Cold War

The theoretical shooting began last week in Exercise Sweetbriar, .the joint Canadian-U.S. maneuvers to test North America's defenses against invasion from the Arctic. Across the mile-wide Donjek River, 170 miles south of Dawson, Allied troops fought off a mock invader driving into Canada from Alaska.

It was a brutal battleground. The temperature dipped as low as 52DEG below zero. Soldiers clad in nearly 25 Ibs. of special Arctic clothing, carrying another 34 Ibs. of special equipment, crawled through waist-deep snow, over hummocks of frozen muskeg. For hundreds of miles on every side stretched trackless pine forests and mountains. Said one corporal: "Anybody who'd invade this Godforsaken place is just plain damn wacky."

Candles Spiked. The corporal's opinion was shared by 5,000-odd army and air force personnel and 22 newspaper correspondents taking part in the Sweetbriar maneuver. In Arctic warfare, everything was different and difficult. Even breathing required a careful technique; a deep breath of the icy air could nip the lungs. Food was another problem; to maintain body warmth an Arctic fighting man had to eat almost twice as many calories as an ordinary soldier. The tallow candles issued to Canadian troops were spiked with food concentrates and could be eaten if rations failed to arrive.

The maneuver was centered around the Alaska Highway, the one road in the Northwest by which an aggressor force or a defending Allied army could travel. At night, troops had to leave the road to bivouac in the bush in their nylon tents and down-filled sleeping bags. But most of the transport was roadbound, an easy target for air attack.

Exercise Sweetbriar was a test to determine whether, in spite of all the known difficulties, men & machines could fight a war in the Arctic. A Canadian combat team was sent north from Whitehorse in the Yukon. An "aggressor force" of U.S. troops from the Alaska Command headed south. Later, a U.S. combat team, brought in from Colorado, went up the highway to reinforce the Canadian defenders. Referees ordered attacks, withdrawals and flanking movements and directed operations of U.S. and Canadian aircraft.

Warfare Feasible. By the end of the first week, Army experts were able to draw a few conclusions. The men were bearing up well under the North's rigors. Frostbite and colds took their expected toll. But enough soldiers remained in action to prove that warfare on a fairly large scale was feasible in the Arctic.

Although the men could take it, some of the machines could not. The'so-called all-weather fighter planes -- U.S. F-80s and Canadian Vampires--functioned well enough mechanically but were frequently grounded by Arctic snow flurries and overcast. The U.S. Army's snow vehicle, the Weasel, was a dismaying failure; of 100 brand-new Weasels put into action, nearly half broke down in the first five days. The Canadian Army's counterpart, the Penguin, stood up better but was too bulky to maneuver among the pines off the road. Before Sweetbriar was half over, observers were recommending that the Allied armies study the use of Arctic-conditioned dogs, mules and horses for transport.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.