The Eve of Warby Henry J. Shaw, Jr.

n 1 September 1939 ,German armoredcolumns and attack

— aircraft crossed th ePolish border on a broad front andWorld War II began . Within days ,most of Europe was deeply involvedin the conflict as nations took sidesfor and against Germany and it sleader, Adolph Hitler, according totheir history, alliances, and self -interest . Soviet Russia, a natural ene-my of Germany's eastward expan -sion, became a wary partner inPoland's quick defeat and subsequentpartition in order to maintain abuffer zone against the German ad -vance. Inevitably, however, after Ger-man successes in the west and the fal lof France, Holland, and Belgium, in1940, Hitler attacked Russia, in 1941 .

In the United States, a week afterthe fighting in Poland started, Presi-dent Franklin D. Roosevelt declare da limited national emergency, a movewhich, among other measures ,authorized the recall to active dut yof retired Armed Forces regulars .Even before this declaration, in keep-ing with the temper of the times, thePresident also stated that the coun-try would remain neutral in the newEuropean war. During the next twoyears, however, the United States in-creasingly shifted from a stance o fpublic neutrality to one of prepara-tion for possible war and quite opensupport of the beleaguered nationsallied against Germany.

America could not concentrate itsattention on Europe alone in thoseeventful years, for another potentia l

Department of Defense Photo (USN) 5892 0

U.S. Marines go ashore from Navymotor-sailers in the prewar era before theadvent of Andrew Higgins' landing craft.

enemy dominated the Far East . InSeptember 1940, Japan became thethird member, with Germany andItaly, of the Axis powers . Japan hadpursued its own program of expan-sion in China and elsewhere in th e1930s which directly challengedAmerica's interests . Here too, in thePacific arena, the neutral UnitedStates was moving toward actions,political and economic, that couldlead to a clash with Japan .

In this hectic world atmosphere,America began to build its militarystrength . Shortly before Germany at-tacked Poland, at mid-year 1939, th enumber of active duty servicemenstood at 333,473: 188,839 in th eArmy, 125,202 in the Navy, an d19,432 in the Marine Corps . A yearlater, the overall strength was 458,365and the number of Marines wa s28,345 . By early summer of 1941, theArmy had 1,801,101 soldiers on ac-tive duty, many of them NationalGuardsmen and Reservists, but mos tof them men enlisted after Congressauthorized a peacetime draft . TheNavy, also augmented'by the recallof Reservists, had 269,023 men on it sactive rolls . There were 54,359 Ma-rines serving on 1 July 1941, all theReservists available and a steadily in -creasing number of volunteers .Neither the Navy nor the Marin eCorps had need for the draft to fil ltheir ranks .

The Marine Corps that grew instrength during 1939-41 was a Serv-ice oriented toward amphibious oper-ations and expeditionary duty. It alsohad a strong commitment to th eNavy beyond its amphibi-ous/expeditionary role as it provid-ed Marine detachments to guar dnaval bases and on board capital

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 308342

MajGen John A . Lejeune, 13th Com-mandant of the Marine Corps, led theCorps in the 1920s, steadfastly empha-sizing the expeditionary role of Marines.

ships throughout the world . Marineaviation squadrons — all Marine pi -lots were naval aviators and manywere carrier qualified — reinforced the ,Navy's air arm .

Two decades of air and groundcampaigns in the Caribbean andCentral America, the era of th e"banana wars;' had ended in 1934when the last Marines withdrewfrom Nicaragua, having policed th eelection of a new government . Withtheir departure, enough men becam eavailable to have meaningful fleetlanding exercises (FLEXs) which test -ed doctrine, troops, and equipmentin partnership with the Navy. Andthe doctrine tested was both new andimportant .

Throughout the 1920s, whenMajor General Commandant Joh nA. Lejeune led the Corps, the dough-ty World War I commander of, brief -ly, the renowned 4th MarineBrigade, and then its parent 2d In-fantry Division, had steadfastly em-phasized the expeditionary role ofMarines . Speaking to the student sand faculty of the Naval War Colleg ein 1923, Lejeune said: "The main-tenance, equipping, and training ofits expeditionary force so it will b ein instant readiness to support theFleet in the event of War, I deem tobe the most important Marine Corps

Marine Corps Historical Collection

Marines bring ashore a disassembled 75mm pack howitzer. The pack howitzerreplaced the French 75, which had served Marine artillery from World War 1 .

duty in time of peace' But the de-mands of that same expeditionaryduty, with Marines deployed in theCaribbean, in Central America, inthe Philippines, and in Chinastretched the Corps thin .

Existing doctrine for amphibiousoperations, both in assault anddefense, the focal point of wartimeservice by Marines, was recognized

MajGen Wendell C. Neville, 14th Com-mandant of the Marine Corps, died afterserving little more than a year in office .Neville shared Weune 's determinatio nthat the Marine Corps have a meaning-ful role as an amphibious force trainedfor expeditionary use by the Navy.

Department of Defense Photo (USMO 303062

as inadequate . All sorts of deficien -cies existed, in amphibious purpose,in shipping, in landing craft, in theareas of air and naval gunfire sup-port, and particularly in the metho-dology and logistics of the highl ycomplicated ship-to-shore movementof troops and their supplies onceashore. The men who succeede dLejeune as Major General Comman-dant upon his retirement after twoterms in office (eight years) at th eCorps' helm, Wendell C . "Buck"Neville, also a wartime commanderof the 4th Marine Brigade, Ben M .Fuller, who commanded a brigade inSanto Domingo during the war, andJohn H. Russell, Jr., a brigade com -mander in Haiti who then becameAmericas High Commissioner in tha tcountry for eight years, all sharedLejeunes determination that the Ma-rine Corps would have a meaning-ful role as an amphibious forcetrained for expeditionary use by th eNavy. Each man left his own markupon the Corps in an era of reduce dappropriations and manpower as aresult of the Depression that plague dthe United States during their tenure .

Neville, who had been awardedthe Medal of Honor for his part inthe fighting at Vera Cruz in 1914, un--

fortunately died after serving littlemore than a year (19291930) asCommandant, but his successors ,Fuller (1930-1934) and Russel l(1934-1936), both served to age 64 ,then the mandatory retirement agefor senior officers . All of these Com-mandants, as Lejeune, were gradu-ates of the U.S. Naval Academy a tAnnapolis and had served two year sas naval cadets on board warships af -ter graduation and before acceptingcommissions as Marine second lieu-tenants. As a consequence, their un-derstanding of the Navy wa spervasive as was their conviction tha tthe Marine Corps and the Navy wereinseparable partners in amphibiousoperations. In this instance, the An-napolis tie of the Navy and MarineCorps senior leaders, for virtually al ladmirals of the time were Nava lAcademy classmates, was beneficia lto the Corps.

