 The Corps of Engineers from Port Belvoir to all Theors of Operations. An engineer's war, a specialized war, a war of complexities and scope, demanding the ultimate and trained manpower. Engineers must be oriented and adapted to a multitude of tasks. They must be ready for specific assignments wherever battle lines are drawn and behind the lines. They must be ready to build and to destroy, to attack and to fight off counter-attack. They must be trained to the minute. The basic lessons of soldiering start the recruit on a course of great variety. All his talents toward skill, ingenuity and application are to be challenged. From super construction jobs to knots. But the fundamentals do come first. And trainees at Port Belvoir learn that rigging is just as important in their training as any of the other steps toward the mastery of military engineering. Demolitions, knowing just how much of a knockout wallop is wrapped up in each deadly package and how to apply it most effectively. Tools of the trade, fitting the modern design of warfare. Tools that shortcut the job and ensure perfection of performance. Basic work like carpentry and specialized training like earth moving. Proper handling, care and maintenance of the angle doser and other machinery for lifting and moving the soil. A far cry from pick and shovel days. Know-how that becomes mighty important when engineers tackle the bomb shattered landscapes of a score across. Water supply, pumping, purifying, storing and dispensing. Equipment and methods cleared up for the GIs. Advanced training, including important lessons in the employment of mines. Layout, surveying, recording and reporting. Then the thrill of actually installing the mines and to counteract highly developed enemy mine techniques. Probing, mine detectors and all the tricks of removal are taught. River crossing operations, introduction to the assault boat and the role the engineer must play in assuring its safe and effective use. The storm boat, high powered craft, is also demonstrated for the engineers in training. They're told of its value for rapid crossings of wide streams. Foot bridges, their employment and construction explained and practiced. The pneumatic fountain bridge. First the chart work, floating and fixed sections analyzed. Then actually handling one of the pneumatic floats. Plountain bridges of various weights and designs implanted in the minds of the students by the only foolproof method. Actually doing the job. Again tools which the men learn are used for something new and different in bridges. The Bailey Bridge. A prefabricated structure easily portable, amazingly strong. Rapidly assembled or disassembled it has already played an historic role in this war. The long hours of lecturing and actual practice will take on deep significance once these men are out in the fighting areas. You'll see later through the medium of combat films all the dramatic importance attached to rapid efficient bridge construction. Repair, maintenance, reinforcing all come in for detailed discussion. Mud does not halt outdoor work. It adds to the realism of training. They learn to build roads. Without roads the best equipped army can become bogged down, worthless without speed of movement. Engineers learn to build structures of every description. They construct housing for our troops and learn the value of teamwork and the art of reducing the work of hours to briefest minutes. All these plus a mountain of other training details to get ready for that important day when as engineers they must move in with an attacking army. Down the nets in drill procedure. Down the nets in procedure labeled the real thing. Engineers must eliminate obstacles, clear and mark the beaches, help bring supplies ashore, construct roads and bridges, laying out dumps for fuel, water and rations. Air support aids in clearing the way for the first assault troops. Big naval guns knock out shore based installations. Wave after wave moves up to battered beaches where the entrenched enemy has to be blasted out. Precious minutes ticking away of the H hour on this D day. Time tables and planning and operations repeated over and over again. Train troops pouring out of massive barges in endless numbers. And always the men must see that the job clicks. Men and machines which engineers push to the full limits of their versatility. Steel mats on the beaches to prevent vehicles from floundering in soft sand. Then comes the problem of keeping the vehicles moving through dense and hazardous jungles. The few narrow makeshift passageways that do exist are almost impassable after heavy rains and continuous traffic. Speed is desired but you can't get speed under these conditions. A job for the engineers and they tackle road building problems in wet and steaming hot jungles in the following manner. Here a corduroy road logs and sweat and all the shortcuts learned during training days to convert swampy terrain into a road suitable for rapid passage of fighting equipment. Here the bulldozer cutting and ripping through the dense growth. Its blade shearing off everything that stands in the way. Surveying and measuring the sight of a new road. Boring into natural coral deposits to get surfacing material through blasting. Making full use of an island's resources is a time saving necessity. Abandoned enemy dynamite is used. Saving our explosives for other jobs. Power shovels lift the coral into waiting trucks. Through stubborn mud which quickly will become a surfaced road once the coral is spread and compacted. A road of this type is not expected to stand up like a concrete highway. But it can be completed in no time at all and is certainly an improvement over soggy jeep trails. A captured roller completes a road that will help to flatten the enemy. Something new and effective added to the jungle. From roads to bridges. Timber construction is necessary when no other means exist. Again local material and equipment are adapted to the task. Native workers learn Yankee tricks of the trade. Bulldozers drag the prepared stringers to the construction site. The engineers rig up a temporary ramp. Ingenuity that cuts down time and labor and moving the heavy stringers up into position. Pile bent. Core bells. Stringers. Flooring. Step by step operations. Just the way they practice the training camp. Again the engineers providing another transportation link for hard fighting jungle troops. A bombed out airfield useless now. But quickly restored by engineers who never know what it means to stop working. The same kind of heavy equipment they use to keep them rolling is now used to keep them flying. A grounded plane is like a clay pigeon out in this treacherous jungle country. It's got to get up there and fight. But safe takeoffs and landings are impossible without the airstrip the engineers are now finishing off with steel mats. And shortly after its capture the field is open for