The Seabees held them off until Army troops could arrive. The bombing and repairing was repeated twice that afternoon after further attacks. The idea (Churchill’s) was to construct hollow blocks of cement caissons, called “Phoenixes,” that could be towed across theChannel and sunk side by side, with available “block ships,” to create a breakwater that would calm the sea enough to allow for the unloading of supplies over the now familiar pontoon causeways. When the island was secure, the Seabees built it up as the main base for the planned invasion of Japan. Many were malnourished and had suffered mistreatment. Then at midnight, a Japanese battleship got close enough to pound the airfield with huge 14-inch shells. Other Seabees cleared mines and obstacles while the first airfield captured by the Army was turned over to the Seabees and the Corps of Engineers, who had it operational on D-day + 3. Halfway between Tinian and Japan is the rocky outcrop of Iwo Jima. Blundon later noted, “We found that 100 Seabees could repair the damage of a 500-pound bomb hit on an airstrip in 40 minutes.” After the worst was over, the Americans were still in the fight. The civilian workers relished the high-paying jobs especially after the lean early years of the Depression. Often working under fire, the Seabees were able to prepare the airfield for crippled B-29s returning from Japan even before the end of fighting on the island. © The solution was a 300-foot pontoon causeway that would get the heavy equipment within 200 feet, wading distance of the shore. When trouble came, they were expected to drop their tools and pick up their guns. They and their Army partners were the unsung heroes of that battle. In the midst of several battles, Seabees could be found surveying and mapping areas still under enemy control. Tankers brought in fuel as the men ashore worked long hours to position and assemble the holding tanks. It interrupted but did not stop the work. Roads, airfields, and housing sprang up, the harbor was repaired, and the town was turned into a major supply base. As just one example, Henderson Field on Guadalcanal is now Honiara International Airport, the Solomon Islands’ main airport. 5. On the other side, increasing aircraft losses forced the Japanese to cease their all-out effort. On March 5, 1942, all Construction Battalion personnel were officially named Seabees by the Navy Department. They then guided tanks through the shallowest water to reach the shore while under fire. Branch 1: NAVY. It had been hard work, and sometimes tempers flared. Navy Military Military Life Us Navy Seabees Go Navy Naval Academy War Photography Lest We Forget Uss Enterprise United States Navy. Promotions and commendations followed. Construction was only part of the job for the Seabees. British Commander Lord Louis Mountbatten called the causeways nothing less than “miraculous.”. Airfields capable of supporting 4,000 fighter, bomber, cargo, and reconnaissance planes had not yet been completed before the Japanese surrendered. But there were compromises to be made. The Seabees were prepared to support them with pontoon causeways and landing boats, but they were not needed. Sovereign Media, 6731 Whittier Avenue, Suite C-100 McLean, VA 22101, From Tolkien to Hitler: Famous Soldiers of World War I, The Battle for Omaha Beach: The Men of the D-Day Invasion, Napoleon Bonaparte’s Last Campaign: The Battle of Waterloo, Operation Barbarossa: World War II’s Eastern Front, The Battle of Gettysburg: Turning Point of the American Civil War, The U.S. Navy’s Seabees: Bulldozing a Road to Victory, What Made the German Luger the Most Famous Pistol in Modern Warfare, The Essential Role of Navy PBR Boats in the Vietnam War, Soldiers: Ancient Greek General Epaminondas, Lucian K. Truscott: The Soldier’s General, The Soviet Invasion of Manchuria led to Japan’s Greatest Defeat, The T-34 Tank: The Story of Soviet Russia’s Rugged Armored Vehicle, Ireland in World War II: The Swastika vs. When the war began, thousands of black men signed up. The Seabees were nothing if not anxious. In doing so, they decreased the range for bombing of Guadalcanal. Detailed construction photos of Bolo Point airfield. For three days in mid-October, the Japanese made a maximum effort to put the Americans out of business. The other part of their duty was as combat soldiers, so they were trained in the use of small arms and military tactics. The work in Alaska included airport and facilities construction, fuel storage, barracks building, supply duties, and support for the Army in recapturing Attu and Kiska. The photos show MacArthur by his personal plane the "Bataan" with Lt. General Robert C. Richardson, the Pacific Ocean Area Army commander. His food supplies were limited and dwindling, and the available shipping to bring in men and construction equipment was problematic. All three groups pooled their equipment and resources to complete the airstrip for