As his term as Commandant cam eto a close Ben Fuller was able to ef-fect a far-reaching change that Joh nRussell was to carry further into ex-ecution. In December 1933, with th eapproval of the Secretary of theNavy, Fuller redesignated the exist-ing Marine expeditionary forces o nboth coasts as the Fleet Marine Force(FMF) to be a type command of th eU.S. Fleet . Building on the infantry-

MajGen Ben C . Fuller, Neville's successo rin 1930, found new roles and missionsfor the Corps as 15th Commandant .

Marine Coms Historical Collectio n

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Marine Corps Historical Collection

The 16th Commandant of the Marin eCorps, MajGen John H . Russell, was agraduate of the Naval Academy, asLejeune, Neville, and Fuller before him,and close to Navy leaders because o ftheir mutual Academy experiences .

men of the 5th Marines at Quantic oand those of the 6th Marines at SanDiego, two brigades came into beingwhich were the precursors of the 1s tand 2d Marine Divisions of WorldWar II . In keeping with the times,Commandant Russell could point ou tthe next year that he had only 3,000Marines available to man the FMF,but the situation would improve asMarines returned from overseasstations .

The slowly building brigades an dtheir attendant squadrons of Marineaircraft, the only American troop swith combat and expeditionary ex-perience beyond the trenches andbattlefields of France, came into be-ing in a climate of change from the"old ways" of performing their mis-sion. At the Marine base at Quanti-co, Virginia, also the home o fadvanced officer training for theCorps, a profound event had takenplace in November 1933 that wouldalter the course of the war to come .

That month, all classes of the Ma-rine Corps Schools were suspended

and the students and faculty, includ-ing a sprinkling of Navy officers ,were directed to concentrate their ef-forts on developing a detailed manu -al which would provide the guidancefor the conduct of amphibious oper-ations . The decision was not purelya Marine Corps one, since Quanticoand the staff of the Naval War Col-lege at Newport, Rhode Island, hadbeen exchanging ideas on the subjec tfor more than a decade . All navalplanners knew that the execution o fthe contingency operations they en -visioned worldwide would be flawedif the United States did not have ade -quate transport and cargo shipping ,appropriate and sufficient landingcraft, or trained amphibious assaul ttroops. But the Quantico workin ggroup, headed by Colonel Ellis B .Miller, proceeded on the assumptionthat all these would be forthcoming .They developed operating theoriesbased on their experience and theirhopes which could be refined bypractice. They formulated answers tothorny questions of command rela-tionships, they looked at naval gun -fire and air support problems andprovided solutions, they addressedthe ship-to-shore movement o ftroops and developed unloading ,boat control, and landing proce-dures, and they decided on beachparty and shore party methods tocontrol the unloading of supplies onthe beaches . In January 1934, a trulyseminal document in the history o famphibious warfare was completedand the "Tentative Manual for Land -ing Operations" was published by theMarine Corps. In the years that fol-lowed, as fleet landing exercises re -fined procedures, as the hoped-forimproved shipping and landing craftgradually appeared, and as increas-ing numbers of seamen and assaul ttroops were trained in amphibiouslanding techniques, the Quanticomanual was reworked and expand-ed, but its core of innovative think-ing remained. In 1938 the Navypromulgated the evolved manual asFleet Training Publication (FTP) 167;

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 52864 8

MajGen Holland M . Smith, Command-ing General, Amphibious Force, AtlanticFleet observes landing operations wit hhis aide, Capt Victor H. Krulak, at FortStory, Virginia, in the winter of 1941 .

it became the bible for the conduc tof American amphibious operationsin World War II . In 1941 the Armypublished FTR167 as Field Manua l31-5 to guide its growing force ofsoldiers, most of whom would trainfor and take part in amphibiousoperations completely unaware o fthe Marine Corps influence on thei ractivities . Truly, the handful of Ma-rine and Navy officers at Quanticoin 1933-34 had revolutionized theconduct of amphibious warfare .

Despite the fiscal constraints of theDepression, the number and varietyof naval ships devoted to amphibi-ous purposes gradually increased inthe 1930s. As the threat of Americaninvolvement in the war also grewstronger, vastly increased funds weremade available for the Navy, thecountry's "first line of defense," andspecialized transport and cargo ship sappeared. These were tested andmodified and became an increasin gfactor in the FLEXs which took placeevery year from 1935 on, usuallywith practice landings at Culebra andVieques Islands off Puerto Rico in th eAtlantic Ocean, at San Clemente Is-

Department of Defense Photo (USN) 73812The design of this Higgins landing craft, loaded with a military truck, shown her ein May 1941, served as the basis for the landing craft, vehicle and personnel (LCVP) .

land off the southern Californi acoast, and in the Hawaiian Islands .

While the number of "big" am-phibious ships, transports and carg ovessels, slowly grew in number, th esmall boat Navy of amphibious land-ing craft similarly evolved and in -creased. They were vital to thesuccess of landing operations, ameans to get assault troops ashoreswiftly and surely. For most Marinesof the era, there are memories o fships' launches, lighters, and ex-perimental boats of all sorts tha tbrought them to the beach, or at leas tto the first sandbar or reef offshore .Rolling over the side of a boat andwading through the surf was a com-mon experience . One future Com-mandant, then a lieutenant, recalledmaking a practice landing on Mauiin the Hawaiian Islands as his uni treturned from expeditionary duty inChina in 1938 . He described thelanding as "one of those old timers"made in "these damned moto rlaunches, you know, with a "ro wand everything—never made for alanding." The result, he said in color -

ful memory, was "you grounded ou tsomewhere 50 yards from the beachand jumped in . Sometimes your hatfloated and sometimes you made it ."

The landing craft that changed thispicture was the Higgins boat, named

after its inventor, Andrew Higgins ,who developed a boat of shallowdraft that could reach the beach inthree to four feet of water, land a ninfantry platoon, and then retract toreturn for another load . First used onan experimental basis in FLEX 5(1938) at Culebra, it won its way overrivals and was adopted as the stan-dard personnel landing craft by 1940 .In its initial hundreds the Higginsboat had a sloping bow that require dof its passengers an over-the-side agil -ity after it grounded . In 1941, a ver-sion, most familiar to World War I Iveterans, was introduced which hada bow ramp which allowed men andvehicles to exit onto a beach or a tleast into knee-high, not neck-highwater. This was the 36-foot Landin gCraft, Vehicle and Personnel (LCVP )which was fitted to the boat davit son every amphibious transport andcargo vessel . Its companion boat, the50-foot, ramped Landing Craft ,Mechanized (LCM), also a develop-ment of Andrew Higgins, providedthe means for landing tanks, artillery,and heavy vehicles .

The variety of landing craft tha teventually evolved, and the tasks towhich they were put, was limite d

"Wet" landing net training was conducted for 1st Division Marines off the Intra-coastal Waterway at Marine Barracks, New River. Note different landing craft usedin the exercise. These Marines soon would be descending the nets at Guadalcanal .

