Unplanned, unwanted, undeclared, and unpopular, the Vietnam War in most American eyes just happened. And few people were quite sure how it had happened. The newspapers from time to time carried the unhappy stories of the French and their troubles in Indo-China in the turbulent years following World War II. After Dien Bien Phu came an uneasy period of truce between North and South Vietnam punctuated by reports of terrorism and assassination and an unstable government in Saigon. Slowly, Americans began to fill the vacuum left by the French. American advisors penetrated the jungles, American warships cruised the Tonkin Gulf, and then it was March 1965 and American Marines landed at Da Nang. United States combat troops were now committed to the mainland of Asia.
This proved to be no mere show of the flag in a banana republic. These Marines were the vanguard of an American force which was to expand steadily beyond half a million troops. They were there to win the hearts and the minds of the people of South Vietnam, to free these people from the terror of the Viet Cong, and to help them to get on their feet politically, economically, and militarily. Halfway around the world they were to engage in a frustrating and perplexing war with an elusive foe, where there were no fixed battle lines, yet where there were absolute lines of containment as far as United States forces were concerned, which were self- imposed by political decisions in Washington. The war that seemed to many to have just happened, turned out to be several wars in one; it was, among other things, a guerrilla war, an air war, a political war, and an engineering war. A major portion of that engineering war was waged by the U. S. Navy.
How did the U. S. Navy get landlocked in such a place anyway? Like the war itself, Navy involvement was piecemeal and gradual, planned almost on the spur of the moment. Certainly the top deep water sailors of the Navy had no intention of committing large numbers of Navy men ashore in a place like Vietnam. Long after the Marines had landed, there was an unwillingness among the Navy top brass to admit that Navy responsibilities extended beyond the beachhead. Now that the Marines were ashore—apparently for a protracted period—they would need support of engineers. They, and the Army and the Air Force units soon to follow, would need ports and roads and airfields to get a foothold in this undeveloped land. In World War II in General MacArthur's island-hopping campaign, engineer troops comprised 18 per cent of the total troop strength com mitted. Where were the engineers to come from now? The Army, hard pressed to take care of itself, wasn’t prepared to supply them to the Marines, and the Marines didn't have the capability either. Fortuitously, the Navy's Bureau of Yards and Docks under the command of Rear Admiral Peter Corradi, CEC, United States Navy, already had a large, responsible U. S. contractor at work in Vietnam. The Navy's Seabees, though small in number, were mobile and capable of deploying quickly, expediency prevailed—the Navy Civil Engineers, who guided both the Bureau and the Seabees, were handed the job.
The job would not be easy. Hurdles of a political and administrative nature in Washington, too complicated to relate here, were enormous. Suffice it to say that Pentagon rivalries, lack of understanding in some quarters as to the requirements and importance of the engineer effort, and reluctance to relinquish decision-making which was better made in the field (an attitude which also prevailed at Pearl Harbor initially) only served to complicate this overwhelming task. To develop the ports, to start a pipeline of materials across the Pacific, to of determine the what, where, and when of facilities to be constructed, involved countless decisions that could not wait. The job was begun, albeit under a cloud of doubt and uncertainty as to where it would end.
Fortunately for the U. S., the threat of what the enemy could do was not matched by what he actually did, the contractor was thus able to mobilize and build with a minimum of harassment in the early days. Similarly many military construction troop units were able to work under relatively peaceful conditions. General William C. Westmoreland, while still commanding in Vietnam in 1968, stated that the Viet Cong got their rockets too late, that with Soviet weapons they could have neutralized Saigon in 1966. By the time the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese did move in strength, the fundamental facilities from which to move American troops, planes, and ships were in place. The construction effort generated was impressive by any standard. Let us now take a look at the Navy's contribution—made up of disparate elements but brought together under the aegis of the Civil Engineer Corps.
Before 1965
"Without the Seabees we could not do it! This is more evident on each of my trips to Vietnam." With this salute to the Navy's construction men, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Wallace M. Greene Jr., continued the accolades which stretched back a quarter of a century to World War II when General MacArthur complained to their boss, Admiral Ben Moreell, ". . . the only trouble with your Seabees is that I don't have enough of them."
If paucity of numbers produced a complaint during World War II when the Seabees reached a strength exceeding a quarter of a million, surely one can sympathize with involved operational commanders on the eye of the Vietnam adventure when Seabee (Group VIII) strength world-wide totaled only 8,500 men. Their officers—Civil Engineer Corps—who had reached a high of 10,000 during the war now numbered less than 1,700. The one hundred and fifty battalions of World War II had dwindled to two shortly thereafter, were rebuilt to eleven during the Korean War, and returned to ten from that point until the Vietnam build-up in 1965. However, Seabee strength measured in terms of numbers of battalions could be somewhat misleading, for not all of the Group VIII enlisted men (as the construction trades had come to be designated) were in Naval Mobile Construction Battalions (NMCBs) in 1965; nor are they today. Almost half of them were assigned to such diverse activities as the State Department Naval Support Unit, the Antarctic Support Activity, Nuclear Power program, two Amphibious Construction Battalions (ACBs), and Public Works Departments scattered all over the world. Furthermore, battalion strengths differed. Those in the Pacific Fleet, home ported at Port Hueneme, California, and deployed at various times in unit or sub-unit strength to Guam, Okinawa, Midway, Adak, and Sangley Point, were five in number, each of 525 men. Home ported at Davisville, Rhode Island, and similarly deployed to Argentia, Bermuda, Morocco, Spain, Roosevelt Roads, and Guantanamo Bay, were the five battalions of the Atlantic Fleet; three with an allowance of 400 men and two with an allowance of 200. Parenthetically, it should be noted that while everyone attached to one of these battalions was a Seabee, not all were Group VIIIs. The cooks, yeomen, medical corpsmen, and other men in essential support roles generally comprised about 15 to 20 per cent of a battalion’s complement. Similarly, though the battalions were led and predominantly staffed by Civil Engineer Corps (CEC) officers (17 of the 24), also included were officers of the Line and Supply (two each), and one each from the Medical, Dental, and Chaplain Corps—Seabees all.
The decision to place large numbers of Marines ashore in Vietnam in 1965 signaled a change, not only in the number, size, and deployment of Seabee battalions, but in the Group VIII family, the Civil Engineer Corps, and their parent headquarters, the Bureau of Yards and Docks (now the Naval Facilities Engineering Command) in Washington.
Of course, Vietnam was not entirely new to Navy men. Back in May of 1845 at Tourane (now Da Nang), Captain John Percival, commanding the USS Constitution, saw fit to seize as hostages some three Mandarins to force, unsuccessfully, as it turned out, the release of a French bishop at Hue. Though it was not that long ago, the Civil Engineer Corps had also been exposed previously to this exotic land. In August and September 1954, elements of ACB-i under Commander L. N. Saunders participated in Operation "Passage to Freedom,” a massive evacuation of people and equipment from the Tonkin Delta region of French Indo-China to the south. Because of the truce agreement, these Seabees were not allowed ashore at Haiphong, their original destination, but they did some work at Tourane and, after removing all American military identification from their clothing and equipment, they disembarked at Cap St. Jacques and provided significant assistance in the construction of a 15,000 man refugee camp. Seabees returned again in 1956 when a group of five officers and six men from NMCB-10, led by Commander W. M. Brown, surveyed some 105 tortuous miles of jungle, the toughest link in a master survey involving 1,800 miles of existing and proposed roads in South Vietnam.
Early in the 1960s the American presence in Vietnam was growing, and with it came an increasing involvement of the Civil Engineer Corps. Members of the U. S. Military Assistance Group (MAAG), predominantly Army, came into the country along with civilian organizations and soon found themselves in need of more extensive logistic support than they could provide for themselves. Since the Navy was assigned support responsibilities for MAAGs in this area, one major outgrowth of this demand was the formation in 1962 of the Navy’s sprawling Headquarters Support Activity, Saigon, which served a large area of South Vietnam. The Support Activity's Public Works Department, during Captain S. C. Gill's tenure as PWO, ultimately numbered well over 2,000 people, of whom nearly 200 were Seabees. This was the first appreciable number of Seabees in one unit committed to Vietnam on a continuing basis. The majority of the remaining 1,800 were Vietnamese. Their responsibilities were those normally associated with Navy public works operations, namely design and construction of facilities, acquisition of real estate, maintenance of facilities, and operation of utilities and ground transportation. Though the bulk of their work was in the Saigon area, public works forces operated country wide. For example, roving one and two man Seabee automotive and generator repair teams rendered service to Special Forces, MACV Advisors, and U. S. Government civilian agencies located in remote provinces. Seabee inspectors ranged from Phu Quoc Island in the south to Dong Ha and Lang Vei in the north, overseeing Vietnamese civilian construction contracts for MACV HSA Saigon was phased out in May 1966 and replaced by the Army's First Logistics Command. The smaller Naval Support Activity, Saigon, immediately came into being to take care of those scattered Navy elements in the southern sectors (II, III, and IV Corps) which the Army found difficult to support.1
The Seabees in the Saigon area departed with the demise of HSA, but in June 1966 some one hundred of them were back again, on "loan" from the newly formed Public Works Department at Naval Support Activity, Da Nang.
