In the most primitive, undeveloped, and remote areas of the Pacific Ocean, China, and Southeast Asia, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers played a crucial role during World War II. These regions, often covered with impenetrable jungles, teeming with tropical insects and diseases, cut by swift and wide rivers, and crossed by rugged mountains, presented formidable challenges. The engineers faced the task of creating logistical facilities at the end of tenuous supply lines stretching hundreds, if not thousands, of miles back to developed bases.
In the tropical jungles of Papua New Guinea and the Burma-China borderlands, on the coral atolls of the Central Pacific, and on the inhospitable islands of the Aleutians, American forces initially confronted a lack of even the most rudimentary facilities. They had to carve out toeholds for bases that would tie into the worldwide logistical network, which would pump in the men and materiel necessary to press the fight against the Japanese. This arduous task fell to the Army engineers, who first fought as combat engineers on the front lines before transforming jungles and atolls into crucial links in the chain of advanced airfields, ports, and supply bases.
The Corps of Engineers began their efforts against Japan well before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Engineer units in Alaska, Hawaii, the Philippine Islands, and Panama worked to improve the defenses of the United States and its vital overseas possessions. After the war began, engineers in the Philippines were involved in the desperate campaign to hold Bataan and Corregidor. Meanwhile, engineer units flowed into Australia and Papua, developing bases from which the Allies would launch their campaign to return to the Philippines.
General MacArthur's strategy of "leapfrogging" up Papua New Guinea and back to the Philippines relied heavily on the ability of his engineer forces to quickly build facilities under enemy fire and in hostile conditions. Among their notable achievements were the operations of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Engineer Special Brigades, which conducted all of MacArthur's amphibious assault landings from 1943 through the end of the war.
In the China-Burma-India Theater, engineers from 1942 through 1944 focused on establishing the airfields, supply lines, and bases necessary to sustain British, Indian, Chinese, and American forces. They supported the aerial supply route across the Himalayas and built airfields in China for U.S. and Chinese air forces to strike back at the Japanese. Other engineers worked on the Ledo Road and its accompanying petroleum pipeline, creating a secure land route to China for military supplies.
Key topics covered in the volume include the organization and employment of engineer combat and construction units, the role of engineers in the Philippine Islands Campaign, combat engineers in combined arms operations, amphibious landing operations, base and communication development in remote areas, airfield and air base development, employment of black engineer units, the impact of modern construction equipment, prewar defense strengthening, and the interrelationship of strategy, logistics, and construction.