Sketch by Vernon H . Bailey, Navy Art Collection

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Roebling Alligator Amphibian Tracto reveloped and, in part, financed by its inventor ,Donald Roebling, the Alligator amphibian tracto ris the predecessor of every Landing Vehicle ,

Tracked (LVT) in the world . The story of the Roebling am-phibian tractor starts with the devastating hurricanes whichstruck southern Florida in 1926, 1928, and 1932 . Donald

Roebling's father, financier John A . Roebling, had witnessedthe loss of life brought about by these storms in the swampyareas of the Okeechobee region . Spurred by a challeng efrom his father to use his engineering talents to design anddevelop a vehicle "that would bridge the gap between wher ea boat is grounded and a car is flooded out," Donald Roe-bling, the grandson of the designer and builder of th eBrooklyn Bridge, started work on his Alligator amphibi-an tractor in early 1933 .

Roebling and his staff completed their first model Alli-gator in early 1935 . It used aluminum, a comparatively newand unproven material, in the construction of the hull t oreduce weight and increase buoyancy. It was propelled o nland and water by paddle-tread tracks and was then pow-ered by a Chrysler 92-horsepower industrial engine. Thisfirst model was then modified and upgraded so extensive-ly that it is generally referred to as the second model Alli-gator. This second Alligator had improved tracks wit h

built-in roller bearings which rode in specially designed stee lchannels which eliminated the need for idler and bogi ewheels to support the tracks, as were used on most tracto r

and tank designs .In 1937, U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Edward C . Kalbfus,

Commander, Battleships, U.S . Pacific Fleet, showed MajorGeneral Louis McCarty Little, Commanding General, Flee tMarine Force, an article on Roebling's amphibian tracto rin the October 4th issue of Life magazine . In turn, Genera lLittle forwarded the article to the Commandant of the Ma-rine Corps . In March 1938, Major John Kaluf of the Equip-ment Board at Quantico was dispatched to Clearwater ,Florida, with orders to investigate the military potential o fthe Roebling Alligator. Major Kaluf returned a favorabl ereport and in May 1938 the Commandant of the MarineCorps requested that a "pilot model" be purchased for "fur-

ther tests under service conditions :' This request was turneddown by the Navy's Bureau of Construction and Repair

due to limited funding .In the fall of that year, the new President of the Marine

Corps Equipment Board, Brigadier General Emile P. Moses ,and Kaluf' s replacement as Secretary, Major Ernest E . Lin-

sert, made a visit to Clearwater which would become aturning point in the development of the amphibian trac-tor. It was during this visit that General Moses persuade dRoebling to design a new Alligator which would incorporat ea number of improvements . The fact that the Marine Corp sdid not have any available funds at this time forced Roe-bling to come up with most of the $18,000 required to fabri -cate this vehicle from his own pocket . Construction on thisnew Alligator was completed in May 1940 .

The development of the amphibian tractor, or LVT,which began in the middle 1930s provided the solution an dwas one of the most important modern technical contri-butions to ship-to-shore operations . Without these land-ing vehicles our amphibious offensive in the Pacific woul d

have been impossible .Lieutenant General Holland M . Smith, USM C

With the political and military situation in Europe an dAsia worsening, military appropriations from Congress im-

proved and the Navy's Bureau of Ships was able to fun d

a $20,000 contract with Roebling for the construction o f

a new test vehicle . It was almost identical to 'Alligator 3,"

but was powered by a 120-horsepower Lincoln-Zephyr en-

gine. This Alligator was completed in October 1940, an dwas tested at Quantico, Virginia, and later in the Caribbe-

an. While the testing of this fourth Alligator revealed some

deficiencies, the general design was deemed a success . Thetractor was redesigned using a welded steel hull and incor -porating many of the recommendations of the test team .A contract was then let by the Navy for 100 LVT-ls . Thefirst of these production LVTs would roll off the Foo dMachinery Corporations (FMC) assembly line in July 1941 .

—Anthony Wayne Tommell

only by the ingenuity of those wh oplanned their uses and the seaman-ship of the sailors who manne dthem. But for most prewar Marines,the memories of practice landingsfeatured the rampless Higgins boat ,various tank lighters which madeeach beach approach an adventure ,and all sorts of "make do" craft ofearlier years which were ill suited forsurf or heavy seas .

One amphibious craft develop-ment of the prewar years, equal in itsimpact on amphibious landings t othe LCVP and the LCM, was th etracked landing vehicle, the LVT. De-veloped in the late 1930s by Donal dRoebling for use as a rescue vehiclein the Florida everglades, the LVT, o rthe Alligator as it was soon popularlynamed, could travel over land orwater using its cupped treads forpropulsion. The stories of the "dis-covery" of Roebling's invention andof its subsequent testing and develop -ment are legion. It proved to have aninvaluable capability, not consideredin its initial concept; it could cros scoral reefs, and coral reefs fringed thebeaches of most Pacific islands . Theamphibian tractor, or amtrac to itsusers, was a natural weapon for Ma-rines and there was hardly a whispe rof opposition to its adoption . Whenthe first production LVTs rolled offRoebling's assembly line at his plan tat Clearwater, Florida, in July 1941 ,there was already a detachment o fMarines at nearby Dunedin learningto drive and maintain the new trac-tors and to develop tactics for thei reffective use .

In the new Marine divisions thenforming on each coast there woul dbe a place for an amtrac battalion .The LVTs were conceived at first a sa logistics vehicle, a means to carrytroops and supplies onto and inshoreof difficult beaches . But no soonerdid the LVTs make their appearancein significant numbers than thethought occurred that the tractorscould be armed and that they coul dhave a role as an assault vehicle ,leading assault waves .

Innovations in amphibious ship -ping and landing craft in the late 30sand early 40s were not solely basedon American concepts . With the ex-ception of the LVT, most amphibiouscraft developments and certainly am-phibious shipping development swere influenced by British concepts ,requirements, and experience .Although officially neutral in th efighting at sea in the Atlantic an d

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 12444- B

Gen Thomas Holcomb, 17th Comman-dant of the Marine Corps, was a deco -rated World War I combat leader. Fro m1936, when he became Commandant, toDecember 1943, when he retired, heguided the Corps and led it into war.

ashore in Europe, the United Stateswas in fact deeply involved in sup-porting the embattled British . For along period in 1940-41, the MarineCorps was concerned in this effort ,and to the troops in training, partic-ularly those on the east coast, therewas a real question whether theymight leave their bases for Europe orthe Pacific. Marine pilots had adefinite fascination with the exploitsof the Royal Air Force in its battle swith the German Luftwaffe .

Atlantic Theate rBecause the British had fought the

Germans since 1939, their combatknow-how and experience in air,land, and sea battles were invalua-ble to the American military. A

steady stream of American observ-ers, largely unheralded to the public,visited Britain and British and Alliedforces in the field during 1940-41 tolearn what they could of such newwarfare innovations as radar, pi-oneered by the British ; to see how an -tiaircraft defenses were operating ; tolearn what constant air raids and bat-tles could teach; and to see how Bri-tain's land forces were preparing fo rtheir eventual return to Europe . TheMarine Corps Commandant, MajorGeneral Thomas Holcomb, madesure that his officers played a strongpart in this learning process from th eBritish.

