Seabees were always an important part of our system - especially the down-range locations. Let's face it - while the OT's, RM's and ET's did the glitzy operations stuff, it was the Seabees that kept the NAV FAC's open and functioning. Following Hurricane Betsy in Sep 65, a detachment of Seabees arrived to repair building damage. Every roof on base had been damaged - some severely. The visiting "Bee's" worked on the roofs all day - sunrise to sunset, and closed the club at night. The next morning, at the crack of dawn, they were back up on the roof. Late one morning, one of the guys accidentally "backed off" the edge of a one-story roof, and after some attention by our corpsman, he was back on the roof after lunch. Those guys rock! Some of you will remember that in the Spring of 77 at Kef, it was some of the Seabees who came in to swab the displayroom deck because all of the OT's were too busy for field day, and the "Bee's" wanted to contribute in any way they could.
1970, NAVFAC Cooshead, SeaBees we’re responsible for building a pond in front of the Admin building, by order of the CO, after discovering a couple of domesticated geese from a Coos Bay city park showed up on base one morning. Alcohol may have been involved the night before.
1969 and forward - "Seabees" Augment the watch at NavFac Centerville Beach.
(From "Our Book").
To help augment the watch during hi-temp ops, the Seabees (normally referred to as "upper base" personnel throughout the system due to the T Bldg being "lower" near the water.) were cleared, trained, and would stand watch with us as plotters, DAC operators, message handlers (and they especially enjoyed learning to read the grams) etc.. There were normally 2 or 3 assigned to a watch section and when the word went out to augment they would report to the watch ready to go…
"This they did with great pride and professionalism." “They were - fired up"…
It was also a great morale booster to have the Ops and PW personnel share in this important endeavor. They used to ask me, "Do you need us - do you need us???"
(Ed Smock STCM Centerville Beach 1968-1971)