Lewis Combs

Lewis Barton Combs (April 7, 1895 in Manchester Center, Vermont – May 20, 1996 in Red Hook, New York) was a United States Navy admiral who helped found and direct the famed "Seabees" construction battalions in World War II.

[1] Following his graduation from RPI in 1916, he was commissioned a lieutenant junior grade in the Navy Civil Engineering Corps shortly after the United States entered World War I.

Ordered to the Philippine Islands, he served from May 1935, through April 1937, as Public Works Officer, Sixteenth Naval District, at the Navy Yard, Cavite.

In January 1938, at the age of 42, Commander Combs was appointed Assistant (Deputy) Chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks, under Admiral Ben Moreell.

[4] Combs retired from the Navy in 1945 at the conclusion of World War II and served as the head of the Civil Engineering Department at his alma mater, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.