"THEY CAME TO AN ISLAND" U.S. NAVY CIVIL ENGINEER CORPS WWII SEABEES CONSTRUCTION BATTALIONS 29564

when the full story of the great war is finally told a filing cabinet will be opened in the Navy Department Bureau of yards and docks headquarters of the civil engineer Corps in these archives is the story of the naval construction battalions the key to the secret logistics of our war to these files run the roads to victory for here is the record of the seafaring men who paved the way with their bare hands bent backs and muscle power inside other names and deeds Joe Benson Carpenter's mate killed in action paul de village machinists mate killed in action ernõ tasini dynamiter killed in action Donald MacDonald ship fitter wounded in action George when lookin concrete worker here yeah I'm still around George Wendel I'll talk for we all started together like birds of a feather when the Navy put in a call for experienced construction men we were the guys who stepped out the Lincoln Highway kicked a hole under the Hudson lifted the Empire State a thousand feet to the sky we'll end our trade building America where the Power Shovel boys the stevedore kids the earth movers yeah I experienced moving men and rush jobs are our regular routine we shipped out fast through a West Coast port you wanna know how it was it was hurry up hurry up and load carry our victory with us in wooden boxes cargo for friends and enemies we had a rendezvous with on some Island Shore Pierce steel planks better known as Marston matting big guns for the dog faces in Leathernecks hurry up and load [Music] hurry up and wait weeks of crossing [Music] smoke too many cigarettes think too many thoughts read the flags and start rumors about islands ahead [Music] weeks and weeks of crossing try to pass the time with some fun talk about women think about women wonder when you'll see a real pin-up girl again try to figure what's ahead knowing whatever it is you're traveling in good company fast tough company a task force heading for trouble but well-heeled for anything so you watched and waited [Music] in Sunday morning at sea was like going the church back home [Music] [Music] Monday morning wasn't just like home [Music] you are going to work but through enemy waters your right in the Navy way by the Gunners guys tents trying not to be trigger-happy but ready and waiting [Music] nerves on edge flag high upstairs you have friends and enemies the beginning of an island battle is always a sky navy show we wait on deck and root for them while they bang out the home runs [Music] and our health get some courses bad hell out of the jungle [ __ ] [Music] needling them with fifty-caliber we sweat it out offshore wondering how much the island will be messed up because we're the mechanical joes that have to clean up the mess [Applause] then when the marines go in it's our turn to join the beach party all-out for the philippines hit the Amtrak's cut loose your pontoon cosway's [Music] line up your magic boxes it may be an engineering feat but to us it's the routine approach to an enemy held island where the dock builders officially called construction battalions supplied by the Navy Bureau of yards and ducts administered by the civil engineer Corps to supply an invasion force you need wharfs and docks so we roll our own over our pontoon bridges must pass the heaviest war equipment in the world [Music] ship-to-shore f OB F all be its hurry up a swim hurry up and move you got an island to build into a base [Music] move into an island move grass no underbrush [Applause] move trees [Music] you're in the real estate business now moving it around clearing ground still smelling a battle hurry up and make the grid planes are in the sky waiting to land supply lines are waiting for roads [Music] you know they say when the Army and Navy get to heaven they'll find the Marines guarding the streets yeah streets built by us Seabees [Music] we put in traffic patterns so fast we don't even hold up traffic it's hurry up and get out of the way see what I mean then all the time keep cutting more highways for airplanes airfields you're the handyman and you use what you find [Music] cut to size [Music] truck loading away coral rock for the airfield get your power shovel boys to pick it up [Music] truck it to your site and you're in business get your cat Skinner's to haul away the landscape and start laying out landing fields in the assembly line roll them out like magic carpets [Music] talk about time studies and symphonies emotion Mac we composed our own to rap city and bulldozer [Music] yeah roll them out like magic carpets Marsten manning laid out like a jigsaw puzzle and polar together with horseshoe clips one minute you're a bulldozer jockey bouncing your kidney the next minute you're a blacksmith on your knees spot-welding hurry up and finish before you get the heavy bomber field Marston mad at fighter planes and making good use of the coral strips you rolled out on the side [Music] in the meantime you're in the lumber business you gotta have a lumber yard before you build the city the house your bomber command [Music] sometimes you got a rub your eyes and pinch yourself but it's not all a dream on the outskirts of your own hometown everything's done just like it is back in the states only overnight in a tropical setting [Music] draw up the walls nail down the roof bill fast but built straight and solid boom city from which to bang away at the jep's his living quarters go up the bomber and fighter command start coming in [Music] get set to operate before the field is even finished you got a half fuelling pump set up pumps to trucks to consumer yes sir you're in the gasoline business to you not only build the roads in airfields but install and operate service stations service for the services that's