On this day, Rear Admiral Ben
Moreell requests authority from the Bureau of Navigation to create a contingent
of construction units able to build everything from airfields to roads under
battlefield conditions. These units would be known as the "Seabees"—for
the first letters of Construction Battalion.
The men chosen for the
battalions were not ordinary inductees or volunteers—they all had
construction-work backgrounds. The first batch of recruits who made the cut had
helped build the Boulder Dam, national highways, and urban skyscrapers; had dug
subway tunnels; and had worked in mines and quarries. Some had experience
building ocean liners and aircraft carriers. Approximately 325,000 men, from 60
different trades, ages 18 to 60, would go on to serve with the Seabees by the
end of the war. The officers given the authority to command these men were also
an elite crew, derived from the Civil Engineer Corps. Of the more than 11,000
officers in the Corps all together, almost 8,000 would serve with the
construction units.
Although the Seabees were
technically supposed to be support units, they were also trained as
infantrymen, and they often found themselves in combat with the enemy in the
course of their construction projects. They were sent to war theaters as far
flung as the Azores, North Africa, the Mediterranean, the Pacific, and the
beaches of Normandy.
Some of the Seabees' feats became
legendary. They constructed huge airfields and support facilities for the B29
Superfortress bombers on Guam, Saipan, and Tinian, as well as the ports needed
to bring in the supplies for the bombing of Japan. The Seabees also suffered
significant casualties in the process of providing innovative new pontoons to
help the Allies land on the beaches of Sicily. During D-Day, the Seabees'
demolition unit was among the first ashore. Their mission: to destroy the steel
and concrete barriers the Germans had constructed as obstacles to invasion.
The Seabees' motto was
"We Build, We Fight."
Taken from: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/request-made-for-creation-of-construction-battalions [28.12.2014]
No comments:
Post a Comment