April 17, 1942 Ora Jenkins Sea Bees WWII experiences

Another in the series of articles written in 1992 for the Interlaken Historical Society Newsletter. Chief Petty Officer Ora Jenkins shares his wartime service.

Chief Jenkins was in the Sea Bees. What? You never heard of the Sea Bees? C.P.O.  (Chief Petty Officer) Jenkins said to look up C.B. in the dictionary. It stands for Construction Battalion. Chief Petty Officer Ora D. Jenkins shares his experiences with us.

Enlistment

On the 17th of April, 1942, I and the United States Navy made a deal, generally called “enlisting in the Navy.” I was living in the state of Kansas, and I enlisted at Salina, Kansas, as a C.P.O. I was given about a week to “square away” my affairs in Lincoln, Kansas where I was living; then reported into the Area Recruiting Station in Kansas City. There I was put to work interviewing men for the C.B.’s (Construction Battalion) since I was recruited as a “C.B.”

Some two or three weeks later there were about thirty-some C.B. recruits--so a draft was formed to report into U.S.N.O.B.-- Training Command, Norfolk, VA.

I was placed in charge of the draft to Norfolk. I had a man “jump ship” in St. Louis, MO, where we changed trains to go on to Norfolk. I turned his name, rating, and serial number in to the Shore Police there in Central R. R. Station. Whatever happened to him, I don't know. I do remember quite vividly the report the Navy “extracted” from me, one of the questions being: Did you try to “prevent” him from going AWOL? I mulled that over in my mind for a while and wrote down that since I had told all hands, when we went to “chow” in the station, that we would muster at the R.R. platform, the time of muster, and to be there! When I called his name at muster, I didn't get an answer. So as far as I was concerned, he had “jumped ship.” The officer in charge of these matters didn't exactly buy that as I had related it. We did, however, reach an agreement on the matter “more to his liking,” at Norfolk, VA.

Boot Training

Boot training to us C.B.'s seemed somewhat weird. When I was given guidelines on interviewing “tradesmen” for the C.B.'s, not word one was ever mentioned about “Boot Training,” back in Kansas City. The average age of the C.B.'s at that time--early in the program--was about 32-34 years of age. I was 34 at enlistment. All the literature provided at the recruiting stations for C.B.'s seemed to be that we would go “someplace” and be issued uniforms and go “someplace” and go to work at our specific trades.

The first impression most of us got was that we were a “bastard outfit,” which at first was true. Normally when a man joins the Navy, he does not have a rate. A recruit has to make his rate as he stays in the Navy. In the C.B.'s, a recruit had to qualify for a rate before he could “join up.”

So, when these grown men--most all of them professional tradesmen, “roughneck” oil field workers included--were told when and where to eat, where to go to get clothing issue, what clothes to wear and how to wear them; and since most of us “new people” outranked the people who were telling us what and where and what time, this caused some “touchy” and amusing incidents. But when the Marines took over to give us our- close order drill----combat training, bayonet training included, along with jungle warfare--things got rather serious and a little vague. (Several books have been written on this one phase of WWII.)

The question in the minds of the C.B.'s was: If we are in the Navy, how come the Marines are giving us this training? And to make matters more irritating, most of the Marines were from 20 to 25 years old! With a few Master Gunnery Sergeants and Warrant Officers who were “old heads,” professional Marines were the supervisors. Anyway, we got through “Boots.” There were however at this point some disillusioned members of the C.B.'s.

Click hereto read the rest of C P O Jenkins’ article.

After his service O.D. Jenkins returned to Interlaken where he had his own business as a plumber and heating contractor.

O.D. Jenkins died October 28, 2002; his wife Blanche died April 21, 2003. They are buried at Lake View Cemetery of Interlaken, lot 617.

Dewitt Diary, April 17, 1942
Temperature about 60 this morning and strong south wind. Husking out some corn this morning. I picked up corn that I had husked out and put it into the crib. Edna helped. Spotty and Dick caught the mice. Very warm and high west and north wind. Cooler tonight. Edna went to Grange.
Lem and Alice are down for the weekend. Pete is coming and bringing Leland late tomorrow.