The Color of War Episode 15 Clearing-The-Way
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00:00During the Second World War, an entire generation recorded their personal experiences for posterity.
00:08Combat cameramen braved enemy fire to send home moving images, many of them in color.
00:15They captured history, and in the process they captured ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events,
00:22bearing witness to the color of war.
00:30Music
00:46Clearing the way to success in virtually every theater of conflict across the globe,
00:52United States engineers were among the unsung heroes of World War II.
00:59Without them, Allied military operations would have come to a standstill.
01:07From the Navy Seabees who built airfields on remote coral outcroppings in the Pacific,
01:13to the Army and Marine engineers who cleared minefields and threw bridges across rivers in the teeth of enemy fire,
01:21to the thousands of soldiers who built the Lido Road across some of the most forbidding terrain in the world,
01:31these were men for whom no job was impossible.
01:37Their countless accomplishments were vital to the Allied war effort, and ultimately to victory itself.
01:52Music
01:56General Douglas MacArthur described World War II as an engineer's war, and the facts back up his claim.
02:05More Army and Navy engineers served in the Pacific Theater than infantrymen.
02:11Whether it was a 70-ton bomber in need of an airstrip, or a 140-pound GI in need of water,
02:18the engineer's job in all theaters was to keep things moving.
02:23Soldiers in the Army Corps of Engineers were up to the task.
02:28The Corps' motto was Essayons, a French word meaning, let us try.
02:38Essayons, sound out the battle cry. Essayons, we'll win or we'll die.
02:43Essayons, there's nothing we won't try. We're the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
02:51While the draft created a massive influx of able-bodied young men willing to join the cause,
02:57the scope of the Corps' assignments meant there was still an urgent need for experienced engineers and craftsmen.
03:05Realizing their knowledge and skills were in high demand,
03:09many older professionals in the civilian sector left good-paying jobs to join the war effort.
03:16Many volunteered because their sons had already enlisted in the armed services.
03:22Others were proud veterans of World War I, whose sense of patriotism and honor
03:27compelled them to serve their country one more time.
03:31Yet for some, there was a difference between serving and fighting.
03:37Everybody, even people that were too old with families, everybody wanted to be part of World War II.
03:44Fortunately for me, I was offered to go to officer candidate school,
03:48join the infantry, and I turned that down for obvious reasons.
03:52I didn't want to push my luck.
03:56These relatively older engineers brought a wide array of skills and expertise to America's war preparations.
04:04Mathematicians, astronomers, cartographers, and printers were groomed for work with field mapping units.
04:12Petroleum engineers and even plumbers, with their pipe-fitting experience,
04:17helped form the Military Pipeline Service, building water and fuel for the war.
04:24Regardless of where a man's particular talent lay, there was always a job waiting for him.
04:30The battalion which I was with was a special battalion. It was a camouflage battalion.
04:35They broke up the battalion.
04:37They sent each company to a different army because they didn't have any more camouflage units.
04:42Now that means we were going to tell them how to use camouflage nets to conceal themselves.
04:47Of course, they attracted artists, that sort of thing, too.
04:52But we made soldiers out of them.
04:55As with all soldiers, the men were sent to training camps across the country where they were taught basic combat skills.
05:02But that was just the beginning.
05:04This film, made by the Corps of Engineers later in the war,
05:08was the beginning of a new era in military training.
05:12That was just the beginning.
05:14This film, made by the Corps of Engineers later in the war to boost the morale of their trainees,
05:20details some of the specific engineering jobs they also learned.
05:25Demolitions.
05:27Knowing just how much of a knockout wallop is wrapped up in each deadly package
05:31and how to apply it most effectively.
05:36Advanced training, including important lessons in the employment of minds.
05:41If there be a fighting man who can be called the soldier's soldier,
05:45surely he must be the engineer.
05:51Some of the engineers' assignments were even more unusual.
05:55We learned to tie knots.
05:57Because an engineer's got to learn to tie knots like a sailor does.
06:01We had a little rope about three feet long and the whole battalion lined up in parade formation.
06:07And we had to tie ten knots.
06:12Engineers were also taught how to use the wide variety of heavy equipment
06:16that was vital for achieving their objectives.
