 The enemy struck at Pearl Harbor, the whole of America's mighty productive machinery was thrown into high gear to place the country on a full war footing. The Congress quickly enacted legislation providing for the greatest construction program in the history of the world. Almost overnight, the Bureau of Yards and Docks of the Navy Department became a billion dollar concern. Recognizing the need for an organization of skilled workers to build advanced bases in active theaters of war, the Bureau of Yards and Docks obtained authority for the establishment of the first naval construction battalion in charge of officers of the Civil Engineer Corps of the Navy. From this first battalion of 1,100 officers and men, the personnel of the CBs increased with the demands of war to 3,300, 10,000, 30,000, until at the present time the total authorized strength is 222 active battalions with approximately 290,000 officers and men. It is difficult to put into words a full account of their services to the fighting forces. But I feel sure that this tour of CB activities, as seen through the eyes of the motion picture camera, will justify our confidence in this youngest member of the great Navy family whose motto, Construimus battuimus, we build, we fight, is translated into action in the film you are about to see. These are Japanese planes, their destination, Pearl Harbor, Midway, Cavite, Wake, their purpose, treachery, destruction, war. These are civilian American workmen. Japan is at war with them, but they are not yet at war with Japan. All they had come for was to build things, put a little door aside for the kids and hope to get home for Christmas with the family. No, they were not at war. But here of Hitoh was, he had other plans for their Christmas. He was delivering his Christmas surprises early this season. All of these men wore navy blue and some wore overalls, but through the enemy bomb sites they all looked the same, just Americans. We learned many lessons that morning, one of them was the need for giving workmen at advanced bases, military training, civilians for all their courage, lack weapons or the ability to use them. If they were wounded, there was no government compensation. If they were captured, they were not entitled to treatment as prisoners of war. A new war presented new problems and a new solution for out of the very fire that the Japs left behind them was forged a unique type of service organization, the Navy's construction battalion, or CB's as they came to be called, America's answer to the need for skilled craftsmen ready to work under fire and to defend their work and themselves against enemy attacks. All over the country, American workmen met this challenge, machinists, carpenters, pipe fitters, steel workers, truck drivers, rigors, electricians, haters, welders, divers. From 17-year-old boys just out of trade school to grey-haired veterans of World War I. Swedes from Minnesota, Poles from the coal mines of Pennsylvania, Irish boys from Brooklyn, Scotch, English, Jews, Italians, Negroes, all races, colors, creeds, but all Americans. The skill that helped to build our country goes to war. Not in seven easy lessons, but in eight tough weeks, the Navy teaches the civilian craftsmen to be a fighting builder. Thousands of individual workers now forged into one great military organization, passed in review with their motorized weapons, infused with the CB spirit, we build, we fight. Ready to build and defend advanced bases from the Arctic to the tropics, a new battalion leaves the training camp at the amazing rate of one every other day. American workmen, defenseless no longer, shoving off for battle stations. Destination for this CB battalion is Strategic Dutch Harbor, the first big stepping stone on the road to Edak, Kiska, Attu, and American reoccupation of the Aleutian chain, so vital to our offensive strategy in the North Pacific. Towering snow-capped mountains, rising from the sea, make this great arsenal of the North one of the most impressive sights in the Western Hemisphere. But the CBs haven't come to admire the scenery. They've come to change it. The iron jaws of the steam shovels bite into the fallen mountain sides, bulldozers, heavy tanks of construction, level roads where only walls of earth had stood before. In weather so cold that concrete has to be heated before it can be poured, the CBs are on the job, laying foundations for gun emplacements. Oil tanks, door houses, concrete foundations on which victory will be built. The fine art of logistics, a big word for the big job of getting the right thing to the right place at the right time, made it necessary for the CBs to bring their own lumber yard with them. And lumber plus CBs quickly adds up to an imposing total of barracks, hospitals, shipyards, warehouses. A modern advanced base built to withstand the most savage attacks of nature