Construction History
From the ENR Archives: June 15, 1944
Image from the ENR Archive
This June 1944 cover image shows a Navy Seabee driving a bulldozer out from the hold of a landing craft onto the beach of an unnamed Pacific island.
The photo was taken by ENR’s Pacific Coast Editor Nathan A. Bowers during a months-long, 28,200-mile trip to report on advance base construction projects by the Seabees across the Pacific theater of World War II. Bowers first flew to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and then hopscotched to bases in the Marshall Islands, Gilbert Islands, New Hebrides, Solomon Islands and eventually New Guinea.
After returning to Pearl Harbor, he sent a note to the ENR office in New York City asking to be reimbursed for the cost of a new briefcase, as the one he had started out his trip with had been “totally demolished by jungle dampness, ants, termites, mud encrustations, hoof prints, saltwater dunking, rain soaking and jeep scars, and from being used as a cushion on metal bench seats of DC 3’s.”
Bowers made 46 stops and inspected 29 advance bases over the course of his trip.
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