Holcomb, who had ably com-manded a battalion of the 6th Ma-rines in the fighting in France in 1918 ,had initially been appointed Com-mandant by President Roosevelt o n1 December 1936. After serving withdistinction through the Europeanoutbreak of World War II and th eCorps' initial war-related buildup, h ewas reappointed Major GeneralCommandant by the President for asecond four-year term on 1 Decem-ber 1940. The Commandant, besidesbeing a dedicated Marine who cham-pioned the Corps during tryingtimes, was also an astute player ofthe Washington game . A respectedcolleague and friend of the admiralswho commanded the Navy, Hol-comb was equally at ease and afriend to the politicians who con -trolled the military budget . He un-derstood the President's deter-mination to see Great Britain survive ,as well as his admiration of the Brit-ish peoples' struggle . Always wel laware of the value of the public im-age of the Marine Corps as a force"first to fight;" Holcomb at timesyielded to pressures to experimen twith new concepts and authorize newtypes of organizations which woul denhance that image. The Marineswhom he sent to Great Britain wereimbued with the desire to gainknowledge and experience tha twould help the Corps get ready forthe war they felt sure was coming .

Department of Defense Photo (USN) 5136 3

Marines in ships' detachments, such as this one on board the war Navy . Many seagoing Marines were either commissione dcarrier Lexington, served in major combatant ships of the pre- or became senior staff noncommissioned officers in the war .

The British, who shared the viewthat the Americans would eventual-ly enter the war on their side, wereopen and forthcoming in theircooperation .

In 1941 particularly, the Marineobservers, ranging in rank from cap -tains to colonels, visited British ai rstations and air control centers, an-tiaircraft command complexes andfiring battery sites, and all kinds oftroop formations . The weapons andequipment being used and the tactic sand techniques being practiced wereall of interest . Much of what wa sseen and reported on was of immedi-ate value to the Americans and sawenhanced development in the States .On the air side, briefings on radar de-velopments were invaluable, as weredemonstrations of ground control in -tercept practices for night fighters andthe use of night fighters themselves .

Anything the British had learned onair defense control and antiaircraftusage was eagerly absorbed. TheMarine air observers would note o ntheir return that they had dealt wit hnumbers of aircraft and concepts ofcommand and control that were notremotely like Marine Corps reality,but all knew that these numbers ofaircraft and their control equipmen twere authorized, funded, an dbuilding .

The fascination of the time ,although focused on the Battle of Bri -tain's aerial defenses, was not onlywith the air war but also with the"elite" troops, the sea-raiding com-mandos, as well as the glider andparachute forces so ably exploited bythe Germans in combat and now aprominent part of Britain's army. Therole of the commandos, who werethen Army troops but who eventu-

ally would be drawn exclusively fromRoyal Marines ranks, raised a natura lfavorable response in the AmericanMarines. Most of the observers wereenthusiastic about the command opotential, but at least one U .S. Ma-rine senior colonel, Julian C . Smith,who watched commando exercises atInverary, Scotland, was not overlyimpressed . Smith, who later com-manded the 2d Marine Division atthe epic battle for Tarawa, tol dGeneral Holcomb that the comman-dos "weren't any better than we; thatany battalion of Marines could d othe job they do:'

For the moment at least, Smith'sview was a minority evaluation, onenot shared, for instance, by comman-do enthusiast President Roosevelt ,and the Marine Corps would see theraising of raider battalions to per -form commando-like missions . In

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similar fashion, and for much thesame reasons, Service enthusiasm forbeing at the cutting edge and popu-lar acclaim of elite formations, th eMarine Corps raised parachute bat-talions, glider squadrons, and bar-rage balloon squadrons, all of whichwere disbanded eventually in the fac eof the realities of the island -dominated Pacific theater. Theymight have served their purpose wellin Europe or North Africa but theMarine Corps' destiny was in thePacific.

Marines of the pre-Pearl Harbo rCorps, filled with memories of thei rlater battles with the Japanese, aresometimes prone to forget that Ger-many was as much their potentia lenemy in 1940-41 as Japan. At thetime, many must have felt as did oneartillery lieutenant and later raider

officer who took part in fleet exer-cises of early 1941 that "we all cut ou rteeth on amphibious operations, ac-tually not knowing whether we weregoing to leave Guantanamo for Eu-rope or the Pacific:' What the Ma-rines at Guantanamo Bay did knowwas that their Cuban base wasbustling with men as mobilizedReservists and new recruits joined .And as the necessary men came in ,the brigade grew in size and abound -ed with changes of organizations andactivations .

The 1st Marine Brigade, at first es-sentially one infantry regiment, th e5th Marines, one artillery battalion ,the 1st Battalion, 11th Marines, an dsupporting troops, had moved toGuantanamo from Quantico in th elate fall of 1940 as its FMF units hadoutgrown the Virginia base . At "Git-

mo," as it was known to all, thebrigade's units became the source ofall new organizations . Essentially, ex-isting outfits, from battalion sthrough platoons, were split in half .To insure a equal distribution of ta-lent as well as numbers, the brigadecommander, Brigadier General Hol-land M. "Howling Mad" Smith ,shrewdly had each unit commande rturn in two equal lists, leaving off th ecommanding officer (CO) and his ex-ecutive officer. As a later combat bat-talion commander of the 5th recalle dthe process, when redesignation tookplace, "the CO would command on eunit, one former exec would becom eCO of the other . . . . But until thesplit was made and the redesignationannounced, no CO could kno wwhich half he would command . Inthis manner, the 5th Marines gave

Marines train for war with the Browning .30-caliber, water-cooled, heavy machine gun at Camp Matthews in California .Painting by Peter Hurd, U .S . Army Center of Military History

Sketch by Vernon H . Bailey, Navy Art Collectio n

Maneuvering at the Marine Barracks, New River, North Carolina in 1942 is a n

armored half-tracked mounting a 75mm gun, M1897A4, as well as a ¾ -ton truc kcarrying a 37mm antitank gun . Later in the war a jeep would pull this weapon .

birth to the 7th Marines and the 1s tBattalion, 11th Marines to the 2 dBattalion . Not too long after, all theunits of the 5th, 7th, and 11th Ma-rines and their supporting elementswere again split, this time into thre eequal lists, leaving out the threesenior men . A new regiment, the 1s tMarines with its necessary support,was formed equitably from the 5thand 7th, because the COs of the olderunits did not know whether theywould stay behind (two lists) or tak eover the new outfits .

On 1 February 1941, the 1st Ma-rine Brigade was redesignated the 1stMarine Division while its troopswere on board ship heading for th ePuerto Rican island of Culebra fo rmaneuvers . At the same time on thewest coast, the 2d Brigade, at Sa nDiego, which had grown in a simi-lar fashion from its original infantryregiment, the 6th Marines, wasredesignated the 2d Marine Division .Most of its troops, however, were lo -cated at a new FMF base, Camp El-liott, in the low, hilly country 1 2miles northeast of San Diego .