as well as the enemy, a naval base thoroughly equipped to supply and serve the planes and ships that were gathering for a great offensive in the North. No longer would warships damaged in action have to creep back to Seattle for necessary repairs. When the CBs promised to have this destroyer out to sea in 36 hours, the skipper said it couldn't be done. But the CBs' answer became a famous slogan, hand-do. 36 hours later, the destroyer was returning her task force and a jubilant skipper was expressing his gratitude to the CBs in an official commendation. In all my experience with shipyards, I have never seen such tireless energy. In spite of suggestions that the CBs be relieved for rest, many of them worked 36 hours straight until the job was done. That's how the CBs became a legend in the Aleutians. That's how victory was made inevitable at Atu. If you think of the Aleutians as an arm reaching out into the Pacific, the tip of the index finger pointing toward Japan is Atu. Bleak and forbidding, Atu had been a forgotten and unwanted pilot until it suddenly sprang into the headlines as a Japanese beach head threatening the security of the Western Hemisphere. While our heavy artillery pound Jap positions within earshot of the beach, the CBs go into action on the construction front. Today's beach head becomes tomorrow's naval base, and coal is the sustenance upon which a naval base feeds and grows strong. Whether it's hand-to-hand fighting or hand-to-hand unloading, CB stevedores know their job. Like a line of ants and justice tireless, they carry their heavy load across the barren slopes and valleys close behind the battle line. Huddled around the fire of their first pitched camp, it's a warming thought to realize that this desolate corner of the world is their own little piece of America. But the CBs are practical guys who like their warming chow along with their warming thoughts. And hot beans and a cup of Java hit the spot on these sub-zero mornings when there's a day's work ahead to be finished by noon. With rifles on their backs or close at hand in case of enemy attack, they throw up temporary barrens. But materials for permanent quarters are on their way, 50 miles of tarpaper. And buildings shipped in prefabricated sections that fit together like parts of a jigsaw puzzle. But a puzzle that CBs solve with lightning speed. For working in perfect teamwork, they shave a few precious minutes off their own record for setting up this unit. A good-sized modern and substantial hospital in five hours. In the States, gas stations may be opening late and closing early. But the Attu service station does business 24 hours a day. Transforming this barren little island into a flourishing base was a 24-hour-a-day job. Or as the CBs like to put it, a 36-hour-a-day job. But a job that was done and finished in less time than the most optimistic American had hoped while the most pessimistic jab had feared. With the Aleutian chain anchored at one end by Dutch harbor and on the other by Attu, the enemy holding out on Kiska found himself hopelessly cut off from his source of supplies. For thoughtful Americans who like to read behind the headlines, the headline Yanks Retake Attu had become CBs Consolidate Attu. With the Aleutians back in American hands, hands that not only fired accurately but built swiftly, the finger-pointing toward Japan clenched into a fist that could strike a direct and punishing blow at the enemy's heart. From other points in the Pacific, the left hook was being planned. The CBs put midway back on the map. At Pearl Harbor, officers of the Civil Engineer Corps assisted in the salvaging of ships that had been irreparably lost according to the Japanese press. A strange name the far-off Solomon's became a household word. Guadalcanal. Guadalcanal, the Marines, had a new verse to a famous song. The Marines sing a fighting song, but their most extravagant words were an understatement at Guadalcanal. Yes, when you say Guadalcanal, you say Marines, but those Marines will be the first to tell you that if they made history at Guadal, those CBs working and fighting shoulder to shoulder with them made something more tangible than history. They made a thriving base out of the flaming wreckage that was left after Johnny Marine had proved his point to Mr. Tojo that this island was too small for the two of them. With possession of Henderson Field, conclusion jumpers were congratulating each other on our domination of the South Pacific. Well, after all, wasn't Henderson Field the key to the Solomon's? Yes, we had rested a key from the Japs that was going to open some mighty important doors, but before that key could turn a single lock, it was badly in need of repair. The CBs digging into that airfield with the same fighting spirit as the Marines had hit the beach repaired 53 shell and bomb craters in 48 hours. That would