the arrival of 20 planes on May 28. Near Manila the 119th NCB built a camp and hospital for 4,000 liberated American POWs. After Wake Island fell, more than 1,000 surrendering civilian workers were herded below decks in cramped Japanese prisoner ships to spend the rest of the war toiling in feverish labor camps under deteriorating conditions; 100 more were kept behind on Wake to perform construction work for their new masters. For his quick-thinking action, he would be awarded the Silver Star. Subscribe our channel and facebook page to watch our new uploads: https://www.facebook.com/PopularDocumentaries Thanks The Marines landed at 10:30 on the morning of June 30, 1943, followed closely by the men and equipment of the 47th NCB. The going was slow in the choppy seas and took all night; it would be 5:30 am before they were in position. The Marines would be met with taunts like, “What kept you?”, In December 1942, the recruitment activity exercised by the Seabees was transferred to the Selective Service System. Navy Military. Top secret rehearsals helped make for a smooth landing. The leadership triad of Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 4 was relieved of duty after the executive officer was found wandering drunk and naked through the woods at Camp Shields in Okinawa… Today, the Seabees are still active, deploying to war-torn trouble spots and the sites of natural disasters. The military establishment in 1942 was still unprepared to place African Americans in fighting units. So valuable had the Seabees been to the war effort that the Navy was determined to retain them as a fully equal branch. It changed the world more than any other single event in history. The Navy sent the Seabees to do the job starting with the construction of Little America (exploration base) IV as well as a runway for aerial mapping flights. No other Rhino would land at Omaha until D-Day plus 1. The Bobcats started with nothing. As Seabees were destroying obstacles ashore and wrestling with Rhinos at sea, about 10,000 more men of Naval Construction Regiment 25 (25th NCR), a temporary amalgamation of several battalions, were installing causeways and piers at Utah and Omaha Beaches. The field was soon back in operation. It became a sense of honor with the Seabees throughout the war to feed every sailor, Marine, soldier, or airman who asked. There are moments in military history that forever alter the flow of human events. By 3 pm the beachhead was secure enough that the Seabees were able to begin construction of a fighter airstrip. Today’s #VeteranOfTheDay is Navy Veteran Whetsel M. Stump, who served as a Seabee in Alaska, Saipan and Okinawa during World War II. 5.0 out of 5 stars 1. This system would be used not only for bridges, but also piers, wharfs, causeways, small drydocks, and barges. The refueling station was up and running just in time to replenish the ships and planes that took part in the critical Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942. Captain Paul Halloran, a civil engineer who commanded the 6th Construction Brigade, designed a special device for an LVT (Landing Vehicle, Tracked) that carried a ramp with cross ties. Sadly, in 1943, with Wake cut off from Japan and little food left on the island, they were all summarily executed. There were not enough spare parts for their trucks, and welding equipment arrived without protective masks. This led to the creation of the Seabees’ motto: Construimus Batuimus—Latin for “We build. Despite all their work being destroyed by a typhoon in October, they redoubled their efforts to make Apra a first-class harbor. One of the Seabees noticed that several Marine tanks were pointing their guns at them. It wasn’t long before these Naval Construction Battalions (or CBs) acquired the official name of “Seabees.” After some debate, the Seabee program was placed under the command of the Civil Engineering Corps. One huge problem was that there were few functioning harbors or docks on undeveloped islands for unloading the supply ships. Most of their food came from tins of questionable age. Theirs would be the ultimate “on-the-job training.”. In 1995 and 1997 Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 5 [NMCB 5] occupied Camp Shields, … With the lessons learned in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy, the Seabees turned their focus to the biggest engineering challenge of the war if not all of history: Operation Overlord—the June 1944 landings at Normandy, France. On Okinawa from 27 April 1945 until 7 Nov. 1945 when they were deactivated. Seabees grading land for new Cubi Point base in 1953. A detachment of the 1st NCB landed on Efate on May 4 to find a small group of Marines and Army engineers struggling to build an airfield. Call in the Seabees. He enlisted in the Navy in 1942. With unrelenting labor the Seabees had restored the entire field by 9:30 the next morning. Release Date 1: 1 Jan 1946 Histories of