Battalion 58 history table of contents

HISTORY ARCHIVES Version 2.1

Introduction and Acknowledgements

Welcome to the Association’s History Archives Version 2.1 compiled for presentation at our Tenth Annual Reunion at San Antonio, Texas, April 2013.

We have assembled many publications and documents which taken together provide perspective on the commissioned service of NMCB 58 during the Vietnam War and its predecessor, the 58^th NCB during World War II.

This Version 2.1 of our Archives is significantly more comprehensive than our first version benefiting greatly from more of our shipmates’ personal collections solicited at past Reunions and an opportunity to excavate many documents from the official NAVFAC archives at the new Port Hueneme Seabee Museum.

We owe a huge debt of gratitude and acknowledgement for the significant contributions of many individuals and organizations of our Navy’s extended Seabee family for the information contained in these Archives. Our principal sources are the official NAVFAC Archives at Port Hueneme, California; the CEC/Seabee Museum Foundation headquartered at Gulfport, Mississippi; and, the Seabee Museum and Memorial Park at Davisville, Rhode Island. Much of the general Seabee history documents come indirectly from the Department of the Navy’s Naval Historical Center in Washington, DC. And, of course, a great deal of information comes from the 58^th Naval Construction Battalion association records and publications.

In the Table of Contents you will find links to all our Cruise Books, Deployment Completion Reports and annual Command Histories. We believe we have all the Skippers’ Familygrams and all (but maybe one) of our Blaze Newsletters. There are sample Operation Orders and Operation Reports from our four Seabee Teams and some items relating to our homeport periods at Davisville, Rhode Island. Fair warning to the reader: all these documents were scanned from available paper copies of the originals. Quality varies so you may need to work with your computer’s viewing options to get the most readable results.

We hope you enjoy perusing the Archives and perhaps will find them useful in telling your children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and anybody else who cares, exactly what grandpa did during his war.

Dean Schofield
Battalion Historian
April 2013

NMCB 58 History Archives TABLE OF CONTENTS

58^th NCB and NMCB 58 Joint History Digest
Seabee History Overview

World War II Service: 58^th Naval Construction Battalion

Formation of the Seabees and World War II Operations
WW II Seabee Unit Listing and Where They Served
58^th NCB Overseas Itinerary
History of the 58^th NCB
The Invasion of Vella La Vella
USMC Vella La Vella History Excerpt
58^th NCB Cruise Book: WW II Pacific Deployments
58^th NCB Awards List
58^th NCB Commendations
58^th NCB First Reunion

Vietnam War Service: Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 58

Seabee History: Southeast Asia
Seabees in Vietnam: Units, Locations and Statistics
Seabees in Vietnam: Deployment Schedule and Camps
Seabees in Vietnam: Deployment Status - November 1967
Seabees in Vietnam: Deployment Status - April 1969

NMCB 58 Ceremonies: Commissioning, Change of Command, Memorial Services, Decommissioning

Commissioning Program
Change of Command Program
Gregory Helmsley Memorial Service
Decommissioning Program
NMCB 58 and NMCB 6 Decommissioning Ceremony
Rear Admiral Bartlett’s Decommissioning speech
Davisville “Yardarm” 19 November 1969

NMCB 58 Vietnam Deployments and Locations

NMCB 58 Cruise Books
First (1966 − 1967) Deployment
Second (1967 − 1968) Deployment
Third (1969) Deployment

NMCB 58 Awards

NMCB 58 Deployment Completion Reports

First (1966 − 1967) Deployment
Second (1967 − 1968) Deployment
Third (1969) Deployment

NMCB 58 Command Histories

1966 February through December
1967 January through December
1968 January through December
1969 January through November

NMCB 58 Familygram Letters

Familygram Welcoming Letter

February 1966	17 March 1966	14 April 1966
16 May 1966	10 June 1966	29 June 1966
29 July 1966	23 August 1966	27 September 1966
19 October 1966	18 November 1966	19 December 1966

23 January 1967	28 February 1967	25 March 1967
25 April 1967	29 May 1967	2 October 1967
29 November 1967

17 January 1968	10 March 1968	18 April 1968
25 May 1968	29 June 1968	29 July 1968

4 February 1969	10 March 1969	8 April 1969
12 May 1969	18 June 1969	20 July 1969
25 August 1969	30 September 1969	15 November 1969

NMCB 58 Blaze Newsletters

Volume 1 No.1: 3 June 1966	Volume 1 No.2: 29 June 1966
Volume 1 No.3: 15 July 1966	Volume 1 No.4: 5 August 1966
Volume 1 No.5: 22 August 1966	Volume 1 No.6: 10 October 1966
Volume 1 No.7: 5 November 1966	Volume 1 No.8: 12 November 1966
Volume 1 No.9: 19 November 1966	Volume 1 No.10: 26 November 1966

Volume 1 No.11: 3 December 1966	Volume 1 No.12: 10 December 1966
Volume 1 No.13: 17 December 1966	Volume 1 No.14: 25 December 1966
Volume 1 No.15: 31 December 1966	Volume 1 No.16: 7 January 1967
Volume 1 No.17: 14 January 1967	Volume 1 No.18: 21 January 1967
Volume 1 No.19: 28 January 1967	Volume 1 No.20: 4 February 1967
Volume 1 No.21: 11 February 1967	Volume 1 No.22: 18 February 1967
Volume 1 No.23: 26 February 1967	Volume 1 No.24: None published
Volume 1 No. 22x 4 March 1967	Volume 1 No.25: 11 March 1967
Volume 1 No.26: 25 March 1967	Volume 1 No.27: 8 April 1967
Volume 2 No.28: 22 April 1967	Volume 2 No.29: 6 May 1967
Volume 2 No.30: Not available	Volume 2 No.31: 4 June 1967
Volume 2 No.32: 29 August 1967	Volume 2 No.33: 24 November 1967
Volume 2 No.34: 25 December 1967	Volume 2 No.35: 14 January 1968
Volume 2 No.36: 28 January 1968	Volume 2 No.37: 11 February 1968
Volume 2 No.38: 4 March 1968	Volume 2 No.39: 24 March 1968
Volume 2 No.40: 19 April 1968	Volume 2 No.41: 5 May 1968
Volume 2 No.42: 30 May 1968	Volume 2 No.43: 16 June 1968
Volume 2 No.44: 26 July 1968	Volume 3 No.1: January 1969
Volume 3 No.2: April 1969	Volume 3 No.3: May 1969
Volume 3 No. 4: June 1969	Volume 4 No. 5: July 1969
Volume 4 No. 6: August 1969	Volume 4 No. 7: September 1969
Volume 4 No. 8: November 1969