Seabee Teams
In the meantime, other Seabees in small units, orignally known as Seabee Technical Assistance Teams (STATS), later shortened to "Seabee Teams," became a part of the Vietnamese scene, commencing in January 1963 when the first two organized teams, 0501 and 0502, under Lieutenant (j.g.) R. L. Ferriter and Lieu tenant C. V. M. Popowich arrived at Dam Pau in the central part of the country and Tri Ton in the southwest for the construction of civic action and tactical support projects. Forerunners of the teams, detachments from regular battalions, had served in Ecuador from 1959 to 1962, in Chile from 1961 to 1963, and in Haiti from 1962 to 1963.Subsequently, Seabee Teams were to sea duty in the Dominican Republic, Upper Volta, Costa Rica, the Central African Republic, Liberia, and Thailand.
The teams were designed to be small, mobile, and cross-skilled. Consisting of a junior Civil Engineer Corps officer-in-charge, a hospital corpsman, and eleven men in the ratings of construction equipment operator and mechanic, builder, steelworker, construction electrician, utilities man, and engineering aid, these teams were normally given some months of intensive language and technical unit training at one of the three Naval Construction Battalion Centers—Port Hueneme, California, Davisville, Rhode Island, or Gulfport, Mississippi (starting in 1968), prior to being sent on a mission.
Initially, to counter Viet Cong political influence in the villages, their missions in Vietnam were of two basic types: to construct small fortified camps and support facilities for U. S. Army Special Forces (Green Berets), and to assist Vietnamese civilians in civic action projects in relatively secure rural areas. Approximately 30 per cent of initial financial support was provided by the U. S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) for teams supporting the Special Forces. The first two teams the country in 1963 were in this category. Then, two teams designated for the rural development program were deployed in the latter part of 1963, and from October of that year, the United States Operations Mission (USOM), whose functions were later replaced by the State Department's U. S. Agency for International Development (USAID), sponsored and financially supported these two teams. The average annual cost to the sponsor was $88,000 per team for materials, transportation, and so on, plus $200,000 to the Navy for initial outfitting, training, and personnel costs. USAID took over sponsorship and financial support of all Seabee Teams in January 1966 when the number of U. S. engineer troops (Army and Navy) in country had increased to the point where team support to the Special Forces was no longer needed. Early in 1968, responsibility for all rural development and allied civic action type programs was vested in a newly created MACV/U.S. Embassy organization entitled Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS), and the subsequent placing of Seabee Teams came under its jurisdiction.
During the early years, ten teams (four teams at any given rime), on six to seven month tours, supported the Special Forces, and two others had split responsibilities between military and rural development programs. The Special Forces, who were advising and training Vietnamese Strike Forces and Civilian Irregular Defense Groups in anti-guerrilla fighting and defense tactics, were usually located in remote forward areas, and fortified camps able to withstand ground and mortar attack were essential to their survival. In addition to constructing these camps complete with utilities systems, bunkers, and earthen parapets, the Seabees were called upon to construct access roads and tactical airstrips, 1,500 feet long at a minimum, to accept the Army’s twin-engine STOL Caribou planes which delivered camp supplies. Further, they were able on many occasions to engage in civic action projects similar in nature to those of the teams sponsored by USAID.
While they were primarily builders, these Seabees were in some instances directly involved in battle. The most significant action occurred on June 9-11, 1965, at Dong Xoai, 55 miles northeast of Saigon, where 2,000 Viet Cong troops overran a Special Forces camp containing 400 South Vietnamese and allied Asian troops, 11 Green Berets, and nine Seabees of Seabee Team 1104. Seven of the Seabees were wounded and two of them killed. One of the dead was Marvin G. Shields (CMA-3), who was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry in carrying a critically wounded man to safety and in destroying a Viet Cong machine gun emplacement at the cost of his life. He was the first Seabee to win the Nation’s highest award and the first Navy man to be so decorated for action in Vietnam.
From 1963 through 1966, there were normally four Seabee Teams working in Vietnam at any given time, and from 1966 on all were devoted to civic action projects exclusively. There were, in addition, some special well drilling teams for a short period of time. Their success in the villages where they acted as teacher-builders, working alongside the local people, speaking their language, and providing a measure of elementary medical care the people had never known before, prompted the State Department to request more and more of these "military Peace Corps” units. The number of teams in country was upped to eight in 1967 and by July 1968 their number had grown to fifteen. By that time some 56 teams had served in Vietnam, and every one of the four corps areas had felt their presence.
Statistics have, of course, changed rapidly, but some idea of the contribution of the teams may be gained from these figures gathered at Seabee headquarters in Hawaii (ComCBPac) in mid-1968: "Pioneered or upgraded to all-weather standards over three hundred and fifty miles of provincial roads and highways; planned and built four 'New Life Hamlets;’ planned and laid out six Refugee Villages; built three provincial and four local district market places; built sixteen Special Forces Camps; constructed thirty hospitals and dispensaries; added sixty school houses to the Vietnamese educational system; placed over 286,000 cubic yards of fill; provided on-the-job training to more than five thousand Vietnamese refugees, villagers, public works personnel, and "Chieu Hoi” returnees (ex-Viet Cong) (more than half of these in 1967 alone); built over 4,000 feet of bridges (12 to 400 feet in length) and laid over two hundred culverts; constructed over eight miles of airfields; added 865 one-family housing units to various refugee villages; placed over fifty fresh water wells; and, constructed 168 civic and public buildings for the Vietnamese Government." One other statistic is also worthy of note; at the time of this report team hospital corpsmen had treated well over 150,000 Vietnamese at sick call.
One of the most significant factors concerning the teams was that they were—from 1966 on—embarked solely on missions essentially nonmilitary in character, even though the war continued to rage all about them. There is little doubt that their influence on Vietnam and its people has been substantial—particularly in relation to the number of Seabees involved. Vice President Hubert Humphrey in addressing the Senate of the United States put it this way:
"The Seabee Team has been called the military peace corps and the reasons for that comparison are obvious. Like the Peace Corps, the Seabee Teams put something into the country: They develop human resources. Such a contribution is valuable indeed.
"Dollar for dollar, the Seabee Team program has been called one of our best overseas investments. These teams have earned praise from high officials of every country involved, even though the program as a whole is still relatively young.
"Although this Seabee Team program is not widely known, I believe it is encouraging to learn of this down-to-earth attempt to assist our friends in Southeast Asia to build better communities for themselves and their families"
OICC and RMK-BRJ
Yet another element of the Civil Engineer Corps was in Vietnam long before the 1965 buildup. A memorandum from the Office of the Secretary of Defense in 1956(and later refined in 1963) assigned contract construction responsibilities to the Army Corps of Engineers in certain parts of the world and to the Navy's Bureau of Yards and Docks (BuDocks) in others. Southeast Asia became Navy responsibility. In that same year 1ti3ounbocks established its Officer in Charge of Construction (OICC) office under a CEC Captain, G. M. Inscoe, at Bangkok. It was responsible for administering contract construction, including design, in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. An offshoot of that office, the Resident Officer in Charge of Construction (ROICC) for Vietnam was established in Saigon in the spring of 1961. Its first project was to administer an architectural and engineering contract for the layout of a runway at Bien Hoa. It might be noted that the OICC office had some capability for doing its own design in house with a small number of U. S. civil servants and third country nationals, but the bulk of its design work was carried out by architectural and engineering firms located in Southeast Asia.
Before the end of the year the foundations were laid for one of the greatest construction ventures in history. In December 1961 a letter contract with a joint venture of two U. S. firms, Raymond International of New York and Morrison-Knudsen of Asia, Inc.—based in Boise, Idaho—was executed by the Bureau of Yards and Docks for the construction of "Airfields and Communication Facilities” in the Republic of Vietnam. This was converted to a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract in January 1962 in the amount of some $15 million, plus government furnished materials and equipment which brought the total to more than $22 million. The sites involved were Pleiku, Bien Hoa, Tan Son Nhut (Saigon), and Da Nang. Coincidentally, in January 1962 the Saigon ROICC office was expanded to eight officers and 72 civilians and upgraded under a more senior officer. Its head, also a CEC Captain, now carried the title of Deputy, though the Saigon office became increasingly independent of the main office in Bangkok. In mid-1965 the break was completed when OICC Republic of Vietnam was formally established as a separate entity with 135 people, including 20 officers. The remaining 115 were U. S. civil servants, Vietnamese, and civilians from other countries. Subsequently, under the direction of a Civil Engineer Corps Rear Admiral-the first being William M. Heaman—the staff grew to over 1,000, including 100 officers and a small number of enlisted men.
