This book titled "Family of 11th Seabee Battalions" not only records the history of one of the best families of Seabee battalions (11th NCB and NMCB 11), it tells the stories of the over 8,500 men who served during the 19-1/2 years it existed. In this book you will find the colorful, first hand, heroic history if it's men. In the true Seabee "Can Do" spirit, we have the complete history of the Battalion from World War II to Vietnam. A shortened history of the Battalion is contained on the MCB-11 Association WebSite for your quick review.

 

The history contains a listing of the various deployment sites, significant construction projects, detachments and details deployed by the battalion including it's Seabee teams, related military events surrounding the deployment sites, brief history of the islands where the Seabees served, Seabee vocabulary and lingo, humor, memories, battles, berthing and eating arrangements, names and accounts of it's sailing ships, and the first hand and personal accounts of the men who were there. It is a powerful story that needs to be told for the men who served her and their families and descendants who often ask: "What did you do in the Seabees?"  A brief biography of all active MCB-11 Association Members who submitted information to the editor is included in the history so one can see what they did in life after their days in the Seabees.

 

It includes the story of Marvin Glen Shields, Seabee, age 26, who was a posthumous recipient of the Medal of Honor and his teammates of Seabee Team 1104 deployed to Dong Xoai, Vietnam, during a fateful day in June 1965.

 

It is the story started when the fourteen founding members of the "MCB-11 Association" met in a small hotel room in Port Hueneme, California, in July 2001, and who decided that the proud traditions of MCB-11 should not die. That gathering of a small Seabee "band of brothers" has grown to a formal organization of over 165 members. That membership includes a former member of NMCB-11, Bruce Geibel, who served as a junior officer with the battalion in Vietnam and Thailand from 1966-1968, and who volunteered as editor to pull the history together.

 

The book contains the following battalion information in chapters and appendices:

 

Cover Sheet
Copyright Sheet
Dedication
Table of Contents
Foreword
Acknowlegements
Introduction
Chapter  1. Brief History of the Founding of the Seabees
Chapter  2. Military Training & Advance Base Training Camps
Chapter  3. Birthplace, Makeup and Deployment of the Seabees
Chapter  4. Birth of 11th Naval Construction Battalion
Chapter  5. World War II - 1942-1945
Chapter  6. Birth of NMCB 11 - Korean War Era - 1953
Chapter  7. Peacetime - Cold War - 1953-65
Chapter  8. Vietnam War Deployments - 1966-1969
Appendix A. Seabee Teams
Appendix B. Seabee Claims, Exaggerations, Mythology & Facts
Appendix C. Medals & Awards - Unit and Personal
Appendix D. Who's Who in MCB-11 Association
Appendix E. Vocabulary, Acronyms, Abbreviations & Lingo
Appendix F. Seabees & CEC Officers of 11th NCB & NMCB 11
Photographs
Alphabetical Index
Sources