06:20These included cranes for moving and unloading materiel,
06:24pile drivers for constructing piers,
06:28steam shovels and backhoes for digging,
06:32graders,
06:34steam rollers,
06:36and other equipment for packing and smoothing roads and runways,
06:41and the ubiquitous bulldozer that came to symbolize the engineers wherever they went.
06:49As the new engineers braced for battle in the far-flung theaters of war,
06:53a more immediate concern was the need to shore up America's homeland defenses.
07:00With Pearl Harbor still fresh on their minds,
07:03U.S. commanders feared that the vast territory of Alaska
07:06and parts of the Pacific Northwest were vulnerable to Japanese invasion.
07:13With no roads or rail routes to fortify America's northernmost region,
07:17the Department of Defense ordered Army engineers to build a 1,500-mile highway
07:22through Canada's frozen tundra to accelerate the flow of supplies
07:27between Alaska and the rest of North America.
07:30This historic endeavor was officially billed as the Alcan Project,
07:35but the engineers referred to it simply as the road.
07:41On March 8, 1942, the first American troops arrived at a remote rail stop
07:46in Dawson Creek, British Columbia, to begin construction.
07:51In the early days of the project, the road builders had little transportation and machinery.
07:56Often forging ahead on foot while carrying all of their tools and gear on their backs.
08:05As the seasons changed, the days grew shorter and frigid weather set in.
08:10Yet the work continued.
08:15The men blasted granite out of hillsides and bridged icy rivers
08:19in temperatures that by late autumn had often dropped to 50 degrees below zero.
08:25At various spots along the trail, they built and operated three sawmills
08:29to create lumber for bridges, housing, and other applications.
08:35In a sign of things to come for large-scale military construction projects,
08:39more than one-third of the 10,607 men assigned to this job were African Americans,
08:47many of whom worked on a fuel pipeline that accompanied the road.
08:52Unfortunately, at the time, these engineers received little recognition for the job they were doing,
08:59either from the public or their own officers.
09:03One black engineer wrote bitterly about this experience after his service on the project.
09:12I served 15 months under the command of all-white officers
09:16in the wilderness of Canada during 1942 through 43.
09:20When reaching our destination, our officers started spreading rumors that we were no good
09:25and everything they could think of to make things hard for us.
09:29The morale of the regiment got so low until no one had any spirit or interest in their work.
09:37This was a continuing issue throughout the war,
09:40regardless of the fact that by 1942, 42% of all Army engineers were African Americans.
09:48Yet the work on the road ground ahead at an average of almost 50 miles per week.
09:56In little more than eight months, the Alcan Highway was completed,
10:00stretching from Dawson Creek to Fairbanks, Alaska.
10:04Its 1,522-mile length was the equivalent of a route from Washington, D.C. to Denver, Colorado,
10:11featuring 133 major bridges and 8,000 culverts.
10:15The road was hailed as a marvel of modern engineering.
10:22However, for many of the weary soldiers who toiled on the project,
10:25there would be little rest or rejoicing.
10:29Their brothers-in-arms were finally taking the fight to the enemy overseas.
10:34And it was only a matter of time before they would be called as well.
10:48January 13th.
10:50Continued air raids were everyday occurrences.
10:53Shells bursting overhead at short intervals,
10:56planes droning through the sky,
10:59Shells bursting overhead at short intervals,
11:01planes droning through the sky continually.
11:04The air raids were regular and little sleep could be obtained.
11:09Barrel-top covers for foxholes added additional protection
11:12from the falling anti-aircraft shrapnel.
11:16January 14th.
11:25One morning in early January 1942,
11:28a Navy lieutenant walked into the Naval Air Station at Quonset Point, Rhode Island
11:33and approached a file clerk and amateur artist named Frank E. Efrady.
11:39The assignment? To create an insignia for a brand-new Navy battalion.
11:44It was an armed construction outfit that would accompany Marines ashore
11:48during the amphibious campaigns in the Pacific,
11:51building bases that would support the next hop to other islands
11:55until Japan itself was finally within striking distance.
12:02Efrady obliged and began drafting several different mascots.
12:10I first thought of a beaver, the builder.
12:13A beaver in trouble will turn tail and run.
