76^th SEABEEs of World War II

26th Regiment, 5th Naval Construction Brigade

U.S.N.

- LION 6 -

-An Untold Story-

Sleep was not to easy to come by that first night.  It was not easy for the Seabees as the Japanese force in the area had mounted a night incursion into the 76th position at Piti, and some close (in your face) combat ensued, but was successfully repelled. The next morning, the enemy fire renewed and was deemed too heavy for the small force of Seabees. They were pulled back to the shore, where other Seabee units where landing, and away from the Japanese cover positions. The remainder of the 76^th  was  back aboard ship.  Additional elements of the 3rd Marine Division, reinforced with flame throwers and tanks, cleared the area of a majority of remaining hostile forces.

Companies C and D of the 76th landed at Didi and Agana Beach and encountered little or no hostile action. Full debarkation of the 76th NCB was completed between the 6th and 14th of August 1944 ( Fifth Naval Construction Brigade War Diary states that 70% of the 76th CBs landed on 15 August, 1944, meaning that at least 30%, comprising a portion of the advanced elements, landed earlier. (See "Advanced Naval Base Force"  from 3rd Marine History, below).  

A portion of that "advanced naval base force", above, was comprised of a portion of Companies A and B of the 76th SEABEES.   SEABEEs and others US forces  encountered enemy weapons fire for most of their stay on Guam as the island was not entirely secured until 1945.  All the projects which were undertaken by the 76th required both working and combat roles on a daily basis.   6 X 6 GMC trucks were used to haul gravel for the Glass Water Break (Harbor project) and other work projects. Every sixth truck of a convoy required an armed SEABEE to ride ‘shotgun’, with most of the convoys' armed men carried Browning Automatic Rifles (BARs).

In Camp – A Sniper Cave.

Guam was not secured until 1945, making a true liberation of the island a bitter sweet irony until all pockets of Japanese resistance were quelled. The 76^th NCB, as well as all U.S. Forces on Guam, experienced enemy fire until well into 1945.  The 76^th NCB  suffered “hit the deck” episodes of sniper fire while within their own encampment.  Such was an irritating, frightening, and bewildering experience for all.  From where was this enemy fire coming?  No one knew.  Sniper fire usually erupted upon the camp in early morning and more often at dust, making the search for the snipers difficult.  Then one day near the noon hour, sniper fire erupted as the men were heading to chow, and the sniper was spotted coming out of a palm tree and hurriedly disappearing into a cave near the 76^th parade ground.  The cave, it was discovered, was located in a hill just off the parade area, with its trap door entrance camouflaged by a wooden door covered with sod.  The entrance of the sniper cave was ordered sealed. Armed 76^th SEABEES, along with comrades proficient in demolition, dynamited the entrance to the cave, with the subsequent explosion moving nearly one half of the hill. The explosion was of such force and magnitude that many of the men headed for cover, thinking it was an enemy attack.  The snipers that inhabited that cave were, obviously, not heard from again. The 76th NCB 'Cruise Book' notes (censured) that many caves were sealed.      

    Content of this page was gleaned from recollections of the following 76^th Seabee veterans, in interviews conducted between 1999 and 2002, who are:

Carl L. Bates, former Seaman 1^st class (S1c), New York., Orbin D. Daraby, former Machinist Mate 2^nd class (MM2c), Texas, Donald W. Hoggat, former Carpenter’s Mate 3^rd Class (CM3c), Washington, and Kenneth C. Thompson, former Carpenter’s Mate 1^st class (CM1c) { promoted to Chief Carpenter’s Mate (CCM) }, Illinois (K.C. Thompson - D. August 9th, 2002,  Navy Honors rendered at graveside). 

Guardian Angels Kept Their Watch

The men of the 76^th NCB had at least one Guardian Angel looking over them. Only three made the ultimate sacrifice, and casualties were low. The 76th remained on duty at Guam until the end of World War II (1945), when the entire battalion was shipped home.  Most of the men were given train or bus tickets home and discharged by their local draft boards.  Such was the speed at which the battalions were decommissioned after War’s end.  As a result, the official histories of many of the Construction Battalions are lacking in what really transpired. It was the task of the Commanding Officer of each battalion to enter an official history for his battalion. With the decommissioning of the battalions being so rapid, many details of their respective histories are omitted.

The 76th NCB Cruise Book bares this caveat:

"this book has been prepared especially for the members

of the 76th SEABEES AND THEIR FAMILIES 

AND FRIENDS. SOME OF THE MATERIAL CONTAINED HERE 

IS NOT SUITABLE FOR GENERAL RELEASE TO THE PUBLIC 

PRESS AND RADIO UNTIL THE END OF THE WAR. IT IS 

REQUESTED THAT NONE OF THE CONTENTS BE MADE 

AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC PRESS OR RADIO."  

Bearing the above caveat in mind, the writer of the 76th's Cruise Book, actually 'sanitized' the battalion's history to the extreme, considering, that the war was well over by the time the Cruise Book was published and distributed to the men. The writer likely thought he was  "doing his duty" to preserve the integrity of the vast number of construction projects on Guam, which were, at that time classified SECRET by the War Department.

A Few Construction feats of the 76th NCB

Among the feats performed by 76th Seabees on Palmyra Island was the dredging of a channel so that ships could enter the protected lagoon, and the building and maintenance of an airstrip made from coral rubble.  The Airstrip was used for the refueling of transpacific military flights.

