The Seabees, the Navy's construction battalions, were two years old this week. The birthday pointed up two facts: how unprepared the Navy was to fight a war in the first days of 1942; how versatile the Navy has become in two years of war. In 24 months this single new branch has grown into an organization of 262,000 men more men than the entire prewar Navy could muster.
A few men saw the need of such battalions in the autumn of 1941. On Dec. 28, blueprinted by Captain John Perry of the...
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