us but every time a payload of bombs rolled off our assembly line for the next island ahead we got our payoff at each takeoff [Music] Islands yeah we come to islands and build America where the Beehive boys is specialized in pinpoints on the ocean map sharpen them up then hide them [Music] camouflage them like needles in a haystack to sew up victory then we move on to sew up another Island all they told us was you're on your way to an island then came the briefing hear this now hear this we're heading for a rough deal the island to be taken we will build into the most forward base of American operations the island is called Iwo Jima my name's cats cap'n does make fight I'm in the crowd at the briefing and to look at me you'd never know how scared I was so was Joe and Tony and Tex Iwo Jima and this our first trip sure we call the ship's flora deck but we're green on invasions most of the other guys have shipped around headed in plenty of places Guadalcanal New Britain Tulagi rend ova1 de Bougainville Tarawa Saipan Tinian the Marshalls Solano even Italy and Normandy with the complete prefab harbors they knew it was ahead they kept their guns as clean as their mess kits [Music] and we get off for a smell of battle on the way to Iwo when one of our convoy takes a direct hit and we can't do a living thing but watch watch it blow to hell and gone that's just the beginning of the noise and then there it was Suribachi Iwo Jima [Music] [Music] then the Marines move in and we start moving moving that's us we're the moving men CB specials shipside stevedores used to work the ocean ports of both coasts now we taught our stuff off the coasts of our Islands we climb out of one ship and into the next to move cargo out from the bellies of transports to the decks of land and barges while the battles going strong yes CB special delivery working with the Army Service troops delivering the goods [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] while the battle rages and my shipmates the stevedores are gettin set we ride ahead to be unsure and receive the equipment that ride is voice than the Coney Island loop-the-loop the Marines may always go in first but make look close and you'll always see Seabees ridin right alongside him that was us going to play nice mate to them I'm Owen guns coming in from off shore when my grandchildren ask grandpa what did you do in the big war I'm just gonna answer stevedore son on the swing shift CB special under special conditions battle conditions that means I raised and lured more big guns over more sides of big ships than the Japs had little flags just a smaller machinery son but we kept that machinery humming swingin son the fastest boogie-woogie beat you ever get all right up the sorimachi be LST yeah we here we come here they come [Music] here they come right into our laps is where we landed on the beaches between Suribachi and the cliffs [Music] [Applause] Peach's did I say pardon me while I try to laugh we rolled our heavy stuff right out of the LS tees and onto the buggy as black mud at this side a quicksand well Kenny gash our incoming traffic was studying and Sunday going to the beach back in the States [Music] the wheels and tracks beat up the slippery Beach even more those friendly guns do things to islands - in more ways than one even our aunt axon ducks bogged down in the goo my brother a real duck with feathers couldn't have made it machines bogged down what do you do right you stop moving the stuff with your muscles and the ache in your back [Applause] some spots weren't so bad [Music] of course what about bulldozers always stands by just in case Weis comes to Weis [Music] and voice usually came to voice dog Beach San was ever like this before there were times we were ready to change our Monica from CBS the sand fleas [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] and that's that thanks pal all in a day's work we finally licked the mud and sand with the good ole magic carpets hook the planks of mast and Manning together and roll them out like a red plush runner made for landing fields we used it for a different kind of landing field and we landed when we head to land [Music] you're looking at one end of a water purifier system partner true as my name is Tex Abernathy machinist mate first in while the others will fight in the sand mild fit fought the sea on dry land mighty dry land we anchored our hoses in battle wreckage and pumped the brine right across blue to hell Beach our job was to squeeze water fittin to drink out of a salty Pacific we were living like prairie dogs in gopher holes on the Mesa but we had 30 distillation units going like hot oil gushes made good water to up to 50,000 gallons a day even before we got our freshwater wells drilled what I do for I joined the Seabees four high drilled oil wells down in Texas now just call me waterboy four front liners and they love it as the Marines push back the Japs we pushed inland with them [Music] I may have been green on invasions when I started but I sure became a battle veteran fast it was a long way from Prospect Park in Brooklyn like being in the crater of the moon no trees drawn there just Marines moving on powdery roads who he made out enough [Music] everything dead and dusty with [ __ ] snipers hiding like rats in a minion caves and holes [Music] you had to keep your eyes open [Music] well causing a lava sub was easy but the stuff was lousy with land mines and the kind of cats we work with don't have nine lives hit a mine or a dud an arena may yeah left of the cat or a whisker of you [Music] a safety trick was for a lookout man to stand on a dozer blade and probe anything and look fishy [Music] when we found one we put up the side [Music] living wasn't easy on iwo jima you lived out of your hat and I ain't kiddin used