Naval Construction Battalion Center Gulfport Mississippi Patch

The Seabees came to Gulfport in June 1942, when the Navy set up an Advanced Base Depot on the Mississippi coast to support its new construction battalions. Gulfport had a deep-water port and weather mild enough to train in all year, and the Navy wanted both. In 1952 the station was designated a U.S. Naval Construction Battalion Center. Today it is home base for the Atlantic Fleet Seabees. For a lot of Seabees, NCBC Gulfport is where every deployment started and where it ended.

The base grew fast in its first years. An Armed Guard School and a Cooks and Bakers School opened in October 1942, and in March 1944 the center became a Naval Training Center teaching engineering, diesel, radioman, quartermaster and electrician ratings. In February 1966 the mission expanded to support Navy construction forces in Southeast Asia, the first 509 Seabees arrived from Davisville, Rhode Island, that March, and the 20th Naval Construction Regiment was recommissioned on 17 April 1966. The 20th NCR became the 20th Seabee Readiness Group in 2003 and Naval Construction Group 2 in 2013, while the 22nd Naval Construction Regiment became an independent command. NMCB 11 was recommissioned at Gulfport in September 2007, and the unit roster also carries NMCB 1 and NMCB 133.

This is a 4 inch round patch with a white merrowed edge and a ring of red rope stitched just inside it. NAVAL CONSTRUCTION BATTALION CENTER arches across the top in black block letters, GULFPORT, MISSISSIPPI runs along the bottom, and a black star sits at each side between them. Inside a ring of gold anchor chain, green landmasses lie on a white field, and the Seabee fighting bee charges across the middle in a white Dixie cup with a gold sunburst behind him. A gold key stands at the right and a small gold cluster at the upper left. Rope and chain are both deck gear, and on a Seabee base patch they frame the bee the way the Navy frames the builder.

Gulfport is also where the Seabees have proved themselves at home. When Hurricane Camille hit the coast in 1969, 1,700 Seabees worked the preparation and the recovery, 25 structures on the base were destroyed, and the center along with construction battalions 74 and 121 received the Navy Unit Commendation. Hurricane Katrina came ashore on 29 August 2005 and stayed two days, and Congress put $277.2 million toward repairs at NCBC and Stennis Space Center. The Seabee Heritage Center on the grounds is the Atlantic Coast annex of the Seabee Museum at Port Hueneme, California.

It belongs in a shadow box next to a battalion plaque and a photo from the Gulfport grinder, or on the sleeve of a jacket worn to a battalion reunion. It also makes a good gift for a son or daughter reporting to Gulfport for a first battalion. The back is sew-on, so stitch it down once and it stays put. One base, more than eighty years of builders.