The United States Naval Construction Battalions (Seabees) were formed on 5 March 1942 during the induction of The United States in World War II. They primarily served the role of construction in service of the logistics of the war, though some Battalions served in Naval Combat Demolition Units, UDTs, Marine Corps Engineers/Pioneers and the top secret Chemical Warfare Service Flame tank Group. First conceived at the Bureau of Yards and Docks (BuDocks) in the 1930s, the onset of hostilities clarified the need for developing advance bases for the logistical burden of wartime.
Primarily beginning as a volunteer force of already skilled trasdeman, the initial maximum age of service in the Seabees was waived to age 50. It was later found that several past 60 had managed to get in. Men were given advanced rank/pay based upon experience making the Seabees the highest-paid group in the U.S. military. The first 60 battalions had an average age of 37. In December 1942, the volunteer enlistments ceased following an Executive order in favor of conscripted unskilled recruits. To facilitate conscripts making up the Seabees, a series of Construction Training Centers with courses in over 60 trades were established.
During the course of the war, the operations of the Seabees were largely denoted by their use of unofficial and unorthodox means of material acquisition"Cumshaw" () "moonlight procurement",105th NCB, BuDocks, Dept. of the Navy 1946, Seabee Museum, Port Hueneme, CA. and souvenir making. On 13 February 1945 Chief of Naval Operations, Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, made the Construction Battalions a permanent Naval element.
History
Pre-war naval construction development In the late 1930s the US saw the need to prepare militarily. Congress authorized the expansion of naval Shore Activities in the Caribbean and by 1939 in the Central Pacific. "Following standard peacetime guidelines the Navy awarded contracts to civilian constructions firms. These contractors employed native civilian populations as well as U.S citizens and were answerable to naval officers in charge of construction. By 1941 large bases were being built on Guam, Midway, Wake, Pearl Harbor, Iceland, Newfoundland, Bermuda, and Trinidad to name a few." International law dictated civilians not to resist enemy military attacks. Resistance meant they could be summarily executed as guerrillas.Seabee History, Formation of the Seabees in World War II, NHHC, Navy Dept. Library online, April 16, 2015 Wake turned out to be a case in point for Americans.
World War II
The need for a militarized construction force became evident after the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor. On 28 December, Radm. Moreell requested authority to create Naval Construction Battalions. The Bureau of Navigation gave authorization on 5 January 1942. Three Battalions were officially authorized on 5 March 1942. Enlistment was voluntary until December when the Selective Service System became responsible for recruitment. Seabee Training Centers were named for former heads of the Civil Engineer Corps: Radm. Mordecai T. Endicott, Radm. Harry H. Rousseau, Radm. Richard C. Hollyday, Radm. Charles W. Park and RADM. Robert Peary.NAVFAC website Washington Navy Yard, DC One NCTC was named for the first CEC killed in action, Lt. Irwin W. Lee and Lt. (jg) George W. Stephenson of the 24th CB.
An issue for BuDocks was CB command. Navy regulations stated that command of naval personnel was limited to line officers of the fleet. BuDocks deemed it essential that CBs be commanded by CEC officers trained in construction. The Bureau of Naval Personnel strongly objected to this violation of Naval tradition. Radm. Moreell took the issue directly to the Secretary of the Navy. In March the Secretary gave the CEC complete command of all men assigned to CB units. With CBs authorized and the command question settled, BuDocks then had to deal with recruitment, training, military organization structure plus organizing the logistics to make it all work. That all happened quickly. Due to the exigencies of war there was a great deal of "improvisation", a quality that became synonymous with Seabees in general.
At Naval Construction Training Centers (NCTC) and Advanced Base Depots (ABD) on both coasts, men learned: trade skills, military discipline, and advanced combat training. Although technically designated "support", Seabees frequently found themselves under fire with the Marines. After completing boot training in Virginia at Camp Allen and later Camp Peary, the men were formed into CBs or other smaller CB units. The first five battalions were deployed immediately upon completion of training due to the backlog of projects. Battalions that followed were sent to an ABDs at either Davisville, Rhode Island, or Port Hueneme, California, to be staged prior to shipping out. Basic military training was done by the Navy while the Marine Corps provided advanced military training at Camp Peary, Camp Lejeune or Camp Pendelton. About 175,000 Seabees were staged out of Port Hueneme during the war. Units that had seen extended service in the Pacific were returned to the R&R Center at Camp Parks, Shoemaker, CA. There units were reorganized, re-deployed or decommissioned. Men were given 30-day leaves and later, those eligible were discharged. The same was done at the Davisville, Rhode Island, for the east coast.
From California, battalions attached to III Amphibious Corps or V Amphibious Corps, were staged to the Moanalua Ridge Seabee encampment in the Hawaii Territory. It covered 120 acres and had 20 self-contained areas for CB units. Within each area were 6 two-story barracks served by a 1,200 man galley and messhall plus 8 standard quonsets for offices, dispensary, officers quarters and a single large quonset for the ships store. The entire facility had water, sewer, electricity, pavements, armory and a large outdoor theater. A second CB encampment of 4 additional 1000 man Quonset areas was built on Iroquois Point.136th Seabee cruisebook, 136th CB, Yokouska, Japan Oct 1945, Seabee Museum Archives, Port Hueneme, CA. Battalions attached to the 7th Amphibious Fleet were staged at Camp Seabee next to the ABCD in Brisbane, Australia, then to other US Naval Advance Bases.
