Leif Johan Sverdrup (11 January 1898 – 2 January 1976) was a Norwegian-born American civil engineer and general with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the first half of the 20th century. He is best known for his service in the Southwest Pacific Area during World War II where he was Chief Engineer under General of the Army Douglas MacArthur.
The son of a distinguished Norwegian family, Sverdrup emigrated to the United States in 1914. After serving with the US Army in World War I, he earned a degree in civil engineering at the University of Minnesota in 1921. He worked for a time for the Missouri State Highway Department before founding Sverdrup & Parcel, a civil engineering firm specializing in bridge construction, with John Ira Parcel, his former University of Minnesota engineering professor. His firm was involved in the construction of a number of important bridges, including the Washington Bridge and Amelia Earhart Bridge over the Missouri River and the Hurricane Deck Bridge over the Lake of the Ozarks.
In 1941, Sverdrup became involved with the construction of a chain of airstrips across the Pacific Ocean to enable heavy bombers to be delivered to the Philippines. He was re-commissioned in the US Army as a colonel in 1942 and became Chief of the Construction Section in General MacArthur's Southwest Pacific Area. In 1942 he made three treks across the Owen Stanley Range in Papua and New Guinea on engineer reconnaissance missions into enemy-occupied territory, for which he was decorated with the Silver Star and the Distinguished Service Medal. In 1944 he became the theater's Chief Engineer.
After the war, he commanded the 102nd Infantry Division of the US Army Reserve from 1947 to 1958. Sverdrup & Parcel went on to design and oversee the construction of many major projects, including the Arnold Engineering Development Center and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, the latter being named one of the Seven Engineering Wonders of the Modern World after its completion in 1964.
Early life Leif Johan Sverdrup was born on the island of Ytre Sula in Sulen Municipality, Norway. He was born on 11 January 1898, the son of Edvard Sverdrup, a high school teacher and Lutheran minister, and his second wife Agnes née Vollan. The family was a distinguished one in Norway: Leif was the great-nephew of Johan Sverdrup, the former Prime Minister of Norway; the grandson of Harald Ulrik Sverdrup, the politician; the cousin of Otto Sverdrup, the Arctic explorer; the half-brother of the oceanographer and meteorologist Harald Sverdrup (of who the unit is named after); and the brother of the mining engineer and businessman Einar Sverdrup and women's rights activist Mimi Sverdrup Lunden.
Leif was educated at Nordstrand Middle School and Aars and Voss School in Oslo. Following a quarrel with his father, Leif left Norway for America to stay with his relatives in Minnesota, the family of his cousin George Sverdrup, the son of the theologian Georg Sverdrup, who had settled in Minneapolis in 1874. After arriving in New York City on 7 December 1914, he entered Augsburg College, Minneapolis, in September 1916, and graduated with his Bachelor of Arts degree in May 1918.
World War I Sverdrup enlisted in the US Army at Fort Snelling, Minnesota on 26 July 1918. He was posted to Camp Devens, Massachusetts for training with the 36th Division. While there he took advantage of a regulation waiving the normal five-year residency requirement for members of the armed services seeking to take out US citizenship. Sverdrup formally took the oath as a citizen in Boston on 30 September 1918. The US Army then sent him to the Field Artillery's Officer Training Center at Camp Zachary Taylor, near Louisville, Kentucky, where he was commissioned as a second lieutenant on 18 January 1919. The war having ended, Sverdrup was immediately placed in the inactive reserves. He was honorably discharged after nominally serving two five-year terms on 17 January 1929.
Between the wars Sverdrup decided to become an engineer and enrolled in a civil engineering course at the University of Minnesota in 1919. During the 1921 Spring break he returned to Norway, where he was reconciled with his father, accompanying his parents on a short holiday in Germany. He graduated with his Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering degree in June 1921. While at the University of Minnesota he met Helen Laura (Molly) Egilsrud, a recent immigrant from Norway like himself. She agreed to marry him, but only after she had graduated, worked for a year, and taken a trip to Europe. They were finally married on 26 November 1924. Their union produced two sons, Johan Norman (Jack) Sverdrup, born in 1926, and Ralph Lee Sverdrup, born in 1928, who died of encephalitis in 1932. In the meantime, Sverdrup took a job with the Missouri State Highway Department. His first major project involved supervising the construction of a bridge for U.S. Route 50 in Missouri over the Gasconade River. Around this time, frustrated by Americans who pronounced his name "leaf" instead of "life", he started calling himself "Jack".