At Marine Corps headquarters, i twas readily apparent that theplanned expansion of the Corps to a nFMF strength of at least two infan-try divisions and two supporting air-craft wings would require a vastl yincreased supporting establishment .Not least among the new require-ments for manpower and equipmen twere those for a new species of units,defense battalions, which wereprojected to garrison forward bases,including Guantanamo and keyAmerican holdings in the Pacific.Also a drawdown on Marin eresources was the need to provideguard detachments for many newnaval bases and Navy capital ship swhich were being rushed to comple -tion. The surging demand for me nwas matched by equal demand fortraining facilities .

What occurred then in late 1940and early 1941 was a thoroughsearch by Marines of the east andwest coasts of the United States for

base sites suitable for training one ormore divisions whose main missio nwas amphibious warfare. Extensivecombat exercise areas with direct ac -cess to the ocean were required . Atthe same time, there was a parallelneed for suitable airfield locationsnear the proposed amphibious train-ing sites which would house theplanned for but not yet existing squa -drons and groups of one or more ai rwings, each with hundreds of fight-er, scout-bomber, torpedo-bomber ,and utility aircraft . When the first di -visions and wings moved out to com-bat, the new bases were projected tobe training bases for reinforcing andreplacement organizations .

Camp Elliott and a group o fsmaller supporting camps whichgrew up in its shadow in 1941 werebarely adequate to house the grow-ing FMF ground establishment on thewest coast . The naval air stations inthe San Diego area could still han-dle the limited number of aircraf tavailable . The same situation was no ttrue of the three major Marine basesin the east . While Quantico's air sta -tion could accommodate the planesof Marine Aircraft Group 1, the main

base itself was keyed to suppor tspecialist and officer training and wasnot suitable for extensive FMF oper-ations . Swamp-bound Parris Islan dteemed with recruits and had n oroom for the FMF. The newly deve-loped outlying camp at nearby Hil-ton Head Island was reserved fo ressential defense battalion training .The treaty-restricted area of the nava lbase at Guantanamo had no roomfor a reinforced division's 20,00 0men.

Congress authorized the construc-tion of a vast, new Marine base incoastal North Carolina on 15 Febru -ary 1941 . It was, in a sense, a remotearea that had been picked, certainlynot one near any center of popula-tion. The Commandant, writing toa fellow general, commented "thosewho want to be near big cities wil lbe disappointed because it is certainlyout in the sticks," noting however ,that it was a great place for maneu-vers and amphibious landings. Thechosen spot located in the New Riverarea of Onslow County, wa sdescribed by the 1st Division's Worl dWar II historian as "111,170 acres o fwater, coastal swamp, and plain ,

J

theretofore inhabited largely by san dflies, ticks, chiggers, and snakes ." Andhe might have added covered by pineforest and scrub growth . One of theMarine veterans of the Nicaragua njungle campaigns said: "Actually,Nicaragua was a much pleasante rplace to live than the New River areaat the time. They had mosquitoesthere with snow on the ground."Despite its perceived faults, the di ewas cast for New River and construc-tion of a huge tent camp was begunthere in April with a projected read-iness date of early summer. Thefamed brick barracks that were a fea-ture of what would become Cam pLejeune were on the architect's draw-ing boards when Marine Barracks ,New River, North Carolina, was ac-tivated on the 1st of May.

The 1st Division soon became ac-quainted with the place that oneregimental commander noted wa s"the only place between Biloxi, Mis -sissippi, and the New Jersey cape swhere you could make a landingwith two divisions abreast ." Comingfrom Guantanamo, the divisio nspent the summer of 1941 landingacross Onslow Beach and moving in-land through the swamps and pin ebarrens. By that time, Tent Camp o r"Tent City" was ready to receive its

new tenants. Strange as it mightseem, these 1st Division Marine sreveled in their austere setting amids tthe stifling heat. They were alreadycontrasting themselves to those onthe west coast, derisively labelled"Hollywood Marines;" because som eunits had appeared briefly in moviesbeing shot at the time. There was afeeling, obviously not shared bythose in the west, that Parris,Islandand New River somehow were themost rugged places to endure, in con-trast to those who were close to"civilization ."

The new Marine airfield, whic hwas to become an integral part of theNorth Carolina training complex ,was formally established on 18 Au -gust 1941 when the administrativeoffice for the new "Air Facilities un-der Development" was established atNew Bern, about 40 miles north o fNew River. Construction ther eproceeded at the same frenetic pacethat marked the development of th eground training center. In September,the administrators moved to the ac-tual airfield site nearby, CherryPoint, and on 1 December MarineCorps Air Station, Cherry Point, wasactivated . Most of the planes on theeast coast were still at Quantico, bu ta great start had been made on wha t

Troops of the 1st Marine Division conduct landing exercises from the Intracoasta lWaterway along Onslow Beach at Marine Barracks, New River, North Carolina .

Sketch by Vernon H. Bailey, Navy Art Collection

became in short order the center o fa network of training fields whichwould house enough squadrons andair groups to feed most of the aug-mentation and replacement demandsof four aircraft wings overseas . Theactual establishment of the initialwing commands took place at Quan-tico (1st Marine Aircraft Win g[MAW]) on 7 July 1941 and San Die-go (2d MAW) on 10 July. Initially,each wing could count on only on eair group as its main strength, Ma-rine Aircraft Group (MAG) 11 in theeast and MAG-21 in the west . Thevast increase of aircraft and aviatio npersonnel that marked the growth ofMarine aviation in World War II wa sin the works . The pilots, aircrewmen ,and mechanics were training at Navyair facilities and the planes were com-ing off assembly lines in steadily in -creasing numbers . It was August1942, however, before the impact o fthe air buildup would be fully felt atGuadalcanal .

As an all-volunteer force, the Ma-rine Corps was fully deployable dur-ing this training and preparednessperiod . In a sense, the Army washampered in its readiness by the fac tthat its draftees, which soon com-posed the bulk of its strength, couldnot be sent outside the U .S. withouta declaration of war. As a result ,when the seizure of the French islandof Martinique was contemplated i n1940, the planned assault force wa sthe 1st Marine Brigade. When theperceived threat of a garrison in theCaribbean loyal to Vichy France les-sened, other overseas expedition swere also contemplated . In the springof 1941, the Portuguese Azores be-came the projected target for an am-phibious seizure because it wasbelieved that the Germans might takethe strategic islands and thereby seri -ously threaten the sea lanes of com-merce and replenishment for Britishand Allied bases in the home islands ,Africa, and the Mediterranean .Again, Marines were to be in theforefront of the landing force and ,again, when the perceived threat les-

Springfield '03 Riflehis rifle was the standard issue to all Marines fro mthe early days of the 20th century into the first yearof World War II . As a result of intensive marksman -

ship training, an inseparable bond formed between the in-dividual Marine and this rifle which paid dividends on th etarget range and, later, in combat .

