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N0KFQ > TODAY 28.12.11 18:39l 49 Lines 2201 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 15624_KB0WSA
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - Dec 28
Path: IZ3LSV<IW0QNL<JH4XSY<JE7YGF<F6CDD<N0KFQ<KB0WSA
Sent: 111228/1554Z 15624@KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.0.4
Dec 28, 1941:
Request made for creation of construction battalions
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."
73, K.O. n0kfq
Another old retired guy
E-mail: n0kfq@winlink.org
N0KFQ@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
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