12:16Then I thought of a bee, the busy worker,
12:19who doesn't bother you unless you bother him,
12:22at which point he comes back with a sharp sting.
12:25The rest came easy.
12:27I gave him a white hat to make a Navy,
12:29tools to show his construction talents,
12:31and a Tommy gun to show his fighting ability.
12:38The abbreviation for Construction Battalion and Efrady's sketch
12:42soon led to the natural moniker CB.
12:48The CBs had been organized under the Bureau of Yards and Docks
12:51just weeks after Pearl Harbor.
12:55The first CBs were volunteers from a wide assortment of civilian trades,
13:00such as civil and electrical engineering, carpentry, architecture, and construction.
13:08Because of the unit's emphasis on experience and practical know-how
13:11rather than on physical strength,
13:13the average age of CBs during the early days of the war was 37,
13:18more than 16 years older than most Marine recruits at the time.
13:22However, not all were approaching middle age.
13:29A CB battalion is comprised of approximately 1,200 men and officers.
13:34They're set up much like a Marine battalion is.
13:37Along with its various trades,
13:39approximately 200 kids are thrown into the mix to do the dirty work,
13:43and we were not told this by the recruiter.
13:46I was one of these kids, 20 years old.
13:50We were referred to as snotty-nosed kids by the older tradesmen.
13:55We called the more likable ones Pop.
14:00The majority of these men had no military experience
14:03before they embarked for battle.
14:05Many joked that CB really stood for Confused Bastards.
14:11The men in our battalion had not been together for more than 10 days
14:14before we left the States.
14:16We'd been given our medical shots,
14:18a little hasty military indoctrination,
14:20and rushed to the South Pacific.
14:22We didn't kid ourselves.
14:24We weren't a trained military organization.
14:27We were just 1,100 partially armed civilians.
14:31Hurried to the front with little training or organization,
14:34these first units of CBs had to perform their jobs on an ad hoc basis,
14:39devising methods and procedures
14:41almost entirely by the seat of their pants.
14:45Nevertheless, in their maiden operation
14:47on the island of Bora Bora in early 1942,
14:51a freshly recruited detachment of CBs nicknamed the Bobcats
14:56set to work with a vengeance.
14:58Despite poor conditions, the men built fuel storage dumps,
15:02piers for unloading cargo, and a vital airstrip.
15:07The tropical heat and humidity on these South Pacific islands were brutal,
15:11wreaking havoc on the men and their equipment.
15:16To keep their uniforms from rotting in the constant dampness,
15:19some CBs chose not to wear them while working.
15:23We figured that if we had to work like horses,
15:26we might as well look like horses.
15:28So we took off all our clothes and just wallowed in that mud.
15:34Every island seemed to present its own unique challenges.
15:38Joe Bennett, a CB who wrote to his mother regularly throughout the war,
15:42described the primitive conditions.
15:45Dear Mother, at last I have a breathing spell.
15:50Dear Mother, at last I have a breathing spell.
15:54We've been on the jump now for several weeks.
15:56Everything running smoothly.
15:58I'm doing fine.
16:01Today we will have machetes.
16:03I will have a little digging to do, so it may be rough.
16:06No lights, water, or fire.
16:09This is the supreme test of our men.
16:13Still, the CBs managed to work wonders,
16:15often relying on the weapons and equipment of the retreating Japanese
16:19and an island's natural resources.
16:23At times they also enlisted the aid of natives
16:25who would work in exchange for food, cigarettes, and American paraphernalia.
16:32It was during these early operations that the CB's favorite motto was born.
16:37When a visiting Navy captain asked the island's commanding officer
16:40how the CBs were faring,
16:42the CO proudly replied,
16:44You mean those can-do boys?
16:47We're the CBs of the Navy.
16:50We can build and we can ride.
16:54We'll pave our way to victory
16:58and guard it day and night.
17:02This can-do spirit was also often applied to other projects,
17:06ones that commanders probably would have been far less happy to hear about.
17:12On Guadalcanal, I got up to this crossroads and a CB stopped me.
17:17Come to find out, this guy was from the same town I lived in,
17:21so I had to go to a CB place where they had tents.
17:25These guys, somehow they were distilling alcohol from torpedo fluid.
17:31CBs could do anything.
