On top of Mt Ballyhoo on Amaknak Island
Winter 1942Dearest Reader,
This photo tells more of my father’s story in the Aleutians.
On the back of the photo, my father wrote:
“ON TOP OF MT. BALLYHOO (BARRACKS HOUSING HQ BTRY 264TH CA) ON AMAKNAK ISLAND OVERLOOKING DUTCH HARBOR IN ALEUTIAN ISLANDS WINTER OF ’43”
This placed my father on Mount Ballyhoo, the steep volcanic rise that towers above Amaknak Island and Dutch Harbor. At its summit stood the barracks and headquarters of Battery 6, 264th Coast Artillery.
By the winter of 1943, when this photograph was taken, the Aleutian Campaign was still very much part of daily life. The harbor had been attacked the previous summer, and the occupation of Attu and Kiska had underscored how real the threat was.
The winter of 1943 was not incidental. Aleutian winters were relentless. Snow, ice, freezing rain and dense fog combined with high winds made Mount Ballyhoo an unforgiving place to live and work. Barracks perched high above the harbor offered visibility, but little comfort. The cold seeped into everything, isolation was magnified by weather that could ground planes and delay ships for weeks at a time.
Both photos reflect where my dad was stationed, at the far edge of the nation, standing guard in a place few Americans ever saw. From the top of Mount Ballyhoo, in the winter of 1943, my father captured the world he inhabited: cold, isolated and exposed
Dr. Nancy Watson
Washington
Read More From Nancy
The G.I. Bill: A New Promise for a Generation
Among the papers my parents left behind is this Veterans Administration application for educational benefits under the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, better known as the G.I. Bill. At first glance, it is simply a government form. But in many ways, it is one of the most important documents in twentieth-century American history. Signed into […]
Six Days After Pearl Harbor
In another passage of her December 13, 1941 letter, my grandmother reveals how personally the attack on Pearl Harbor was being felt, even far from Hawaii. The war was no longer an abstract headline, it had names, faces and families attached to it. She wrote: “Vincent McDowell was at Schofield Barracks in Honolulu. Mrs McDowell […]
Dr. Woods – Ophthalmologist
“I would like to get you under Dr Woods who, I understand, is the head of the Wilmer Institute” Dr Alan Woods was one of the most respected ophthalmologists of the mid-20th century and a leading figure in American eye medicine. A graduate of Johns Hopkins, Woods trained under the pioneering ophthalmologist William Wilmer and went […]
