This is the story of the fighting men of the Engineer Special Brigades during World War II. Read also of the author's military experiences after the war while participating in the occupation and rebuilding of Europe. Included are entertaining true stories of military life of the times. The Third Engineer Special Brigade was formed in August, 1942, at Camp Edwards, Massachusetts. Men were selected for this amphibious brigade who had special skills such as boaters and yachtsmen, fishermen, mechanics and even country boys who had worked with engines back on the farm. The itinerary of their training while still in the United States sounds like a dream vacation: summer on Cape Cod, winter in the balmy Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida, and Pacific coast training in Monterrey Bay. Next stop: Camp Stoneman, where the transport ship, Sea Flasher, was waiting to take the "amphibs" to New Guinea, in the southwest Pacific, which would be their combat proving ground. The Empire of Japan was planning to dominate the Pacific region, seeking the natural resources which were so plentiful but under the control of other countries. Japan had already begun an assault on China by the time they bombed Pearl Harbor, in December, 1941, crippling the American Pacific fleet. The job of the American Amphibious Engineers was to dislodge the Japanese forces from the tropical islands they had already taken over. Read the first-hand accounts of treacherous beachhead landings, bitter fighting, and survival under terrible conditions in the heat, monsoons, swarms of insects, and shortage of food.