NAVAL CONSTRUCTION BATTALION CENTER GULFPORT
Atlantic Fleet home of the Seabees — "We Build, We Fight."
OVERVIEW
Naval Construction Battalion Center Gulfport (NCBC Gulfport) is the Atlantic Fleet homeport and training center for the U.S. Navy's Naval Construction Force — the Seabees. The base occupies about 1,100 acres along the Mississippi Gulf Coast in Gulfport, and along with its Pacific Fleet companion at NCBC Port Hueneme, California, is one of only two permanent Seabee homeports in the U.S. Navy. Approximately 5,000 active-duty Sailors, reservists, federal civilians, and contractors work on the base on a daily basis.
The Seabee battalions and regiments based at Gulfport — including Naval Mobile Construction Battalions 1, 11, and 133, the 20th Naval Construction Regiment, and Naval Construction Group 2 — are the Navy's deployable horizontal- and vertical-construction force, executing forward base construction, runway repair, expeditionary camp building, contingency engineering, and humanitarian-assistance / disaster-response engineering missions worldwide. The Naval Construction Training Center (NCTC) Gulfport is the schoolhouse for advanced Seabee technical skills, including heavy-equipment, electrical, utilities, and steelworker training. Civil Engineer Corps (5100) officers regularly serve operational tours at NCBC Gulfport, particularly in command billets in the deployable battalions and regiments.
KEY FACTS
- MissionEast Coast home of the U.S. Navy Seabees and major Atlantic Fleet construction force
- Host ForceNaval Construction Force (NCF) — the Seabees
- Companion BaseTwin to NCBC Port Hueneme (Pacific Fleet Seabee homeport)
- Training MissionNaval Construction Training Center for advanced Seabee skills
- Civil Engineer CorpsMajor operational tour location for 5100 Civil Engineer Corps officers
HISTORY
Naval Construction Battalion Center Gulfport was established in 1942, in the months after Pearl Harbor, when the U.S. Navy designated land along the Gulfport, Mississippi, waterfront as the site of a wartime Advance Base Depot. The depot trained, equipped, and staged Seabee battalions for the Pacific and Atlantic theaters of World War II. After the war the base was placed in caretaker status, but it was reactivated in 1952 to support Korean War mobilization and the Cold War expansion of the Naval Construction Force.
In 1971 the Department of the Navy designated NCBC Gulfport the permanent Atlantic Fleet Seabee homeport, mirroring the Pacific Fleet homeport at NCBC Port Hueneme. Over the following decades Gulfport hosted a steady rotation of Mobile Construction Battalions deploying to bases around the world — including major Cold War, Desert Shield/Desert Storm, Iraq, and Afghanistan engineering deployments — and grew its training, logistics, and barracks infrastructure to support the East Coast Seabee force. In August 2005 the base sustained extensive damage from Hurricane Katrina, with substantial portions of the housing, training, and waterfront facilities destroyed. NCBC Gulfport was rebuilt with hardened, code-upgraded facilities over the following years, and the Seabee mission continued without interruption throughout the recovery effort.
MAJOR COMMANDS & TENANT UNITS
- 20th Naval Construction Regiment
- Naval Mobile Construction Battalion ONE (NMCB-1)
- Naval Mobile Construction Battalion ELEVEN (NMCB-11)
- Naval Mobile Construction Battalion ONE THREE THREE (NMCB-133)
- Naval Construction Group TWO (NCG-2)
- Naval Construction Training Center (NCTC) Gulfport
- Center for Seabees and Facilities Engineering (CSFE) detachment
LOCATION & GEOGRAPHY
NOTABLE EVENTS
- 1942Camp Holliday EstablishedU.S. Navy established an advance base depot and Seabee training site at Gulfport during World War II.
- 1952Reactivated for KoreaReactivated as a Construction Battalion Center to support Korean War-era Seabee training and mobilization.
- 1971Permanent Atlantic Fleet Seabee HomeportDesignated the permanent Atlantic Fleet homeport for the Seabees alongside NCBC Port Hueneme on the Pacific.
- 2005Hurricane KatrinaNCBC Gulfport sustained heavy damage from Hurricane Katrina; the base was rebuilt and continued Seabee operations through the recovery.