US Naval Advance Bases

Advance bases provided the fleet with support to keep ships tactically available with repair and supply depots of facilities, rather than return them to the continental United States.

[1] Before Japan declared war on the United States the U.S. Navy had a single fleet-sized advanced base in the Territory of Hawaii at Naval Station Pearl Harbor.

Most Advance Bases were built by the US Navy's Seabees in Naval Construction Battalions (CBs).

The Seabees in World War II built most of the airfields used by the United States Army Air Forces and United States Marine Corps, as they had the ships and cranes needed to transport the vast amount of equipment needed at the advance bases.

During World War 2, in Guam alone one million gallons of aviation gasoline were needed each day.

Under the Emergency Shipbuilding Program and War Shipping Administration contracts went out to shipyards and Ironwork works companies across the country.

For housing, offices, mess halls, and depots a vast number of quonset huts of different sizes were built.

A vast amount of vehicles, supplies and equipment at the bases was deemed not needed and too costly to ship to the U.S.

The need for advance bases during World War II was so great, that in some cases some Pacific Ocean islands were too small for the demand.