Opening of the Whittier Tunnel, 1942-1943
Holing through ceremonies on November 20, 1942. Otto F. Ohlson, General Manager of the Alaska Railroad (left), shakes hands with Maj. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, Jr. (right), after holing through blast.
“Watch your Step.” Climbing over debris after the final blast. Tunnel holing through ceremonies, November 20, 1942. Alaska Railroad Cut Off, Alaska.
By Bruce Parham
On November 21, 1942, the Anchorage Daily Times announced the holing through of the Whittier tunnel through a rock formation to provide access to the new port of Whittier on Passage Canal, an arm of Prince William Sound. The most prominent headline of the November 21st edition declared, “Open Alaska Railroad Whittier Tunnel.”
Whittier is located east of Seward on Passage Canal in Prince William Sound, and today is accessible via an eleven-mile side road from the Seward Highway. In 1998, the Whittier Tunnel, later renamed as the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel, was modified to handle both railroad and vehicle traffic. In 2000, the tunnel was opened to public access, and connects Whittier to Anchorage. Whittier, the gateway to Prince William Sound, has more than 700,000 visitors annually, and is one of the state’s largest tourist attractions.
The holing through ceremony was covered by the Anchorage Daily Times on November 21 and 23, the extracts of which were published in pamphlet form (Holing Through. The Whittier Tunnel, November 20, 1942). On November 23, the Times editorialized in a patriotic, but partially racist, view of the project’s importance for the war effort and Alaska’s future development. It stated, in part:
“HOLING THROUGH the Whittier railroad tunnel is a milestone to the development of Alaska.
Done six months ahead of schedule, the 13,000-foot hole stands as a permanent answer to the Japanese menace, to the scoffers who said it was ‘impossible’ and to those people who plan to make Alaska their home in future years.
The tunnel tells the slant-eyed Jap that Uncle Sam is going to keep his forces supplied in Alaska and has no intention of leaving the great Northland vulnerable to the rape of the yellow hordes.
It muffles forever the scoffers who said it was physically impossible or economically impractical to run a tunnel two and one-half miles through glacier-covered mountains.
It vindicates those proponents of the project who had the vision to see its military and economic necessity as well as its physical practicality.
It promises Alaskans cheaper transportation that permits greater industrial activity, lower living costs and permanent development.” [1]
The work at Whittier required boring a railroad tunnel 13,900 feet long (Whittier Tunnel), constructing a dock and terminal facility at Portage, building a shorter tunnel (Portage Tunnel, later called Moraine Tunnel, 4,910 feet long, on the west side of the project close to the moraine of nearby Portage Glacier), and the laying of fourteen miles of railroad track from Portage to Whittier. The two tunnels were separated by Bear Valley and drilled through the Chugach Mountains.
As World War II progressed, the U.S. Army needed additional ports to move troops and to handle the increased freight tonnages of war materials and equipment that were shipped to Alaska and to provide an alternative port if Seward became inaccessible. Most construction supplies to meet the needs of the Alaska supply effort had to be shipped from Seattle by sea, and Alaska itself lacked a land-based transportation infrastructure of harbor facilities, airports, railroads, and highways, which was being quickly assembled by the U.S Army Corps of Engineers. [2]
Originally, Seward had been the port for all of Southcentral Alaska. The Seward-Portage line carried the Alaska Railroad’s peacetime commercial traffic, but it was incapable of handling much military traffic without a major reconstruction. With the onset of war, though, the War Department determined that the rail line running from Seward to Portage, nearly 100 miles in length, made it vulnerable. As then Colonel Benjamin Talley, Officer in Charge, Alaska Construction, later wrote, “There was a large wooden trestle on the Alaska Railroad between Anchorage and Seward. Had this been destroyed, Southcentral would have been cut off from most shipping. Whittier was closer to Anchorage, and it was decided to construct an extension of the railroad from Portage to Whittier.” [3]
In Southcentral Alaska, this second port, Whittier, provided a safer, more secure life line to Alaska on the route which became Alaska’s main supply link for the war effort. The rail line ran from tidewater on Prince William Sound, then west 14.2 miles across the narrow neck of the Kenai Peninsula to Portage at the head of Turnagain Arm. Whittier, as a rail port, reduced exposure of the life line to Alaska. The rail line cutoff to Whittier reduced exposure of ships to Japanese submarines and was safer from air attacks than the Seward route. With the Whittier port in operation, the Alaska Railroad avoided the 50-mile mountainous section of railroad grades between Seward and Portage. The Whittier port, navigable year-round by ocean vessels, provided a shortcut to a new and improved deep water outlet on Passage Canal (a trip to Seward added 52 more miles). [4]
The importance of a railroad route between Turnagain Arm and Passage Canal was realized much earlier by the builders of the Alaska Central Railway, but it was not until 1914 when a seven-man topographical party carefully mapped this route for the Alaskan Engineering Commission. As described by historian William H. Wilson:
“The party noted Passage Canal’s drenching rains but saw no obstacles to port, townsite, and terminal developments. Portage Glacier, the team reported, had receded and was no longer an obstacle to construction. A track through Kenai Peninsula’s neck was possible if the railroad bored beneath the mountains 13,005 feet through the eastern mass, 4,960 feet through the western. The A.E.C.’s preliminary survey was so well executed that the line, completed twenty years later, covered almost exactly the same ground.” [5]
In 1939, surveyors Porter Berryhill and Earl Grammar of the Alaska Railroad reexamined the proposed 1914 route. Based on their results, the entire Whittier Project was authorized by Congress in 1941, with an appropriation of $5,300,000 for the drilling of two tunnels, fourteen miles of new line for the Alaska Railroad, and the construction of a terminal on Portage Canal. The project was an effort to improve the handling capacity of the overtaxed Alaska Railroad, which began at Seward on the southern coast and ran to Fairbanks in the northern interior. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers signed a contract with the West Construction Company of Boston, Massachusetts to perform most of the work. [6]
In the spring of 1941, survey parties under the direction of Olavi “Ole” Kukkola and Anton Anderson determined the final locations for the two tunnels, railroad, and terminal. From a camp at Portage Valley, Kukkola surveyed the south to the north end of the proposed Whittier Tunnel. Establishing a camp at Whittier, the engineers from Anderson’s party surveyed a site for the terminal, and determined the route from Whittier to the south portion of the Portage Tunnel. Despite hazardous mountain and glacier climbing, severe wind and rain, and poor inter-camp communication, the preliminary survey work was completed over the summer. [7]
In 1941, West Construction Company crews began working at the Passage Canal site, but their progress was hampered by a shortage of workers and supplies. By the spring of 1942, rapid progress was made at the Whittier Tunnel, but not at the Portage Tunnel, where a lack of power to operate the equipment slowed construction. By October 1942, good progress had been made on both tunnels. Progress reports indicated that the men expected to “hole through” on the Portage Tunnel the first week in November and on the Whittier Tunnel two weeks later. Work on the rail bed began in the summer of 1941, and continued through the winter, with crews clearing ten to fifteen-foot snow drifts, and regularly working in winds from twenty to thirty miles per hour and zero temperatures. In the fall of 1942, the West Construction Company, Alaska Railroad, and troops from the 42nd and 177th Engineer General Service Regiments and the 714th Railroad Battalion laid the track from Portage to Whittier. Other work was completed on the dock, terminal, port facilities, and an army garrison.