Up until 1965 the contractor was engaged largely in building facilities for the armed forces of Vietnam under the Mutual Assistance Program. The original $22 million worth of work had grown to a total of more than $150 million over the three years. When it became evident that a U. S. troop build-up was in the offing, BuDocks hastened to enlarge the contractor’s construction capability to include support of U. S. forces. Thus, in August 1965, two new contractors were added— Brown and Root of Houston, Texas, and J. A. Jones of Charlotte, North Carolina. This became the final consortium of the four contracting companies which were to carry out the bulk of the construction effort in Vietnam under the banner of RMK-BRJ; Raymond- Morrison-Knudsen-Brown-Root-Jones.
Under their resident boss in Saigon, M-K’s Bertram L. Perkins, RMK-BRJ rapidly increased their labor force of 15,000 in mid-1965 to over 51,000 men within a year. Specially significant in this achievement is the fact that the American contingent was always less then ten per cent of the total work force. Included in their numbers were some 4,200 Americans, 41,800 Vietnamese, and 5,700 "free-world journeymen,” mostly Filipinos and Koreans. This peak number was short-lived, however, for it looked as though military construction troops would take over and finish the job. By late 1967, the contract force had dwindled to less than 16,000. Plans were revised again shortly after the Tet offensive in January and February 1968 when the decision was made at a Commander in Chief Pacific conference to rebuild RMK-BRJ to 25,000 men for the indefinite future.
The Americans and free-world employees signed on for 18 months. A number lasted only a short while, but, conversely, many—some 40 per cent of the Americans, for instance—returned for at least one additional tour. One interesting statistic shows that by mid-1969 the hiring office at San Bruno, California, had screened over 385,000 U. S. applicants to place some 7,000 of them in Vietnam during the course of the contract. As the contract effort went down, most of the non-Vietnamese left the country. Information on the released Vietnamese workers is sparse, but many carried their newly developed skills into the Vietnamese Army, Vietnamese enterprises of various sorts, and the growing maintenance organizations supporting the U. S. forces. Some became skilled, even by our standards, as a result of working with RMK, Public Works or Seabee Teams.
Monitoring the RMK-BRJ contract was a major part of the OICC’s responsibilities. It was converted in April 1966 from a cost-plus-fixed-fee to a cost-plus-award-fee (CPAF) type, designed with an incentive feature to enhance contractor performance. But this was not the OICC’s sole job. As construction agent for the Department of Defense in Vietnam, the OICC was concerned with a large design effort, both in house and by contract, and he let numerous lump sum contracts to smaller construction contractors (largely Vietnamese or Korean) for the U. S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and State Department. Until 1966 each service, upon receipt of its military construction funds, placed its requirements directly on the OICC for design and contract accomplishment.
As the troop build-up mounted in 1965, the conflicting demands and changing priorities of the various services demonstrated the need for a new regulatory body on the staff of the U. S. Commander in Vietnam. In February 1966 the Directorate of Construction, U. S. Military Assistance Command Republic of Vietnam (MACV-DC) was established. Headed by an Army engineer, Brigadier General C. H. Dunn, and staffed with officers from all the Services, this office became responsible for setting construction standards (i.e., number of square feet per man in barracks), authorizing and setting priorities of construction by contract or troop labor, and coordinating the acquisition of real estate. The formation of MACV-DC did not alter the basic design, construction, and financial responsibilities of the OICC office which still reported back through its own chain to the Naval Facilities Engineering Command. In addition to setting construction standards which were binding on all Services, another major function of MACV-DC was to receive the requirements which the various services had heretofore placed on the OICC, sort out relative priorities among the services, and then assign construction responsibility to the OICC or troops.
An ofttimes frustrating feature of the pre-construction processes was that, despite the wartime environment, they were handled to a large degree on a peacetime basis. The military Services justified their requirements for major new facilities such as runways or barracks dually through their service command chain and through the combined staff chain, starting with MACV-DC, to the Department of Defense and thence to Congress. After apportionment to the Services in Washington the funds were then returned through the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC-formerly BuDocks) chain to the OICC-RVN who acted as banker, before and after the formation of MACV-DC, for all major military construction funds in Vietnam. Individual projects under $25,000 financed by "Maintenance" rather than "Construction" funds and tactical support construction projects were not subject to this process but were handled by the separate Services who used troops, in house civilians, or contractors, as convenient. Each of the services in Vietnam had its own engineering their planning groups who concentrated on defining their own requirements such as siting, number of units, and the like. In addition, they also turned out final designs and let small construction contracts. However, most of the design work for the larger facilities was done under the direction of the OICC, in consultation with the engineers of the affected service and the users, regardless, of whether MACV-DC assigned the construction to the contractor or to the troops.
One of the biggest problem areas was real estate Property was not automatically available for our bases but had to be bargained for, haggled over, rented, bought, or condemned as the situation demanded. Relocation of graves from construction sites with appropriate ceremony and compensation was a problem of unbelievable proportions.2 Our bases were not necessarily shaped by military or economic reasons but rather by the efficacy of our real estate negotiations.
Just as with many other facets of this complicated war, there was no sharp dividing line between work assigned to the contractor and that assigned to troops. In general it may be stated that the contractor took the larger, more complicated jobs in relatively secure areas while the troops concentrated on lighter jobs in the more forward areas. In late 1967 and early 1968, in I Corps particularly, there were a number of instances where RMK-BRJ men worked next to Seabees on similar jobs. As a matter of fact, as the contractor's force was reduced, it turned a number of its jobs over to the troops for accomplishment. Conversely, as the Seabees were called upon for more tactical support, work originally assigned them was shifted to the contractor.
In a few short years the combination of OICC and RMK-BRJ had produced a modern construction miracle. Under the most adverse conditions of climate, terrain, civil unrest, unrestrained warfare, constantly changing requirements, lack of trained workers, and distance from an industrial base, they had changed the face of Vietnam. Building airfields, ports, roads, cities, and almost every kind of facility imaginable, they had by early 1969 placed nearly $1.5 billion worth of new construction.
Other Construction Organizations
As more units moved into Vietnam, it became impractical for the OICC to preside over every bit of construction, even that accomplished by contract. By early 1969 nearly half of all the military construction in Vietnam had been undertaken by some force other than RMK-BRJ. There were, of course, numerous small contractors some of whom worked for the OICC and some who did not, who were employed by engineer elements of each of the services and by USAID. Collectively these local contractors had accounted for some $75 million worth of construction by the fall of 1966.
Also significant were a few large U. S. contractors who did not belong to the RMK-BRJ combine. Despite a long standing Pentagon policy which confined major military construction administration to the Army and Navy engineers—and another policy which made the Navy the DOD construction agent in Vietnam—the Air Force managed to build under their own direction an Air Base at Tuy Hoa. In May 1966 they awarded a cost-plus-incentive-fee "Turn-Key" contract (a complete package, including design and construction) to Walter Kidde Constructors, a subsidiary of Electric Bond and Share Company, at an estimated cost of $52 million. The contractor did not accomplish the work completely on his own, however; he was given a lot of help by Air Force construction troops and airlift. Air Force arguments to gain permission from Secretary of Defense McNamara for this departure from policy included the charge that RMK-BRJ lacked sufficient capacity to meet the requirements of all the services in Vietnam and that the U. S. Command in Saigon had short changed the Air Force in the assignment of construction priorities. Though completed, this project was unique. No further project similar to this one in size and scope came to fruition outside the established construction policies.
Another contract of importance, valued at $10 million, was negotiated by the Army in June 1966 with the Vinnell Corporation for the construction of power plants and utility lines at various sites. Even more significant were the combined cost-plus-fixed-fee contracts for repair and utility functions at Army facilities negotiated between the Army and Pacific Architects and Engineers, Inc. Starting in May 1963, and negotiated on a yearly basis, these contracts grew steadily, exceeding an annual cost of $100 million in less than five years. While P.A. & E.’s primary job was one of maintenance and operation, its forces did contribute materially in the construction of troop housing, administrative areas, and related facilities. Some observers have attempted to compare the Army’s P.A. & E. contract with that between the Navy and Philco-Ford, but comparisons are difficult. In the case of P.A. & E. the Army essentially turned over the entire responsibility for repair and utilities to the contractor. The Navy, on the other hand, used Philco-Ford primarily to furnish Korean artisans who were integrated into a combined Seabee-civilian Public Works Department at Da Nang run by CEC officers.
