more at http://quickfound.net/links/military_news_and_links.html "This World War II documentary looks at the contributions of U.S. Navy Seabees during the invasions of Sicily, Italy, and Normandy." Public domain film from the US National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges and mild video noise reduction applied. The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabee A Seabee is a member of the United States Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (CB). The word "Seabee" comes from initials "CB". The Seabees have a history of building bases, bulldozing and paving thousands of miles of roadway and airstrips, and accomplishing a myriad of other construction projects in a wide variety of military theaters dating back to World War II... History World War II In December 1941, with U.S. involvement in war soon expected on both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, Rear Admiral Ben Moreell, Chief of the Navy's Bureau of Yards and Docks, recommended establishing Naval Construction Battalions at a newly constructed base at Davisville, Rhode Island (part of North Kingstown). With the attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States' entry into the war, he was given the go-ahead. The Davisville Advanced Base Depot became operational in June 1942. Camp Thomas, a personnel-receiving station on the base, was established in October of that year. It eventually contained 500 Quonset huts for personnel. On August 11, 1942, the Naval Construction Training Center, known as Camp Endicott, was commissioned at Davisville. The Camp trained over 100,000 Seabees during the Second World War. In California in May 1942, a base for supporting the Naval Construction Force was established at Port Hueneme in Ventura County. This base became responsible for shipping massive amounts of equipment and material to the efforts in the Pacific. The earliest Seabees were recruited from the civilian construction trades and were placed under the leadership of the Navy's Civil Engineer Corps. Because of the emphasis on experience and skill rather than physical standards, the average age of Seabees during WWII was 37. More than 325,000 men served with the Seabees in World War II, fighting and building on six continents and more than 300 islands. In the Pacific, where most of the construction work was needed, the Seabees landed soon after the Marines and built major airstrips, bridges, roads, gasoline storage tanks, and Quonset huts for warehouses, hospitals, and housing. They often operated under fire and frequently were forced to take part in the fighting to defend themselves and their construction projects. In the Pacific Theater they built 111 major airstrips and 441 piers, tanks for the storage of 100 m gallons of fuel, housing for 1.5 million men and hospitals for 70,000 patients. The Seabees were officially organized in the Naval Reserve on December 31, 1947. With the general demobilization following the war, the Naval Construction Battalions (NCBs) were reduced to 3,300 men on active duty by 1950. Between 1949 and 1953, Naval Construction Battalions were organized into two types of units: Amphibious Construction Battalions (ACBs) and Mobile Construction Battalions (MCBs), which were later designated Naval Mobile Construction Battalions (NMCBs) in the early- to mid-1960s to eliminate confusion with Marine Corps Base (MCB) in Vietnam...

• published: 09 Jan 2015
• views: 21