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Submitted by Comments:
Chuck Riley
From: Claymont, Delaware
Website:
E-mail: seabeechuck@verizon.net		 Hey Seabees....Go to www.tet68.org to view info on the 68 Tet reunion in
February 07. If you were there, come renew friendships with old shipmates!
Added: September 5, 2006      Delete this entry
Submitted by Comments:
warren cintron
From: mcdonald ohio
Website:
E-mail: seabee1st@aol.com		 First time visiting this site very good info
thank you
Added: September 5, 2006      Delete this entry
Submitted by Comments:
Richard Hott
From: Paw Paw, WV
Website:
E-mail: dandjhott@verizon.net		 I was with the 53rd Seabees 1945-46 in Guam. Any fellow Seabees from that
time out there?
Added: September 5, 2006      Delete this entry
Submitted by Comments:
Dean Bravos
From: San Francisco
Website: http://msn.com
E-mail: DizzyDean_@hotmail.com		 Hey you guys from NMCB-10 Gary,Charlie,Jose,Gene,1971 Okinawa Get index.html to
me..Damn.Were hard times, but we had such a BLAST lol I still fly the Bees
sticker on my truck. I joined up with the BEST>> What happened to
Chief HOLE hahaha E0-3 Dean Bravos aka Dizzy We were the first to get our
ears pierced HAHA Blew their minds......SeaFrogs Can Do!!!
Added: September 5, 2006      Delete this entry
Submitted by Comments:
Casey P. Nelson
From: Higgins Lake Michigan
Website:
E-mail: ccplumbing@mac.com		 Currently living in Athens Ga. Looking for a few who served with me.
Added: September 4, 2006      Delete this entry
Submitted by Comments:
Shane Platt
From: Dundee Mi
Website:
E-mail: techdivr@cass.net		 Great site!! I was a CE served from 1992-1997. I am looking for my buddy
James Randall Kauffman from Colorado Springs CO.
Added: September 4, 2006      Delete this entry
Submitted by Comments:
John A LePera
From: New York
Website:
E-mail: luna3@zoominternet.net		 Well its been a long time served 66to68 Chu Lai with MCB3 C.co then A.co
reunion in Texas Sept.15 to 17 Hope to see you there.
Added: September 3, 2006      Delete this entry
Submitted by Comments:
Lea
From: Maine
Website:
E-mail: 		Thanks for the info youve posted, my grandfather was a seabee, and heard
many storys growing up. Now as a adult i'm making a sc***book of his tours
as a seabee and findidng the orgin and song made my week! Plus the links
and stuff. This has really helped. :)
Added: September 2, 2006      Delete this entry
Submitted by Comments:
John R.
From: New York
Website:
E-mail: Jonathon17pim@aol.com		 September 1, 1942, 6th Seabee Battalion lands on
Guadalcanal.The Seabee story of Guadalcanal begins on the afternoon of
August 20, 1942, when 45 year old Commander Joseph P. Blundon (CEC, USNR)
arrived in a PBY off Lunga Point and promptly reported to General A.A.
Vandergrift. I guess I was the first Seabee to go under fire, Commander
Blundon recalled. The Marines had been on Guadalcanal thirteen days, and
they had a tiny beachhead around Henderson Field. While I was reporting to
General Vandergrift, the Jap bombers came over and I hit my first foxhole.
A few days later my Sixth Seabee Battalion arrived, and we assumed full
responsibility for the completion and maintenance of Henderson Field. The
Japs had cleared an area 300 by 5600 feet, but it was by no means finished.
The Japs were shelling the field with Howitzers, as well as bombing it
night and day, and it was our job to keep the holes filled up while we
finished the grading, laid Marston mat, built hardstands and revetments,
and helped solve the fuel and ammunition problems. We had very little
equipment, General Vandergrift assigned us a section of the beach to defend
against the Jap landings, and we figured we could defend the beach and
still do the job at Henderson Field. We realized at the outset that the
battle was going to turn on how fast we filled up holes and how fast we
could develop that field. When the Jap bombers approached, our fighters
took off, the bombers blasted the airstrips, and then if we couldn't fill
up those holes before our planes ran out of fuel, the planes would have to
attempt to land anyway, and they would crash. I saw seven of our fighters
crack up in one bitter afternoon. From "our" point of view the
battle of Guadalcanal was a race between the Jap artillery and the air
force and the Sixth Seabee Battalion. We played our cards fast. We pitched
our camp at the edge of the field to save time. We dug our foxholes right
up alongside the landing area. We found that a 500 pound bomb would tear up
1600 square feet of Marstom Mat, so we placed packages of this quantity of
mat along the strip, like extra rails along a railroad. We figured out how
much sand and gravel was required to fill the average bomb or shell crater,
and we loaded these measured amounts on trucks and placed the trucks under
cover at strategic points. We had compressors and pneumatic hammers to pack
the fill into the craters. We organized human assembly lines for passing up
the pierced plank and laying it. Then when the Jap bombers approached,
every Seabee including even our cooks, manned his repair station. Our
crater crews were lying in the foxholes right at the edge of the strip. The
moment the bombers had passed over, these men boiled out of the holes and
raced for the craters. Every man had to keep his eye peeled for Jap
strafing planes, and when the Jap dived in, our men dived for the close at
hand foxholes. We found that 100 Seabees could repair the damage of a
500-pound bomb hit on an airstrip on forty minutes. In twenty four hours on
October 13 and 14, fifty-three bomb and shells hit the Henderson airstrip.
During one hour on the 14th we filled thirteen bomb craters while our
planes circled overhead waiting to land. In the period from September 1, to
November 18, we had 140 Jap raids in which the strip was hit at least once.
Our worst moments were when the Jap bomb or shell failed to explode when it
hit. It still tore up our mat, and it had to come out. "When you see
men choke down their fear and dive in after an unexploded bomb so that our
planes can land safely, a lump comes in your throat and you know why
America wins wars". Shell craters are more dangerous to work on than
bomb craters. You have a feeling that no two bombs ever hit in the same
place, but this isn't true of shells. A Jap five-inch gun lobs a shell over
on your airstrip and blasts a helluva hole. What are you going to do? You
know, just as the that Jap artillery man knows, that if he leaves his gun
in the same position and fires another shell, the second shell will hit in
almost the same spot as the first one. So a good old Jap trick was to give
us enough time to start repairing the hole and then fire the second shell.
All you can do is depend on hearing that second shell coming and hope you
can scramble far enough away before it explodes. But this is a gamble which
is frowned upon by life insurance companies. 6TH SEABEES "WELL
DONE" YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN!!
Added: August 31, 2006      Delete this entry
Submitted by Comments:
Ted Matinez (Marty)
From: Boise Id.
Website:
E-mail: tedgardencity@aol.com		 I was with NMBC 9 in 1967-69, Maked two tour to Vietnam,1969-72 Subic Bay
PI. NavlMag. 1972-73 NMCB
Added:      Delete this entry

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