By far the greatest construction effort outside of the RMK-BRJ joint venture came from the U. S. construction troops. And, of course, there was a significant amount of "self help” construction by non-engineer troops who were furnished materials and plans and left largely to their own devices. Operating for the most part in the central and southern areas of the Republic of Vietnam (II, III, and IV Corps areas), the Army engineer battalions carried the largest load of the services. Smallest of the military contingents were those of the Air Force, Civil Engineering Squadrons (Heavy Repair), which operated at selected Air Force sites. And in I Corps, supporting the Marines, were the Seabees.
Seabee Battalions in I Corps
The encounter between North Vietnamese and U. S. warships in August 1964, soon to be known as the Tonkin Gulf Incident, touched off a series of actions which culminated in the landing of U. S. Marines in Da Nang in March 1965. U. S. combat troops, not "Advisors,” were now committed to the land war in Asia which so many had hoped to avoid. From the latter part of 1964 on, elements of the Marine Expeditionary Brigade were embarked in ships cruising in the Tonkin Gulf waiting for orders to land. In company with the Marines were Seabees of Amphibious Construction Battalion One, deployed from Yokosuka, Japan. ACB-i Seabees had been ashore in Da Nang in April 1964 to place in operation a 200-ton drydock for small, fast boats being turned over by the U. S. to the Vietnamese Navy. Now ACB-1 was standing by with its full assault teams in the amphibious ships, ready with piers, fuel systems, and appurtenances to support the landing when and if it came.
Conditions ashore were such that the Seabees were not needed to make the landings at Da Nang. They did, however, in the next month, install a number of fuel systems, provide causeways for off-loading LSTs, and establish camp support ashore in Da Nang.
When the Marines next landed, at Chu Lai, some 50 miles south of Da Nang, during the period 7-10 May 1965, elements of ACB-i, under Lieutenant Commander R. T. Field, went ashore with the third assault wave. Their placing of two eight-section causeway piers from the open sea was described by Major General Collins, Commanding General of the 3rd Marine Division, as ". . . the one single function that made the entire operation possible.” Following placement of the causeways, another group of Seabees, Naval Mobile Construction Battalion Ten, under the command of Commander J. M. Bannister, came ashore to build an expeditionary airfield with AM2 aluminum matting. This marked the first amphibious landing of a full Seabee Battalion since World War II. Fortunately, enemy harassment was minimal in this early period, but temperatures reaching 120°F. and a fine, almost completely uniform sand, which was hard to work in, made all vehicles useless except those with tracks. Despite the handicaps of weather and terrain, the "Men of Ten” had put enough of the airfield in place (3,500 feet) to enable Marine jet planes to operate from it 23 days after the initial landing.
NMCB-10 had been, prior to the Marine landings, the alert battalion on Okinawa, prepared to move en masse to any trouble spot on short notice. Accordingly, it was engaged on rough construction projects which could be dropped immediately when the call came. A semi-alert battalion was based at Guam, ready to move to help also should the alert battalion need assistance. Also on Okinawa, but deeply engaged in major construction primarily for the Marines, was a third battalion. The other two Pacific battalions were at their home port of Port Hueneme, taking leave and retraining, having recently returned from overseas assignments. Similarly, the five Atlantic battalions were in various stages of deployment off the East coast of the U. S., in the Caribbean, in Europe, and in Africa.
In the initial months the Marines occupied three major enclaves at Da Nang, Chu Lai, and Hue-Phu Bai, with a primary objective of driving the main force Viet Cong units back into the hills and linking the enclaves. I Corps, comprising all five northernmost provinces of Mouth Vietnam, from the DMZ southward over 200 miles, became the Marines' responsibility. The extent to which the Navy in general and the Seabees in particular would support the Marines once they got ashore was not clearly spelled out at the time of the landing at Da Nang, nor was it for some time thereafter. It soon became evident, however, that this was not to be a short hit and move-on amphibious operation but rather one in which the Marines, contrary to their normal doctrine, would settle in.
Their burgeoning requirements for ports, cantonments, utilities, aircraft support, supply areas, and other support facilities were well beyond Marine organic capabilities. Coincident with the RMK-BRJ build-up Seabee help was now mobilized. In late May 1963, NMCB-3 deployed from Guam and the next month NMCB-9 left Port Hueneme; both reported to Da Nang. Two battalions were shifted from the Atlantic to the Pacific Fleet in 1965 and went immediately to Vietnam In the fall of 1965, four new battalions were authorized and they were commissioned in February, March, July, and August of 1966. The old base at Gulfport, Mississippi, was raised from a totally industrial facility to become the third home port for the Seabees, along with Port Hueneme and Davisville. In the spring of 1966 three new regiments were formed, one at each Construction Battalion Center. Atlantic battalions, in the meantime, were recalled to Davisville, increased in strength, and then flown directly to Vietnam. Ultimately every Seabee unit went to Vietnam except CBU-201, which was a small force serving the Antarctic research program. NMCB-6, the last peacetime battalion to deploy to the war zone, arrived in May 1966. Subsequently, five more battalions were commissioned, and two reserve battalions, MCB-12 and 22, were recalled for just about a year of active duty in April 1968. This brought the total number of battalions in 1968-69 to twenty-one. The maximum number in Vietnam reached twelve early in 1968 and was reduced to ten before the end of that year. They were all assigned to I Corps distributed in mid-1968 as follows: Five battalions in Da Nang, two in Chu Lai, two in Phu Bai, one in Camp Evans north of Hue, one in Quang Tri, and one in Dong Ha.
The rapid build-up of the battalions brought organizational changes to the whole Seabee structure. During peacetime deployments in the Pacific areas the battalions had feported directly to Commander Naval Construction Battalions, U. S. Pacific Fleet, (ComCBPac) in Hawaii, and he in turn, reported to Commander Service Force, U. S. Pacific Fleet (ComServPac), also located in Hawaii. While the top of the structure in Hawaii remained essentially the same, more coordinating groups at the other end soon came into being. First of these was the 30th Naval Construction Regiment, formed in Da Nang under Captain H. F. Liberty in early May 1965 to provide operational control over all Seabee battalions in Vietnam. This was a reactivation of the last Seabee Regiment to be decommissioned when the large Seabee construction effort at Cubi Point, Philippines, came to a close some ten years before. When CBPac planners had been working on contingency plans with the Marines on Okinawa they had visualized, under the direct chain of command of the Commanding General, the Commander of the 30th NCR (a CEC Captain), wearing a second hat as Commander of the Force Engineer Group (FEG). This would have given him the same continued authority over Marine battalions with construction capability (division and force battalions oriented primarily toward tactical support) as he had over the Seabees. With the thought that he would be invaluable in coordinating the efforts of the Marine battalions, a Marine colonel was requested, and assigned to serve as chief staff officer of the 30th NCR. However, the Commanding General of the 3rd Marine Amphibious Force, Lieutenant General L. W. Walt, as the commander in I Corps, in consonance with ComNavForV, made the decision not to place the FEG under the Seabee commander, and the combined use of all engineer elements never did take place. A few months later when it came time for the chief staff officer, Colonel W. R. Gould, to be relieved, he was replaced by a CEC officer.
The next significant change, the placing of all Seabee battalions under a Civil Engineer Corps Flag Officer in Vietnam, came with the formation of the 3rd Naval Construction Brigade under Rear Admiral R. R. Wooding, CEC, United States Navy, on June 1, 1966, at Saigon. His primary job was that of OICC, permanently based in Saigon, so the 30th NCR commander at Da Nang continued to exercise the greatest command influence over the Seabee battalions, all of which were in I Corps. With the projected assignment of a second CEC Flag Officer to Vietnam, the OICC shed his brigade responsibilities and the Regimental Commander in Da Nang, Captain A. R. Marschall, took command of the brigade as well, briefly during the summer of 1967. In the late summer when the new Brigade Commander, Rear Admiral J. V. Bartlett, CEC, United States Navy, arrived in Da Nang the 30th Naval Construction Regiment was split into two regiments, each under a Captain (C. W. Turner and J. M. Hill). The 30th Naval Construction Regiment continued in Da Nang, and the new 32nd Naval Construction Regiment established headquarters to the north in Phu Bai-Gia Le. Thus, after two years of experimentation and growth, the Seabee Command in Vietnam had developed into a 9,000 man, 12 battalion force of two regiments under one brigade. (However, it should be noted that all Seabees assigned to duty in Vietnam did not come under the command of 3rd Naval Construction Brigade. The Public Works and CBMU Seabees reported to the Naval Support Activity Commanders at Da Nang and Saigon, and the Amphibious Construction Battalion Seabees were part of the Amphibious Force.) Administratively, the Pacific battalions still reported individually to ComCBPac and the Atlantic battalions to ComCBLant with the result that the brigade and regimental staffs could concentrate entirely on the operational business of getting on with the construction. Though the Brigade Commander reported to Commander Naval Forces Vietnam in Saigon, there was little question that on a day-to-day basis the Seabees were working for the senior officer in I Corps, the Commanding General III Marine Amphibious Force.