On June 1, 1943, the Whittier rail line opened with train connections to Anchorage and to Fairbanks. Once the military port of Whittier opened, plans had called for abandoning the rail line between Seward and Portage. Interior Secretary Harold Ickes ordered that the Seward-Portage route not be closed, and it was kept in operation.
Despite difficult working and living conditions and washed out bridges, West Construction Company crews completed the project six months ahead of schedule. In an elaborate ceremony on March 10, 1943, the West Construction Company was presented with the Army-Navy Production Award or “E” Pennant, the highest award given to private industry for meritorious service. [8]
In 1944, it was estimated by Otto Ohlson, General Manager of the Alaska Railroad, that the Whittier cutoff allowed the Alaska Railroad to carry “approximately 75 percent more freight traffic with existing equipment than would have been possible through the Seward Gateway.” [9]
References
Milestone” [Editorial], Anchorage Daily Times, November 23, 1942, 2; and Souvenir Booklet, Holing Through the Whittier Tunnel, November 20, 1942; Drawer 2, File No. 68: “Ceremonies--Whittier (Holing through/dedication),” Alaska Railroad Photograph Collection, Anchorage Museum (B1979.002).
William F. Willingham, Northwest Passages: A History of the Seattle District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Volume II, 1920-1970 (Seattle: Seattle District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 1992-2006), 37; https://cdm16021.contentdm.oclc.org/utils/getfile/collection/p16021coll4/id/152 (accessed January 4, 2020).
Benjamin B. and Virginia M. Talley, “Building Alaska’s Defenses in World War II,” In Alaska at War, 1941-1945: The Forgotten War Remembered, Fern Chandonnet, ed. (Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2008), 63.
Charles Hendricks, Engineer Memoirs: Brigadier General Benjamin B. Talley (Fort Belvoir, VA: Office of History, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 1994, 115; File No. 7: Charles Hendricks Interview, 1994; Benjamin B. Talley Papers, 1925-2002 (HMC-0241), Box 6; Archives and Special Collections, Consortium Library, University of Alaska Anchorage.
William H. Wilson, Railroad in the Clouds: The Alaska Railroad in the Age of Steam, 1914-1945 (Boulder, Co.: Pruett Publishing Co., 1977, 253.
On June 8, 1941, a cost-plus-fee contract was negotiated with the West Construction Company at the estimated contract cost of $3,110,206. There were supplemental agreements to the prime contract, in the amount of $7,774,236 for other phases of the Whittier Project. James D. Bush, Jr., Narrative Report of Alaska Construction, 1941-1944 (Anchorage: Construction Division Office, 1944), 122-125.
Lisa Mighetto and Carla Homstad, Engineering in the Far North: A History of the U.S. Army Engineer District in Alaska, 1887-1992 (Missoula, MT: Historical Research Associates, Inc., 1997), 64-68. See also, Anton A. Anderson to Major A.E. McDermott, “Report of Work Accomplished by South End Survey Party, Passage Canal, from May 15th to July 2, 1941,” July 14, 1941, pp. 1-5, U.S. Engineer Camp, Portage Survey [Alaska]; File No. 1, Whittier Tunnel Construction Papers, 1941; Olavi V. Kukkola Papers, 1941-1964 (HMC-1084), Box 1; Archives and Special Collections, Consortium Library, University of Alaska Anchorage.
Mighetto and Homstad, Engineering in the Far North, 68; and File No. 82: Whittier Tunnel Holing Through Ceremony Programs; Presentation Ceremony, March 10, 1943, Army-Navy Production Award, January 9, 1943, to West Construction Company, Whittier Cut-Off, Alaska Railroad; Benjamin B. Talley Papers, 1925-2002 (HMC-0241), Box 3; Archives and Special Collections, Consortium Library, University of Alaska Anchorage.
Wilson, Railroad in the Clouds, 253.
Photo References
Alaska Railroad Photograph Collection, Anchorage Museum (B1979.002.1806).
Alaska Railroad Photograph Collection, Anchorage Museum (B1979.002.5904).