the Naval Construction Battalions are available on the website of the U.S. Navy Seabee Museum. Those liberties in New Orleans were something else. The Seabees’ record is truly remarkable. In the small circles of the military establishment in Washington, consideration was given to creating a construction corps within the Navy similar to the Army Corps of Engineers. Perhaps for their own amusement, they laid out a street grid for Tinian that was patterned after the grid of Manhattan. After a rough first night on open ground, the Seabees went to work. A symbiotic relationship started to grow between the Seabees and some of the crews of the B-29s flying from the island. General Bonner Fellers on the left, MacArthur's hand on General George C. Kenney (his air commander) and General Richardson. In December, the 18th NCB arrived, followed by the 26th, which relieved the exhausted 6th which had borne the brunt of the Seabees’ battle for the island. In August 1942, a detachment of 200 men was sent to Adak and Amchitka, In the Aleutians and remained there five months. The Seabees were then tasked with obstacle removal and repair of those port facilities. Still, they blew up enough of the obstacles to open up the beaches for the landing craft. They improved an ancient tool, the pontoon bridge, with standardized watertight boxes. There was only one beach on Tinian, and it was heavily defended; the rest of the island contained natural obstacles like cliffs and swamps. Detachments of the 6th NCB would also support the Marines on nearby Tulagi Island. One of the good things I remember about Gulfport was the fact that it was close to New Orleans. Civilian workers also suffered on Guam and in the Philippines. At a press conference, Admiral Halsey, speaking of the three airfields, said of the Seabees on Iwo Jima, “If necessary, they’ll build another island and put four or five airfields there.”. In the early days of the war, Seabees would arrive at their assigned location before their equipment could be shipped to them, so they had to improvise to get work done. The differing configurations were facilitated by standardizing the parts and fasteners (called jewels) that joined the floating boxes together. Two large aviation fuel tanks were installed nearby, and support buildings and revetments were constructed, allowing bombers flying northward from Guadalcanal to have a fighter escort on their bombing runs. The soft sands of the beaches would not support wheeled vehicles, so tanks and bulldozers were enlisted to haul trucks to the solid ground behind the beach sand, all the while coming under fire from enemy artillery and snipers. Even the cooks pitched in to keep the airstrip open. Destruction of Naha, scenes around Okinawa, 87th Seabee camp scenes and some US aircraft at one of the air fields. The Seabees created housing, kitchens, hospitals, water storage, fuel and ammunition dumps, and sanitation facilities for 40,000 men (15,000 of them were Seabees). The task took four days, and then the train carried everything from bombs to fuel from the landing site to the airfield, much to the relief of the men who would have had to haul it by hand otherwise. Photos from the 87th NCB SEABEES. By war’s end, some 12,500 black sailors had served in the Seabees. The Seabees were needed not only in the Pacific, but also throughout the world wherever U.S. forces operated. The first test of the new system would be Operation Husky—the invasion of Sicily—in July 1943. US Navy Seabees Okinawa, Japan. Following the hurricanes of 2017, Seabees were deployed to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands to assist with cleanup, water and food distribution and rebuilding. In August 1942, the 65th NCB landed near Freetown in what is now Sierra Leone, West Africa. He was an early advocate of the NCBs, and his men would soon be calling him the “King Bee.”. On their first day, the Seabees were greeted by a single Japanese bomber that dropped its payload near the airstrip. Thereafter recruitment came from the draft pool, but while candidates were younger and more physically fit their trade skills were limited. The new Seabees would receive six weeks of instruction in unit training and the use of light arms. Beginning on D-Day, the Omaha Mulberry took about a week to complete. $2.50 shipping. Instead of pulling up anchor and fleeing at the first sign of trouble, Seabees helped the understaffed crews man the guns, the infirmaries, and the engine rooms while continuing offloading operations. The second tour of duty for the Fourth began just before the New Year, 1944. Your email address will not be published. But they never got to Iceland. They restored a captured Japanese power plant to provide electricity. Valuable logistics lessons were learned at Bora Bora. Back in the United States, Seabee recruiters continued to go after men with construction skills, but standards for physical fitness were relaxed. The 