17:34On many of the Pacific islands,
17:36some of the greatest dangers were posed by the smallest pests
17:39like fleas and mosquitoes.
17:42In 1942, the 63rd Battalion's first major project on Guadalcanal
17:47was to destroy the breeding grounds of disease-carrying insects
17:51by draining swamps, clearing areas of standing water,
17:55and spraying copious amounts of DDT.
17:59Despite these efforts, however,
18:01malaria, yellow fever, and other tropical diseases
18:05remained a constant problem throughout the Pacific campaign.
18:10But on the canal, as it came to be known,
18:12the men had an even more deadly enemy.
18:16Although the Marines had taken Henderson Airfield from the Japanese
18:19within two weeks of landing,
18:21enemy ships and bombers still pounded the area.
18:29Over the last four hours,
18:31we were strafed by several Zeros and shelled from the sea.
18:34In trying to find the reason for such a terrific air raid
18:37as the Japs had put on here, or rather attempted,
18:40this morning the only thing I can hit on
18:42is that they knew we had rain in excess of four inches last night
18:46and had expected all of our planes to be stuck in the mud.
18:54Even as Japanese planes were dropping their payloads,
18:57CBs would scramble out of their foxholes
18:59to repair the damaged hulls.
19:01Thanks to these efforts,
19:03U.S. planes were able to take off and land
19:06without serious interruption.
19:08The near constant operation of Henderson Field
19:11was one of the major factors
19:13in America's ultimate victory in the campaign.
19:18The CBs had proved themselves
19:20by helping to take the first step
19:22in what the Allies were already calling
19:24the road to Tokyo.
19:26Yet the CBs were not the only engineers in the Pacific.
19:29The Army Corps of Engineers was there, too.
19:32And their assignments took them
19:34to the farthest reaches of the combat zone.
19:40Living conditions are terrible.
19:42Our tents are pitched on excavations
19:44that overlook the perpetual marsh
19:46and heated by tiny metal coal stoves.
19:49Of course, there's no natural gas,
19:51and there's no electricity.
19:53There are many metal coal stoves.
19:55Of course, there's no natural fuel on the island.
19:58The floor is covered with three inches of water,
20:01and it is rising.
20:10In June of 1942, in the North Pacific,
20:13the Japanese seized Attu and Kiska
20:15in the Aleutian Islands
20:17in a diversionary attack prior to their strike at Midway.
20:21With a significant naval presence in the area,
20:23the U.S. had to rely on ground troops and air power
20:26to drive out the entrenched Japanese.
20:30Navy CBs and Army construction battalions
20:33were called on to build advance air bases
20:36on Adak and Amchitka Islands
20:38on the western end of the Aleutians.
20:42The men worked through dense fog
20:44and howling Arctic gales,
20:46dwarfed by the backdrop of the island's volcanoes,
20:49many of which were still active.
20:52On Adak, engineers achieved the seemingly impossible,
20:56building an airstrip where there was once a giant lagoon.
21:00After creating dikes to block the lagoon's inlets,
21:03they drained the water
21:05and impacted the remaining cavity with soil.
21:08Grading crews then smoothed the area
21:10to ensure it was uniform and level.
21:13Finally, prefabricated steel sections
21:16known as marston mats
21:18were set down and connected for a landing surface,
21:211.5 million square feet of it.
21:25Named after Marston, North Carolina,
21:27where they were first used,
21:29these interlocking, 10-foot-long perforated steel plates
21:33became essential in airfield operations in every theater,
21:37preventing Allied planes from getting bogged down in soft earth.
21:42Working around the clock,
21:44the engineers on Adak
21:46made the airfield fully operational in just 10 days.
21:50Throughout these projects,
21:52a myriad of unique local conditions confronted the engineers.
21:58Our job was to build a hospital.
22:01All operation on the lumber is regulated by the tides here.
22:05This happened with the logs when they were cut.
22:08They were dragged to the water's edge
22:10where a raft would be made.
22:12When the tide came in,
22:14they were floated and towed to the mill.
22:19The efforts of the engineers soon produced strategic bases and ports
22:23that enabled American forces to regroup and turn the tide in the Aleutians.
22:30After 14 months of heavy U.S. bombing
22:33and amphibious attacks on Attu and Kiska,
22:36Japan's foothold in the North Pacific was gone.
