Seabees reunite and recall past

Seabees reunite and recall past

They will tour Lexington, and visit at restaurants

There were 1,250 Seabees during WWII who built airstrips, ship docks, Quonset huts - eventually building U.S. Navy bases in the South Pacific among the heavily shelled ruins. Fewer than a dozen of the U.S. Navy Bureau of Yards and Docks' construction battalion veterans who helped liberate the island of Saipan from Japanese forces are left.

Seven of the Battalion 101 Seabees, who are able to travel, are reminiscing today in Corpus Christi with one of the 250 children they brought some Christmas cheer to during the war.

"These guys have moved around, died, or live with their own kids now," said B.H. Casey, 84, longtime Corpus Christi resident. "There were 17,000 Saipan natives living in squalor before we helped them, and it's amazing to me any got here and found the Seabees."

Maria Soledad Castro, 73, whispered her prayers inside an inland cave at age 11 while waiting to see if she would eat each day. Despite the presence of nuns and priests, who Japanese soldiers considered spies, there was no celebration of Mass, only the beseeching prayers of her mother, "Birhen del Carmen, Tampihan ni capamo (Blessed Mother, please extend your cave and save us)."

Castro was lucky to have survived, said Edward Michl, 82, of Westchester, Ill., who has attended about 80 percent of the Seabee reunions. "It was horrifying to see these people jumping off cliffs in fear of Americans because of Japanese propaganda," Michl said. "Maria's mother decided not to jump with all her kids."

Castro was the second of six children of Pedro Deleon Castro and Virginia Camacho. She and her younger siblings, Augustin, Francisco and Rita were with her parents when they went into hiding. Her older sister, Rosalia, was married at the time of the Japanese bombing attacks and decided to stay with her husband's family. Pedro, the youngest of the siblings was not born until 1950.

The family hid in a canal as airplanes swooped down dropping bombs, before they dashed to higher ground in the Marpi Point, a location with five caves. More than 20 people lived out the war in the caves alongside priests and the Mercedarian Missionaries of Berriz.

The cave refugees eventually were liberated by some of the 75,000 U.S. troops sweeping the island. The north side of Saipan had become home to the B-29 bombers used widely against Tokyo.

On Christmas Day 1945, after assurances of safety from the missionaries who had befriended troops, Castro and her siblings were taken to the large mess hall at the Navy base alongside about 250 other native children. That day most of the Seabees, who weren't standing guard, became fathers for a day. They made sure each child had plenty to eat. Afterward the tots were taken to meet Santa, and received stockings made of fishing net that were filled with tidbits of candy and treats the soldiers had squirreled from home for weeks.

Castro arrives today from her home in Kansas City, Mo., to join the remaining Seabees during a several-day reunion that will include a tour of the USS Lexington, visit area restaurants, and travel to the past in memories.

"We always look forward to chewing the rag," said Henry Cheney, 81, a Seabee who is retired from General Electric. "We dug deep to mingle with as many kids as we could that Christmas during the war, and our party was a roaring success.

"Kids are just kids, no matter where you go in the world, and we'll always remember the value of helping those kids."

Contact Mike Baird at 886-3774 or HYPERLINK

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