As the conflict escalated and command relationships evolved, the battalions themselves also underwent transition. During World War II the 1,080-man Seabee battalion had come into being, but its successor, which was developed in the following years of peace, was a more mobile highly compact unit with about half the number of men. At the start of the Vietnam conflict the authorized allowance of a battalion was 21 officers and 563 men. Special requirements in Vietnam—particularly in the area of road and airfield construction raised the number by 125, primarily in the equipment operator and mechanics trades. Subsequently 50 more were added to provide perimeter security for base camps and job sites, bringing new authorized allowances to 24 officers and 738 enlisted men.
Parenthetically, as a matter of comparison, it might be noted that the Army Engineers, who at their peak had 27 battalions in country, had two kinds of battalions —combat and construction. The former were involved in combat engineering functions such as mine sweeping, demolition, and field fortification. The latter had responsibilities similar to the Seabees for more standard construction chores. These Army construction battalions were slightly larger, having 41 officers and 879 enlisted men. Generally speaking, they operated in II, III, and IV Corps, but when Army units moved into I Corps to reinforce the Marines in 1967-68 four Army engineer battalions accompanied them. The Air Force also had a few heavy construction squadrons known as Red Horse” (Rapid Engineer Deployment, Heavy Operational Repair Squadron) consisting of 12 officers and 388 enlisted men. For the most part, they tended to concentrate on work of a temporary or emergency nature at scattered Air Force sites. Like the Army, the Marines had two types of engineering units in the field—the Division Engineer Battalions (1st and 3rd) and Force Engineer Battalions (7th, 9th, and 11th), all of whom operated, of course, in I Corps. The former, consisting of 34 officers, 735 men (and a few naval medical personnel) per battalion, provided close combat support to the division. The latter, with 46 officers and 1,049 men per battalion, provided more general engineering support of a deliberate nature for the landing force (division and wing).
Even though the Army brought their own engineers with them to I Corps, during the build-up period about 25 per cent of the Seabee effort was devoted to support of the Army.
The first Seabee battalions to arrive in Vietnam came by ship from Okinawa, Guam, and Port Hueneme, but later personnel deployments in and out of the country were accomplished by air. Each battalion had about 10,000 measurement tons of tools, equipment, and supplies valued at $4.4 million. Included in the bulky items were some 250 pieces of tactical automotive and construction equipment such as bulldozers, tractors, and mobile cranes. About 9,000 tons remained in country with its successor when a battalion was relieved, and the other 1,000 tons, such as hand tools and weapons, shipped by sea or air, accompanied the battalion back and forth to insure that the battalion retained the capability to mount out for another contingency or to reinforce Vietnam on short notice if required.
Here it should be noted that the Seabee battalions rotated as complete units. This was contrary to the general policy among the armed forces in Vietnam wherein individuals and not units were rotated. There were many highly placed recommendations to stop the interchange of battalions, but experience with the huge Seabee construction effort at Cubi Point a decade before indicated that productivity and morale were enhanced by keeping the battalions intact. The cycle of eight months in country followed by six months back in the U. S. for leave, training, and regrouping cut to a minimum the number of individuals leaving the battalion during its deployment in Vietnam. Obviously there were many uncompleted projects when it came time for a battalion to leave for home, and there was some lost motion as the relieving battalion took over. This hiatus was cut to a minimum, however, by having advance parties from the new battalion get on site several weeks before the official change-over. As a result, loss of productive man days was not a significant factor. Moreover, personnel programs developed to complement the unit rotational concept, enabled the Navy to reduce total Seabee manpower requirements by about 2,000 men.
Productivity and the cost of doing work loomed large in the eyes of Pentagon analysts who sought to determine whether civilian contractors or troops should carry the burden of the construction effort. Though the two modes of construction were difficult to compare, the best evidence seemed to indicate that from the government’s standpoint the ultimate costs were about the same. When charges against project funds were made, troop charges were about one-quarter those of the contractor; but the other three-quarters, though hidden, were real enough, for they were charged against other appropriations such as military pay, operations cost, and the like. A few 1968 figures may help to put Seabee costs in perspective. The first year total cost of a battalion was estimated to be $13,476,000 (including $3,184,000 for operating costs). One could expect to receive per battalion 19,000 man days of productive labor a month. Put another way, a battalion could be expected to place about $350,000 worth of new construction a month.
Another area of interest has been a comparison of skills between the civilians on the contractors’ rolls and the Seabees. Once again, generalizations as to differences are difficult to make. RMK-BRJ had a relatively small cadre of highly trained American artisans, a slightly larger number of skilled Asians from outside of Vietnam, and a very high percentage of Vietnamese, most of whom possessed very little skill when they were first hired. While the Seabees also encompassed a wide spectrum of skills and competence within those skills, they had few, if any, who were capable only of common labor. Again, by and large, a standoff.
Though cost and skill comparisons tend to equate the contractor and military engineer capabilities, it is to be remembered that the primary purposes in maintaining engineer troops are to possess flexibility, to be able to provide rapid initial support to contingency operations and to have the ability to work in a zone of intensive hostilities.
Insofar as construction equipment is concerned, there are varying opinions as to whether Vietnam put a tougher strain on equipment than might be expected elsewhere. During the dry season the sand and laterite dust caused problems, and there was more of the same from the soupy laterite during the wet season. Certainly, round-the-clock operations accelerated the breakdown of equipment, particularly where time out for adequate maintenance was hard to come by. Such was the case immediately after the initial landings at Chu Lai where MCB-10 experienced extremely high deadline percentages (up to 45 per cent of the equipment inoperable). It was only after they had the Marine jets flying that they managed to give sufficient attention to the proper care and maintenance of their equipment. In time, procedures were developed which brought the deadline figure under five percent for all battalions then in country. The availability of spare parts tends to be a perennial problem, but the Seabee forces after a period of shakedown did not find it an insurmountable one. Stocked at the Construction Battalion Centers at Port Hueneme and Davisville were repair parts for 1,800 construction hours (two 10-hour shifts for 90 days) for each piece of equipment. Air shipment to Vietnam of critical items could normally be accomplished within 30 days of ordering. Supply Corps officers and rates attached to the battalions working with the Seabee oriented Construction Battalion Center supply departments played a major role in accomplishing this support through various routes of the Navy supply system.
Experience ultimately showed that the life cycle of a piece of equipment committed to Vietnam averaged 45 months from the time it was received from the factory in a U. S. depot until it passed out of the system. (A little better than half the life cycle in the U. S.) Further, from an economical and capability standpoint, this piece was good for only one depot overhaul. It was usual for a piece of equipment to be in country for about 16 months before it left for overhaul, and on its return it was used for another 16 months. RMK-BRJ took care of itself but did not appear to have the capability to overhaul Seabee equipment on top of its own work load, so pieces were sent for overhaul primarily to the U. S. but also to Japan, Okinawa, the Philippines, or Guam. It should be noted that this program did not deny battalions essential equipment because of the availability of an adequate backup pipe line. Throughout this period a pool of augmentation equipment was steadily building up under the control of 3rd NCB, a pool, which early in 1969 totalled 1,000 pieces of specialized construction equipment not contained in the standard battalion allowance, valued at some $28,000,000.
Also assembled as material kits in a pool status in Da Nang and Port Hueneme were Seabee Tactical Support Functional Components (TSFC) available to support Navy and Marine tactical requirements. They included airfields capable of handling the c-130, water distribution systems for 1,000-man cantonments, combat support hospitals, and a host of others. Not only were they packaged units, but their use was not subject to the normal budgetary snarl of the line-item oriented military construction program under which most of the permanent facilities were built. Release of the TSFCs could be authorized by Commander 3rd Naval Construction Brigade when the senior operational commander could certify that his need qualified under ten criteria, which boiled down to urgent, unforeseen, and needed for direct tactical support against the enemy.