The Model 1903 "Springfield" rifle traces its developmen tfrom the experiences of the U.S. Army in combat agains tthe Spanish Army during the Spanish-American War . Theclip-fed Spanish 7mm Mauser rifle, Model 1893, had a flat-ter trajectory and a higher sustained rate of fire than th e.30-.40 caliber Krag-Jorgensen rifles used by the U .S . Army.Beginning in 1900, the U.S. Armory in Springfield, Mas-sachusetts, started work on a new service rifle to replacethe Krag .

The new rifle, officially adopted on 19 June 1903, wasbased on the M1898 German Mauser and originally ha da ramrod bayonet . The rifle was redesigned to accept aknife-type bayonet in 1905 . This change was at least par-tially due to the concern of President Theodore Roosevel twho commented to the Secretary of War that : "1 must say

that I think the ramrod bayonet is about as poor an inven-tion as I ever saw ."

The Model 1903 "Springfield" rifle was first issued to Ma-rines in 1908 and saw its first combat during the NicaraguanCampaign of 1912 . The obsolescent Krags were almost en-tirely supplanted by the new '03 Springfields before the Ver aCruz campaign of 1914 . After service in Mexico, Haiti, an dthe Dominican Republic, the '03 Springfield was exclusive-ly used by Marines serving in France with the AmericanExpeditionary Force during World War I . Following thewar, an improved version was used by Marines in Chin aand in the jungles of the Caribbean Islands and Centra lAmerica .

The accuracy of the '03 Springfield was without peer ,and the Marine Corps based its developing marksmanshi pprogram on this rifle . The Marine Corps designed an im-proved set of front and rear sights and soon led the othe rservices in prowess with the rifle . Indeed, by the outbrea kof World War II, the Marine Corps had formed a cul taround the rifle .—Kenneth L . Smith-Christmas

sened, the operation was called off . A new unit, the 1st Marine Brigade 99-year leases to bases at British At-The buildup of forces for the (Provisional), was activated . When lantic possessions. These bases were

potential Azores campaign did have the ships began to load massive all naval and naval bases require da profound effect on the Marine amounts of supplies, including Marine guards. As a result, a seniorCorps, however, despite its cancella- winter protective gear and clothing, Marine colonel, Omar T . Pfeiffer,tion. The core regimental combat the favorite rumor of the Marines, was made a member and recorder o fteam of the 2d Division, the 6th Ma- that they were headed to a warm and a board of naval officers, the Greens-rines and its supporting units, judged sunny clime, was effectively lade Board, that surveyed the Brit -the most ready for active employ- scotched. The convoy left Charleston ish locations in the late summer ofment, loaded out from San Diego in soon after and on 7 July 1941 made 1940 to recommend appropriateMay 1941 to sail through the Pana- landfall at Iceland . For nine months American base strength and facilities .ma Canal and augment the Marine thereafter, one of the precious few Flown first to Bermuda, the boar dtroops on the east coast . Enroute, the trained Marine infantry regiments members moved on by air to Argen -Azores objective disappeared and was in garrison in Iceland, and the tia, Newfoundland, and Nassau i nanother took its place, Iceland . The 2d Division was short a vital element the Bahamas, and from there touchedstrategic island in the middle of the of its strength. The sudden and un- down at Guantanamo where theyNorth Atlantic had been occupied by expected deployment of the 6th Ma- boarded the cruiser St. Louis for theBritish troops to forestall a similar rines to the Atlantic was to have a rest of their journey. Sailing to King-German move. The British wanted considerable effect on the employ- ston, Jamaica ; Port-of-Spain ,their Iceland occupation troops back ment of Marine ground forces in the Trinidad ; and Georgetown, Britis hin the United Kingdom and asked for days after Pearl Harbor.

Guyana, the board then checked th eAmericans to take their place .

The drawdown on Marine islands of Tobago, St . Lucia, and An-When President Roosevelt made strength represented by the departure tigua . At each of these places, it was

the decision to comply with the Brit- of 5,000 men to Iceland was but a determined that a Marine guar dish request, seeing the move as vital part of the drain of manpower that detachment was needed an dto protecting sea traffic from German came about as a result of the fact that 50-to-100-man companies were acti -raiders, the 6th Marines was at sea Marines could be sent anywhere at vated for that purpose in Januaryand, all unwitting, became the choice any time . In his zeal to support the 1941 so that the Marines could guar dfor the first American troops to British in ways short of war, and to the facilities as they were built . It wasdeploy. When the regiment's troop enhance American hemispheric not bad duty for the men involved ,ships reached Charleston, South defenses, the President in mid-1940 but their deployment meant a battal -Carolina, after the Panama passage, had authorized a swap of 50 overage ion less of Marines for the FMF.the 6th Marines was joined by the 5th American destroyers of World War

Colonel Pfeiffer was a participan tDefense Battalion from Parris Island. I vintage to Britain in return for in British-American discussions of

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 14460 2

An oblique aerial view looking northeast of Midway's Eastern Island and its airstrip.

possible measures to be taken in theevent of war with Germany andJapan (the Rainbow Plan) whichtook place in Washington in 1940 and1941. In April 1941 he was posted toa new position as Fleet MarineOfficer of the Pacific Fleet at PearlHarbor which drew fully on his ex-pertise and experience .

Despite the possible and actualoverseas deployments of Marines inthe Atlantic Theater throughou t1941, the weight of Marine commit-ment was in the Pacific. And therewas no question of the potential ene -my there. It was Japan .

Pacific Theater

Throughout 1941, the U .S. andJapan sparred on the diplomaticfront, with the thrust of American ef-fort aimed at halting Japanese ad-vances on the Asian mainland . InMarch, the government of PremierPrince Konoye in Japan sent a newrepresentative to Washington, Am-bassador Kichisaburo Nomura,whose task was to negotiate a settle-ment of differences between the twonations. He was confronted with astatement of the basic American bar-gaining position that was wholly in-compatible with the surgingnationalism of the Japanesemilitarists who were emboldened bytheir successes in China . The U.S.wanted Japan to agree to respect theterritorial integrity and sovereignt yof all nations ; to support the princi-ple of noninterference in the interna laffairs of other countries ; to agree toa policy of equal access to all coun-tries, including commercial access ;and to accept the status quo in th ePacific.

The chance of Japan accepting anyof these stipulations vanished withthe German invasion of Russia i nJune. Freed from the threat of th eRussians, the Japanese moved swift-ly to occupy southern Indochina andreinforced their armed forces by call-ing up all reservists and increasingconscriptions . In the face of this newproof of Japanese intent, President

Roosevelt froze all Japanese assets inthe United States, effectively sever -ing commercial relations between thetwo countries .