In 1928, Sverdrup joined with his former University of Minnesota engineering professor John Ira Parcel in the formation of Sverdrup & Parcel, a civil engineering firm with a speciality field of bridges. Parcel had tenure at Minnesota for a long time and was reluctant to sever his ties completely, but eventually, he decided to join the new company, taking an unpaid Sabbatical from the university for one year. Sverdrup owned 60% and Parcel 40% of the new firm, which opened its doors on 1 April 1928. The company's headquarters was located in St. Louis, Missouri. Sverdrup & Parcel's first contract was for the design of a bridge over the Missouri River at Hermann, Missouri, for which it received a fee of $33,000. While at the Missouri State Highway Department Sverdrup met D. C. Wolfe and E. R. Grant, and he asked them if they would join the company. Sverdrup subsequently borrowed design engineer Brice R. Smith from Missouri's leading supplier of bridge components, Stupp Bros. Bridge & Iron Co. By 1936, all three would become partners in the firm.
Initially the young firm struggled, with no contracts for major jobs lined up after the Hermann bridge, and by early 1929 it faced insolvency. However neither Sverdrup nor Parcel wished to let well-trained employees go, something which became an informal company policy over the years. A $17,000 fee for the design and supervision of the construction of the 7th Street Trafficway Bridge in Kansas City, Kansas, and then a $32,000 one for the Fairfax Bridge over the Missouri River helped Sverdrup & Parcel weather the worst of the Great Depression. The subsequent New Deal involved a major program of public works. Sverdrup & Parcel applied to the Public Works Administration for the design commissions for the Washington Bridge over the Missouri River at Washington, Missouri and the Hurricane Deck Bridge over the Lake of the Ozarks in Camden County, Missouri. Sverdrup & Parcel was awarded both contracts, valued at $42,000 and $43,000 respectively. During 1934, it was awarded the contract for what is now known as the Amelia Earhart Bridge over the Missouri River between Atchison, Kansas and Buchanan County, Missouri. Sverdrup & Parcel was now becoming involved in projects further afield. A project to generate electricity from tidal power at Passamaquoddy Bay brought Sverdrup into contact with Captain Hugh J. (Pat) Casey of the US Army Corps of Engineers, the chief engineer on the project. The project folded when federal funding was withdrawn in 1936, but Sverdrup and Casey became friends. In 1940, Sverdrup was appointed to the board of inquiry that investigated the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.
World War II Airbase construction In October 1941, the War Department ordered work to commence on a chain of airstrips to enable heavy bombers to be flown from the United States to the Philippines. The existing route, via Midway Atoll, Wake Island and Guam was considered too vulnerable to disruption by Japanese forces located on nearby islands. A more secure route via Christmas Island, Canton Island, Fiji, Noumea, Rockhampton, Darwin and Fort Stotsenburg was urgently required. An initial sum of $5 million was allotted to construct three runways at each site, along with appropriate fuel and maintenance buildings. The project was given the highest possible priority rating. On 16 November, Sverdrup arrived in Honolulu, Hawaii and signed a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for architectural and engineering services in connection with the construction of the airstrips on the route that lay in British, French and Australian territory. The contract was soon expanded to include the supervision of the construction.
Sverdrup flew to Fiji, and was able to report that work had started at Nadi, Fiji on 21 November. When he discussed progress on Nandi Airport in Fiji which New Zealand had agreed to extend, Walter Nash, then New Zealand Minister of Finance, recalled Sverdrup saying when he was leaving that there was no formal agreement for payment by America. So on the back of one of his business cards Sverdrup drew a cross representing the airfield, wrote "£250,000" and initialled it "L.J.S." The extension was actually estimated to cost £750,000.
On Noumea he found that hills obstructed the approaches to Tontouta. Accordingly, he arranged for the Australian workmen there to complete it as an emergency field only and for development of the major airbase to be carried out at Plaine Des Gaiacs Airfield. Sverdrup was working in Suva when he heard the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
The Pan American Airways facility for its Clippers at Noumea had included the yacht Southern Seas, formerly owned by Cyrus H.K. Curtis as Lyndonia, converted to a floating luxury hotel ship. With the start of the Pacific war Pan American abandoned its commercial facilities in the war zone and requested they be taken over by the U.S. military. Southern Seas, along with other company property, was taken over by the U.S. Army and Sverdrup recommended the ship be operated to support the airbase construction in the islands, including doing required survey work. On 30 December 1941 the Southern Seas was purchased from Pan American Airways by the U.S. Army Hawaii District Engineer for the sum of one dollar while settlement was reached on value of the ship.
Captain Norman Miller in I Took The Sky Road describes a meeting with Sverdrup during a stop in Nouméa harbor on the return flight of XPBS-1 from Java where the seaplane had delivered high priority supplies including torpedo exploders:
They decided Sverdrup would fly with Miller in XPBS-1 from Nouméa to Suva, Fiji, Sverdrup's headquarters, with the Southern Seas following. He arrived in Sydney on 30 December. In January 1942 Sverdrup signed a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to provide architectural and engineering services to US Army Forces in Australia (USAFIA). The contract remained in force until 15 May, when it was terminated by mutual agreement and Sverdrup & Parcel employees in Australia became civilian employees of the US Army. On 16 April, Sverdrup boarded the first of a series of aircraft which would return him to the United States.
New Guinea Campaign