would just like you to tell me your name again, just for the record...

Wallace Lytle:
My name, and where I’m from or anything...?

Ryan MacIvor:
You bet.

Wallace Lytle:
I’m Wallace Lytle. I was with the 341st on the Alaskan Highway. And I think we’ve done a pretty good job. So, I know there was a lot of hard work.

Ryan MacIvor:
This interview is June 21st, is it 21st now?, yes, in Nashville, Tennessee.

Wallace Lytle:
This interview is on June 21st, 1903... (laughs) 2003, excuse me.

Ryan MacIvor:
Excellent.

Table of Contents   Next