Seabee71.com  

Re-Commissioning ceremonies at Davisville (RI), October 6, 1966. The Battalion was still not up to full strength, but enough men were onboard to begin our preparation for Vietnam.

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion Seventy-One

1943 to 1945 -1966 to 1975

A DC-3 evacuates wounded Marines from a strip still under construction on the island of Bougainville. MCB-71 came ashore with the Marines November 1, 1943 to build this runway. Photo from 1945 cruise book.

1943 to 1945

1966 to 1975

A A4A jet fighter coming in hot on the short, cross-wind SATS runway we kept fixing, summer 1967.

MCB-71 Sign at Camp Shields, Chu Lai, Vietnam, 1967.

The Pacific Campaign

1943 to 1945

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 71 was activated at the US Naval Construction Training Center in Williamsburg, Virginia on 28 April 1943, then under went combat and construction training, primarily at Davisville and Port Hueneme. The entire Battalion boarded a troop transport in California on September 7, 1943 and on October 3, landed on the Beach on the island of Guadalcanal. In early November 1943, Seventy-One Seabees hit the beaches at Empress Augusta Bay on Bougainville coming ashore with detachments from the 25th, 53rd, and the 75th Seabee Battalions, under steady fire from the Japanese. First order of business: offload two transports, with dozers and other heavy equipment to build roads, clear camp sites, and begin construction on a air field—all under constant air attacks, mortars and small arms fire. Within 22 days, Seventy-One had built a 40-foot wide taxiway. By December 10, the entire airfield was operational, despite the fact that on several occasions Battalion was pulled off the job to man defensive positions. On May 24, 1944, Seventy-One landed on the beach on Pityilu Island, to build a and clear the site for the airfield, completed on June 10, 1944. The Battalion was awarded a “well done” from ADM. Spruance.

     Detachments from MCB-71 came ashore on Okinawa on April 1, 1945, Easter Morning, with the assault troops, to serve as combat engineers and in support the ground troops rebuilding and improving the native roads and bridges destroyed in the assault. Seventy-One cleared away enemy mines, located, developed, and operated a water supply system for all units, cleared, repaired and extended abandoned enemy airfields, installed communication facilities, provided engineering assistance for garrisoned troops. The ‘Bees worked night and day in spite of Japanese sniper fire, artillery fire and air attacks.

     Early in June the Battalion moved further north with the Marines, establishing Camp #3, which was subject to nightly barrages of small arms fire and sappers. Seventy-One continued to widen Route One, repave wash outs, and bomb damage from Japanese planes.


The Book:

SEABEE71

IN CHU LAI

A 350 page memoir of a Navy Journalist's 14 months with the Seabees.

Photographs and text copyright © 1967 and 2019 by David H. Lyman


     Toward the end of June 1945, all organized Japanese resistance on Okinawa came to a halt. On September 2, 1945, the formal surrender was singed aboard the Battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

     A few days later, September 7, 1945, marked the second anniversary of Seventy-One’s deployment to the Pacific, and MCB-71 was inactivated in December 1945.


1966 to 1975

The Book: Seabee71 In Chu Lai and the pages within this website tell of the Battalions exploits from its inception in the summer of 1966, to when I left in November 1967.

     MCB-71 returned to Chu Lai in the spring of 1968 for one more deployment. This time to Camp Miller, the other Seabee camp on Rosemary Point—not as nice, I hear, as Camp Shields. The CO and XO returned, as did half the original Battalion, only to decommission Camp Miller before returning home to Davisville. MCB-71, never returned to Vietnam, yet the war continued for another 7 years.           

     The Battalion with other officers and men completed projects on Puerto Rico and Antartica. In the summer of 1972 to 73, Seventy-One built a base at the South Pole, and another, Camp Sipple at (75 degrees 55 minutes South x 83 degrees 55 minutes West), an 4-man wintering-over research faculty.  The Battalion’s last assignment was the de-militarization of the NSA (Naval Air Station) on Bermuda in the spring of 1975. The unit was decommissioning in Gulfport, MS later that summer.


Editor’s Note: Above is a brief history of MCB-71 in World War II. A more extensive history is in my memoir, Seabee71 In Chu Lai More details can be found in the Completion Report of Seventy-One’s 1944 and 45 Pacific deployment, available as a PDF download from the Naval History & Heritage Command, at: www.History.Navy.mil.


A more colorful rendition of 71's WWII deployment can be found in their Cruise Book, also available as a downloadable PDF from the above link.


MCB-71's two cruise books from 1967 and 68 are also available as PDFs from the same sit.