In May 1944, on Los Negros Island in the Admiralties, just north of eastern New Guinea, the 40th Seabee Battalion was assigned to the 1st Calvary Division. Its objective was to put the unused and much bombed Japanese airstrip at Momote into operation. The Army captured the airfield, all right, but while the Seabees were at work on it, the Japanese counter-attacked in greater force than anyone suspected was present. Two seabee officers and 100 men took over a sector of the perimeter and occupied a trench that they dug with the battalion's ditch digger.
They armed themselves with automatic rifles and knives, and set up a truck mounted 20mm gun behind them. Meanwhile other Seabees landed and started to grade and clear the runways and taxiways in the midst of battle. Others drove bulldozers into the jungle to clear fire lanes for Army guns, using blades now to clear a lane and again raised as a shield behind which they fired at the enemy.
In the Japanese assault, the Seabees distinguished themselves by capturing two machine-gun positions and a Bofors-gun. They took 47 casualties, with nine Killed. General Macarthur awarded them the Army's Distinguished Unit Badge, and President Roosevelt gave them the Presidential Unit Citation.