81st and 111th NCBs––which had worked on the Italian landings–– were given the task of constructing, testing, and operating the Rhinos. In January 1942, they shipped out for the South Pacific. The island invasion was entrusted to the Tenth Army and a corps of Marines. The situation led to more humor about who arrived first. In addition to the desperate work of repairing the main airfield, the 6th NCB built 24 miles of road between the port, Henderson Field, and the two new outlying fighter fields. In the Russell Islands north of Guadalcanal, one cook, a chef before the war, convinced the Navy to buy an entire herd of local cattle. The solution, based on the pontoon system, was barges consisting of joined pontoons 30 boxes long and six wide. This gave rise to good-natured teasing between the Marines and Seabees. In the Pacific, the most difficult task the Seabees faced was Okinawa. Another problem at Normandy was the unpredictable shoreline, which undulated in underwater ripples of sand bars parallel to the beach that could trap the large landing craft (LSTs) far offshore. The SeaBees did everything.” Bob’s brother, Roy Schultz, also served in the Navy. The 3rd NCB was sent to Fiji and Noumea in New Caledonia, the 4th to Alaska, and the 5th sent detachments to Midway, Palmyra, Johnston Island, and French Frigate Shoals. Each Phoenix was eased into place by British tug boats. For the first—but not the last—time, the enemy was surprised and confounded by the work of the Seabees. The task had to be reassigned to the 31st and 62nd NCBs because, by the time the airfield was secured, the 133rd had suffered 328 casualties, including 42 killed and two missing. The airfields were built to accommodate the huge Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers that were arriving to bomb Japan into submission. Seabees with the 14th Naval Construction Battalion construct a bomb shelter at Koli Point, Guadalcanal. Others would follow. Somehow he made it through the obstacles to the beach and unloaded his cargo, but by the time he was through offloading the heavy vehicles, the tide had gone out, leaving him stranded on the beach until the tide returned. The landings at Leyte Gulf in the Philippines were an Army show, but as in Europe the Seabees were crucial to their success. The assault on the little island was to be spearheaded by the 4th Marine Division supported by the 133rd NCB consisting of 23 officers and 767 men. It would take 29 days. Few Marines could be spared to work on the airstrip yet. The 6th was the first of four Seabee battalions to be awarded the Presidential Unit Citation. During August the Vangunu runway was widened. Before December 1941, however, little was done. While the fighting still raged, Seabees were building housing for the Army Air Forces, creating or improving harbor facilities, and bringing ashore the mountains of supplies, food, fuel, ammunition, building materials, and equipment needed for everyone involved—Marines, Seabees, and Army Air Forces. Their commander later wrote that his men “smelled like goats, lived like dogs, and worked like horses.”. The Seabees’ “Can-Do” attitude while constructing the Cubi Point Naval Air Station in the Subic Bay, Philippines, allowed them to move mountains to complete their mission. The Rhinos would dock with an LST in deep water. On Tinian, Captain Halloran led a crew to survey a site for a runway. Ship’s cranes could lower cargo onto barges, but when the barges reached shore unloading them had to be done by hand. They built an airfield, docks, a power plant, and the all-important fuel tanks. The task of constructing the American Mulberry harbor was given to the Seabees. It did not stop the Japanese, however. The Rhinos were designed to operate in waters with a three-foot swell, but the swells off Normandy that day were six feet and over. While the Rhinos brought in the first wave of heavy vehicles, these causeways would, over time, deliver millions of tons of equipment and supplies of all types to the insatiable Allied armies until November 1944, when French and Dutch ports were retaken from the Germans. An ammunition dump in the center of the island was known as “Central Park.” Even the streets were named after their counterparts on Manhattan. Construction engineers would become commissioned officers while foremen and supervisors were enlisted as petty officers. Working around the clock, they built airfields, fuel tanks, barracks, and hospitals. There wasn’t a damn thing there but jungle.” They went to work immediately setting up generators and floodlights so they could work all night. It would not be long before the war found them. There have been countless thousands of published works devoted to all or of it. In all, 325,000 men and nearly 8,000 officers would train, build, and fight with the Seabee insignia on their uniforms. That didn’t stop the builders. Civilian contractors were hired to build runways, port