55th Construction Battalion (Seebees)

Headquarters Co., 55th Construction Battalion. Camp Endicott, R.I.
U.S. Navy Dec 18, 1942 (One week after commission)



"The 55th U. S. Naval Construction Battalion was commissioned on December 12, 1942. On this date the battalion broke boot in a cold New England camp in the midst of a reclaimed swamp surrounded by thickets of pale birches and hardy maples"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Endicott


https://www.history.navy.mil/conten...942-1945.pdf

Thanks for posting this material and I hope you will continue to post more.

My father was a CB in World War 2 and served in North Africa and Italy. I don't know, offhand, what battalion. Within a year of mustering out at the end of the war he became a civilian employee of the Department of Defense and worked at Davisville until the DoD closed it in the mid 70s. He worked supervising mostly the repair and rehabilitation of heavy equipment which would then be shipped to wherever in the world it was needed, in the 70s a lot of it went to Viet Nam. He was also very proud to be a part of the support of "Operation Deepfreeze" for Navy activity in Antarctica. He would occasionally speak of things being prepared to "go down to the ice". Upon his retirement (a result of the base closure) he was presented a brass desk sculpture of the CB bee, he was quite proud to have received it. I remember seeing a stack of a Vmail letters, some missing the occasional words the censors had excised that my mother had saved from their courtship while he was overseas. Unfortunately, I don't know where or when they disappeared. If you are interested, there is a small book of photos of Davisville (part of a large series of local histories). I bought a copy on eBay a few years ago.

RXC - Thanks for sharing your dad's story. The Seebees history in WW2 is really interesting. Too bad about the V-mails, I'm sure they would have been nice for you to have.
pat

Another son of a SB reporting in. My dad served in the Pacific mostly in the Philippine Islands campaign.