The Advanced Base Functional Component system, an outgrowth of lessons from World War II, consists of definitive advanced base component designs and pre-stocked hardware which had been designed, refined bought, sorted, and stored during the peaceful years. These components were invaluable in getting the Seabee construction effort underway even though some obsolescent equipment was in the system. One good example of a component was the 400-bed quonset hospital erected swiftly in Da Nang by one of the earliest battalions in country. It provided the needed medical facility in a hurry, but many pieces of its equipment such as galley stoves—though never used—were of such an age that the manufacturers no longer made spare parts for them or the manufacturers no longer existed. Obsolescence of this kind was more of a nuisance than a major problem, however, and upgrading of equipment was a continuous process the longer a facility remained in existence.
Naturally, all Seabee materials were not in the stored components. Apart from sand, rock, and gravel which were available in Vietnam, most of their materials such as lumber, pipe, and fittings came from the U. S., largely by ship but some by air. A small amount of material found its way into Vietnam from other countries, but "gold flow" prohibitions by the U. S. precluded this source from becoming more than a trickle. While a number of the old stand-bys of World War II, the metal quonset huts in stock, were used, particularly during the early phase of the buildup, the majority of the structures erected were of wood. Where large spans were called for, or where metal buildings were more desirable than wooden ones, the box-like prefabricated Butler building was a popular choice.
In the course of their duties the Seabee construction forces were involved in just about every kind of job imaginable. They built cantonments for thousands of men, hospitals, roads and airfields, warehousing, POL storage, harbor facilities such as piers and ramps, utilities systems, recreation areas, and many other facilities which were essential to the military effort but which in themselves were not necessarily combat oriented. Many items they built did fall in this category, however: items such as bunkers, revetments, and sentry towers. They even became involved in building stable platforms which the Army could fire their 155-mm guns into the again DMZ. Many times they had to do a job over again. A particular bridge near the Hai Van Pass was destroyed six times. A 3rd NCB report of 1 December 1967 stated matter-of-factly:
"Progress to date: Approximately 29 bridges have been constructed utilizing timber construction primarily. Net progress has been minimal since during one period 22 bridges were built while 21 were destroyed by sabotage." Though this report referred essentially to timber bridges, the Seabees also used precast concrete, steel substructure with timber decking, Bailey Deck type, and the AMMI (a multi-purpose steel pontoon designed by NAVFAC's Chief Engineering Advisor, Dr. Arsham Amirikian). In one of their largest concerted efforts of the war, six Seabee battalions worked on the upgrading of Routes #1 (from south of Hue-Phu Bai through Quang Tri and Dong Ha to the DMZ) and #9 (from Dong Ha west through Khe Sanh to the border)—an effort which contained 133 bridges (30 per cent ranging in length from 50 to 2,100 feet) in 138 miles of road—nearly one bridge per mile!
Following the initial landings in 1965, the Seabee battalions spent about 18 months developing the enclaves at Da Nang and Chu Lai and later in Phu Bai. Here they were concerned, along with the contractor, with erecting buildings, installing pipe lines, grading roads—all phases of construction necessary to create these major logistics bases. They built for everyone—Marines, Navy, Air Force, Army, Free World Forces, the Vietnamese Armed Forces; but they worked primarily for the Marines. Da Nang was the keystone, the major, deep water port and the major air base. Most of the materials coming in country came by ship to Da Nang where they were off-loaded and placed in shallow draft vessels for further shipment south to Chu Lai and north to Tan My and Hue, servicing Phu Bai. As troop strength increased, another small port at the mouth of the Cua Viet, some four and one-half miles from the DMZ, was established in 1967 to provision the Marine combat base at Dong Ha and its satellites.
In the early days the Marines sent small parties out of the enclaves on village pacification and "search and destroy” missions. These gradually moved away from the coastal plain to the highlands and evolved into sweep operations of battalion size. Operations expanded in the latter half of 1967 when a considerable build-up of Marine and Army troops took place in I Corps to meet the threat around the DMZ. Further escalation of combat operations was, of course, generated in January 1968 when the Tet offensive was touched off by the Communists. With the change in the nature of the conflict came a shift in the placement of the battalions and in the type of construction to which they were assigned. In June 1968 one-half of all Seabee battalion personnel were located north of the Hai Van Pass (just north of Da Nang), whereas a year previously only one-fifth of them had been so located. A steady shift to tactical support construction was also in evidence. The June 1968 report showed that two-thirds of the battalions’ man-day effort now went into tactical support, just double that of the previous year; and by January 1969 the proportion had grown to three-fourths. But as the Seabees in the battalions moved more into the tactical end of the business, there were other Seabees in country who did not; these were Public Works and Construction Battalion Maintenance Unit (CBMU) Seabees attached to the Naval Support Activities headquartered in Da Nang and Saigon, but actually spread all over the country.
Formation of NSA Da Nang
When the Marine Expeditionary Brigade was ordered to land at Da Nang in March 1965, there was no naval activity ashore to support it and no indication in official files that the Navy would move to establish such an activity. The Navy’s Headquarters Support Activity in Saigon was being phased out, being replaced by the Army’s 1st Logistics Command, and the general assumption in Navy circles seemed to be that the Army would henceforth provide logistic support ashore throughout Vietnam. Although a CinCPac order in April 1965 stated that military logistics operations at ports and beaches at Da Nang and Chu Lai would be accomplished by the Navy, this was considered by the top command in the Navy as a temporary assignment at most. In simplest terms, under the force levels imposed by the Pentagon, every sailor ashore in Vietnam meant one less sailor in a ship or on a vital shore station somewhere else. As late as 28 May 1965, Chief of Naval Operations sent "do not concur to establishing NSA Da Nang” to CinCPacFlt. This brought an exchange of personal notes in late May and early June between the Commandant of the Marine Corps and the Vice Chief of Naval Operations. The former stated that the Marines did not have this support capability and suggested that naval assets outside of Pacific Fleet be tapped. The VCNO indicated that CinCPacFlt could do the job temporarily, that he would seek additional assets from the Secretary of Defense to do the job if the Army Logistics Command were not to be assigned long range responsibility, and that the Navy would seek an authoritative interpretation of policy to determine "whose responsibility it is.” It turned out to be the Navy’s.
On 5 June 1965, CinCPacFlt cancelled and superseded his message of 22 May, now stating that NSA would not be established in the immediate future and that the Commanding General, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, should provide and arrange for all shoreside capability required. One month later, on 17 July, a Secretary of the Navy Notice established NSA Da Nang.
So, NSA Da Nang came into being in mid-1965 as an activity desperately needed by the Marines, which they were not organized to provide for themselves and which no other service seemed ready to provide. Apparently roles and missions of the various forces had not been clarified to cover this contingency. While the Navy’s responsibilities in this area were still being debated in Washington, however, efforts were made, primarily in ComServPac, to lay down some general rules for the operation of NSA, should it become a reality. The concept at this time was that NSA Da Nang would concern itself with operating ports and beaches from Chu Lai to the DMZ and would operate a supply depot, shipping, and some ancillary services. Getting supplies over the beaches—with the Marines taking over from there—was to be the primary mission of NSA.
Public Works Da Nang and the CBMU’s
In the initial planning for NSA, ComServPac concentrated on the supply, operations, and medical areas but did not devote much attention to Public Works. As a matter of fact, the term "Public Works” was not used in the original planning documents setting forth the tasks and missions of NSA. This is not to say that the omission was not of concern in some quarters. In June 1965 the Chief of Civil Engineers in a letter to Chief of Naval Operations noted that the current planning for NSA did not contain Public Works components. He pointed out that the Mobile Construction Battalions had construction missions and would not be available for maintenance. He therefore urged the inclusion of a Construction Battalion Maintenance Unit (none in commission at the time) and early action to determine the scope of public works functions at NSA. These suggestions went all but unheeded and there was for all practical purposes, no Public Works Department as such included in the initial NSA organization as planned.
Upon activation of NSA in July 1965, however, a fledgling Public Works Department was formed under a CEC lieutenant (H. L. Higgins), soon replaced by a commander (A. E. Floyd), then a captain (R. D. Pinker ton). NSA, first under Captain K. P. Huff, U. S. Naval Reserve, then under Rear Admiral T. R. Weschler, U. S. Navy, and his successor, Rear Admiral P. L. Lacy, expanded rapidly. Along with NSA Da Nang, Public Works experienced phenomenal growth, and in less than two years became the largest public works organization the Navy had anywhere in the world. In June 1967 it included over 3,200 personnel, a year later 4,900, and by early 1969 the total approached 7,000. In the beginning the buildup was military, but then, the Seabees in Public Works were augmented by direct-hire Vietnamese civilians and Koreans brought into the country through a contract with Philco-Ford. Additionally, design personnel, Americans, Filipinos, and Nationalist Chinese, were provided through a contract with Metcalf and Eddy. Much of the early public works effort was directed toward leasing living and working facilities for NSA in the city of Da Nang (est. pop. 250,000). Practically all of the public works activity in the early months was internal to NSA itself and was theoretically limited to the "secure" areas; but as the troop buildup continued, the demand for an expanded public works organization became more pressing. Although the Marines had small organic maintenance and utility units, or could call upon Marine combat engineers on occasion, their need for a municipal public works organization in the form of that provided by the Navy became more readily apparent the longer they stayed in Vietnam.