be a record in any league, but the CBs hung up their record under fire. But this one was a ship-fitter first class, but he seems to be a first-class gunner too. When Congressman Moss of Minnesota saw the CBs in action at Guadal, he reported, when Jap attacks were made, I saw CBs working on Henderson Field, drop their tools, pick up their rifles, and fight side by side with the Marines. When the attack was over, the CBs put on their guns, picked up their tools, and calmly went back to work again. Just in time to fight off the enemy's most desperate counterattack, our fighter planes were able to use the runway. But the CBs didn't stop for any bowels. They knew it was their job to put throttle on the offensive, widen the field, lengthen the runway, place the field, grade the surface, level it off, make it navigable, not only for fighter planes, but for flying fortresses. In so short a time that even the slant eyes of the enemy opened wide, the field is ready. And as the first bomber takes off on its mission of softening up enemy bases for the landing operations ahead, the CBs win a two-fisted tribute from a two-fisted Marine. Lieutenant General van der Veen, who said, I don't know how we would have gotten into the air without the CBs. The spectacular speed with which bombing operations got underway from Henderson Field played havoc with the Japanese timetable of conquest in the Solomon Islands. Bases from which the enemy planned great offensives found themselves desperately on the defensive. Every day our bombers were carrying the mail to Munda, Kolombangara, and Bougainville, a female that contained nothing but bad news for Hirohito. If the Japs were to regain their initiative in this theater, their rising sun had to go up over Henderson Field again. This was the aim of the powerful enemy fleet which sought to pierce our naval defense of Guadalcanal. These were making routine repairs on this carrier when she received orders to put the sea immediately to check the enemy counterattack. How those CBs stayed on the job through the critical sea battle could follow is a story that construction men will still be talking about and this war is safely bound between the covers of history. This becomes synonymous with battle stations. As the CB motto, we build, we fight, is written in the blood and fire of an unforgettable moment at sea. The last tongue of flame smothered out, she was a battered ship, a badly crippled ship, but thanks to our fighting builders, a ship that lived to fight and strike again. From skipper to ordinary seamen, every man aboard had played over his head and for those 75 CBs, Admiral William F. Paul Z. Jr., commander of the South Pacific area, had a special word of praise. Your commander wishes to express to the men of the construction battalion his appreciation for the services rendered by you in affecting emergency repairs during action against the enemy. I hereby commend them for their willingness, zeal and capability. The CBs can do. There in sea approaches to Brattle Canal, our forces were ready to fan out through the Solomon's inquest of new bases, from which warships could be supplied, from which land-based fighters and bombers could carry the battle to Salamaua, Rabau, and the other strategic names that headline today's reports and will headline tomorrow's victories. Halfway between Brattle Canal and the enemy stronghold at Bougainville, Rendova was just another South Pacific jungle until the Japs made it an important stopping-off place on our itinerary. D-Day, H-Hour, at Rendova. The same clammy mist that concealed our landing operations from the enemy might also be concealing Japs snipers and machine gun nests waiting for us in the car. Army, Marine, and CB teamwork take another beachhead. Banned scouts move inland, hunting the big game that stalks this jungle. Hunting Japs, flying low, and the jungle fighting are better for the newsreels. But the backbone of invasion is supplies and throwing up an air umbrella to cover those supplies before enemy planes can blast them from the beach. CBs look at a fire. They see more than smoke and plane. They see construction to be restored. Defense is replaced. Metal to be salvaged. Dressing stations set up. But not all the CBs saw these things in the fire on the beach at Rendova. Not all the CBs will come back from Rendova as promised them a warrior's heaven. And our boys would rather have them there than on the island of Rendova. Now that the beachhead has been secured, player like LSTs slide their bowels up on the beach and begin to pour forth from their cavernous valleys the heavy equipment with which the CBs will transform this primitive outpost into another powerful bait. Heavy trucks churn their way through the mud and undergrowth. And if they bog down, there's always a good old bulldozer as versatile as a CB himself to come to the