Alvin Edwin Ruess was in the Navy Seabees in World War II, and his niece, Mary, talks about her uncle’s service during WWII. He was almost too old to be drafted, having been born in 1907. Though he was twice of the age of most of the GIs, he spent months just off of Saipan, supplying the troops.
The Seabees are the Construction Battalions of the Navy, and have a history of building bases, bulldozing and paving thousands of miles of roadway and airstrips, and accomplishing myriad other construction projects. Their name derives from the sound of the acronym for “Construction Battalion” (CB).
Because of his duty, Mr. Ruess didn’t see much of, as he wrote, “the ravaging destruction of war,” but he certainly remembers when orders came to go to “Destination X,” which meant Saipan.
The Battle of Saipan was fought from June 15, 1944 until July 9, 1944. The American 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions and 27th Infantry Division defeated the 43rd Division of the Imperial Japanese Army. For the Americans, the victory was the most costly to date in the Pacific War. 2,949 Americans were killed and 10,364 wounded, out of 71,000 who landed
In Mr. Ruess’s letters home, he talks about his duties, the grueling shifts (6 hours on, 12 hours off, 6 hours on), but skips over details about the island, which had to be a bloody shambles; he arrived just after the key piece of territory had been cleared of Japanese.
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