it for everything from a bath to a shave [Music] helmut can suddenly help you live a clean life from head to toe ZZZ and cops come in handy toe when you got the time but times what you ain't got much up there are mountains to move so you start shuffling the other guys who trained for this war taking Boulder Dam and Macy's basement yeah there's no contractor on your neck no time keep it just the Army Navy Marines in the Air Corps all waiting for landing field so it's chip away Mount Suribachi [Music] [Applause] love the hot lava rock on trucks [Music] cover an airstrip with it [Music] spread Mount Suribachi around where it'll do some good she put it the machinists mate hiring a navy Rick [Applause] [Music] pack it down smooth it down but the steam on it [Music] we see Enza fields any war dreamer [Music] makes an old man out of you when you put in grave markers for so many of your good friends good Marines and good Seabees good guys swell guys [Music] [Music] pushes your heart up into your throat right they send some of those markers died 1945 born nineteen twenty five twenty six twenty seven kids nineteen and eighteen [Music] in there with some great old-timers old-timers like John Basilone II Congressional Medal of Honor a lot of good John's that can do no more city limits yes sir after we got the wells drilled we had fresh water for everything build in showers even partner a CB is a soldier in a sailor's uniform with marine trainin that can make himself a civilian home anywhere can do covers a lot of ground will be handy men to have around the house especially on a Monday morning regular mother's helpers that's us right in the shadow of Suribachi we built ourselves a whole tent city even a regular kitchen CB Chow is tops to all the comforts of home if you don't mind camp life [Music] any hungry dogface are Leatherneck then wash that beat-up mist kid in a really sanitary layout for after-dinner entertainment sidewalk superintend some fancy construction work too right now we're building us some high-class life insurance yes sir an underground operating room for the medics so if any of us are on the operating table during an air raid the doc won't have to worry about flying shrapnel making extra incisions just watch what we do with reject strips of Marston Metin empty oil drums some sandbags and that powdery volcanic ash that makes your Jima an island a strong foundation [Music] for solid walls square beam roof [Music] shingles a steel plate [Music] Topol and weather stricken and sandbag fashion [Music] yes sir and as a final touch we bulldoze the lava sand up all around our life insurance our policies build it then hide it see that blade that old boy driving it can do anything with it who said shave pennies working on that he's from Texas too [Music] [Applause] [Music] that's be a core good as pay call or even yeah mail club sure though beer will be warm and nearly all suds but there were homesick GI it's as good as a letter from home better nearly cuz well it's sort of a taste and smell a home bringing back memories that little nightclub where you used to take your wife it's holding hands again across the table [Music] down the dusty hatch mate [Music] is to what lies ahead ahead lies another island always another island of resistance Vulcan our the timetable of a war and a few of our words can do we'll do come to an island and ships blown away the magic boxes see bees on the move assignment make a miracle move the whole war across the sea move it out of a whale like miles of landing craft put up ramps and down ramps move the war forward over pontoon cosway's [Music] moreover Island after Island moved over puddles of martyr blisters of Coral move it through the storms that come from the sea the typhoons the monsoons the Hurricanes [Music] movement by making harbors of calm water dry dock the treacherous sand and the salty spray with highways of steel and chain keep the battle moving forward on dry sparkplugs and wet pontoons conquer the wildest surf [Music] I'll fight the highest winds it was a two-front war all over the world all over the Pacific Banzai charges and the elements nature in the raw and mud [Music] here there's now future historians have some mud in your eye when you write of this war it was an enemy right long bitter chapters about a Seabees fighting thick ugly mud cold rain water and malaria mud waking up in it going to sleep in it say this of us we knew mud intimately and we died we died in it say this the Seabees were the newest outfit of a Navy serving with sixty different skills and trades in sixty battle stations all in mud sooner or later but right that nothing could stop them neither hell nor high water in mud tell how they came to an island of mud a half sunken war tornado with the skill of their hands the cunning of their brains and all the strength of their brawn they bulldoze the highway to victory for the army the Navy and Marine Corps threw mud and historian had a footnote say when they left after the war was won they left each place a part of American what ocean piers four-lane highways airfields cities communication lines power lines water lines sewer lines became as builders these concrete workers these plumbers carpenters electricians these dynamiters these road builders and babe filth they returned home not to put away their tools but to go on building in their hands the hands that built this harbor at Okinawa to handle more cargo than the Port of New York is their promise of can do for future reference historian here is their war record they came to each desert island and left it a city [Music]

Channel: PeriscopeFilm

Views: 232,370

Keywords: Periscope Film, Stock Footage, 4K, HD, 2K

Id: dN8x_-be8Ss

Length: 39min 48sec (2388 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 14 2019