At Guam, under Island Commander, Major General Larsen, USMC, (see below) the 76^th NCB built at least three electric power plants, including rebuilding the Piti Power Plant, and wired nearly one third of the Island of Guam so that electricity was available for the war effort. One of the greatest feats of any single construction battalion, to date, was the huge sea wall which the 76^th NCB built at Apra Harbor, moving 2 million cubic yards of dirt and coral blasted from nearby Cabras Island (the break now referred to as the Glass Water Break, or breakwater,  is still present.) Engineers have compared the massive construction at Apra Harbor to digging the Panama Canal and erecting the Great Pyramids of Egypt. The construction of massive floating docks early upon arrival at Guam in 1944 was also performed by the 76^th. These docks enabled the Seabee Stevedores to unload ships that pulled into the waters near a then shallow Apra Harbor. The Glass Breakwater  protected Apra Harbor from storm and wind surges and enabled better protection to dredge the harbor floor. Once deepened, larger ships were able to come into the harbor for unloading of war materials.  The entire Apra Harbor project was one of the most important and mighty efforts which contributed to the war in the Pacific. The feats performed by all the SEABEEs at Guam enabled Allied and U.S. Military Forces to take the war directly to the Japanese homeland.  

-Photo information below-

Image Title: Under the Command of Major General Larsen, USMC, a giant seawall was constructed by Seabees of the 76th Construction Battalion at Apra Harbor, (76th NCB giant earth mover).

Description:  Giant seawall under construction by Seabees of the 76th Construction Battalion at Apra Harbor, Guam. A 30-ton boulder is hauled to dumping spot. 1945. Navy Lt. Commander Charles Fenno Jacobs.  Exact Date of Photo is Unknown NARA FILE #: 080-G-413414 

Source:  National Archives and Records Administration

From the 3rd Marine Division History we find this:

Henry L. Larsen, Major General, U. S. M. C. - 

Island Commander, Guam.

"As the assault phase on Guam drew to a close, General Larsen assumed  increasing responsibility for operations on the island. On 2 August, control of Orote Peninsula and Cabras Island passed to Island Command, and on the 7th Larsen took over the operation of all extended radio circuits and a joint communications center. Supervision of all unloading activities was assigned to Island Command on 9 August. As garrison shipping arrived, the number and complexity of troops reporting to the island commander increased steadily.

General Larsen's initial task organization for base development included an advance naval base force, Lion 6, which was hard at work developing Apra Harbor as the center of a vast naval operating base. Airfield and road construction and stevedoring duties were the principal assignments of elements of the 5th Naval Construction Brigade, which included 12 Seabee battalions and 1 Marine and 4 Army battalions of aviation engineers. Supply activities were concentrated in the dumps and salvage and repair facilities developed and manned by the 5th Field Depot. For air defense, Larsen had MAG-21 and four antiaircraft battalions. V Amphibious Corps assigned him the 3d Marine Division for ground defense."

Source: Hyperwar in the Pacific, Central Pacific Drive, USMC Operations http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USMC/III/USMC-III-VI-6.html

Additionally the 76^th helped the 4 Army Battalions assigned to the Fifth Naval Construction Brigade to build a badly needed air strip on Guam. Fighter and transport aircraft used this new airstrip on a daily basis. Too, with war supplies being unloaded readily from ships by Seabee stevedores, using the floating docks constructed by the 76^th, the Battalion received orders to construct three huge wares houses “in short order”,   that were completed in only a matter of days. They also built a Navy Officer’s Club/recreation area (rec area).  Once the Officer Club/rec area was completed, the Seabees were handed an insult by the Officers, being directed to place a sign at its entrance declaring “NO SEABEES ALLOWED”.  A bit ironic since it was the ‘men’ who built it that were deprived of its use, and thereafter the rec area was considered “that dirty bit of business”.

Guam was an U.S. protectorate prior to WWII, having been claimed for the U.S. during the Spanish-American War, but the island had been over-run by Japanese Imperial forces in 1941, just days after Peral Harbor was bombed, and retaken by U.S. military force in 1944.  There were still both major and minor pockets of Japanese hiding in the many caves on the island after the U.S. regained possession. Periodically acts of sabotage and sniper attacks being somewhat frequent on the U.S. troops stationed on the island.  76^th Seabees were detailed to blast shut many cave openings to prevent enemy intrusion into the U.S. Military camps.  

Realization by the American public for the cost of retaking Guam was greatly under exaggerated.  This is due to two nearly simultaneous events; the D-Day invasion at Normandy and the U.S. Forces  breakout in France. 

THE GRAVEL CONVOY

Gravel used for paving and the making concrete structures on Guam was taken from a pit on the island. Cabras Island was important to the building of the breakwater at Apra Harbor. First a road was constructed in the ocean from Cabras to the main island of Guam, then much of Cabras Island was blasted away for gravel, rock and coral, and then hauled to Apra Harbor to build the Glass Breakwater (or Glass Water Break), situated eastward of the natural reefs at the harbor. Loading and transport of gravel, rock and rubble for various construction projects required a large crew of 76th Seabees to run dozers,  front loaders,  giant earth movers, and man a convoy of dump trucks.  The crews assigned to the production of gravel often encountered enemy sniper fire, though much of the daily routine, void of enemy incursions, was considered hot, boring labor.

OLD MEN OF THE SEABEES