HEWING AIRFIELDS FROM THE JUNGLE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 251, 14 April 1944, Page 20

HEWING AIRFIELDS FROM THE JUNGLE

(By courtesy of the American Legation, Wellington)

N jungles and deserts and on arid plateaux, U.S. soldiers, marines, Navy construction battalions and civilians have hewn out fields for United Nations fighting planes, transports and bombers. The history of some of the major campaigns of this war conceivably could be told in terms of advance airfields and the men who build them. and maintain them. Combat forces move in first, perhaps with the aid of planes, then the airfield builders come to prepare for aircraft which, operating from their newlyacquired bases, strike ever deeper into enemy territory. In the early days of the war, US. civilians rode the bulldozers and built the airfields in such remote places as Wake Island, Iraq, and Eritrea. To-day it is the job of Army and Navy construction crews and engineers, who have already established a vast and vital chain of airports across the jungles of South America, Africa, and India,

and who are now moving step by step through the islands of the South-west Pacific toward the Philippines and the ultimate objective, Japan. An Airfield in 13 Days A battalion of U.S. Navy Seabees (so called from the initials C.B.-Con-struction Battalions) made possible one of the springboards of the New Guinea offensive by constructing an airfield in a dense jungle under torrential rains in only 13 days. On Rendova Island, in the Solomons, Seabees had to construct roadways across ground too mucky to bear tractors and trucks. After heavy equipment had bogged down, Army and Marine units asked the Seabees to solve the problem. ~ The construction workers turned to a grove of coconut palms to get logs which they laid side by side to form a corduroy road across the top of the marshland. While Japanese were racing against time in the construction of their airfield on Guadalcanal (later captured in

a nearly .completed condition by the Americans), a U.S. Marine complement of 152 men and two officers was feverishly hacking an airfield out of malarial jungles on Espiritu Santo Island in the New Hebrides. Within two months the field was in condition to receive its first plane. Guadalcanal, on which U.S. troops landed in August, 1942, has been transformed into an air base of great importance, having,. besides renovated Henderson Field, three new air strips. From there bombers and fighters attacked Japanese ships, planes, and installations in the Northern islands of the Solomon group. Tribute to Builders The story behind these assaults is a tribute to the men who built the fields. In one area they constructed 47 miles of gravel-surfaced, all-weather highway, with proper drainage and gradings; constructed a large number of timber beam bridges and piers; cleared 7,000,000 square feet of jungle area for occupation of troops; built 300 galleys, 450 tables and 1,800 benches; set up a water purification and supply system, pumping 60,000 to 75,000 gallons of water daily for cooking, drinking, and bathing; set up a sawmill which supplied 20,000 board feet of lumber per day for con- struction purposes; put into operation a gravel pit which produced 10,000 cubic yards of gravel for road building each week. Munda, on New Georgia Island, is also the scene of a_ transformation wrought by Army engineers and Navy Seabees. Within a month after this battle-scarred area had been taken from the Japanese, the airfield on Lambeti Plantation, with its much-bombed runways, was put back into condition by steamshovels, bulldozers, and earthmovers. Modern two-lane hard-packed coral roads replaced the trails that had been passable only to jeeps; and screenedin mess halls, kitchens and hospitals stood where marines had eaten in the open and had their wounds dressed. Fast Work by Negroes One battalion of Seabees that landed in the Solomons was an all-Negro unit. Between sunrise and sunset of the day they landed, the men selected the site of their airfield, surveyed and mapped it, and had their selection approved. Then construction work started in earnest, despite 23 inches of rain during the next eight weeks. They cleared away jungle, levelled and graded the field, set up electric lights and telephones and milled their own lumber. They damned mountain streams, piped the water as far as. they could with available materials, and built wooden reservoirs. Air bases are being made in other areas as well as in the South-West Pacific. American planes operating from India need bases far from established communications. In Assam, north-east India, Americans are constructing airports and — roads. Chinese and American engineers have worked together to build bridges and keep the roads open during the monsoons. Many of the construction men have had to fight side by side with combat troops to achieve their bridgeheads, and — then battle against enemy patrols and build their bridges under fire. The accomplishments of the fighting» construction workers and the bulldozer > are destined to become symbols of atand victory as much as the. tank and the bomber.