22:41During this same period in the Far East,
22:44Army combat engineers were also preparing
22:47to work wonders under grueling conditions.
22:50They had been requisitioned
22:52to build a critical overland transportation route
22:55to supply the Chinese.
22:57Cut off from the sea by the Japanese,
22:59China's position was precarious
23:01in both geographic and military terms.
23:04Yet her survival was crucial to Allied war hopes,
23:08representing a possible second front against the Japanese
23:11if the campaign in the Pacific failed.
23:14The plan was for the 700-mile Lido Road
23:17to stretch from Assam, India, through Burma,
23:20and then on to Kunming, China.
23:27As with the Alcan Highway, this was a fully integrated project.
23:32Of the some 28,000 U.S. troops who worked on the road,
23:36nearly 60% were African American.
23:40In addition, Chinese laborers and 35,000 native workers,
23:44both men and women, contributed to the effort.
23:51The Kaichins were our guides.
23:53That's another native tribe in northern Burma.
23:56We put fatigue uniforms on them.
23:58They were fearless, and they were intelligent,
24:01and they knew the jungle better than any human being
24:04I've ever heard about.
24:06They could smell or sense like animals can.
24:09But they looked so funny in the fatigue uniform.
24:15During construction, the road builders navigated from sketchy maps
24:19that in some cases were 20 years old.
24:23They climbed treacherous mountain passes
24:25that rose as high as 8,500 feet,
24:28building dozens of bridges over rivers, streams, and gorges.
24:33The greatest challenge, however, remained in the fact
24:35that an estimated 80% of the road
24:38was to wind through Japanese-held territory.
24:41At least 130 engineers were killed by hostile fire during the work.
24:48The Lido-Burma Road was a joint venture in every sense of the word.
24:52Teams of pack mules were just as vital to the effort as bulldozers.
24:58The mules, I'll tell you, were something else.
25:01Horses start screaming, get wild, and hurt themselves
25:04while we drag them out of the swamp.
25:06But the mule just stops.
25:09So we tie a rope on their saddle
25:11and pull them backwards so it doesn't hurt their legs.
25:15They were our morale builders all those long months.
25:20Despite all the obstacles that confronted them,
25:22the builders plowed forward, often as much as a mile per day.
25:28On January 28, 1945,
25:31the first convoy of American trucks from India
25:34rumbled across the Burma-China frontier.
25:37An American war correspondent filed this report from the scene.
25:42The departure of the convoy from Lido signified
25:4442 months of savage jungle fighting,
25:4732 months of miracles of road building.
25:50And now the opening of the Lido-Burma, or Stillwell Highway,
25:54has become another page in history.
25:56Just 12 hours ago, I rode into Kunming with the convoy.
26:01It was a heartwarming experience.
26:04Just 12 hours ago, I rode into Kunming with the convoy.
26:08It was a heartwarming experience.
26:12Due in large part to this amazing feat of engineering,
26:15the blockade of China was broken
26:17and a vital lifeline in the Far East was restored.
26:21Ultimately, more than 5,000 vehicles rolled across the road,
26:25transporting approximately 34,000 tons of supplies to China.
26:31Meanwhile, in Europe, American and British forces
26:35were breaking the German stranglehold on France,
26:38and combat engineers were as crucial to this effort
26:41as they had been in China and the Pacific.
26:49We cleared many obstacles along the route,
26:52such as dead cows, horses, and dead German soldiers.
26:57We noticed that the dead German soldiers
26:59had wooden bullets in their machine gun belts,
27:02the theory being the bullets wouldn't kill you
27:05but send you to the hospital,
27:07where it would require more resources to care for the wounded.
27:20Besides working in specialized independent units,
27:23combat engineers also served and fought
27:26alongside the regular infantry.
27:28They were usually the first to encounter obstacles
27:31that either nature or the enemy
27:33had thrown in the path of the advancing troops.
27:36A combat engineer's motto was clearing the way,
27:39and they served with distinction
27:41in every theater of operations during World War II.
27:46One of their most daunting tasks
27:48was trying to remove the millions of anti-tank
27:51and anti-personnel land mines
27:53that enemy forces had implanted
27:55throughout the various battle zones.
