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brought a rapid demobilization of our armed forces, including the seabees. there were a mere 3,000 down from 125,000 at the height of the war. >> what happens to these guys? >> seabees were originally a temporary organization, but then very quickly they realized, you know what, these guys did a really good job for us and maybe we should keep them around. and so 1947 they became a perfect part of the navy. >> 25 june 1950, over 100,000 communist north korean troops storm across the 38th parallel, invading the democratic south. >> on september 15, 1950, seabees of amphibious construction battalion 1st brought the first marine division ashore at inchon. >> battling treacherous 30-foot tides, they built a pontoon

causeway and helped land 30,000 of general mcarthur's marines and soldiers. a curious incident occurred. >> great seabee train robbery is a piece of seabee lore. as they were landing in inchon, the equipment was backing up because there was nowhere to take it. so the seabees went across enemy lines and went to a beer factory. they found a plethora of leftover trains. they ended up taking the trains, a few packs of beer, and crossed back over to the harbor so they could bring all the supplies. >> one of the most incredible seabee feats took part in wodu, a key supply place for north korea. navy task force 77th pounded the enemy stronghold almost daily. >> when we were launching combat

flights from the aircraft carriers offshore, airplanes would be damaged and couldn't make it back to ship. >> general sturman grew up in new mexico, and joined amphibious construction battalion 1st. >> someone came up with the idea, let's build a landing strip on udo, big enough than an aircraft carrier. the ncb 1 says, we can do it. sturman, make it happen. i load up with pontoons on the side and construction equipment and we moved up to juanson. >> we offloaded all the equipment and seabees and the job started laying a marsten matting steel planking runway from shore to shore across the rice paddy island. >> seabees were under a fire a

lot in korea. >> yes, specifically there. they could easily throw down on the runway where they were building it. so, the guys would just hold off and run out and fill the hole when the shell had landed. and just about the time it was finished, we saved, i think it was, seven navy fighter planes that came in on their way back, that were out of fuel and landed and saved all of them. >> as war rages in korea, five seabee battalions were away in the philippines. >> their project, a major air and sea facility at cubi point on subic bay. they spent five years crossing jungle and mountains into a first modern base for the free. >> they could not find a civilian contractor at that time that would even bid on the job out there. >> never one to shy away from a tough job, 21-year-old oklahoma farm boy johnny mccully signed up for the monumental challenge.

>> there was basically three mountains taken out like this. and the bay was in between here. >> and they basically lopped off the entire top of a mountain. they used that material to backfill swamp land and they built one of the largest bases in the world. >> there was more moved in constructing that base than what was moved in construction of the panama canal. >> another role of the seabees in the 1950s era was being involved in "operation deep freeze." the u.s. started looking at antarctica and see if it was possible to do any kind of construction there. this is, obviously, part of the entire cold war movement and trying to spread as far possible. like always, the seabees said, of course we can do. >> that runway was actually built. >> they would have to go through with specialized dozers and create entire -- you know, 6,000-foot long runways on ice.

>> outnumbered 100 to 1, 9 seabees endured an assault in the jungles of vietnam. >>

you make me wear my bike helmet. you taught me to never run with scissors. you tell me to stay away from drugs. to always buckle my seat belt. and to follow the swimming rules. you're always looking out for me, and trying to keep me safe. so why do you keep a loaded gun in your drawer? here in the garage? closet? shoebox under the bed? where anyone can get to it? how safe is that? [repeated] you ask them to follow some safety rules... now they're asking you. in fact, they're counting on you. never let your gun get into the wrong hands. if you own a firearm... and are not using it... please be responsible and be sure that it's stored in a safe place.

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during the post-korea/pre-vietnam era, the need for a new kind of seabee developed. a people-to-people seabee. this new breed of bees served as a member of a seabee team. 13 dedicated men helping people to help themselves. >> throughout the 1960s there was an entire push from the top down to use the u.s. military as an agent of civic action in terms of cold war, it's a way of helping people who might be more apt to go toward the communist

side, instead, go for americans. >> make sure it's clean before you put any grease on it. >> you basically just went out and built rooms in the countryside and helped the natives out. >> master chief equipmentman john mccully had been a seabee for 18 years when he deployed to vietnam in 1965 as part of team 1104. >> we had lieutenant j.j. peterlin, officer in charge. johnny mccully was assistant officer in charge. >> equipment operator, mechanic and builter, you had two of each of those. and then engineering, your electrician, your steel worker and your corpsman. >> 27-year-old frank peterlin from illinois was in charge of team 1104. they were tasked with building a camp for army's special forces in dong xoai, south of the vietnamese capital, saigon. >> special force a-team is all that's there. >> mutual respect between the two groups.