"Expanded" meant, at first, giving design, real estate, some transportation, minor construction and alteration, and maintenance and utility support to Marine facilities in the "secure" areas in Da Nang, Chu Lai, and Hue-Phu Bai. This was started officially in March 1967 for the First Marine Air Wing and soon spread to the other Marine units in the major enclaves. It was a short step from providing Public Works support in "secure" municipalities (which subsequently turned out to be something less than secure at times) to that in "non-secure" areas, particularly Marine airfields. Maintenance of the air strips at Dong Ha, Khe Sanh, and An Hoa was stated as the proximate cause for bringing in the first Construction Battalion Maintenance Unit, CBMU 301, some 300 strong (later more than 500), to Vietnam in May and June 1967. From the beginning, the unit, although it belonged administratively to ComCBPac and maintained its integrity as a unit, acted as an extension of "Public Works North" and its Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Commander H. A. Holmes, took his basic instructions from the Public Works Officer at Da Nang. Initially, these were to maintain the airstrips at the three sites mentioned above and to render whatever other public works support the battalion was capable of. Later, the unit sent details to many different sites to maintain them or to repair battle damage. Personnel in public works and the CBMU were shifted as circumstances dictated. For instance, during one critical period of the extensive rebuilding of the runway at Khe Sanh there were more Seabees from Public Works Da Nang on the job than there were from the time-s CBMU. On the other hand, CBMU-301 at times provided a number of supervisors and skilled hands for some of the main public works shops in Da Nang.
The concept of public works operating only in a "secure" municipality was to break down completely in 1967. The need for NSA to establish a base at Cua Viet, some four and one-half miles from the DMZ, to support Dong Ha in the late spring brought Public Works Seabees to construct and maintain the camp. In August of 1967 public works support of the I Corps MACV Advisors (mostly U. S. Army with all other services represented, including Australian Army) was started This not only called for roving teams of automotive and generator mechanics, but also brought permanently assigned Seabees from Public Works to all of the major advisor compounds in I Corps—Quang Tri, Hue, Hoi An, Tam Ky, and Quang Ngai. Public Works Da Nang had not reached its required strength to support the Marines when it was directed by MACV to give repair and utilities support to all Army units in areas now served by public works, this service to commence 1 January 1968. Some selected Air Force sites were also included. For all practical purposes, it was now Public Works I Corps.
This international mixed military and civilian force, organized along Public Works Center lines, had grown with roughly equal proportions of Seabees, Vietnamese, and Koreans. Early in 1969 their numbers approximated 2,500 Seabees (of whom less than 500 were in the CBMU), 2,500 South Koreans, and 2,000 Vietnamese, led by fewer than 100 officers. Many of the crews were a mixture of all three nationalities, the aim being ultimately to train the Vietnamese to take over from the more skilled Koreans and Seabees. This transfer of expertise to the Vietnamese in the building trades—also accomplished under the RMK-BRJ contractors—gives promise of being in the long run the greatest legacy the U. S. will leave in Vietnam.
Though conceived primarily as a base maintenance and operations organization (including trucking operations incident to moving cargo from the Da Nang piers to supply depots), Public Works also found itself in the business of constructing cantonments, dams, utility lines, and, above all, reconstructing battle damage to every type of facility. Despite the size of RMK-BRJ and the Naval Mobile Construction Battalions, there was need for more construction capability than they could provide. On many occasions the regular construction forces, for reasons of lack of materials or changing priorities, left jobs "95 per cent complete”—and unusable. In other cases, under the stress of wartime planning, items might be left out of the drawings and the construction forces would move on before the occupant-to-be realized what was missing. Thus, for a variety of reasons, public works was also, in part, a construction force.
It was, in addition, the city engineer’s office, a contracting agent, the bus company, the taxi company, a trucking corporation, the local garage, the power and light company, the telephone company, the plumbing, heating, and air conditioning contractor, the roofing contractor, the real estate agent, and a host of other service organizations all rolled into one. Spread out over 200 miles of war-torn country, operating in cities and hamlets, and catering to all the elements of the U. S. Armed Services as well as to those of other countries, it was the largest and most diverse public works organization the Navy had ever put together.
Support of Naval Installations in II, III, and, IV Corps
In Saigon and in the II, III, and IV Corps Areas the Navy’s public works role, though complex, was much lighter. In these areas the Army had this responsibility for the U. S. Armed Forces, relying heavily on its contractor, P.A. & E., to furnish Repair and Utility support. Even in Saigon this appeared to be marginal in the early days (it later improved), with the result that the 100 or so Seabees loaned to NSA Saigon by Da Nang in 1966 were kept in the south until their individual tours were completed. Similarly, repair and utility support at the numerous small and scattered naval activities in these Corps areas left much to be desired. The Navy’s answer to this problem was to import CBMU-302, a slightly smaller (200 and later 300 men) version of the CBMU which went to I Corps about the same time. These Seabees were broken up into various details, sent to different bases, primarily in support of Game Warden and Market Time operations in the II, III, and IV Corps areas, and assigned the usual public works responsibilities, which included construction and alteration and even extended to small boat repair. In this instance the CBMU played a much more dominant role than its counterpart in I Corps, supplying some two-thirds of the manpower involved in public works functions under the cognizance of NSA Saigon.
Essentially the Seabees of Public Works and the CBMUs attached to them had the same basic mission—to come in behind the construction forces and maintain and operate the bases already built. In theory the CBMUs were a little better trained to defend themselves as units, but there the difference ended. One year tours and rotation of individuals, not units as in the case of the NMCBs, was the case for both PW and CBMU officers and men. The fact that they were engaged primarily in maintenance and operations where a gradual turnover provided continuity and less disruption made the individual rotation system preferable to the unit rotation.
Infantry Training
Regardless of their unit, be it construction battalion, amphibious battalion, public works, maintenance unit, or some other, they were, as Seabees, not only trained as construction men but, in addition, were given infantry training by the Marines. In pre-Vietnam days some of the Seabees considered this something of an extra drill which interfered with their prime interest in construction work. After the Dong Xoai Seabee Team action opinions began to change, and when MCB-9, working on the hospital in Da Nang in October 1965, was hit with mortars and infiltration gangs the lessons hit home. This military training was to stand many of them in good stead, for every different type of organization to which they were assigned was exposed to enemy action sometime in Vietnam (by mid-1968 the Seabees wounded in action totaled more than those in World War II and the killed in action rate per total men deployed was four times that of World War II). And it soon became clear in the early months of the conflict that every able Seabee, sooner or later, would take his turn in Vietnam.
Personnel
The Vietnam conflict was to trigger the trebling of Seabee strength to a new total of some 26,000 men. First order of business was to bring the existing construction battalions up to wartime strength, and this was followed by the activating of new units. While a vigorous recruiting plan was instituted, the initial buildup of the battalions was accomplished by transferring Seabees out of shore stations all over the world—some to the battalions and some directly to Vietnam. In many places in the U. S., civil service and trade union restrictions had kept them from working in their trades, so they were employed in a variety of jobs (such as Shore Patrol, Master at Arms, Commissary) in which they could be replaced by other sailors. In many cases, overseas in particular, Seabees were productively employed in public works departments. Here, in some instances, they were replaced by civilians, in others by Fleet sailors, but in many spots there were no replacements at all, and a slow deterioration at these facilities began to set in. In like manner, whole battalions were pulled off jobs to go to Vietnam; in some places civilian contracting firms took over for them and in others the jobs just died.
To get young men into the Seabees simply to build up to the required numbers was not particularly difficult. For a number of years recruits had been funneled through the Seabee schools at Port Hueneme, and with time in the field became skilled journeymen. With the rapid buildup, there were not enough experienced petty officers on active duty to go around and the voluntary recall of reservists yielded little more. To get the required experience level in uniform in a hurry, the Navy instituted in the spring of 1966 a Direct Procurement of Petty Officers program. In a meeting with 18 presidents of the AFL-CIO Building Trades, Navy officials made known their needs, and this word went out immediately to all the locals in the United States. Within six months 5,000 new petty officers had been recruited. In FY68 the program fell short when only 3,200 were enlisted, but in the following year the number returned again to the 5,000 mark.