In October, a new militaristicgovernment headed by Genera lHideki Tojo seized power in Tokyo,and a new special ambassador,Saburo Kurusu, was sent to Washing-ton, ostensibly to revitalize negotia -tions for a peaceful settlement o fdifferences. Short of a miracle,however, the Japanese Army an dNavy leaders did not consider peacea likely outcome of the talks with th eAmericans. They were, in fact ,preparing to go to war.

If war came, U.S. Marines wouldbe among the first to experience it sviolence. In China, Marines had agarrison role in foreign concession sat Shanghai, Peiping, and Tientsin,and in the Philippines, they had size -able guard units at the naval base sat Cavite and Olongapo on Luzon Is-land. They provided as well ships 'detachments for the woefully fewcruisers of the Asiatic Fleet head-quartered at Manila . In the Western

Pacific's Mariana Islands, there wa sa small naval station on the Navy-governed island of Guam, a certainJapanese wartime target .

American Samoa in the southeas tPacific, whose islands were also aNavy responsibility, was strategical -ly vital as guardian of the sea routesto New Zealand and Australia fromthe States . At Pago Pago on Tutuila ,American Samoa's largest island,there was a deep harbor and a light-ly manned naval base. Recognizingits isolation and vulnerability toJapanese attack, the Navy begandeploying Marines to augment it smeager garrison late in 1940 . The ad-vance party of Marines who arrivedat Pago Pago on 21 December wer emembers of the 7th Defense Battal-ion, which had been formally acti-vated at San Diego on the 16th .

Initially a small composite outfi tof 400 men, the 7th had a headquart -ers battery, an infantry company, andan artillery battery as well as a de -tail whose task it was to raise andtrain a battalion of Samoan nativesas Marine infantrymen. The Sa-

F4F-3 Grumman Wildcats, such as these of Marine Fightin gSquadron (VMF) 211, flew off the deck of the Enterprise to

National Archives Photo 127-N-29309Wake Island's new but unfinished airfield . From the island,the Wildcats were to rise to defend Wake against its attackers .

moans, who were American nation-als, would help the 7th defendTutuila's 52 square miles of moun-tainous and jungled terrain . Thedefense battalion's main bod yreached Pago Pago in March 1942and the 1st Samoan Battalion, Ma-rine Corps Reserve, came into bein gin August . The Marines in Samoa ,thinly manning naval coast defenseand antiaircraft guns at Pago Pagoand patrolling Tutuila's many isolat-ed beaches were acutely aware tha ttheir relative weakness invitedJapanese attack . They shared thi sheightened sense of danger with theMarines in the western Pacific, i nChina, on Luzon, and at Guam, a swell as other defense battalion Ma-rines who were gradually manningthe island outposts guarding Hawaii .These few thousand men all knewthat they stood a good chance ofproving one again the time-honoredMarine Corps recruiting slogan "Firstto Fight;" if war came.

In 1938, the Navy's HepburnBoard had determined that foursmall American atolls to the southand west of Pearl Harbor should bedeveloped as American naval airbases and defended by naval aircraftand Marine garrisons . The two lar-gest atolls of the four were Wake ,2,000 miles west of Hawaii in the cen -tral Pacific near the Japanese Mar-shall Islands group, and Midway,1,150 miles from Oahu, and not fa rfrom the international date line . Bothislands were way stations for PanAmerican clipper service to theOrient . Midway also served as a re-lay station for the trans-Pacific cable .Eight hundred miles southwest ofPearl Harbor lay Johnston Atoll ,whose main island could accommo-date an airfield and a small garrison .Palmyra, 1,100 miles south o fHawaii, had barely enough room fo ran airstrip and a bob-tailed defenseforce. The islands at Wake and Mid-way each had room enough to ac-

commodate a battalion of defendingMarines as well as airfields to holdseveral squadrons of patrol and fight-er aircraft .

The Navy's 14th Naval District ,which encompassed the Hawaiian Is-lands and the outpost atolls, as wel las Samoa, was responsible for build-ing defenses and providing garrisons ,both ground and air. The Marin econtingents were the responsibility o fColonel Harry K. Pickett, Marin eOfficer of the 14th District and Com -manding Officer, Marine Barracks,Pearl Harbor Navy Yard . Prelimi-nary surveys of the atolls and Samoawere conducted by members of Pick -ett's staff in 1940 and early 1941 .Civilian contractors were selected tobuild the airfields and their support-ing installations, but most of thework on the coast defense and an-tiaircraft gun positions, the bunkersand beach defenses, fell to the lot ofthe Marines who were to man them .Midway was slated to have a ful l

8

defense battalion as its garrison ,Wake drew about half a battalion atfirst, and Johnston and Palmyra wereallotted reinforced batteries .

By late 1941, the standard table oforganization of a defense battalionhad evolved to include a unit ofabout 900 men, composed of three5-inch coast defense gun batteries,three 3-inch antiaircraft gun batter-ies, a sound locator and searchligh tbattery, a battery of .50-caliber an-tiaircraft machine guns, and a bat-tery of .30-caliber machine guns forbeach defenses . That was the stan-dard; the actuality varied with the lo-cation. The characteristic all defensebattalion garrisons had in commo nwas lots of guns and gun crews .What they were all short of was in-fantrymen. If an enemy landing forcereached the island beaches, the gu ncrews and other specialists could ex -pect, and would be expected, toprove once again that every Marinewas a rifleman before all else .

The 1st and 3d Defense Battalionswere the first Marines to reach the is -land outposts . Advance elements ofthe 3d Battalion landed at Midwayin May 1940 to conduct reconnais-sance and undertake preliminaryconstruction . The rest of the battal-ion remained at Pearl Harbor provid-ing reinforcing and relief parties unti lJanuary 1941 when the whole battal-ion was ordered forward . In Febru-ary, while the men of the 3d wereunloading their heavy equipment a tMidway, the advance party of the 1s tBattalion left San Diego on board thecarrier Enterprise, transferring atPearl to a small cargo ship, and mov-ing on to Johnston, where two 5-inchguns and an eight-man caretaker de-tail landed, while the rest of th eparty, three officers and 45 enlistedmen, proceeded to Palmyra . After therest of the 1st Defense Battalionshipped out to Pearl Harbor, smal lreinforcing detachments moved for -ward to the outpost islands to join inthe pick and shovel work of emplac-ing guns and digging in commandposts, magazines, and fire direction

centers . It was August 1941 beforethe first elements of the 1st Battal-ion reached Wake where a contrac-tor's work force was already buildingan airfield .

On all the outpost islands whereMarines were stationed, the workwas constant and boring . The arrivalof a plane or ship was an event tocelebrate. There was no liberty. Ifthere had been, there was no placeto go and nothing to see but the Pa-cific in all directions . The 14th Dis -trict established a rotation policy(back to Pearl) for the outpost Ma-rines, but this reward was counteredby a pervading urgency to get onwith the job at hand, protecting th eapproaches to Hawaii .

