Over 36,000 names cover the Walls of the Missing at Manila ABMC Cemetery. The men unaccounted for during World War 2 all over the southwestern Pacific. Most serving on ships sunk at sea or planes never coming home. There are plenty of others, bodies never found in the jungles of the Solomons, New Guinea, the Philippines, Burma or other locations.
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Surrounded by skyscraping condominium towers on the former site of the Fort McKinley, grass fields festooned with thousands of white granite crosses mark the largest American military cemetery outside of the United States. The Manila American Battle Monuments Commission – ABMC – Cemetery holds the remains of 17.097 men who died mostly in the World War 2 fighting in New Guinea and the Philippines. The names of another 36,286 men whose remains never discovered inscribed on The Tablets of the Missing place on limestone piers within two hemicycles separated by a small chapel atop a small hill. The quiet is out of place in the frenetic world of Bonifacio Global City outside of the cemetery walls.
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Technological advances correspond to a lot of monies spent on projects becoming out-of-date by the time of final completion or very soon after. Excellent cases abound in the field of defense spending. Take the example of the US Army Balloon Service for illustrative purpose.
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Men from many parts of the country and with many backgrounds having nothing to do with logging or lumber ended up during World War 1 at Vancouver Barracks. Two such men of the Spruce Production Division were artists who already enjoyed some recognition for their work before coming to Vancouver.
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A recent visit to the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site took me to the museum inside the former airplane hangar at Pearson Airfield. This, one of the early hubs of military aviation in the Pacific Northwest. Besides the airplanes on display, there is a magnificent model of what was the world’s largest sawmill in 1918. On the wall surrounding the model are panels explaining the unique story of the Spruce Production Division. This unit encompassed over 100,000 men by the end of WW1 in one of the lesser remembered episodes of the war. Hanging on the wall is the haunting portrait of the commander of the Division – one Brice Disque.
Brice Disque was one of the many officers seeing rapid advancements in rank during WW1. He moved from captain to brigadier general in a under a year. After spending fourteen years as a captain, the rise dizzying. His energy and ability to accomplish extremely difficult tasks were equal to the meteoric journey.
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So went one of the mottos of the Spruce Production Division during World War 1 – “Bill” being Kaiser William. The huge Cut-up Plant was erected on the Polo Grounds at Vancouver Barracks to better provide the needed correct lumber for American and Allied airplane production. “Spruce for the air”. “Fir for the sea” was for shipbuilding, a secondary purpose of the huge plant.
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Chester Moores was a member of the first party to complete a loop around Mount Hood in an automobile in one day. They did it as part of an expedition he wrote about in a wonderful article written in the 18 July 1915 edition of The Sunday Oregonian. They spent eleven hours out on the roads, starting with the Columbia River Gorge Highway only completed in parts the year before. Construction of that road in Hood River and Wasco Counties would not be completed for several years. They ended up on earlier roads, much steeper and narrower. He writes of encountering grades of 25 to 30%. The actual Mount Hood Loop would take longer.
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Oregon and Washington have used prison labor for various projects throughout their history. Convicts have been working on a variety of projects from laundry to license plates to agriculture. They also worked on convict road projects, though that only arose in the early 20th century. Penitentiaries hoped to relieve overcrowding in the prisons while at the same time providing employment not conflicting with free labor. They saw the employment also as a form of reward to their better behaving prisoners. Prisoners had marks of degradation such as stripes, chains and shaven heads done away with. Here, they gained a certain amount of freedom. The work, done in the public good, was also seen as reformative.
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Funds for The Dalles – Sandy Military Road gained appropriation from the Oregon legislature in 1872 – $50,000. The road finally finished in 1876 after another $50,000 infusion. The road suffers from memory – too windy and parts too steep (20 % grades!). Much of the road was said to have been destroyed by the 1880 building of the railway through the Gorge. Some areas remained to be incorporated into the subsequent Columbia River highway. Other areas were abandoned, though only one section of the old wagon road – Shellrock Mountain – remains known from its day.
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The area around Starvation Creek along I-84 has undergone some changes with the recent restoration of the Historic Columbia River Highway here in 2019. For a long time, the site has been a rest area with a short trail leading to the drama of Starvation Creek Falls. It is also the beginning of a couple of the hardest trails found in the Gorge, Starvation Ridge and Mount Defiance trails. These trails entail a gain of 5,000 feet, with the latter trail doing it in under five miles. But before going high there is a lot to discover down below.
In the short stretch between the rest area and Shellrock Mountain about two miles to the west, five waterfalls easily come into view; one other notable if it has rained hard recently and two or three others a bit harder to access – especially if you have to carry a 38-pound cogi.
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