facilities, barracks, fuel dumps, water towers, and fortifications in the Philippines, Guam, Midway, Wake, and especially Hawaii, the new home of the Pacific Fleet. Attention was given to what was being sent and the order in which equipment and supplies were needed ashore. After the enemy was cleared out, the Seabees went to work on what would become the largest airport in the world. While driving his bulldozer ashore to commence work, Machinist’s Mate 2/C Aurelio Tassone was told that a Japanese pillbox was holding up the advance of the Kiwis and was asked if he could use his dozer to attack the pillbox. Frank was with the 17th Seabee Construction Battalion, the first and hardest working group on Seabees on Saipan. They also repaired a Japanese ice-making facility and dubbed it the “Tojo Ice Company.”. As the war unfolded, the Japanese concocted a complicated plan to capture Midway Atoll in June 1942. Back in the Solomons in late 1943, the 87th NCB was assigned the invasion of the Treasury Islands and would support combat troops from New Zealand. The late arrival of the Seabees at Guadalcanal convinced the Pentagon that, whenever possible, Seabees should land alongside the invasion force to begin their all-important work immediately. To meet the Navy’s deadline for the fuel tanks, the 4,000 Army troops pitched in to help. Back in 1940, the legislation that enacted the Selective Service stated, “Any person, regardless of race or color … shall be afforded an opportunity to volunteer for … the land and naval forces of the United States.” Before the war, the limited number of African American naval personnel could only serve in the kitchen and dining rooms of officers as mess attendants. Some of these camps were put to use until the Seabees’ own camps were built. As an exhibit at the Seabees Museum in Port Hueneme, California, says, “Throughout the Pacific Theater, the Seabees built 111 major airstrips, 441 piers, 2,558 ammunition magazines, 700 square blocks of warehouses, hospitals to serve 70,000 patients, tanks for the storage of 100,000,000 gallons of gasoline, and housing for 1,500,000 men.”. In a two-ocean war, the Panama Canal was an extremely strategic location, so a ring of bases was built up to protect it. As a result the average age of the early enlistees was 37, and in some cases men in their 60s signed up. As wartime recruitment became standardized, so did basic training. In all, 53 craters had pockmarked the field, but the Seabees, although exhausted and taking casualties, were equal to the task. $10.29 $ 10. The trick was to have runway damage repaired before the aloft fighters ran out of gas. Another base was constructed at Port Hueneme, California, to serve the same function in the Pacific; Caribbean operations were supported by a third new base at Gulfport, Mississippi. The cycle of bombing and shelling, followed by repairs, lasted for 48 hours over three days. (Some of these guns still remain on Bora Bora today). To appease the labor unions that feared the Seabees would be in competition with them, Moreell promised that the Seabees would only work overseas except in the case of national emergencies. Most of the black recruits hailed from the South, so it was thought prudent to place Southern white officers over them, the thinking being that they would know best how to deal with the Negros. The 25th had the support of the 2nd Special Battalion. When he reached the enemy position, he lowered the blade and stove in the palm log and sand barrier, entombing a dozen Japanese soldiers in the process. These men were trained demolition experts who worked as fast as they could in the growing light before dawn to remove the obstacles. Processing the meat and baking his own buns, he operated a hamburger stand, serving his Seabees and the island’s more numerous Air Corps personnel––all at no cost to his customers. But experience taught the Navy that this approach did not work and by 1944, these officers were replaced by more enlightened leaders. “We lived on Vienna sausage and hardtack for five weeks,” remembered one veteran. Paul Blundon, CEC, USNR, commander of the 6th NCB, flew to Guadalcanal in a PBY to examine the unfinished field. Description: Seabees with the 71st NCB using carryall scrapers to grade warmup apron at the north end of the East runway on Okinawa, 26 September 1945. On February 19, 1945, the Seabees landed on the beach just 20 minutes after the initial Marine assault wave. At Omaha, meanwhile, the Rhinos were stopped before they could reach shore. They landed at Pearl Harbor and began work on Moanalua Seabee Camp. But it was a 1,400-mile round trip to Guadalcanal; effective bombing could not take place from that range. Chief of Information Attn: US Navy 1200 Navy Pentagon Washington DC 20350-1200 On August 7, 1942, the Marines landed on Guadalcanal to find an unfinished muddy, undrained, and unpaved airstrip that the Japanese had hastily evacuated.