In the hands of the Navy’s Seabees, automobiles and trucks have become advance base weapons whose importance vies with that of bulldozers and Long Toms.
Although this automotive equipment is rarely credited with playing a part in the phenomenal speed of airfield and advance base construction, its contribution is a vital one. It is made despite concerted and continuous attacks from salt water, coral dust, enemy bombings, and “commando” driving. And in the final reckoning, it can properly be claimed that our homely trucks push the battle line farther ahead than any half dozen types of glamor buggies.
The Bureau of Yards and Docks and its Civil Engineer Corps early recognized that the battle of the Pacific was to be a battle of bases. Consequently every effort was made to procure automotive equipment needed for fast base construction. This was a difficult task in the early days of the war.
The first few overseas battalions had to depend entirely upon utilization of the built- for-peace vehicles of private contractors whom the Seabees replaced. Heterogeneous in make and vintage, never designed for the high-speed construction demands of war, these trucks deteriorated rapidly, creating a headache of maintenance. Many of them cracked irreparably beneath too much usage and the rough terrain of virgin country.
By April, 1942, however, a few 4- and 6- wheel drive trucks were obtained from the Army. When these were tested in the field, they proved far more satisfactory than the commercial type vehicle. Military trucks could take it; they could perform.
The switch-over began. But it had to be gradual, because production of military automotive equipment could not yet meet the demand. The Navy, while waiting for sufficient military shipments, bought more commercial type trucks—a total of 3,500 in the period ending with January, 1943.
Meanwhile, the automotive industry had gone to work to give the service what it wanted. The Seabees were able to procure 5,000 military vehicles by the end of 1942. Last year the total had reached nearly 14,000. This year the Navy hopes to obtain more than 25,000, and in 1945 perhaps 40.000.
As seasoned construction workers, Seabees know their automotive equipment. They like the new military vehicles and are not hesitant to admit it. Recently an inspecting officer visited a South Pacific base.
“What do you think of the truck you’re driving?” he asked one Seabee.
“It’s the best damn 5-cubic yard dump truck that has ever been built.”
The answer proves that military automotive equipment can perform under combat conditions. The Seabee was in the seat of a 2 ½-ton truck!
That truck of which he was so proud reached him only after a long, hard trip. Between the factory in the United States and the shore of Island “X,” lies more than a voyage.
Seabee automotive equipment is obtained from the Army, from the Marines, and from Naval Construction Battalion contracts. Usually it is shipped by railroad to Seabee continental advance base depots at Hueneme, California, Davisville, Rhode Island, and Gulfport, Mississippi.
Thorough inspection and preparation precede its shipment overseas. At the advance base depot, it is picked off freight cars with cranes and hauled by dock mules to the checking area. There, battery terminals are lubricated and batteries are connected. Tires, oil, water, and gas are checked. The engine then is started for the first time and the equipment moves, under its own power, to the inspection center.
At the inspection center, the oil is drained, preparatory to refilling with special type oil, and then the vehicle is completely greased and its running gear and body bolts are tightened. Next, the machines are run to engine test sheds where expert mechanics conduct a complete check-up, including a short field test.
Finally, rust prevention treatment is given. The automotive equipment is sprayed with an anti-salt water compound. All moving parts and exposed parts are covered with rust inhibitor. Every scratch in the protective paint is carefully treated.
Now the vehicles are parked in an open field to await shipment. Rarely is the wait long, for every effort is made to rush automotive equipment into action.
Ready to be stowed aboard ship, the equipment is drained of inflammables. Even if the ship is steering directly toward a landing operation, trucks and other automotive equipment are not filled with gas and oil until a few hours before the assault.
Vehicles often are lashed to exposed decks. There, thanks to the rust preventive treatment, they are protected against salt air and salt spray. In a few cases, trucks have packed an LST’s deck solidly—and acquitted themselves with honor. Supporting machine guns, they occasionally have seen real combat. Small Jap flags, painted on the bodies of Seabee trucks, are not an uncommon sight in the South Pacific.
The first real test of military vehicles comes as the Seabees land at “Island X.” More often than not, automotive equipment undergoes a thorough salt water ducking in getting ashore. At Tarawa, for example, some trucks had to drive through shallow water for several hundred yards.
Although the bow ramps of LST’s ordinarily are lowered against firm shore, that does not eliminate the salt water wetting. There is enough water between ship and beach to douse the axles, brake housings, and motors of the equipment. This would present no hazard if fresh water were immediately available to wash the salt from machine parts. Seldom, however, can fresh water be found. And even if it could, the men lack time to bother with it.
Should the landing be opposed, and that must be expected, speed becomes vital. Automotive equipment moves ahead of many other supplies because it is needed in the work of unloading. Action, therefore, must be taken quickly if any vehicle bogs down and threatens the flow of traffic along the ramp.
In one instance a truck stalled on the unloading ramp. Enemy aircraft overhead put the ship and its cargo of equipment in peril. With no delay, a bulldozer nosed the truck into the sea and permitted landing operations to continue. The balking vehicle’s fate was unfortunate but necessary.
Such a problem, however, is an exception. Unloading efficiency has increased since pontoon causeways and earth causeways have been perfected to facilitate landings.
Once landed, automotive equipment must fight five principal enemies.
Foremost, is mud. With often as much rainfall in a month as most parts of the United States record in a year, South Pacific islands become quagmires. Vehicles need far more than their 4- and 6-wheel drives. Trucks constantly must be extricated by winches and bulldozers. Sometimes even the bulldozers become mired in the ooze.
Secondly, automotive equipment goes into battle with its constant foe—-salt. Dump trucks, for instance, must back onto low coral beaches to receive loads of dripping wet, live coral from a shovel or drag line. Scooped from shallow sea water, the coral is nearly as internecine as the ocean itself.
