18th NCB - Seabees Pacific!

[Thurman]

I got this directly from an 18th Seabee Veteran. You wanted to know about the 18th landing on Tarawa. The landing assignments for the 18th were diversified and required different disembarking times. For example, first priority was to get the runway repaired. On Day 1, waves of Marine assault troops went ashore. They were pinned on the beach throughout some of the next day. The official 2nd Marine Division memoirs of WWII named "Follow Me" wrote, The Seabees had begun streaming ashore during the morning of D-Plus-2, bringing their heavy equipment in and tracking it over the reef. Marines who had fought for hours with exemplary courage stood in opened mouth admiration as the Seabees drove their bulldozers out onto the strip, still swept by rifle fire, and began smoothing out the shell holes. Photographs of this are in the Marine Corps book. Some Seabees who had other assignments disembarked shortly after, the second and third days. It was only after the third day that the landing area could be cleared for support supplies to get in. Keep in mind the Tarawa battle lasted only 76 hours. Supplies and ammunition did not get on shore until there was room behind the sea wall to land and the direct heavy enemy fire could be contained. For some units in the 18th, it was staying until they could get on the beach after the third day with equipment to build roads, erect piers, observation towers, pipelines and electrical facilities. For a capsule, the 18th arrived on the "Canal" in early December 1942, and stayed until April 1943. They built Fighter Strip "1", bridges and roads and other facilities and nightly manned machine gun positions in their secor of the beachhead. On Saipan, the 18th started disembarking on Saipan on D-Day (Hour-4) under heavy mortar fire. Our assignment was to receive materials and equipment from the shore to designated areas, such as the ammo dump. After the traffic coming in to the shore minimized we were hauling ammunition to the front lines, routing out by-passed Japanese stragglers, and bringing back wounded men. On Tinian, we went in the second day, after some 18th volunteers on the first day built a special ramp to facilitate entry. The rest went in the second day through land mines and snipers. we did alot of Seabee type work, like bridges, roads, tank farms and a hospital. A single plane left our airstrip and caused the end of the war. My tour of duty overseas lasted 34 months.