Marc Liebman, Captain (USN retired)
Time Period: WWI and WWII
ADM Ben Moreell’s bio on the Naval History and Heritage Command website starts with “ADM Ben Moreell is the single most important Civil Engineering Corps officer in the history of the corps.” one could write a long book Moreell’s accomplishments, so we’ll just focus on the highlights.
After Moreell was born in 1892 in Salt Lake City, the family moved to St. Louis, MO. At the age of 16, he earned a full scholarship to St. Louis University and graduated in 1913 with a B.S. in Civil Engineering. Ben was also the captain of the track team and the football team’s starting fullback.
He worked in the St. Louis Department of Public Works until he passed the Navy’s entrance exam for its Civil Engineering Corps in 1917. During World War I, he designed and oversaw the building of gun emplacements in the Azores. His outstanding work brought him to the attention of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin Roosevelt.
Between the wars, Moreell was assigned to billets all over the U.S. and spent four years as the Principal Assistant and Executive Officer to the Engineer in Charge, Department of Public Works of the Republic of Haiti. In his next assignment at the Navy’s Bureau of Yards and Docks, Moreell wrote a treatise called “Standards of Design for Concrete.” After a tour in France, he wrote “Articulations for Concrete Structures” for which he received the Wason Medal from the American Concrete Institute.
Fast forward to 1937. RADM Norman Smith, the Navy’s Chief of Yards and Docks convinced the Navy and FDR to promote CDR Ben Moreell over eight other eligible officers.
He was sent to inspect the Navy’s facilities at Pearl Harbor, Midway and Wake, and in his report, he told his superiors that they were inadequate for war and recommended what needed to be done. Moreell had two dry docks built at Pearl Harbor and a floating dry dock moved from New Orleans to Pearl. After the Japanese attack, these docks were used to repair the damaged battleships.
In 1941 and before the U.S. entered the war, U.S. refiners were struggling to produce 100-octane aviation fuel. Moreell led the investigation into the causes and the solution that enabled refiners to produce the precious fuel that gave our airplanes better performance at all altitudes than those of our enemy.
Under his leadership during World War II, the Navy created a network of 900 naval bases and air stations and 300 advanced bases. Without these bases in the Atlantic and Pacific, the U.S. would not have been able to move the men and material needed to win the war.
Convinced a war was coming, Moreell wanted to create Navy units that could fight and build rather than rely on civilian contractors. In May 1941, Moreell urged RADM Chester Nimitz, then Chief of the Bureau of Navigation (the forerunner of today’s Naval Military Personnel Command) to allow him to create these units. The first Headquarters Construction Company was authorized on October 31st, 1941, and began training on December 1st, 1941.
On December 28th, 1941, Moreell requested the authority to create five construction battalions. The first unit deployed to Bora Bora as the First Naval Construction Battalion in January 1942 and were officially named SeaBees on March 5th, 1942.
On March 19th, 1942, Secretary of the Navy Knox broke a long-time tradition that only line officers (aviators, submariners, and surface warfare officers) could command units. He agreed with Moreell’s argument that the unique skills and capabilities of the SeaBees needed a Civil Engineering Corps officer as their commander. The change from “officer in charge” to commanding officer is one of Moreell’s greatest accomplishments. For this reason and for his foresight in creating these unique units, Ben Moreell earned the title of “Father of the SeaBees.”
Moreell became the first, youngest and only non-Naval Academy graduate and Civil Engineer Corps officer to be promoted Admiral. There’s a statue of Ben Moreell at the Naval Academy and the title he was most proud of was “King Bee.”
Marc Liebman is a retired Navy Captain and Naval Aviator who as a helicopter pilot, flew combat search and rescue and special operations missions. He is a combat veteran of Vietnam and Desert Shield/Storm spent 26 years in the Navy. Today, he is an award-winning author with 14 books, all of whom have Jewish Naval officers as the main character. In each novel, the character must deal with some aspect of anti-semitism.
Originally published in the Pesach 2024 issue of The Jewish American Warrior.
