Seabee

History

After Pearl Harbor and the entry in war of the the United States, the use of civil personnel in the zones of war became impossible. The need for a naval force of construction was obvious. The Vice-amiral Ben Moreell decided to activate, organize and direct naval units of construction.

December 28th, 1941, he asked for the authorization of concretize this idea and the January 5th 1942, he accepted the approval of the Bureau off Navigation as for the recruitment of men coming from the industry of the Construction industry to form a Régiment naval of construction made up of 3 Bataillon S.

This one developed very quickly and, at the end of the world war: 325000 men, framed by: 7960 Officer S, formed his rows to arrange military or civil installations for the American forces.

This force is since present at the time of all large the military operations of the United States.

On all the seas

More: 325000 men and women were useful in the “Seabees” during the Second world war, fighting and building, on all fronts and on more than 300 islands in the Pacific Ocean. Once, the ground taken and often still under the fire of the adversaries, the Genius of the Navy of the United States began the most urgent work and most important, to repair or build the bridge substructures, road, airfield, warehouse, tank of fuel and other buildings. After the general demobilization at the end of the war, manpower fell to: 3300 in the active service at the end of the years 1940 for reaugmenter with the War of Korea.

Between 1949 and 1953, the “Seabees” were reconfigured (in English language in the Navy, all that floats, walk, rolls and flies is with female) in two types of unit: “Amphibious Battalions Construction” (PHIBCBs) and “Naval Mobile Battalions Construction” (NMCBs) in the diversification of the missions. The Guerre of Korea saw manpower inflating with: 10000 to fall down then to the armistice of 1953.

In times of peace, the “Seabees” were sent for new missions of emergency assistance and consolidation after natural disasters, like the earthquake in Greece of 1953. In calmer periods, the “Seabees” built and gave professional training in the countries in the process of development, becoming “Ambassadors of good will” ( Navy' S Goodwill Ambassadors ) by building bridges and roads, public buildings and warehouses, orphanages and schools in the most moved back areas, most difficult and most deprived.

These “Units of civic action” ( Civic Action teams ) have work during the Guerre of Vietnam until the withdrawal of all the American forces of Vietnam in 1973. Civil and military work then continued with the Japan, with Puerto Rico, in the Mediterranean and in the Pacific.

In 1971, the “Seabees” engaged in their greater work in times of peace with construction of the air and sea complex of Diego Garcia in the Archipel of Chagos. This air and sea base is on a strategic position in the Indian Ocean, with range of the Persian Gulf and can accommodate the largest ships and the largest planes. It cost 200 million US dollars and much sweat during 11 years. It proved its strategic value at the time of the Guerre of the Gulf of 1991, war in which the “Seabees” took part with a manpower of: 5000 of the credit and: 1000 of the military Réserve which was used for the Middle East to build under the most difficult conditions, in a lifting way and with happy improvisations, in the tradition of their groins.

They are with construction what the commandos are with the combat, with the semi-official and familiar currency: “We are able” ( We edge C ), since the jumps of islands in Pacific Islands of the Campagnes of the Pacific. By their capacities of improvisation and team work, " Seabees" are also at the origin of the Navy SEAL, the commandos very general-purpose naval frogmen of the American navy and who were born like unit of Seabees in load of the demolition of the obstacles and the release of the beaches of unloading in the Pacific Islands in 1943.

Tales and legends of Seabee

To start, one can play to imagine a band of “Robinson Crusoé” and “Friday” to build a village with a port to accommodate boats and an airfield to receive “God Cargo liner with dignity”, a divinity invented by the inhabitants of these lost islands of the Pacific who their brought the food, the clothing and all the hardware of the “Supermarkets”, all benefits of the “Civilization”.

To supplement the village, one needed the infirmary become Hôpital, of the warehouses and then all the installations essential to the life of the troupier in shift, like the “PX” (Post Exchange), a kind of general store (General Blind), “Drug Store” with its dairy bar (Milk Bar) and a cinema. They needed, with the means of the edge, much of imagination and improvisations, to make live a modern army without essential the military Logistique which will arrive later thanks to these constructions of first need.

A Journaliste of Arkansas wrote:

“" Seabees" are able to build anti-tank traps with macaronis, to repair a watch of lady with a vice and to return the hay with a fork to a tooth”.

" Seabee" showed an unbounded smartness. No task was below them. They made function of clock and watch maker by replacing the watch glasses by plexiglass coming from shot down planes. In the event of need, they could be shoe-makers, edge of the soles in old tires. They were dentists, on the occasion, and repaired prostheses thanks to a mixture of rubber and cement, by letting the apparatuses dry during the night in a vice of carpenter. One their mechanics manufactured two stars with parts from “25 hundreds” to provide a badge to a general.

Passed main in the art of the recovery of worn equipment, Seabees cut out teeth of excavator in scrap, improvised mufflers with unusable “Bazooka S” and transformed steel caissons into furnaces of kitchen. Using Shell of 75mm, they dynamited holes of 3m in the careers and they used their helmets as shovel to fill the holes of bomb on the tracks

As grew their reputation of magician, in spite of their thin means, the Chief of the Naval Operations Ernest J. King, who did not have anything tending, addressed the greatest compliment to them:

“Your smartness and your courage became legendary in the navy”.

In the islands where the " unloaded; Seabees" , they were to be satisfied with the materials on the spot, of which the equipment taken to the Japanese. They installed their own sawmills and workshops, to manufacture spare parts for machines, houses or bridge. They used the coral of the islands in the coatings of the roads and the runways. " Seabees" ten hours per day worked. The teams of constructions of aerodromes slept of an eye in trenches beside the tracks in construction. However, in the civilian, they all were militant trade unionists of shock. In war and with peace, they were animated by the spirit and the culture of the immigrants, pioneers and peasants.

External bonds

Naval Official site of the U.S. Construction Forces
Naval Facilities Expeditionary Logistics Center

Catalog of films

Alarm with the navy (The Fighting Seabees), John Wayne

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