"December 1942 saw voluntary Seabee enlistments cease per presidential order. For the next year the Selective Service System provided younger unskilled recruits." The Seabee solution were Construction Training Centers with courses in over 60 trades. In the field seabees became renowned for the arts of obtaining materials by unofficial and unorthodox means, and souvenir making. Bulldozers, steel pontoons, steel mat, and corrugated steel, combined with "ingenuity and elbow grease became synonymous with Seabees Nearly 11,400 became officers in the Civil Engineer Corps of which nearly 8,000 served with CBs. During the war the Naval Construction Force (NCF) was simultaneously spread across multiple projects worldwide. On 13 February 1945 Chief of Naval Operations, Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, made the NCF a permanent Naval element. Before that happened Seabees had volunteered for many tasks outside the NCF: Naval Combat Demolition Units, UDTs, Marine Corps Engineers/Pioneers and the top secret Chemical Warfare Service Flame tank Group.