 Welcome to All Hands Update, I'm Petty Officer Andrew Johnson. The Navy's Civil Engineer Corps, CEC, is celebrating 148 years of designing, constructing and maintaining shore facilities for the Navy worldwide. The onset of World War II brought a need for overseas bases. However, civilians could not be sent overseas to a combat zone. In January 1942, the CEC created what is now known as the Seabees to construct the needed bases. More than 325,000 Seabees served during World War II, participating in nearly every theater of operation, working under fire and constructing everything from airfields to hospitals. Since World War II, the CEC and Seabees have worked together, both in peacetime and war, building bases from the Philippines to the remote island of Diego Garcia. Today, Seabees and CEC officers work around the globe. Living up to their motto, we build, we fight.