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Castner's Cutthroats

(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Castner's Cutthroats was the unofficial name for the 1st Alaskan 
Combat Intelligence Platoon (Provisional), also known as Alaskan 
Scouts. Castner's Cutthroats fought during World War II and were 
instrumental in defeating theJapanese during the Battle of the 
Aleutian Islands. The unit was composed of just sixty-five men selected 
to perform reconnaissance missions in the Aleutian Islands during 
the war.  Ed Walker, the last surviving member of Castner's Cutthroats, 
died on October 28, 2011, at the age of 94

in Anchorage, Alaska.

The last three surviving members of Castner's Cutthroats – 

Ed Walker (left), Earl Acuff (center), and Billy Buck - at the 

Anchorage Museum of Natural History

in 2008 for an opening of an exhibition.

Veteran Robert Ingram Recalls Battle in Aleutian Islands
by Jeff Richardson / jrichardson@newsminer.com
November 20, 2011


 

Six of the Fairbanks area’s World War II veterans, now in their 80s 

and 90s, shared their war memories with Daily News-Miner journalists 

as the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor approaches. 

The series began on Veterans Day, continues for four Sundays and 

concludes on Dec. 7

FAIRBANKS — Using his cane as a pointer, Robert Ingram

gestures to a black-and-white picture among a sea of

photographs in his room at the Fairbanks Pioneers Home.

The photo is of a burly young man with a friendly smile, but

it’s the beard that Ingram points out. He grew it as a baby-

faced 21-year-old in Dutch Harbor, hoping it would make him

look older on a crew of grizzled construction workers.

The story behind the demise of that beard, however, shows

this was no ordinary job.

“They came around under martial law and made us shave,”

he said. “You can’t wear a gas mask with whiskers —

it won’t snug to your face.”

Ingram’s time in the Aleutians came during World War II, when

he was one of roughly 1,800 civilians employees assisting U.S.

Navy and Army personnel on the remote island. His time as a

shipwright at Dutch Harbor spanned June 3 to 4, 1942, when a

sudden Japanese air attack battered the island with bombs and

bullets. Seventy-eight Americans, both military and civilian, were

killed in the attack, part of a larger Japanese campaign to gain

leverage in the Pacific.

Ingram’s World War II service comes with a touch of irony. He

spent nearly three years in the Navy during the war, but his

combat experience came as a civilian working on U.S. soil.

His nine months in Dutch Harbor also left a lasting influence

during the decades that would follow. Ingram, 91, has returned

to Dutch Harbor about 10 times since the war ended to participate

in anniversaries and services, as he’s filled several thick photo

albums with those memories.

During World War II, the island housed about 9,000 soldiers,

sailors and Marines, who were stationed at a pair of hastily

built installations, Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base and

Fort Mears.

Those installations were abandoned soon after the war

ended, but the remnants of those military days also can

still be seen in modern Dutch Harbor. Old concrete

pillboxes are still scattered around the area, and large

divots remain on some hillsides where Japanese bombs

struck. The rusted bow of the Northwestern, a ship bombed

during the attack, pokes out of the water in a local bay.

Next year will be the 70th anniversary of the Dutch Harbor

bombing, but Ingram isn’t sure he’ll make it back again.

With each passing year, there are fewer people who have

memories of war in the Aleutians.

“It’s no reunion if you’re the only one,” he said.

Civilian life in a war zone

Ingram was working in an Oakland, Calif., shipyard before

the war began, helping modify cargo ships to transport

troops to Europe. But when the Pearl Harbor attack

happened, he asked where civilians were needed the most

to help the war effort and was directed to the unfamiliar

world of Dutch Harbor.

Ingram had just finished his apprenticeship and found that

was enough to win him a job among a group of carpenters

who had virtually no experience working on boats. With

high turnover among the civilian workforce — unlike

military personnel, they were free to leave the island —

Ingram was a foreman within a few months.

“I had an advantage, because I had a little background,”

said Ingram, who describes his time in the Aleutians in a

measured, thoughtful tone.