In spite of rust preventives, brake drums and axle assemblies cannot be made invulnerable. No satisfactory method has been devised which will prevent saltwater from seeping through to the brake drums and rusting them so badly that, in many cases, the wheels lock. Nor can salt water be kept entirely out of the rear axle assembly. It enters through the vent and destroys the lubricating value of the grease.
Third hazard to automotive equipment in the South Pacific is coral dust. Microscopically, that dust is jagged and fully as abrasive as fine sand. Civil Engineer Corps officers estimate that it will wear down tires twice as rapidly as the road gravel of America. But, on “Island X,” it does not stop with shortening the life of rubber. Entering through air intakes and crankcase breather pipes, the dust grinds steadily at the engines.
Speed of construction is the fourth major enemy to vehicles. Combat conditions result in hard driving. A Seabee, under sniper fire or in imminent danger of bombing, does not handle equipment with the care he used on a construction job back home. The fast operation of equipment, fast starting stopping and backing bring obvious results. At high speed, a driver will hit holes in a road which break his vehicle’s springs. In the rush of battle, trucks even have slammed into foxholes—and suffered accordingly.
Finally, there is actual battle damage. Small personnel bombs can slice off palm trees for scores of yards around and turn a truck into junk. Even when vehicles are not hit, shrapnel remaining as debris after a bombardment can rip a tire to shreds.
Whether automotive equipment can be made to last three years or five months depends directly on how often and to what degree it must meet these five major enemies. Continuous operation of equipment 24 hours a day, alone, is not particularly damaging. Providing facilities are available for proper oiling, greasing, and maintenance, steady use is a minor detriment to long service.
Spare parts, of course, are the lifeblood of vehicles in any combat zone. An elaborate but increasingly satisfactory system has been employed by the Bureau of Yards and Docks to keep its Seabee battalions supplied. Before shipping, all parts are prepared to withstand the ravages of weather. Like the vehicles, they are rust-proofed. They are so well immunized against salt water that they can be immersed for as much as one week without damage. They are packaged to avoid crushing, bending, and loss.
Some parts travel with the Seabee battalion. These make up the “A” list. A repair kit is attached to each vehicle. The kit contains the “worrying” type of replacements—spark plugs, fan belts, bulbs for lights, fuses —which can be installed by the Seabee driving the truck. In addition, an organizational allowance of spare parts is issued to the battalion. Included are parts common to all vehicles, such as brake and clutch linings, ignition wire, more spark plugs, condensers, and hoses.
By far the bulk of spare parts, however, is encompassed by “B” list. When a piece of automotive equipment leaves the factory, a full year’s supply of its estimated needs in replacements is prepared. That supply is shipped to the Navy’s central spare parts depot at Joliet, Illinois. Half of the parts are retained at Joliet, while the other half is dispatched overseas to Advance Spare Parts Depots in the same areas to which the equipment has been sent. Battalions then are supplied from the Overseas Depots.
At the same time, the Joliet depot is purchasing an additional six months’ supply of parts. Thus, every piece of automotive equipment is assured of continuously having an 18-month supply of functional spare parts divided between the main depot and the nearest overseas depot. Only when a battalion is going to a part of the world isolated from an Advance Depot is its “A” list supplemented with supplies from the “B” list.
Fortunately, the Navy need not depend entirely upon aid from the factory. Mobile machine shops, maintained by Seabee mechanics, have performed field miracles in keeping equipment functioning.
Each battalion is equipped with one invaluable machine shop trailer and an adequate number of skilled personnel for a round-the-clock service. Enabling the Seabees to repair worn parts, the trailers contain such necessary tools as lathes, drills, grinders, cutting and welding outfits and metalizing equipment.
When necessary, Seabee battalions have built their own machine shops and stocked them by devious methods. In one instance, a Civil Engineer Corps officer found the necessary tools when his battalion’s trucks needed repair. A machine tool salesman in private life, he obtained permission to rebuy some equipment that, years ago, he had sold to New Zealand customers. A machine shop was started with his purchases. Later, the officer wangled more tools from passing ships. Today the shop, considered one of the best in the South Pacific, is serving all branches of the service.
Seabees have done more than improvise repairs. Occasionally they have been called upon for a little on-the-spot remodeling. At one island base, for example, another pick-up truck was declared essential. Seabees cut a jeep in half, lengthened the frame and drive shaft, installed a light truck body. The jeep, now a truck, was driven off to work.
Another time, Seabees needed a tank truck. They removed the platform and side- walls from one of their 6X6 cargo-dump trucks and welded a huge pontoon to the chassis. A strictly Seabee-made sprinkling apparatus was added and the contraption was employed successfully to settle the dust on roads and airstrips of the base.
In the main, however, quantity, quality, and style of automotive equipment all are adequate. The Navy has placed orders totaling approximately $225,000,000 for advance base vehicles since the start of the war. Of this amount, equipment worth about $100,000,000 already is in service overseas.
Basic requirements of a single battalion of 1,100 Seabees include 12 jeeps, 4 light pickup trucks, 4 light cargo trucks, four 2 ½-ton cargo trucks and 32 combination cargo and dump trucks. In addition is auxiliary equipment such as: an ambulance, a machine shop trailer, four ¼-ton trailers, two 1-ton trailers, one low-bed machinery trailer, and four 300-gallon water trailers.
Given an allotment, the Seabee battalion keeps it running as long as possible. Captured or discarded Jap trucks are stripped for spare parts with which American vehicles can be given first aid. Finally, when no amount of ingenuity or repair or remodeling can make a piece of automotive equipment function, the Seabees discard it sadly—but not before they have divested it of every usable part, every convertible chunk of metal.