27:58The men used portable electromagnetic
28:00mine detectors when available,
28:02but supplies of this valuable tool were scarce.
28:05More often than not,
28:07eyes, hands, and bayonets were the methods of detection.
28:11Once found and uncovered,
28:13the engineers then had to disarm or destroy the devices.
28:18Taking the mines apart may have seemed a little nervy,
28:22but for trained engineers it really wasn't.
28:25We had studied the diagram of the mine and demolition class.
28:29We knew it well.
28:31All that, plus the overconfidence of youth,
28:34let me do it easily.
28:38The skill and bravery of the combat engineers
28:41were especially put to the test
28:43during the Allied invasion of Europe.
28:47On June 6, 1944, D-Day,
28:52the U.S. Army's engineer special brigades
28:55charged the beach with the first wave of Allied troops.
29:01Demolition teams worked in the coastal waters
29:04to clear lanes for landing craft
29:06by destroying the menacing obstacles
29:08the Germans had implanted along the shoreline.
29:11The teams included Seabee underwater construction personnel,
29:15here seen working on a pier in the Pacific,
29:18and were the antecedents of the famed Navy SEALs.
29:24A major innovation in the operation was the Rhino ferry,
29:28which was capable of carrying vehicles and equipment
29:31into coastal water as shallow as three feet.
29:35These hulking vessels,
29:37which were powered by huge outboard motors,
29:40were essentially barges comprised of 30 steel pontoons,
29:44each five feet wide, seven feet long, and five feet deep.
29:52On D-Day, we worked with the Seabees building these Rhino barges
29:56to make like a bridge or a pier
29:58so that we could have larger ships unload troops,
30:01trucks, tanks, and any other kind of equipment
30:03that we were shipping into the beach.
30:05We liked that assignment
30:07because the Seabees were very resourceful.
30:11The versatile pontoon, a Seabee invention,
30:15had become so indispensable in forming docks,
30:18causeways, and barges throughout Europe and the Pacific
30:22that it had been nicknamed the magic box.
30:25During the Normandy invasion,
30:27its incorporation into Rhino ferries
30:30was responsible for bringing approximately 1,500 vehicles to the beach
30:34in the first wave alone.
30:37Once on land, Seabees and Army engineers
30:40bulldozed roads up narrow draws through the beach cliffs
30:44to facilitate the advance of tanks and heavy artillery.
30:48As U.S. forces fought their way inland,
30:51engineers continued to clear the way on roads that were perilous,
30:55even without any enemy in sight.
30:58Trees had been cut and laid across the road
31:01to block us from moving ahead,
31:03and on the trees were booby traps.
31:06If we picked up a tree or a branch,
31:08the booby trap would blow right up.
31:10That's how I got hit.
31:12We didn't expect to have two mines, one on top of the other.
31:15It shot more rocks, stones, and everything all over us.
31:19My shoulder blades and ribs were all cracked up.
31:22It's a good thing it didn't hit me on the head.
31:25As the advance picked up momentum,
31:27engineers continued their work,
31:29building bridges across more than a half-dozen major rivers
31:33that blocked the Allied drive into Germany.
31:36Bailey Bridges, named after British engineer Sir Robert Bailey,
31:41were essential to this process.
31:43Used in every theater,
31:45these portable, prefabricated structures could be transported in parts,
31:49quickly assembled, and, if necessary,
31:52stacked level upon level to accommodate heavier loads.
31:57One of the other major jobs of the combat engineers was demolition,
32:02blowing up enemy bridges, bunkers, and strongpoints.
32:09For demolition, we carried what's called Composition C.
32:13It's a plastic explosive, kind of putty-like, like modeling clay.
32:17It's not as tricky as dynamite, which can go off accidentally
32:21or if you hit it too hard when it's old.
32:24This stuff, you can shoot bullets through it and everything else,
32:27and it won't go off.
32:29It was in a square pack, kind of like a package of crackers,
32:33only a little bit bigger.
32:38Occasionally, engineers were called upon
32:40not simply to build or destroy bridges,
32:43but to keep them from being destroyed.
