Thanks MCE,

and in honor of your Dad,
.

he was, and still is, my hero.

Hilarious and awe inspiring at the same time.
Only the SeaBees could have pulled this off.

they were fucking nuts, in a good way.

They are the first boots on the ground trying to build some infrastructure for the troops to come.
Build some basic runways, roads, whatever.

Under enemy watch or fire.

Building a runway when people are shooting at you.
Ok.

God love them. Without them the troops cannot move it.

anytime we were in close proximity to the SeaBees, we had to post guards around our equipment and supplies otherwise, those damn SeaBees would, and I stress would, steal our shit.

My dad flew the Burma Hump in WWII.
He was a 20 year old tail gunner in a rusty bucket with wings.
The planes were always under fire, and flying across the Himalayas at high altitude,
wind, snow, ice. The planes were a mess most of the time but the mechanics somehow
kept them flying. I always wondered how they managed to do this.

Recently I met someone whose Dad was a USAF mechanic during WWII, Burma Hump.
I was so excited to get to ask my question. How the H did these guys keep those planes flying?
He laughed and said his Dad used to tell stories about that.

He said they scavenged anything they could from anywhere all the time.
If they heard of supplies anywhere they went and requisitioned them.
If they heard of a plane going down, from any side, branch of service, or country,
they piled into jeeps and trucks and went and striped it clean.

I said well it was a miracle my father wasn't killed, so I owe it to your Dad for saving his life.
I don't care how the hell he did it.

during war time, you make do with what you have or can salvage/scavenge/relinquish and our military has always been good with that, at least until now.

Dumped in a combat zone with the task to build an infrastructure with little or no supplies or materials.
There was a lot of pressure to get the roads or runway operational asap, so they had to be "creative."

Oh yes the military was good at making do with what they had, reinventing things if need be.

My late uncle was a Seabee.

I have friends who fought in theaters, but that's unrelated.

My dad was a Seabee in WWII. His slow Dutch freighter got him to Iwo Jima about a month late I’m thankful to say. He died at 93 in 2019. Iowa farmer who despised this man & would never believe he was elected again.

Was in the SeaBees before he got into the VPs. All I remember about that were the emblems he had with his uniforms at home. I remember his time in the VPs much better because it had great impact on my childhood. I started school in Key West during the Cuban missile crisis. I'll never forget that.

this past summer. A great visit if in that California neighborhood. Free admission.

https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/seabee.html

in the early 80's, visited the Museum many times while stationed there, mostly checking ID's and whatnot at the front gate, this was well before 9/11 and security was much more relaxed then it is now I would imagine.

Port Hueneme was, back then, a very beautiful town/city and I remember that after duty hours, we would either go fishing or swimming in the Pacific.

Haven't been back since I retired in '99.

they operated outside the rules a lot, whatever it took to get the job done. My dad was a telephone man Seabee on a PT boat base in New Guinea, apparently had a pet parrot while there,(did not bring it back) ran a little liquor for the base commander, not sure what that meant, killed, skinned, and preserved a 16' snake, which I still have. He brought back a Webley .455 pistol that Australia would not allow back in the country from one of the Aussies that he worked with, plus a 2'x3' mahogany box crammed with photos and contraband that would never have been allowed in the regular Navy or Army. Trust me, this nut didn't fall far from that tree, lol.

He's the nekked one in white shorts

if the Commander's happy, everybody's happy...

Time-Life books did a photo essay in a volume of their World War II library that featured the Seabees turning a patch of dense, tangled jungle on a Pacific atoll into a working airfield in eleven days. Stunning...

he Island hopped with the Marines, he operated heavy equipment.

It doesn't name names, but it does feature a lot of Seabees manning bulldozers, laying PSP matting, spreading crushed coral (for airfield paving, etc). Who knows? He might be in there.

I'm definitely going to check that out.

Here's another video from the Fat Electrician about the SeaBees.

Had to get some caffeine and listen to it again, so I could keep up, ha ha.

I never served in the military, but I did once do a USO tour of Gitmo back in the late 90s. The Seabees loved our band and helped haul our gear around the base to all the different places we were to play that week. They didn't have to help us, but they were great! They were building a road around the inside of the base along the fence line that separated the base from the rest of Cuba. They had recently discovered that the Cubans had no idea where they had buried all their mines on the Cuban side of the fence so they pulled up all the mines on the US side and built a road instead. One of the underwater demolition Navy guys took me on boat tour. We went up one of the canals about as far as we could go. He said if we went any further the Cubans might start taking pot shots at us. He took me diving in the bay too. They were a great bunch of guys. Thanks again!