business. And that's not all. Living quarters at air drums, temporary hospitals, warehouses, operations buildings. The engineers build them too. Native labor is used whenever possible. These people have lived out here all their lives. So learning from them just how they apply local materials and methods makes good sense. Building docks in remote places again falls to the engineers. By adapting timber pile or trestle construction like that used in fixed bridges, the engineers lick their problem in short order. The European Theater. Here the engineers embark on their most momentous assignment. The full fury of the American offensive unleashed in the mightiest military undertaking in history. A blow aimed right at the heart of Hitler's Europe. And in this hour of decision, the combat engineer had to bring into play all the skill and daring acquired at training camp and on the field of battle. So that the enemy may finally be smothered in an avalanche of force, engineers are called upon to pull every trick in the book to help get our armies moving and keep them moving. All this you see them doing. But you'd think it rolls over the whole of the map of Europe. That's the way it seems to the men. Rain and floods and mud. A man with a shovel has one of the bigger jobs. To salvage flooded roads, you've got to keep them from washing out. Drainage ditches kept open so the muddy waters can run through the culverts and away from the roads. Crushed rock for another road from a quarry operated by trained engineers. Just one of a string of roads to help hang the enemy. We'll salvage them, build them, maintain them thanks to a group of unsung heroes. When it comes to river crossings, the engineers meet up with an old story. The retreating enemy has blown up every bridge in sight. You can't build bridges while hostile guns still bark on the opposite shore. So the engineer assault boats have to bring our infantry across to secure a bridgehead. Quickly rafts built by the engineers take heavy vehicles and weapons across to help back up the foot soldier. This construction begins despite the dangers of attack from the air. American sharpshooters keep the enemy from scoring a direct hit on this steel treadway bridge. By sheer guts and alertness, they've saved our bridge. But sometimes another enemy steps in. The rampaging river, swift crushing currents strain and pull at every foundation. And not always are bridges and engineers the victors. The successful construction and maintenance of floating bridges depends greatly upon the swiftness of the current. This time nature holds the upper hand. But the engineers have other tricks up their sleeves. They don't depend on floating bridges alone. Fixed bridges are constructed to take it. Here mines are removed while construction plans are discussed. The center line laid out. The abutment prepared. A portable steel bridge serves the purpose very well. As previously mentioned, the Bailey Bridge has already won its furs in this war. No one section weighs over 600 pounds. And shoving the assembled bridge over the gap is easy going once you've mastered the art. Since it's light and so rapidly assembled or disassembled, it can easily be replaced by a timber bridge when the Bailey equipment is needed elsewhere. An old masonry bridge once stood where the engineers now show you how fast a two-lane timber trestle bridge can spring up. Back in the States, they learned that the combination of modern tools and the knack of using brawn and muscle where needed couldn't miss. They find all this more than true. 12 by 12 stringers literally jump into place by themselves when guided by expert hands. The circular saw of the air compressor is a mighty handy tool. Soon the last stringers and the last spikes. And there's your two-lane bridge, something that'll be used by countless men and machines. Something to be proud of. When you want water for drinking and for bathing, you can count on the engineers too. They'll get it to you minus all the impurities. Portable units do the job and troops out in combat areas can enjoy the luxury of a hot shower just like Saturday night back home. Well, yes, a little less privacy, but the results are the same. Did someone say this was not an engineer's war? Look here, we're still busy clearing and marking minefields so that our buddies you saw taking the showers can move ahead and give the enemy another kicking around. The work that requires courage and caution, the engineers must be sure and alert, but they've learned how to neutralize all types of mines. This little shoe mine is loaded with a half pound of TNT and could easily blow your foot off. They also take the sting out of booby traps. Once our troops move into a city, streets and roads must be cleared of debris so as not to hamper advancing supply columns. Big tractor dozers handle the assignment. Then there are the railroads. The engineers have to repair the damage we ourselves inflicted while chasing the enemy out. Again, water. Native populations drink from sewers for the water mains have been destroyed. But American engineer crews quickly put their purification equipment to life-saving use. Disease and death are averted. Chlorinating and filtering processes he learned in training camp enable the engineer to become a messenger of mercy. Pipelines through which flows the stuff that fuels the machines of war. From tankers overland to storage tanks. You're convinced the engineers have a great role to play in the winning of this war? Well, so are the fellows who are waiting to get their engines started. We've covered only the highlights within the limitations of this film. There are also camouflage, mapping, forestry, rehabilitation, utilities, port repair and other special units. Ask any trained soldier, particularly one who has been in combat and he'll tell you there's no end to the types of services the engineers provide. Engineers went into countless uncomfortable situations, but so does the enemy. And the engineers helped to throw every possible obstacle in his way. Engineers destroy things too. Every last one is a trained demolition man. Remember, engineers can fight. They put banglehors to work. They can handle the rifle, bayonet, machine gun, grenades, all the weapons of the fighting man. Don't forget the bazooka or the pole charge. These then are the men of the engineers, not boasting of their accomplishments in this war, but rather proud to be a part of it. That many are winning public recognition is just another cause for pride. Each decoration awarded an engineer is a tribute to the entire corps. It represents long hours of training, of knowing how to handle the tools of your trade and man-sized backbreaking work, that more often than not must go without reward, other than the knowledge that the job is being done. If there be a fighting man who can be called the soldier's soldier, surely he must be the engineer.