32:46The most famous example was when a unit of engineers,
32:49commanded by Lieutenant Hugh B. Mott,
32:51dashed onto the Ludendorff Railroad Bridge at Remagen, Germany,
32:55and, while under heavy German fire,
32:58disarmed the demolition charges that were set to destroy the bridge.
33:04Not knowing what the condition was in proceeding across the bridge,
33:08we were trying to destroy all the demolitions we possibly could
33:12and cutting all the wires inside we could find.
33:16The valiant efforts of Lieutenant Mott and his engineers paid off.
33:20The bridge was soon cleared,
33:22and U.S. troops and tanks from America's First Army
33:26rolled across in an endless stream.
33:29But keeping traffic moving was not easy.
33:36Two planes have just been run off the Remagen track field.
33:40It's fairly quiet.
33:41We've got the morning.
33:42This van itself has suffered some damage.
33:45It's doing a good job.
33:46It's doing an even greater job than these engineers have completed their task.
33:50Remagen.
33:52Amazingly, on this day and those that followed,
33:55there was not a single American casualty from enemy fire
33:59during the bridge crossing.
34:01However, ten days after its capture, the structure collapsed.
34:05Worn out from round-the-clock assaults
34:08and the heavy flow of materiel it had been forced to support,
34:1228 U.S. soldiers perished in the tragedy,
34:16a majority of them engineers.
34:20Yet their sacrifice had not been in vain.
34:23Partly as a result of the combat engineers' bravery, determination, and efficiency,
34:28the end was in sight in Europe.
34:33In the Pacific, however,
34:34there were many steps still to be built along the road to Tokyo.
34:45My dear mother,
34:47thanks for your nice letter and the really swell pictures.
34:51As for us,
34:53we're about the same and right here in the middle of it all.
34:56We're certain of victory and all that,
34:58but the snipers are thick, nonetheless.
35:05Part 2
35:09In June of 1944,
35:11while Allied troops in Europe were marching towards Paris,
35:14the campaign in the central Pacific was intensifying to new levels.
35:20With each yard of sandy beach taken,
35:22the cost was extracted in American blood.
35:28Yet despite ferocious Japanese resistance,
35:31U.S. amphibious assault operations progressed island by island.
35:36During the pushes inland,
35:38detachment of Seabees and Marines often fought side by side.
35:43An early lack of common background and interest
35:45between the older engineers and their younger comrades
35:48had been replaced with a unified sense of purpose and mutual respect.
35:53A favorite Marine catchphrase was,
35:56Never hit a Seabee, he may be the grandfather of a Marine.
36:01As the stakes in the Pacific rose with every charge,
36:04America counted increasingly on air power to turn the tide of battle,
36:09especially with its huge B-29 Superfortress bombers.
36:14Airfields were paramount to this quest,
36:17and unlike during the earlier phases of the Pacific campaign,
36:21by now, the Seabees and their comrades and the aviation engineers
36:25had the drill of building them down to a science.
36:30Thanks to these airfields, the islands of Saipan, Tinian, and Guam
36:34in the Marianas chain were soon transformed into unsinkable aircraft carriers
36:39from which deadly aerial attacks against Japan were launched.
36:45As more supplies arrived by sea and air,
36:48the once primitive island outcroppings took on the appearance of boom towns.
36:53Barracks, warehouses, and maintenance facilities sprang up everywhere,
36:57complete with plumbing and electricity.
37:01Seabees even laid out fields and planted crops
37:04to provide fresh vegetables for the troops.
37:08Yet these incessant operations also took a severe toll on the men.
37:13Fatigue, heat exhaustion, and disease sapped their strength and morale,
37:18often leading to lapses in concentration with deadly results.
37:23In fact, the Seabees lost more men to accident in the course of the war
37:27than they did to enemy fire.
37:31A Naval Civil Engineer Corps lieutenant filed the following report in 1945.
37:37The men are tired as a result of hard work under the adverse conditions
37:41encountered in 14 months overseas.
37:44The unhealthy climate has taken its toll.
37:47As the unit has lost 54 out of an original complement of 265 men
37:52through disability alone.
37:55The older men are too tired after a hard day's work
37:58to take part in anything strenuous in the innervating climate.
38:03Yet there was no rest on the horizon for the engineers.
38:07The island of Iwo Jima, invaded in early 1945,
38:11saw some of the bloodiest fighting in all of World War II.
