UNITED STATES NAVY IN DESERT SHIELD/DESERT STORM

Freight Terminal units. Seabees and cargo offencingand erected 20-foot-tall security tow.
handlers were among the first to arrive in ers and building revetments to protect vital
Saudi Arabia. Within 48 hours of President communications equipment.
Bush's initial order, detachments of cargo han-
diers, the "combat stevedores," were airlifted Seabees used modem--construction ma-
to partidpa te in off-loading supplies and equip- terials to build aircraft hangars, maintenance
ment from the MPS. That massive logistic shops, berthing and headquarters facilities.
effort involved moving more than 2,400 people Many were constructed by new processes such
and nearly 40A.000 tons of equipment and sup- as the K-Span arches produced by automatic
plies. building machines, allowing a building to be
erected 80% faster than by conventional means.
Offloading was just the beginning for Fabric membrane structures called "sprung
the Seabees. They proceeded to build mini- instant" or "clamshells" consisting of fabric
a ties in the desert, undertaking airfield expan- stretched over a steel arch superstructure were
sion projects, setting up berthing fadlities and also quickly assembled on concrete slabs. The
ammunition siorage points, and building roads Seabees also built numerous mock artillery
and military barriers. They also erected the pieces and tank turrets and placed them at
first 500-bed fleet hospital, and a 400-bed Army strategic points to deceive the Iraqi military.
field hospital - an example of joint-service
cooperation at its best. The Seabees used more than 7.5-million
board-feet of lumber, 92,000 sheets of ply-
NAVY SEABEES - "CAN DO" IN ACTION. wood, 110,000 feet of PVC pipe, 1.4 million feet
The Saudi landscape was quickly dotted with (262 miles) of electrical wire, 50,000 cubic yards
structures which looked hauntingly like the of concrete and 250,000 cubic yards of select fill
quonset huts built on the World War II baffle- during DESERT SHIELD/STORM. In all,
fields of Guam, the Philippines or any of the Seabees of the Naval Construction Force built
other places where Seabees have supported 14 galleys capable of feeding 75,000 people; a
U.S. troops. The roads, runways, buildings, 40,000-man EPW camp; 6 million square feet of
bunkers and tank barriers carved into the desert aircraft parking apron after moving 9 million
sand stand as monuments to the "Can Do" cubic yards of sand and dirt to prepare the
spirit which is the trademark of the Naval sites; and four ammunition supply points that
Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB). More held $2 billion of ordnance. They also main-
than 5,000 Seabees - 4,000 active duty and tained and improved 200 miles of unpaved
1,000 reservists - answered the call to duty desert four-lane divided roads that were used
during DESERT SHIELD/STORM. as main supply routes and built 4,750 other
buildings.
NMCB ALFA Companies completed
rdad construction and paving, while BRAVO Just after the ground war began, an
Companies repaired air conditioning systems advance party from NMCBs 5,24 and the 3rd
and sanitary fadlities, and installed electrical Naval Construction Regiment entered the
distribution systems capable of servicing a battleground of Kuwait to prepare positions
small town. CHARLIE Companies erected for the 1st MEF command units to move into
huts, built new buildings and made additions the following day. The plan, which was not
to existing buildings, strung thousands of feet fully executed due to the unexpectedly short

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