Kenneth E. Bingham

-seabee Book- Building the Navy's Bases in World War II Volume I Kenneth E. Bingham

Volume I is 478 pages and contains over 200 illustrations, maps and photographs. It covers the planning and funding of the construction effort, the creation of the Seabees and the stateside building of bases and facilities. The Book is a record of the pre-war status of the shore establishment and narrates the events of the preparatory and national defense emergency periods preceding Pearl Harbor, as well as the activities during the war itself. These accomplishments are recounted as factually and as comprehensively as possible. Every effort has been made to correlate the sequence of action by the Bureau Of Yards and Docks, (now known as the Naval Facilities Engineering Command?N AVFAC)?with the basic events and major decisions which guided the course of the war effort as a whole. While the Book is a record of the work accomplished by the Bureau of Yards and Docks, the Corps of Civil Engineers, the Construction Battalions?popularly known as the "Seabees", and the many civilian employees, engineering firms and contractors associated with the Bureau's program in furtherance of this country's war effort. Every endeavor has been made to correlate these activities with the broad sequence of events and with the policies and decisions which were the basis for each successive course of action. World War II was by far the greatest military cataclysm in the history of the world. In the number of men involved, in its demands on the resources of the world, in the scientific and technical progress it forced, in its three-dimensional scope over the entire globe, and in the intensity of the fighting and savagery toward non-combatants, it was unparalleled. Volume II, which covers the overseas base construction, is also available.