87th Construction Battalion "Seabees" In WWII

Another area I like to explore: US Navy in WWII


Stirling Island is the smaller island of the Treasury Islands, Solomon Islands.

Stirling was used as a forward airfield in the campaign against Rabaul (roughly 7 hour flight for B-25s) Bougainville and New Ireland

American Units based at Stirling:
USN, 87th Construction Battalion "Seabees" November 1, 1943 - September 5-25, 1944
11th Aerodrome Squadron, CASU 8, ACORN 12

Group of covers from R.R. Pender Yeoman 2/c. U.S. Acorn Twelve.
The covers I have span almost the entire deployment to Stirling: 12/4/43 - 8/3/44. Pretty plain, but great history.
Thanks,
pat

https://www.history.navy.mil/conten...87%20NCB.pdf
https://pacificwrecks.com/airfields...g/index.html

That would be an interesting deep dive, to pick an island during the war and collect it.
A bit different from chasing an individual unit across an entire theater.

In this case, concerning the Pender correspondence, I did find an interesting note at https://waynes-journal.com/2014/12/...ber-10-1944/ which indicates aircrew at Stirling bringing back supplies from Guadalcanal, including airmail envelopes and stationery, as well as cigarettes and candy.... Maybe your man Pender bought some of these if he was still on the island in December....

Was any of the mail from Stirling converted to V-mail or was it all original format?

Thank you for posting this.

Jleb1978 - Thanks for the link. I enjoy reading the personal stories. The military reports get a bit dry sometimes.
No V-Mail from here; all stamped airmails.
I did notice the first envelope.date was a different die from the others, so maybe a fresh batch had arrived as described.

Pat

P/S - sorry to say no enclosures.

A bit more info on Acorn 12 in the 87th SeeBee's

https://www.history.navy.mil/conten...01943-45.pdf