38:15During the campaign, the 133rd Naval Construction Battalion
38:19suffered more men killed or wounded than any other Seabee battalion
38:23in any previous or subsequent engagement, losing 25% of its personnel.
38:31Tragically, it appears the high losses could have been avoided.
38:35One engineer wrote about it in a report that was declassified in 1958.
38:44The battalion was brought ashore during the assault phase on D-Day,
38:48prematurely, through some sort of miscue.
38:51Just how the error was made had not yet been reported.
38:55But one story is that a message was sent from the beach
38:58to the commander of the 133rd to report ashore.
39:01Perhaps through garbled transmission, perhaps through misinterpretation,
39:06the whole battalion was brought ashore instead.
39:10Not trained as assault troops, the engineers of the 133rd were decimated.
39:16However, many engineers survived to help battle the entranced Japanese.
39:23Other engineering achievements were far more basic, but no less important.
39:28One was setting up distillation units to supply fresh water to the troops
39:33for drinking and bathing, a task performed by special forces.
39:39There were several engineer units in every theater.
39:42Another was the construction of dozens of prefabricated toilets
39:46by partially burying empty fuel drums in the sand,
39:50then covering them with plywood assemblies.
39:53These improvements contributed greatly to the morale and hygiene of the front-line troops.
40:00Yet it was Iwo Jima's airfield, repaired and refurbished by Seabees,
40:05that was of overriding importance in the campaign.
40:08Because of its proximity to Japan's homeland,
40:11it became vital for servicing crippled B-29s returning from raids.
40:17The pilots and crews of these planes gave due credit to the engineers.
40:25This is your AAF combat reporter, Staff Sergeant Hal Brown.
40:29Our wire recording microphone is set up on a tremendous B-29 airfield
40:34at the 21st Bomber Command here in the Marianas.
40:38As one crew taxied through the hard sands,
40:41they were welcomed by a group of bronze, hard-muscled aviation engineers.
40:47And what a welcome.
40:49There was hot chow waiting at the engineers' mess hall, and the cooks had outdone themselves.
40:54The air crew talked it over.
40:56What could they do for this aviation engineer outfit?
41:00They could, and did, dedicate their plane to the battalion,
41:04and gave it the affectionate nickname of the Flying Bulldozer.
41:10After over three grueling years of warfare,
41:13the engineers of the Naval Construction Battalions were now accustomed to the rigors of combat.
41:18No longer confused bastards, they proudly referred to themselves as Sons of Beaches.
41:26On August 6, 1945, a U.S. Army Air Force B-29 bomber named the Enola Gay
41:34took off with a covert payload from the island of Tinian's North Field,
41:39which had been constructed by Seabees just months before.
41:43These were the final stages of a top-secret $2 billion project
41:48run by the Army Corps of Engineers Manhattan District.
41:52A short time later, the first atomic bomb ever used in combat was dropped on Hiroshima.
42:00The Japanese surrendered on the 14th of August.
42:04Joe Bennett sent this triumphant letter home from Okinawa.
42:09Dearest Mother,
42:11Sorry I haven't had the opportunity to write you.
42:14So very much has happened.
42:16At last, long last, we are finally all okay.
42:20Safe and sound, and everything is perfect.
42:23Soon as the war was declared over, of course, the Japs were trying to give up.
42:28We have several hundred a day around us, and I can talk Jap now.
42:33We Seabees have quite a time.
42:36Hoping to be home for Thanksgiving.
42:39Love, Joe.
42:41By the end of the war, some 325,000 Seabees
42:45had built over 400 advanced bases on six continents and more than 300 islands.
42:52In the Pacific campaign alone,
42:55they constructed an estimated 111 major airstrips,
42:59441 piers,
43:01hospitals to care for 70,000 patients,
43:04and housing for a million and a half men.
43:08In serving their country, they suffered more than 200 combat deaths
43:13and earned more than 2,000 Purple Hearts.
43:17The achievements and awards of engineer units
43:20and all the other branches of the armed service were no less impressive.
43:24Indeed, without the skill, resourcefulness, and courage
43:28of the engineers who cleared the way,
43:31both on the front lines and behind them,
43:34the Allied victory in World War II would not have been possible.
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