>> william stokes from lynchburg, virginia, led the special forces a-team with the 20 americans at the camp were some 250 local militiamen. >> having the seabees there was a bonus for us because it gave us more americans to help supervise defense. >> we are there because the nation has asked us for help against the communist aggression. ten years ago our president pledged our help. three presidents have supported that pledge. and we will not break it now. >> at the time seabee team 1104 landed in dong xoai 1965, there were some 10,000 american boots on the ground in vietnam. among them, 26-year-old construction mechanic 3rd class marvin shields. >> marvin was a lumberjack kind of from the northwest. very gentle guy. he was the type of person that

in his spare time, he made chopping blocks for all the vietnamese women that needed that type of thing. >> the seabees hit the ground running, hauling gravel and building the camp's defensive perimeter. just five days after they arrived, all hell broke loose. >> the attack started 15 minutes before midnight on the night of 9th of june. >> mortar rounds and rifles and knocked out the communication right away. >> outnumbered 100 to 1, the 20 americans, including the 9 seabees, were surrounded by an estimated 2,000 determined viet cong. >> they were coming in continually for the next couple of hours. >> then it quieted down about 10, 15 minutes, and then it started again.

that's when we were really hurting because we didn't have the ammo. we didn't have -- we couldn't even find rocks to throw back. that type of machine gun, right shoulder. >> i had a shot at right leg, something through my left arm and a broken left ankle. i couldn't walk. >> marvin shield was along that northwest berm, that was basically his firing position. had some -- >> marvin was running around, making sure everybody was ammo. >> it was about to get worse. at 0230, three hours after the first shots were fired, rolling waves of enemy troops armed with automatic weapons and flame-throwers reached the perimeter and overran the camp. >> i just got knocked on my -- on my face with an explosion. the real damage was a wound in my foot. it hit a nerve. every time i would try to get up, i would fall on my face again. >> marvin shields put me on his back in a fireman's carry and

together with sergeant james taylor, carried me to the district compound. i owe my life to marvin shields and jim taylor, who carried me to safety. >> peterlin and mccully were now behind enemy lines, surrounded and cut off from the rest of the americans. meanwhile, a few hundred yards away, stokes and shields were pinned down by machine gunfire, coming from this nearby schools. one of stokes' men decided to take it out. >> lieutenant williams picked up a 3.5 rocket launcher we had available. asked for someone to load for him. >> of course, shields, even though he was seriously wounded, volunteered right away. he had the ammo before he could even finish asking for it. and they shot off the machine gun. >> they started pulling back. and another machine gun that they had mounted, shields was hit in the leg, basically tore his leg off.

>> with four dead and marvin shields hanging on for dear life, the welcome sound of helicopter blades grew close. >> shields was still alive, but barely. that's when he told him, move me gently, boys. >> unfortunately, you know, marv died on helicopter. not even a second after it took off. >> seabees peterlin and mccully were left for dead as the choppers took off with shields and 13 others. separated with no communications, little did they know, they were the only two americans left on the ground. >> hit the entire campsite. >> dropping bombs and straight -- >> bombs, big time. that bombing would consume you the next 12 days and nights. and i was in fighting hole at the vc all around me. the only time i even dared to leave that area was the following morning, when

helicopters flew over and there was no return fire. >> and just as i came out of the woods, a chopper was taking off the ground and he saw me coming out and he set me down. when i pulled myself up on the chopper, there laid frank in there, second row of stretchers. i was happy to see him. >> 1104 suffered 12 wounded, 100% casualties. frank peterlin and johnny mccully both received the silver star and marvin shields was posthumously awarded the congressional medal of honor, the only seabee to receive one. >>x÷x÷ a

one hour ago, the body of a young american hero navy diver robert dean was returned to his native soil in a coffin. >> 14 june 1985, athens, greece, the world watched in horror as islamic militants hijacked twa flight 347. >> he had two cans of mace. he sprayed all the passengers with mace and started flying the aircraft. >> 23-year-old see bae driver robert stood up to defend a fellow passenger. the terrorist tortured him and then shot him at point-blank range and tossed his body from the aircraft. >> he was really the first seabees first casualty on the global war of terrorism. >> i have directed the secretary of transportation in cooperation with the secretary of state to explore immediately an expansion of our armed sky marshal program

