On this day in engineering history, the U.S. Navy
established a legendary Construction Battalion (CB) that would build airstrips,
bridges, and roads; hospitals and housing; and warehouses and gasoline storage
tanks. Known as "Seabees" (the name comes from the "CB" sound of the naval
acronym), members of this military unit were recruited from the civilian
construction trades and then trained to fight.
During World War II, more than
325,000 sailors served as Seabees on six continents and more than 300 islands. Seabees
have also been deployed during the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War,
and the Bosnian War. Today, Navy Seabees support U.S.
reconstruction efforts in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
Father of the Navy
Seabees
In December of 1941, Rear Admiral Ben Moreell recommended
the creation of a Naval Construction Battalion at a newly-built base in Davisville, Rhode
Island. As Chief of the Navy's Bureau of Yards and
Docks, Admiral Moreell was responsible for managing the building and
maintenance of facilities for ship construction and repair. A civil engineer,
Moreell was a graduate of Washington
University who had served
in the Navy's Civil Engineer Corps since 1917. He had also studied military
engineering at the Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
in Paris and served in the Azores, where he impressed an Assistant Secretary of
the Navy who would one day be President – Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
From Pearl Harbor to Iwo Jima
Admiral Ben Moreell's request for a Naval Construction
Battalion was expedited after the Japanese attack upon the U.S. Navy Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
on December 7, 1941. Initially, the Seabees were drawn from the ranks of
civilian carpenters, machinists, and electricians. Because employment
experience was more important than physical standards, however, the average age
of a Navy Seabee during the early days of the war was 37. By contrast, the
average age of a combat soldier in World War II was 26.
Once trained as sailors, Navy Seabees would follow in the
footsteps of U.S. Marines who landed on Pacific islands such as Iwo Jima. There, as Denise Taylor of the Boston Globe
later explained, Seabees "offloaded supplies during assaults, built airstrips under
sniper fire, constructed military roads during air raids, and took up arms as
needed."
As the Seabee's Latin motto (Construimus, Batuimus) states, "We Build, We Fight"
Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabee
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Yards_and_Docks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Moreell
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/09/20/giving_wwii_seabees_their_due/
http://www.vhfcn.org/stat.html
http://www.nbvc.navy.mil/seabeedays/cbHistory.html
http://www.marines.mil/units/marforpac/imef/1stmlg/Pages/MAR3.aspx
http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq67-3.htm
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