But not surprisingly, work conditions were wildly different

from the shipyards of Oakland. Dutch Harbor of 1942 was

under martial law, and military leaders had the final say

over many aspects of daily life. Civilian workers could be

arrested for everything from hoarding food to having

weapons, and their schedule was a 10-hour daily shift,

with no days off or holidays.

Even so, Ingram said there was little structured oversight

for civilians, a fact that immediately became clear when

the first Japanese Zero and Val fighter planes buzzed

over the base on the morning of June 3.

“Civilians are like a bunch of ducks that get shot at,” he

said. “They don’t know what direction to go.”

Ingram’s survival may have been due only to a change in

his daily ritual. His work group was assigned to a Quonset

hut as a bomb shelter — a poor choice for protection, he

noted — but he decided to walk from the mess hall after

breakfast instead of taking a truck.

About 10 minutes later, the Japanese unexpectedly arrived.

One of the first buildings bombed was the Quonset hut, which

was located next to a radio station the Zeros were targeting.

It quickly became clear that men had been killed, and

Ingram was immediately corralled by a panicky leader and

given a head-scratching order in the middle of an air raid:

It was time to build caskets. He still remembers the coffin

dimensions — 2 feet by 2 feet by 6 feet, using three-quarter-

inch plywood — that he worked on as explosions rattled the base.

By that afternoon, Ingram decided it was time to leave the

shop and see what was happening. He came across a piece

of heavy equipment excavating the bombed Quonset hut

and asked the operator what he was doing. They’d found

all of the dead crew members except three, he was told,

and they were searching for a young man in a checkered shirt.

“I said, ‘Well, that’s me,’” Ingram said.

When he came across his work superintendent, who was

in the process of identifying corpses, he got a similar

response. The man, named Cole Cummings, was certain

Ingram was on the truck carrying men to the doomed

Quonset hut.

“I said, ‘Cole, who are you looking for?’ And he was sure

I’d come back from the dead.”

Dutch Harbor was never a popular place for most civilians

and military workers, Ingram said, and the attack led several

men to abruptly leave the island. They sneaked aboard a

Navy destroyer and headed south soon after the raid.

Ingram said his Christian faith helped him as he lived in

a war zone. It left him unafraid, he said, even when he

made his bed in a foxhole beneath a 30-gallon barrel filled

with explosives when men were forced to evacuate their

barracks.

“I can say before I went out there, I’d made my peace

with God,” he said.

A lasting impression

Seven decades have passed since Ingram’s time in Dutch

Harbor, but the decision to take a job there shaped the

rest of his life.

He went on to civilian work in Kodiak after the Aleutians,

helping repair fishing boats that had been commandeered

during the war.

After being drafted by the Navy in 1943, his skills as a

builder were employed at a military hospital where he

made prosthetic limbs for war amputees.

But Ingram’s future was no longer in California, and his

religious faith and experience in Alaska led to the next

chapter. He’s spent most of the past half-century in the

state, working as a missionary in remote outposts such

as Anaktuvuk Pass, Kake, Port Heiden and Nome. For

the past 20 years his home has been in Fairbanks.

Ingram still shares a powerful build with the young man

in the photograph on his wall, although he walks with a

cane since suffering a bad case of frostbite a few years

ago. His tidy desk is covered with woodworking tools,

and a small bookshelf by his bed is filled with spiritual

 titles like “Amazing Grace” and “God’s Word.”

Ingram has never married — “Not yet. I don’t want to

rush into anything,” he deadpanned — but a wall in his

room is a testament to a life filled with friends and family.

It’s covered with photographs, addressed to “Uncle Bob”

or inscribed with best wishes from friends.

It also includes a few photos from his World War II days.

Even today, he said his thoughts sometimes return to

Dutch Harbor, a place where he worked 70 hours a week

among a rowdy crew of construction workers.

The weather was frequently bad and the site was remote.

But, he said a bit sheepishly, it’s a time that he still

remembers fondly. In a world where fishing for cod

was a prime source of entertainment and buying a box

of Hershey bars was a luxury, he said his stretch in the

Aleutians Islands still stands out as a special time.

“I wasn’t supposed to,” he said, “but I liked it very much.”

Contact staff writer Jeff Richardson at 459-7518.

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