The Atlantic theater
"When the war became a two-ocean war, the Panama Canal became geographically strategic. The convergence of shipping lanes necessitated bases to protect its approaches. Agreements in the Caribbean made that possible as did the Lend Lease Agreement. Under the Greenslade Program naval bases in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Panama Canal Zone were all expanded. In Puerto Rico Naval Station Roosevelt Roads was turned into the "Pearl Harbor of the Caribbean. Construction on existing bases was done primarily by civilian contractors until late 1943 when CBs took over. In the Atlantic, the bases formed a line from Bermuda to Brazil. On the Pacific side of the Americas the U.S had bases from the Honduras to Ecuador. The 80th(colored) CB upgraded Carlson airfield on Trinidad. The 83rd CB cut a highway out of Port of Spain, that required moving one million cubic yards of material." "On the Galapagos Islands, CBD 1012 constructed a seaplane base with tank farm and did the same again at Salinas, Ecuador. Salinas would be the southernmost U.S. base in the Pacific. While not in combat zones these bases were necessary for the overall war effort."
"North Africa was the Seabees' first combat. Landing with the assault in November 1942, they built facilities at Oran, Casablanca, Sifi, and Fedala. Later they would build a series of staging and training areas along the Mediterranean including NAS Port Lyautey, Morocco."
"With Tunisia taken the Seabees began prepping pontoon assemblies for their first use in combat at Sicily. This Seabee "innovation" was adapted for amphibious warfare. A pontoon box, standardized in size so multiple pontoons could be quickly assembled like to form causeways, piers, or rhinos to meet the exigencies of amphibious warfare. The beaches of Sicily were considered impossible for an amphibious landing by both the Allies and Axis. The Seabees with their pontoons proved that was not true. The Germans were overwhelmed by the men and material that poured ashore over them.
"Seabee causeways were used again at Salerno and Anzio. Having learned from Sicily the Germans were prepared causing heavy casualties at both. At Anzio Seabees were under extended continuous fire. After Southern Italy the Seabees had one last task in the theater, Operation Dragoon."
"Seabee operations in the North Atlantic began early 1942. The first were in Iceland, Newfoundland, and Greenland. These airfields and ports supported Allied convoys. To complete the defensive line these bases made, Seabees were sent to Londonderry, Northern Ireland, Lough Erne, Loch Ryan, and Rosneath, Scotland. Depots, fuel farms, and seaplane bases were constructed to anchor the line. Afterwards the Seabees went South for Operation Overlord preparations. They built invasion bases from Milford Haven to Exeter and prepared for their own multifaceted D-day role."
On D-Day Seabees were the first ashore as Naval Combat Demolition Units (NCDU). Their task was to remove German defensive beach obstructions built to impede amphibious landings. "They came under very heavy fire, but were able to detonate their charges opening gaps allowing the assault to land. Once again Seabees placed pontoon causeways over which the assault to reach land." "Seabees also brought their Rhino ferries, a motorized adaptation of their modular pontoon boxes. With them, vast amounts of men and material went ashore. For the American sector Seabees assembled piers, and breakwaters into Mulberry A. It was a temporary port until French ports were liberated. Even after weather disabled the Mulberry, Seabee handiwork got thousands of tons supplies and troops ashore."
"The liberation of Cherbourg and Le Havre gave CBs major projects. These were the harbors that would replace Mulberry A. Foreseeing the Allies would want harbors the Germans had left them in ruins. At Cherbourg the first cargo landed 11 days of the Seabees and within a month it was handling 14 ships simultaneously. Seabees repeated this at Le Havre and again at Brest, Lorient, and St. Nazaire."
The last Seabee task in Europe was the crossing of the Rhine. The U.S. Army asked the Navy for Seabees to do the job. General Patton ordered they wear Army fatigues to do it. Their first crossing was at Bad Neuenahr near Remagen and the Seabees made the operation work as planned. On 22 March 1945, they put Patton's armor across at Oppenheim, on pontoon ferries and landing craft that had been trucked overland from the coast. More than 300 craft were brought inland to make the crossing possible. One crew even took Prime Minister Churchill across.
"The 69th was the only CB to set foot on German soil. They also were the first CB to deploy by air. They were flown to Bremen in April tasked to repair damaged buildings and the power grid for the allied occupation force. Making Bremerhaven harbor operational also fell to them. One detachment's project was the U.S. Navy Hq in Germany at Frankfurt-am-Main. By August 1945 the battalion was back in England concluding NCF Atlantic operations."
The Pacific theater
"Pacific Seabee deeds were historically unparalleled. It was there that 80% of the NCF literally built the road to VJ-day constructing nearly all the airfields, piers, ammunition bunkers, supply depots, hospitals, fuel tanks, and barracks required to make it happen on over 300 islands." The very first job Seabees had a hand in was the salvage of the USS California (BB-44) and USS West Virginia (BB-48) at Pearl Harbor under the command of a CEC Lieutenant. He had Seabee divers and 120 men from the 16th CB before he was done.