During UN peacekeeping missions, the war in Iraq and the ‘Global War on Terror’, Seabees carried out vital military and civilian tasks
During the modern era, Seabee units have supported US and allied combat operations on numerous occasions. The US Navy Construction Battalions have deployed around the globe in recent years, and sporadic unrest in the Middle East has brought the Seabees and their specialised skills sharply into focus.
In the autumn of 1983, US Marines were ser ving with a Multinational Peacekeeping Force in Beirut, Lebanon, as the country was wracked by civil war. On 23 October, the Marine barracks in the Lebanese capital were targeted by Hezbollah terrorists driving trucks laden with explosives, and 241 US service personnel were killed in the ensuing blast. After the attack, Naval Construction Battalion 1 was deployed from Rota, Spain, and its 42-man detail ordered to construct secure underground bunkers for the Marines stationed at Beirut International Airport.
The size of the Seabee commitment to Lebanon rapidly increased, doubling to 82 personnel by January 1984. As the work was undertaken, the civil war escalated and American military units were withdrawn. By the end of February, both detachments of Seabees and their equipment had pulled out of Lebanon.
In the ensuing years, the Middle East remained a tinder box of civil war, terrorism and despotic rule. By the early 1990s, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, whose nation had fought a brutal eight-year war with the neighbouring Islamic Republic of Iran, began to threaten the oil-rich nations and emirates of the Persian Gulf region. On 2 August 1990, Iraqi forces invaded and occupied Kuwait. The United States led a global coalition in the military response to Hussein’s open aggression.
The build-up of coalition military forces in the Middle East was dubbed Operation Desert Shield, and multi-national manpower reached more than 900,000 – of which 600,000 were American – in the following months. Seabees were tasked with multiple objectives prior to commencement of Operation Desert Storm, the military effort to dislodge the Iraqis from Kuwait, in January 1991.
Within five days of the Iraqi invasion, the Seabees were preparing for the deployment of four battalions to the Middle East, and the first of this contingent, 210 -strong, reached Saudi Arabia on 13 August 1990. The force included the 4th, 5th, 7th and 40th battalions, and these men began pre-positioning supplies and equipment for the following influx of combat and support troops. By 20 August, another 100 Seabees of Amphibious Construction Battalion 2 were en route to the Persian Gulf region. Seabees of Construction Battalions 411 and 415 soon followed, tasked with the construc
