Whirlwind - Barrett Tillman [35]
Eventually, living conditions improved for many airmen who moved from tents into Quonset huts. On Guam there was a post exchange (PX) offering familiar items such as Hershey bars and Pepsodent toothpaste sold by “some matronly ladies who worked there,” recalled William R. Thorsen, a seventeen-year-old Seabee. Some men augmented chow hall and PX fare with bananas and coconuts from the remaining jungle, though most carried weapons on such expeditions, knowing of Japanese stragglers. Thorsen said that he never went anywhere without his M1 rifle and a bandolier of ammunition.
The real currency was liquor, especially whiskey. Enterprising aircrews stuffed their planes with as much liquid barter as they could manage before leaving the States or Hawaii, anticipating a scandalous profit in the Central Pacific. Their entrepreneurial foresight was universally proven. Among the most popular was Schenley’s Black Label, which went for $40 or more a fifth. For a case of good (or at least acceptable) booze, almost anything was available, from an ice machine to a personal jeep.
Tinian
The obscure island of Tinian—just south of Saipan—became perhaps the least appreciated engineering feat of the twentieth century. The island was destined to host six runways, the largest aviation complex on earth.
The Seabees went ashore practically cheek by jowl with the invading Marines in late July 1944. In order to accomplish the task, the Navy formed the 6th Construction Brigade, eventually comprising three regiments each with multiple Seabee battalions. Most of the actual airfield work was completed by the 30th Construction Regiment while the 29th provided vital support infrastructure including roads, housing, public works, and fuel and ordnance dumps.
Tinian required nearly everything involved in constructing Pacific island airfields: clearing jungle and cane fields, uprooting large trees, leveling hills, filling ravines, moving and crushing coral. But that was just the preliminary work before actual runway construction could begin. All the while, Seabees dug and scraped and drilled and blasted and rolled and paved their way to completion.
The enormity of the job was summarized in the statistics: 11 billion cubic yards of dirt and coral went into the six fields: enough to fill a line of dump trucks stretching the 940 miles from Washington, D.C., to Kansas City. The grind never let up, as crews went through twelve tons of dynamite and nearly 5,000 blasting caps every day.
Seabee officers computed that the construction material equaled three Boulder Dams. That much work required 770 cargo and dump trucks, 173 wheeled pans, 160 tractors, sixty graders, eighty power shovels, forty-eight rollers, ninety drill rigs, and dozens of water wagons, welders, cranes, and other heavy equipment. Men and gear toiled twenty hours a day with two crews working ten-hour shifts, leaving only four hours for maintenance and repair.
After the surface was scraped clear and the runway beds established, the compacters went to work. Huge rollers were run up and down the 8,500-foot lengths and 400- to 500-foot widths, chuffing smoke and crushing coral into ever denser packs. Then the Seabees called upon their hand-built asphalt plant that provided 700 liquid tons a day. For each runway they poured a layer of asphalt two and a half inches thick. Finally they rolled that layer, compressing it to two inches to accept the bulk of Superfortresses taking off and landing.
However, it wasn’t just about laying a long, wide strip across the island: in the tropic environment rain was ever present, and drainage was a critical factor. Engineers carefully computed the proper gradient for each runway—the