[dadsfiveseven]

My grandfather was a WWII vet. He served in one of the early Navy CB units in the Pacific. I have his flag, his "cruise" book, and a bunch of old photos that he and his friends took while in the Pacific. He never really spoke about his service to anyone, not even very much to my grandmother. When I asked her about it, she just said that he didn't talk about it, but had mentioned something about building a bridge for a bomb. He was in the Pacific, in a CB unit that spent time in Hawaii and the Marianas islands, and his cruise book mentions missions that cannot be written down. Pretty sure that his unit must have been the group who unloaded the A-bombs from the ship to Tinian island, and built the airfields there. I need to get in touch with a CB museum and see what records I can find for his unit. One thing on my bucket list is getting to Tinian to see what's left of the airfields and the pits they used to load the A-bombs into the aircraft.

I have been to Japan, and visited Nagasaki a couple of times with several of my co-workers. It's a very somber place, especially at the museum and at the hypocenter. We did have one older gentleman giving us a strange look while we were there. I nodded to him out of respect and went on with what I was doing. He appeared to be old enough to be a WWII veteran at the time.

My uncle (Dad's younger brother) is a Vietnam veteran. He really doesn't talk about his time in the service, either. I know that his barracks were bombed one night, and he lost a few friends that night. I sit quietly and listen when he does talk about it, though those times are few and far between. I still have the little camo pants and shirt that he sent me while he was there. He's dealing with some health issues now, likely from the Agent Orange.

 

[dadsfiveseven]

Dadsfiveseven!
I have been a Navy Seabee since 7-27-85. I am in contact with all of my surviving brothers and almost thousands more via Facebook and one of my shipmates I served with in ACB1 back in the early 90's, he is an absolute Genius on veterans, and he visits them very often and promotes gatherings here in the Pacific Northwest, another fellow shipmate much older than I, Normand DuPuis, is an active veteran that promotes Sea Bee gatherings across the USA as he travels back and forth across the Unites States.

I am 100% positive that between all the gathered knowledge and history that "someone" will know some of what he experienced and possibly even knew him. I'm aware of several WWII Seabee survivors, we just lost one last week at the ripe age of 102 or there abouts. Our big brothers are fading fast after all these years of being Plank owners of our Creation on March 5th 1942.

I would love to know more.

My Fellow Tri Fivers, ALWAYS tell the stories! Tell them long enough that our youth remember to tell them to their youth! Keep our history ALIVE!

Koolminx,
Grand dad was in the 10th Naval Construction Battalion, Company B, his name was Marion Jackson Daniel, and went by Jack. I have the telegram that was sent to him telling him that his first-born, my dad, had arrived and was doing well. I have a picture of Grand dad standing beside a B-29 Superfortress, the "Dangerous Lady". A little digging on that one and I found that it was assigned to the 505th Bomb Group, 483rd Bomb Squadron stationed on Tinian island. I have a lot of his old pictures, some of which are not suitable for posting here, but I'll try to post a couple soon.

 

[dadsfiveseven]

I followed the link to the Sea Bee museum, and they had a link to the history of the different CB units. There is no direct mention of Tinian in the history of the 10th, but there are a couple of somewhat cryptic entries about verbal orders to undetermined locations. I'll really need to get his service records to know for sure.
Pics as promised... Pictures of pictures. Granddad is in the middle in the first two. The last one with the Dangerous Lady may not be him after all. The Pic is fairly small, but I was able to zoom in on the electronic version. If it's not him then I have no clue who it is.

Sent from my SM-A716V using Tapatalk

 

[dadsfiveseven]

You might want to start your search here:

United States Navy Seabee Museum

www.history.navy.mil

The museum is located at the Port Heuneme Naval Station near Ventura, CA.
Bob
57 Matador Red Sport Coupe, 2x4 carbs
San Diego

Bob,
I can't thank you enough for that link. Things are falling into place more now than they have before. Based on what I already had in-hand, I see that he was initially in the 10th CB's, and was transferred at some point to the 50th CB. The telegram announcing my father's birth, beer ration card, etc. that I have shows 10th CB. The cruise book that I have is for the 50th CB, and I had already found him listed there in Company A. The picture he is in is of the men who were assigned to the 50th after the initial pictures were taken on Midway Island. I followed the link to the history of the 50th and it confirms that they were assigned to Tinian. There is also a statement about 17 men and one officer who were on temporary duty with the pontoon detachment 3rd Brigade returning to the Battalion. They had participated in the assault phase on Anguar (Palau, next to Peleliu, long way from Tinian), having gone ashore on their "D" day. I'll have to get my hands on my grandfather's actual service records to find out if he was one of those 17 men or not, but I do have some clues that he may have been. I have a couple of pictures of a dead Japanese soldier, and a few pictures of my grandfather and his friends with several skulls on some crates. Maybe that is why he never really spoke about his time in the service. I really don't know, maybe I never will.

 

[dadsfiveseven]

Dadsfiveseven, by the looks of it I would say that is not your grandfather in the third picture. Looks very similar to him, but the eyes are more deeply set and I don’t see a part in his hair that I can see in the other pictures. Plus your grandfather has his sleeves rolled all the way up on his biceps in the other pictures and the man in the third does not. A small point that can easily change, but just something I noticed. Very cool pictures nonetheless.

Yeah, that;s pretty much the same conclusion I came to once I was able to blow the picture up some. The face just does not look the same. I have continued to dig, and I now know where he was for the majority of his Naval service. I will be requesting his personnel records soon, now that I have his service number.