United States Coast Guard Construction Detachment A Camp

 Second World War 1939-1945, campsite / caravan site, United States Coast Guard

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Construction Detachment A (Unit 26) was organized to complete the Bering Sea chain and to construct the Western Aleutians (Alaska) LORAN chain. These two chains were constructed first due to the poor to severe weather conditions in the Aleutians. The unit was subsequently transferred to the Central Pacific to construct the Marshall Island chain and later perform the work of converting the previously completed Hawaiian, Phoenix, and Marshall chains from DC to AC power.

This was to be particularly difficult construction job, as the materials and equipment would have to be moved 11 miles by barge from Massacre Bay to a landing of an extremely rocky beach on the tip of Theodore Point. From there a road would have to be constructed having grades of from 10% to 15%, and with the last mile passing over an abrupt 1600-foot hill. It was apparent that the heavy gales would delay transportation of the supplies and equipment, and that most of the work would have to be done when there was from 7 to 10 feet of snow on the ground.

One of the three HD-10 bulldozers was rigged as a caterpillar to pull a bobsled designed by CBM William Goodwin to carry 20 tons. Even this rig could not get over the steepest part of the route until a road with two switchbacks had been built there. While working on the road, one of the bulldozer operators was killed when his bulldozer rolled down the side of the mountain. He was William A. Baughman, S1C Baughman Cove to the immediate west of Theodore Point was named in his honor.

It was 11 January when the first sled load reached the station site, but from that time on, cargo was hauled over the mountains 24 hours of the day, despite the bad weather, and was even moved at night when the wind was blowing forty knots and the snow so thick that the “cat” operator could hardly see the controls. The average time for a round trip from landing to station site was four hours. No temporary camp was built on the site, for that would have meant more building material to handle, so until the time when two of the permanent huts were erected, the men who worked at the station site hiked from the camp at the landing three and one half miles over the mountain in two feet of snow before dawn, and then returned the same way after it turned dark. As fast as quarters were put up at the station site, the men moved in.

Three weeks after the first of the cargo was hauled to the site the construction was completed, except for a few minor details. The hauling of fuel continued for another week, as 800 drums of fuel had been left for the station. The station was on air and testing 11 February, 1944.

www.uscg.mil/history/stations/loran_volume_2.pdf
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