I have always believed that the direction of my life was determined by the birth of the Pan American Highway (also known as the American Highway).

After the bombing of the US naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States entered the Second World War. Considering the vulnerability of the Panama Canal to enemy submarines, it is imperative for the United States to decide on a land route to the canal.

This job was assigned to the Los Angeles office of the American Corps of Engineers, where I worked as a draftsman when I was 19 years old. I signed up as a survey assistant for the project and was sent to the base office in San Jose, Costa Rica. The situation at the time was very challenging. Malaria, amoebic dysentery and skin infections were common among surveyors.

Soon after arriving, I was reassigned to a field investigation team near Liberia, the capital of Guanacaste Province in the northwest, to replace a man with malaria.

When I tried to drive north in a military jeep, my tires were torn to pieces by the deep dirt road used by bullock carts, and I was forced to fly in an old TACA plane.

The plane bounced off the La Sabana football stadium-and then San Jose's main airport-and rose into the clouds. Sitting in the co-pilot's seat, I noticed that the pilot used dead reckoning to fly and rarely used sparse instruments or radios. After a long and bumpy flight, the pilot suddenly tilted and flew through the clouds to a grassy field outside Liberia.

I yelled at the engine noise and asked him where the airport was. He explained with a smile that in Costa Rica, any open space in the jungle that is large enough to land is an airport.

The plane bounced to a discordant place. Trying to suppress the contents of my stomach, I crawled out of the cabin, engulfed by the intense heat and moisture. It's like a Turkish bath, I think, because the party secretary, a 50-year-old leather surveyor, greeted me. Soon, we rode to the survey camp a few miles from the "airport".

My job is to help pave the way and mark the initial route of the highway. This was followed by a topographic survey of the 100-foot-wide strip leading to Kanas in southeastern Liberia, where another survey team was working.

Without a map or radio, we only used a compass to make surveys across mountains, valleys and rivers. Every morning, we rode from the campsite to the survey line. A pair of saddle bags hung behind the saddle, which contained our personal belongings. Workhorses carry our measuring instruments and other heavy equipment.

We set up tarps to protect the instrument from the sun and rain. Although we provide rubber raincoats, I refuse to wear mine because I sweat as much as it rains. After each rainfall, sunlight and heat will evaporate the moisture in the wetland, forming dense fog.

The investigation will not begin until the air becomes clean enough to be observed through the telescope.

The humid air of the jungle soiled the crosshairs of our instruments and rotted our clothes. Books and boots fell apart when the binding melted, and the thread rotted in the heat and humidity. Everything is too wet, either rotted by fungus or dissolved by moisture. The wood measuring pile we use grows branches after being buried in the ground.

The Costa Rican worker used a sharp machete to clear the way in front of the investigation team. The chief set his border crossing points at each intersection, where the line changed direction. He yelled to me the angle change, which I recorded in my field manual. Then came the horizontal side. I measured the height of the ground in a 50-foot-wide strip on both sides of the line, and I also recorded it.

When we were too far away from Liberia to travel on horseback, we moved to base camp and set up military tents in the jungle. We slept on a canvas bed, a few inches from the wet ground, covered with scorpions and snakes. Every night, I use mosquito nets to guard against malaria-carrying Anopheles.

The field work in this department takes about five months. When it was finally completed, I returned to San Jose with my field books. I helped the highway engineer to prepare the final road design, and drew a topographic map for the designer to draw the best route for a military road with very steep slopes, sharp turns and gravel roads.

The road crosses the waterway through wooden culverts and bridges. Although the contractor began construction, by mid-1943, the threat of the Panama Canal had subsided, as the continued flight of the US Navy and B24 bombers in the Atlantic and Caribbean had reduced the threat of German submarines to acceptable conditions.

Therefore, the U.S. Corps of Engineers phased out military road projects and handed over their work to the U.S. Public Road Administration and the Costa Rica Department of Public Works and Transportation, which continued to design and build civil highways in the Americas.

The highway was completed around 1960, from the border of Nicaragua in the north to Panama in the south.

Author Max Schwartz shared his memories of working on the Highway of the Americas in Costa Rica in 2005. 

Max Schwartz returned to the United States in 1943 and joined the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. From 1943 to 45, he worked on military roads and bridges in Europe with 1306 engineers of the Patton US Third Army.

After the war, he continued to work as a civil engineer for 40 years.

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