Chester Russell: A Company
35th Engineer (Combat) Battalion
Northern France - Rhineland - Ardennes/Alsace - Central Europe
Mr. Russell was a "cat-skinner", or bulldozer operator, while on the Alaskan-Canadian Highway project. He served through the duration of the war in A Company. Years later he wrote a book about his exploits on the Alcan entitled, "Tales of a Catskinner". You may purchase a copy of his book by following the "links" section of this site.
Highway Hospital
This story is about a young man of Company A, 35th Army Engineers, whose name was Moore.
While pioneering the Alaskan Highway in the year of 1942, Moore was one of Sergeant Bailey's men who blazed the trail for us "cat-skinners" [dozer operators]. I don't remember how many men were in Bailey's crew for sure. The ones I do remember are Moore, Grice, Lofton and Sergeant Bailey.
It was during the summer when Bailey and his crew were walking back to camp when the accident happened. We were dozing trees down and cleaning the right-of-way. Bailey's crew were walking behind the tractor, at what I thought was a safe distance. Somehow a limb went back over the tractor and hit Moore and knocked him unconscious. We worked with him for quite some time trying to snap him out of it while one of the men went back to the "cat camp" to radio for Dr. Stotts. It took the doctor quite some time to get to us. The jeep he was riding got stuck about two miles from the cat camp and he had to walk about three or four miles to where Moore lay hurt.
When he got there, he knelt down beside Moore and the first thing he did was check Moore's eyes. Then he looked up at us and said, "Fellows, Moore has a clot on the brain." He then explained to us as he held the left eye lid open, "This eye you see is clear." Then he held the right eye open and it looked to me as if there was no life in it. The doctor explained to us where he thought the blood clot was likely to be located was behind the left ear. "There are several blood vessels that cross over each other like railroad tracks," was the way he explained it to us. "If we don't operate, Moore going to die. There is no way we can get him out of here in time to save him. So if you fellows are willing to help me, we will operate." We told him we would and then he said that he didn't have the proper tools for that type of operation. "I am going to need a 3/8 inch brace and bit, a hack saw blade, a pair of pliers, and an eye dropper." I don't remember if he had his own knives or if he used a razor blade. I think he used a razor blade. I know that he did a great job laying the skin back so that he could drill into the skull. He drilled three holes into the skull in a triangle pattern, then taking a piece of hack saw blade with the pliers, he cut out the bone between the holes. It wasn't long after that when he told us that the pressure was released, and of course, that made us feel good.
Then we got busy and cleared the brush and logs from around Moore, got him on a cot, and put a tent over him.
Dr. Stotts and his medics stayed with Moore and we went on with our work. Everyday we would get a report from the doctor about how Moore was doing. Everything was going good until the fourth day when we got word that fluid was building up on Moore's lungs and that he was going to die. I cannot remember if Lieutenant Ammon was with us when we did the operation, but the way I got the story, Lt. Ammon wanted to know why we couldn't rig up an air compressor and suck the fluid from Moore's lungs. Dr. Stotts told Ammon if he could rig the air compressor, "Let's do it." And they did.
It was a few days later we got to go back and visit Moore. He was sitting up talking to us and getting along fine. Then up jumped the devil. The word had gotten out that we had performed this operation under those crude conditions. Staff officers moved in and took over. I don't know if they were medical officers or not. Dr. Stotz sent word to us that they had court-martialed him for doing the operation and they were going to fly Moore out to Seattle. He also told us that if they flew him out now that the pressure would kill him. He died a few hours of Seattle.