rescue. Another favorite with the newsreels is the big gun blasting enemy positions. Less familiar is the backbreaking job that must be done before that gun is ready to go to work. One giant prehistoric beast. The 155 lumbers through the jungle. Guided by CBs to the place where it can do the most good. Shelling the vital Japanese stronghold on nearby Munda Point. Once a tropical paradise or a blue lagoon, then a threatening enemy base. Now a desolate graveyard of dead trees, dead planes, dead Japanese ambitions and dead Japanese soldiers. Even the Munda landing strip is dead. With gaping shell holes in its side. But wherever the CBs land, the order of death is quickly overcome. But they work a new kind of magic in the tropics that brings dead island bases back to life again. But their magic has a simple formula. One part swept and one part know-how. The CB word for getting materials where you can find them. In this case, tropical coral to surface the shell-cocked landing strip. Imperative that landing strip be ready as soon as possible. That was the message from headquarters. At Munda, the impossible or even Air Corps authorities considered impossible. The CBs accomplished in five days. The CBs receive an unexpected bonus for their overtime. A fighter pilot contemplating a crashed landing for his disabled corsair spots their handiwork in the nick of time and sets her down hard but safely on the coral strip. A generous but eloquent tribute to the CBs. Incorporates Munda into the intricate network of alive bases in the south Pacific. Here launches her own offensive in the Solomonis. Rainwater becomes runaway rivers turning quonset huts into flooded islands. Roads which the CBs clear in surface are swallowed in mud. Breathing ground for a malignant enemy even more deadly and toucherous than the jet. This enemy, sighted in the microscope, the Anopheles mosquito strikes silently behind the lines with a devastating weapon. Malaria. The one fear in the minds of brave men for it has decimated combat forces and postponed military offenses. A tragic toll of American lives has been taken in the struggle against this insect army in the tropics. But the fight for life goes on. The shock troops of insecticides slog into muddy action. With the supervision of the medical high command, the CBs launch a new offensive against the hidden enemy. Vigilant sentinels of the water supplies, the CBs install filtering systems to prevent the enemy from sneaking into camp. While the streams are tropical sirens beautiful but full of death. But like our enemies, malaria fights a losing battle. The water runs pure and the men grow strong. Vitality surges through the base again. American laughter. Healthy appetite. Spiritual strength. Another triumph in the CBs constructive conquest of the tropics as they go blasting their way through the South Pacific. A new road in 72 hours. Another airfield nine days from the falling of the first tree and so the work goes on. Three by three and base by base, the CBs blaze the path that leads to Tokyo and final victory. How many headline readers appreciate the far-sighted construction program that lies behind those banner lines? Not in 1943, but in 1941, not in southern Europe, but far off in an inconspicuous Scottish hamlet, began the great offensive on Fort Christ Europe that is so rapidly gathering momentum today. Here the CBs, under the very nose of the Luftwaffe, completed the base from which Anglo-American combined operations launched its initial drive into European theater. Before the Navy's builders arrived, there was nothing here but an ancient fishing pier. 2,400 feet of ocean-going docks had to be constructed on the Clyde to accommodate our invasion forces, shoving off for their African adventure. As the rhythm of invasion quickened, the tempo of construction kept pace and around the causeways that would have played so decisive a part of the invasion of Sicily were assembled and tested. Before Berset could play the vital role the high command had assigned to it, every dock had to be restored, every scuttled access ship clogging the harbor had to be razed. Now the curtain was rising on the big show known for Sicily, the largest armada the world had ever seen. While the democratic people of the world held their breath, more than 2,000 vessels labored through angry seas to bring the war to Mussolini's doorstep. Invasion styles, ships that carry their own portable docks, and innovation in landing operations that was originated and developed by the Civil Engineer Corps before the outbreak of the war received its baptism in fire. Not even the sailors' bridle, the blue jackets manual, can tell them how to secure the heavy pontoons that formed the causeway from which the LST's equipment is unloaded when the shore is too shallow for beach landing. For these sea bees are adding a new page to the handbook