The battalions
Building the Navy’s Bases in World War II says the construction battalions were established so uniformed men could build in combat areas. Before the war, outlying bases were built by contractors and civilian labor. A civilian who took up arms could be treated as a guerrilla. The book names Wake, Cavite, and Guam as the lesson.
On 28 December 1941 the Chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks, Admiral Ben Moreell, wrote the Bureau of Navigation. He asked for military construction forces: not less than twelve construction companies of 226 men, grouped into three battalions, with a headquarters unit of 168 men for each battalion so it could operate on its own. Bureau of Navigation Circular Letter No. 1042, dated 5 January 1942, established that force and authorized enlistment.
One Headquarters Construction Company had already been organized by 7 December 1941. That company was the nucleus of the first Construction Detachment, which left the States for Bora Bora on 27 January 1942.
The name
On 1 March 1942 the Bureau of Yards and Docks recommended a distinctive designation and an insignia for equipment. The designation Seabees, from the initials of construction battalion, was authorized. The book describes the insignia as a fighting bee in a sailor cap, with a tommy gun, a wrench, and a carpenter’s hammer.
What a battalion was
The same history sets the original complement of a construction battalion at 32 officers and 1,073 men. The enlisted men were the trades: carpenters, steel workers, plumbers, electricians, and the rest. A battalion was four construction companies and a headquarters company. Moreell’s December letter had asked for companies of 226 and a headquarters of 168. The complement the book then prints, 32 officers and 1,073 men, is the organization once the battalions were standing up.
The Secretary of the Navy authorized Civil Engineer Corps officers to exercise military command of a construction unit, including over line officers assigned to it. Navy Regulations had limited that command to line officers.
How many
Direct voluntary enlistment in the Seabees ended on 15 December 1942. By then about 60 battalions had been assembled. One year after the first battalion was authorized, the Bureau of Yards and Docks announced an authorized strength of 210,000 officers and men. The same history says the organization reached 247,000 men in July 1945, with about 83 percent of them overseas.
In the Pacific, Building the Navy’s Bases says, more than 200,000 were in the advance base program. The Atlantic figure in that chapter is a maximum of about 26,000. The 247,000 is the July 1945 strength of the organization. The 200,000 is the Pacific program. They are two counts, of two different things.
On 1 July 1940 the Civil Engineer Corps had 267 officers. In 1945 it had 10,186. The book says most of those officers were assigned to Seabee units.