Ed Walker (American veteran)

Edgar Walker (August 28, 1917 – October 28, 2011) was an American veteran of World War II, businessman, publisher and writer. Walker was the penultimate surviving member of "Castner's Cutthroats", a regiment consisting of sixty-five men who performed reconnaissance missions in the Aleutian Islands during World War II. Castner's Cutthroats was the unofficial name of the 1st Alaskan Combat Intelligence Platoon.

Walker was born on August 28, 1917, in San Juan Bautista, California. He enlisted in the United States Army in 1937 and was stationed for three years in the Territory of Hawaii. He soon became interested in Alaska through reading a library book about the territory and an article published in The Saturday Evening Post. He reenlisted in the Army with the specific goal of being transferred to Alaska.

Walker was stationed with the Army infantry at Chilkoot Barracks (also known as Fort William H. Seward), which was the only U.S. military base in the Territory of Alaska at the time he arrived. Walker submitted several applications, before finally being transferred to Fort Richardson (now a part of Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson). There he joined a group of elite Alaskan Scouts called Castner's Cutthroats, named after Col. Lawrence V. Castner, an Army intelligence officer who formed the regiment. Walker trained with Castner's Cutthroats, who carried their provisions and lived off what they could find in the Alaskan wilderness, such as seafood. Walker was trained in surveying and Morse code. The sixty-five men served in reconnaissance throughout the Aleutian Islands during World War II, including the Battle of the Aleutian Islands.

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