of seamanship. As coolly and efficiently as if this were just another practice landing at Norfolk Bay, our amphibious forces barge in on Signora Mussolini. The operation that had become routine in cryo landings is a severe test of courage and skill as the causeway cut loose from the LST in a choppy surf sweeps in to shore on its own momentum. The conqueror of arctic wastes and Solomon jungles finds itself another job. The bridge from ship to shore stands firm. The first cat rolls down the runway. The beach has been occupied without incident, except for an unexpected offer from a group of Italian defenders who wish to help with the unloading. The Herman Göring's dive bombers prove less hospitable. Devastating cargo and the rumbling of heavy equipment across the causeways is the thunder before the storm that is soon to sweep brushes them out of Italy. 40 minutes to completely unload the staggering amount of supplies and equipment packed into every LST. Another record for the CBs. Another reason why our invasion technique electrified the world. The CBs are the cleanup men who salvage direct ships and splintered causeways that are left in the wake of every invasion. This is beach combing on a grand scale. For putting twisted steel and charred wood back to work again, saves millions of dollars for Uncle Sam. Our modernized divisions roll along the main streets of Sicilian towns lately as they cross the pontoon causeways. With Sicily secured as an alive base, a new D-Day looms up, the most daring and significant D-Day of World War II, the first Allied invasion of fortress Europe. Now plans so carefully laid at the Casa Blanca Conference months before are ready to be translated into violent and victorious reality. As they approach the coast of Italy, they were constantly meeting up with other convoys until the sea was completely covered with ships, converging through the smoke screen on the Bay of Solano. LSTs were loaded with bulldozers, tractors, and other CB as well as infantry equipment. The sea was calm and usable. But that was only the lull before the storm, the most terrible man-made storm that was ever seen. Those rangers and CBs in the first wave were a perfect target for Nazi artillery, firing on them from the hills. But they held on. Sudden death was in the air and hidden in the sea. One of the first pontoons dropped over the side, hit a mine before it could leave the LST. There were 35 CBs on that pontoon. A bathing beach where fun-loving Italians used to sun themselves in peaceful days was soaked in blood. When you're in the spot our boys were in that night, it helps to feel that gun in your hand and to know you can return blow for blow. But those CBs responsible for setting up the beach heads, marking off the spaces for the LSTs and LCIs to come in and directing the traffic that had to drive onto the beach in the face of that terrible enemy fire, they just had to stand there and take it. The CBs fought every chance they got. But there were thousands to do the fighting and not enough to do those dirty jobs on the beach without which our forces would never get ashore. Cutting through the wreckage of trucks and tanks that had been crushed by German firepower into a wall of twisted molten metal, the bulldozers cleared the way for powerful General Sherman. While the battle raged, the CBs threw up in plump two storage houses for ammunition and equipment and dressing stations for the wounded where men who would have fled to death could be pleaded in time to bring them back to life and to their homes again. First inch by inch, then foot by foot, and finally yard by yard, our troops fought their way up the beach, now littered with broken machines and broken men. While the CBs, with weary muscles but iron wills, went on unloading supplies until that bloody beachhead began to look like a naval landing base. There was seldom been so much courage in one place as on that beach at Solano, from the lowest but private to General Clark. But the CBs were the unsung heroes of Solano. And as the armies of democracy drive north on the road to Naples, Rome and further on, Berlin, every man who took his chances on the shore that night could tell you, if we ever go into action as hot as those bloody days of Solano, I hope to God the CBs are there with us. There are great works ahead for the CBs. The nation is building for victory. And no matter what the difficulties involved, we must and will obtain it. There is a place in the CBs for every fighting and working American, regardless of race, creed or color, who has a stout heart, able hands and the will to win. We have shown you in part some of the things accomplished by the CBs. We are proud of them. We look to the future with complete confidence in our ability to perform all those tasks which may be imposed upon us by our commander in chief. With that spirit, we will win.