The DPPO program was a great success in terms of the journeyman quality of the recruits. They were an outstanding group of young men, and without them the Seabee effort in Vietnam would have been severely curtailed. Unfortunately, from the Navy’s standpoint, few of them chose to stay in the Navy, electing to return to civilian life after 30 months or less in the service. During this time it was possible for them to serve two eight-month deployments with a battalion, or a split tour with some time in a battalion or shore- based outfit and the rest with a public works or CBMU assignment of a year in Vietnam. This was in line with the standard policy which called for transferring a man to shore duty after he had served in Vietnam under the above conditions. The policy was not hard and fast, for a man could volunteer for more Vietnam duty and many did.
Few military units saw more duty in Vietnam than the Seabees. While the DPPOs should be considered in a special category, there is some small evidence that the relatively high exposure rate to Vietnam duty experienced by the Seabees affected all reenlistment rates adversely. Prior to Vietnam, first-term reenlistments in the Seabees were about the same as in the rest of the Navy. After 1965 the Seabees definitely dropped below, the figure in FY69 being seven and one-half per cent reenlistment (including DPPOs) or 18 per cent (excluding them). Among the career Seabees—second reenlistments and beyond—there was also a gradual dropping off, the reenlistment rates from FY66 through FY69 being 91 per cent, 86 per cent, 80 per cent, and 76 per cent. In the years prior to FY69 the career Seabees had a slightly higher reenlistment rate than their contemporaries in the fleet, but FY69 marked the crossover point.
Despite their lack of enthusiasm for reenlisting, there was no lack of enthusiasm among the Seabees for their work in Vietnam. They worked 60-to 90- hour weeks with little complaint under the most adverse conditions. It is interesting to note the comparative age of the World War II Seabees who averaged 35 years of age, whereas their successors during the Vietnam conflict averaged 23 years. Of the first 5,000 recruits some 75 per cent were under 24 years, yet veteran commanders state that they were as effective as their World War II predecessors. Rear Admiral Edwin B. Hooper, U. S. Navy, Commander Service Force Pacific, in January 1968 stated: "An elite group within the Service Force . . . When it comes to specific action contributions, the Seabees are second to none.”
Their effectiveness was due in part, of course, to the officers who led them. The Civil Engineer Corps had always been relatively small, supervising predominantly civilian organizations. Although technically trained, the CEC officers tended to be more involved with policy making and overall supervision, while the civil service engineers were primarily concerned with more detailed technical aspects of the jobs. Vietnam brought an additional 500 officers to active duty, making the total 2,200. Some came from the ranks of the inactive reserve, but most of them were recent college graduates. Like the majority of regulars, they did not all have degrees in civil engineering; they entered the Corps with a wide variety of scientific, architectural, and engineering degrees as well. It might be noted that about four per cent of the Corps was composed of limited duty officers and another three per cent of warrant officers. These two groups were officers who had come up through the enlisted ranks and were top managers in their trades. Like the rest of the CEC they were scattered throughout the Navy—generally in shop management positions. At any given time, normally two of the seventeen CEC officers assigned to a construction battalion would be limited duty or warrant officers.
Since CEC officers can be assigned to a number of different billets in design, construction, education, research, contracts, public works, and others, there is no such thing as a permanent Seabee officer. In the course of a full career an officer will not normally have more than two, two-year tours with the battalions. In one way or another every career CEC officer will have some duty with Seabees, and most officers tend to consider Seabee duty among the most rewarding they have experienced. This has been a general comment, not only concerning Seabee duty, but also about all duty connected with the Vietnam efforts, and most career CEC officers have served in Vietnam.
Summing Up
At this writing the end of the war in Vietnam is not in sight, yet sufficient time has elapsed to look back and consider some aspects of the part played in this conflict by the Civil Engineer Corps, the Seabees and the Naval Facilities Engineering Command. Even though there were few contingency plans upon which to build, the Naval Facilities Engineering Command was able to muster practically overnight a tremendous and unprecedented design and construction capability which was so essential to place and maintain combat troops ashore in Vietnam. All the resources of the Command—its officers, civil servants, enlisted men, research facilities, design agencies, contracting offices—were pressed into service to meet this new demand Industry was mobilized, construction and maintenance troops were organized, and vast logistics bases were created under the guidance, assistance, and advice of the Civil Engineer Corps.
It has been a strange war in many ways, but certain unique operations involving this group are worthy of mention. One has been the vital, continuing involvement of civilian contractor employees in construction, in maintenance, and in operations while, practically speaking, on the battlefield, ill-defined though it may be. Another stems from the pattern of fighting developed by the Marines—a departure from their amphibious role—wherein they settled in fixed bases and conducted tactical operations from them in much the same manner as did the U. S. Army and ARVN. This called into being massive public works support and, further, marked the first time that Seabees were used in large numbers in forward areas in direct support of combat troops. At the same time we managed to generate an extensive military peace corps effort in and around the war. The idea of one-service support in an area was pushed by top command and began to make some headway. Prosecution of the war itself seemed to be marked by more political considerations than we had experienced in the past. What have we learned about those areas which are vital to our military posture, and which affect or are affected by the naval civil engineer?
In an address to the Naval War College in February 1968, Rear Admiral A. C. Husband, CEC, U. S. Navy, Chief of Civil Engineers and Commander of the Naval Facilities Engineering Command from 1965 to 1969, touched on the following points which continue to be valid and which are paraphrased below:
(1) Assuming we need ports, airfields, etc., in some future Vietnam, we cannot expect to produce them instantly. We were fortunate to have a large contractor on site capable of rapid expansion. We may not have a contractor there next time. We should, therefore, maintain the Seabees at sufficient peacetime strength to meet the construction requirements of approved contingency plans.
(2) Much greater emphasis on base development planning for contingency operations must be made. Navy and Marine forces were deployed in country for months before adequate planning elements were developed. Witness the failure to even plan for the Public Works Department at Da Nang which became the largest in the Navy within two years.
(3) Joint service planning factors and construction standards will have to be developed prior to a contingency. For example, at the same base a difference in construction standards for berthing facilities between be Army and Air Force caused unnecessary morale problems.
(4) Joint service planning standards should lead to compatible systems among services, of what the Navy has called Advanced Base Functional Components. We learned of their value again in Vietnam, but it should be emphasized in many cases—in the hospitals, for instance—the hardware from World War II stocks had not been updated.3
(5) If we are to use the ABFC system we must have adequate stocks of the components in our war reserve stocks. We frequently found in Vietnam that items were not in stock and long delays ensued in getting them. Sound contingency plans must be developed which encourage appropriations necessary to keep the stocks current.
(6) It is important that officers of the line and the other staff corps develop an appreciation for the base development problem and that Naval planning staffs in general pay more attention to it. The Navy cannot think only in terms of deep draft ships, the carriers and submarines, but also must deal with concepts such as support ashore for the Marines and riverine warfare. Navy planners should concern themselves with the full range of naval warfare which includes the bases supporting the ships, aircraft, and Marines. Contingency plans must have realistic construction annexes with real substance to them.
(7) Programming requirements by the line item (a barracks or aircraft parking apron, for example) through channels to Congress for authorization and funding has been standard procedure in developing the peacetime annual construction program. Programming construction requirements in Vietnam through a similar line item system proved cumbersome, time-consuming, and out of step with the tempo of events. A changing tactical situation precluded programming individual line items many months in advance of the availability of funds. Future programming must be on the broadest possible basis and must be more responsive to the operational commander’s needs.
(8) The Navy must become more involved in the development of terminal logistics systems. Heretofore we have assumed that the Army—or perhaps the Marines—would do it. Operations at NSA Da Nang have clearly demonstrated that we must be prepared to handle large amounts of cargo in underdeveloped ports in areas where the Navy will be required to support the Marine Corps.
The above are just some of the highlights; there have been, obviously, many other lessons to be learned from our involvement in Vietnam. It seems clear that our system, stock reserves planning, and procedures can be vastly improved. Certainly our equipment and materials have not reached their ultimate development. The degree to which we can improve on the men is another matter. It is hard to visualize that we could get more courage, stamina, ability, intelligence, and spirit than has been exhibited in Vietnam by the officers who led them, and by our "sailors in green," the Seabees.
1 See Naval Review, 1969, "Naval Logistic Support, Qui Nhon to Phu Quoc" by Captain Herbert T. King, U. S. Navy, pp. 86-111.
2 For more about this interesting situation see "Building the Advanced Base at Da Nang" by Captain K. P. Huff, U. S. Naval Reserve, in Naval Review, 1968.
3 For further discussion on this point, please turn to Commander F. O. McClendon's essay "Doctors and Dentists, Nurses and Corpsmen in Vietnam" in this edition and Captain K. P. Huff, USNR, "Building the Advance Base at Da Nang" in Naval Review 1968, pp. 88-113.