for better protection of passengers. >> two months after this order, congress created the current faa-controlled federal air marshal program. >> don't move! >> which added arm the marshals to international flights operated by u.s. carriers. 16 years later it was toughened again, following the terrorist attack of september 11, 2001. >> all saddam hussein has to do is get out of kuwait and this war is over. >> after saddam hussein invaded kuwait, seabees were called on to build some 200 miles of highway for general norman schwarzkopf's counteroffensive. >> when did the women start coming into the seabees? >> since 1972. however, they didn't begin serving in combat roles until 1994. and actually, recently, the seabees have lost their first woman killed in action, a petty officer regina clark in iraq.

>> i have about 16,000 seabees. 40% active force and 60% reserve force. >> how many of your seabees are deployed overseas? >> about 5200. >> charles phillips from charleston, north carolina, is at the helm of all current seabee battalions. >> a hefty number of my troops are suspecting the special operations forces both in afghanistan and iraq. we've been over there and it's 120 degrees. they're in full combat gear, taking indirect fire on a day in, day out basis with a smile on their face, nose to the grindstone, making it happen. >> what's done today to recruit a youngster that -- who has those kinds of skills that the seabees need? >> when the seabees were started, they brought folks in

that built the national transportation system or the skyscrapers in new york. it's different today. today we train our troops. >> this is where thousands of today's seabees hone their skills, ft. hunt eer liggett, califora, south of san francisco. >> a trainingap we have listed as provinces. that's pretty much what we're focusing on over in iraq. >> a 12-year veteran of the seabees and current war on terrorer, 33-year-old chief builder is with the 31st seabee readiness group in charge of all the training. >> what's your mission here? >> construct bridge over a creek. >> okay. >> is there a defensive perimeter here, a weapon of 50 cal up there, m-2, covering the avenue approachment to their camp, ensuring nobody comes through that's not supposed to.

they can probably construct this bridge in about eight hours. >> one, two, three. >> getting the marine corps rolling forward and low gist tal supplies to support the marine corps as they advance. we're in mach level 1, as we get more intel about threats and then we would go up and do that. >> go ahead, go ahead! >> in all of our training we try to achieve the troops going from zero without their chemical suit on to 4 in less than two minutes. about 10:30, 12::00 this morning when we come out, now it's about 1530 and it's almost complete. good time for that bridge. they got something to go home and be proud of. this is good work. >> "war stories" vietnam veteran

johnny mccully came to watch the new generation of seabees. >> you know who marvin shields, right? >> yes, sir. >> he was the chief in charge of marvin shields where he lost his life. >> put a full load on them and you can still cruise 55, 60. >> how many people, two squads? >> we usually haul about 24 bodies. >> i think it's great. they do a good job. >> the opf on top of the hill behind us has a notified react team that they see something suspicious out there. [ gunfire ] >> during this exercise, some seabees keep out the insurgents while others continue to build under fire. >> they wanted to attack the unit, with the objective of dismantling or damaging the bridge the seabees were doing down here. >> hey, we need more rounds down here! >> we also went through survival

training. that type of training saved us. and anyone on my team, i think, would tell you the same thing, because it showed you that your human endurance was much greater than you yourself actually believed it was. >> more on the navy's construction battalion. that's next on "war stories."

admiral earnest king, chief of naval operations in world war ii said seabee inagain youty and fortitude was legendary. from the jungles of guadalcanal and mountains of afghanistan, they've upheld their proud tradition as fighters that build and builders who fight. with the famous can-do spirit, no other branch our navy has served in more theaters of war or tackled more challenging missions than the navy seabees. theirs is a war story that

deserves to be told. i'm oliver north. good night. jooishgsz . tonight on "war stories" -- from stallen grad to berlin. >> the most intense fighting man kind has ever seen. >> russians trying to withstand stallen and fighting hitler. americans come to help with planes, trucks and spam and even join the front lines. >> all hell breaking loose. and they're chattering in russian. >> old russian boys said -- >> the untold story of the eastern front. that's just ahead on "war stories." >> good evening. i'm oliver north. welcome to "war sto