Seabees build themselves a memorial
By Scott Ishikawa
Advertiser Staff Writer
Navy Petty Officer Clint Rainey called his father yesterday morning shortly before a dedication of a Navy Seabees memorial at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific and gave him the news: "Mission accomplished."
Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser
On Memorial Day last year, Rainey's father, Kenneth Rainey, had visited the cemetery at Punchbowl and asked his son why there was not a plaque honoring the Seabees.
More than $8,000 in donations from 100 active, reserve and retired Navy Seabees went into the project that produced the black granite plaque inscribed with gold lettering that was unveiled yesterday at Punchbowl.
"He challenged me to get something built," said Clint Rainey, a Seabee assigned to the Navy's Construction Battalion Unit-413 Self-Help Center at Pearl Harbor.
With more than $8,000 in donations from 100 active, reserve and retired U.S. Navy Seabees, a black granite plaque inscribed with gold lettering was unveiled yesterday to honor the unit responsible for building military infrastructure during war and peace.
Rainey had another reason to complete the project in a timely matter: He leaves the Islands today for a transfer to the State Department's Naval Support Unit in Washington.
"I was actually supposed to leave Hawai'i this past December but, luckily, my orders were delayed for four months," Rainey said. "It gave me and the other memorial committee members time to complete the job."
The ceremony included a dedication by Dante Carpenter, a Seabee and retired lieutenant commander in the Naval Reserve, a 21-rifle salute and taps by a Navy firing detail.
Capt. Wayne Shear Jr., vice commander of the 3rd Naval Construction Brigade and commander of the 30th Naval Construction Regiment, gave a keynote speech.
Yesterday's ceremony commemorated the 59th year since the Seabees and Civil Engineer Corps were organized on March 5, 1942, during World War II. The first recruits were men who had helped build Boulder Dam, national highways, and New York skyscrapers. Members of the construction battalions - CBs - readily acquired the nickname Seabees.
During World War II, the Seabees, often older recruits and experienced engineers, built airstrips, hospitals, piers, roads, and more than 400 advance bases in the Pacific.
Many times construction was done under enemy fire. In the war, 290 Pacific Seabees died in combat and 2,000 earned 2,000 Purple Hearts, 22 Silver Stars and five Navy Crosses.
Seabees participated in the invasion of Grenada and constructed desert roads for the famous "end run" maneuver during the Gulf War. Seabees also served in Lebanon, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo and East Timor.
The biggest project completed by Seabees was the construction of Cubi Point Naval Air Station in the Philippines following the Korean War: Seabees moved half a mountain and a coral reef, relocated an entire village, and created a 2-mile-long runway and piers to accommodate the largest aircraft carrier.
During yesterday's ceremony, retired Seabee Ronald Yasuda helped with the roll call of 150 Seabees and civil engineer corp members buried at Punchbowl and the Hawai'i State Veterans Cemetery in Kane'ohe. One of those names was Yasuda's father, Tadashi Yasuda, who also served in the Seabees as part of the Navy Reserve.
"Clint came up with the idea, and the other Seabees rallied around him," said Ronald Yasuda, a member of the memorial committee.
"Like any other Seabee project, it was a team effort," Rainey said.