The 6th Defense Battalion, whicharrived at Pearl Harbor in January1941 as a replacement and reserveunit, moved forward to Midway inSeptember to replace the 3d Battal-ion as the defending ground garrison .The 3d moved back to Oahu for awell earned rest from constructio nwork . On 1 December, the 4thDefense Battalion, fresh from dut yat Guantanamo Bay, arrived at Pearl .It was scheduled to replace the halfbattalion of the 1st on Wake, but itsarrival and strengthened force wa stoo late to effect relief . Wake didreceive a substantial and welcomereinforcement on 4 December,however, when 12 F4F-3 GrummanWildcats of Marine Fighting Squa-

Grumman F3F-2s, the last biplane fighter produced for either the Navy or the Ma-rines, served in the FMF from 1937 to 1941 . The VMF-2 planes pictured here werestationed at North Island, Coronado near San Diego, California during this period .

Department of Defense Photo (USN) 83924

sa>

Grumman F4F Wildcathe Grumman Wildcat served as the primary fighterof the United States Marine Corps at the outbrea kof the Pacific War. By December 1941, Grumma n

Wildcats were being flown by three of four Marine fighte rsquadrons then in existence.

Designed in 1936 as Grumman's first monoplane fighteraircraft, the Wildcat had retractable handcranked landinggear, vacuum-powered flaps, and a simple electrical sys-tem . Although it lost a design contest to its main competi-tor, the Brewster F2A Buffalo, in 1938, the Navy none-theless continued to encourage Grumman in the aircraft'sdevelopment . Wildcats were delivered to the Marine Corpsin 1941, replacing the obsolescent Grumman F3F-2 fabricand metal biplanes which had been in service since 1937 .The all-metal F4F-3 Wildcat was powered by a Pratt &Whitney R-1830-66 Twin Wasp engine and had four.50-caliber Browning machine guns mounted in each wing .

By October 1941, Marine Fighting Squadrons (VMFs )111, 121, and 211 were fully equipped with Wildcats ; onlyVMF-221 was equipped with Brewster Buffaloes . A for -ward detachment from Marine Fighting Squadron 211 fle wto Wake Island in December 1941 as part of a MarineCorps air-ground team just prior to the Japanese attackon Pearl Harbor . During the following defense of WakeIsland, they fought the Japanese for 14 days and inflictedheavy losses on the attackers' shipping and aircraft beforelosing all 12 F4F-3s .

Despite the fact that the Wildcat's performance was in-ferior to its primary adversary, the Japanese Zero, it sstaunch ruggedness and greatly superior firepower in thehands of skilled and determined pilots would enable it tocompile a distinguished record during the war. There were34 recorded Marine Corps Wildcat aces.

—Kenneth L. Smith-Christmas

mooring mast field in the 1920s .Those planes of MAG-21 not at theairfield were deployed on board car-riers for transportation to reinforc eWake and Midway. VMF-221 with 14F2A-3 Brewster Buffalo fighter sboarded the Saratoga at North Is-land, San Diego on 7 and 8 Decem-ber. The Lexington got 18 SB2U-3Chance-Vought Vindicators of Ma-rine Scout-Bombing Squadron 231 .With the fall of Wake, both squad-rons were used to reinforce Midway .At Ewa, there were 48 fighters, scout-bombers, and utility aircraft, mos tscheduled for forward deployment .

Aviation units were not the onlyelements of the FMF to move forwardinto the Pacific by December 1941 .A sizeable portion of the 2d MarineDivision's 2d Engineer Battalion wasalso deployed to Oahu in the fall i norder to build a camp capable of ac-commodating 5,000 Marines . The lo-cation of the new facility, CampCatlin, was in the canefields east ofHonolulu along the island's mainhighway. Its site selected by a boardof Marine colonels, Catlin eventual -

ly would see tens of thousands o fMarines pass through its gates intothe farther reaches of the Pacific asit became the principal replacemen tand redistribution center for the FMF .In December it was half completed,and its Marine engineer constructorswere destined to be the first membersof the 2d Division to see combat inWorld War II .

Back in California, the 2d Marin eDivision was rounding into shape,engaged as was the 1st Division inconstant training and maneuvers.Neither unit had reached its ful lstrength yet as constant demands fo rMarines for base, fleet, and barrack sduty drained the available manpowerpool as fast as it filled . San Diego'srecruit depot was crowded with menstriving to become Marines, but it nolonger had to call on the 2d Divisionfor extra drill instructors as it ha doften in 1940 after the Presidentdeclared a National Emergency andthe recruiting stations were floodedwith applicants. The recruit trainingcycle, down to as few as 24 days o nboth coasts in 1940, was fairly sta -

The F2A-3 Brewster Buffalo single-engine fighter planes with which the MarineCorps entered World War II were almost all lost in the Battle of Midway.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 2541 4

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 145098A SB2U-3 Chance-Vought Vindicato rscout-bomber conducts field carrier land-ing practice at Ewa Field in June 1941 .

dron (VMF) 211 flew off the deck sof the Enterprise to the atoll's newand unfinished airfield .

The spread of defense battalionMarines at the beginning of Decem-ber found 422 officers and men of th e1st Battalion at Wake, 162 at John-ston, 158 at Palmyra, and 261 a tPearl Harbor. Midway's 6th Battal-ion garrison had 33 officers and 81 0enlisted men . The 3d Battalion was863 strong at Pearl and the newly ar-rived 4th mustered 818 . Both of thelarger atolls had six 5-inch coastdefense guns and twelve 3-inch an-tiaircraft guns; Johnston had tw o5-inch guns and four 3-inch guns ;Palmyra had four of each . Machin eguns for defense matched the garri-sons' size ; Midway had 30.50-calibers and 30 .30-calibers; Wakehad 18 and 30; Johnston and Palmyraeach had eight apiece .

Although VMF 211's Wildcats o nWake were the only Marine aircraf tyet to reach the outpost defenses ,most of the squadrons parent MarineAircraft Group 21 had moved fromCalifornia to Hawaii by December.MAG-21 was the 2d Wing's only tac -tical air group. Part of the group'sground echelon moved west to Mid-way in November to await aircraf tdue to arrive shortly. Meanwhile, al lMarine aircraft in Hawaii were con-centrated at the Marine Corps AirStation, Ewa, 10 miles west of Pear lHarbor, the site of a Navy dirigible

Department of Defense Photo (USN) 9249 3A SBD-3 Douglas Dauntless dive bomber runs-up for takeoff was a multi-seat, low-wing monoplane which carried a 500 -from the flight deck of the Saratoga in late 1941 . The Dauntless pound bomb under the fuselage and bombs under the wings.

ble at seven weeks, with three on therifle range .

The Fleet Marine Force units in thewest, like those in the east, were itch -ing for action, although the Com-mandant noted at the time thatMarines still needed "to train (fur-ther) for combat;' a quite different sit-uation. Most of the planes andcrewmen of the 2d Wing were al-ready at least as far west as Hawaii .The 2d Division was poised to joi nthem.

Still in the future, the near future,were the great air and amphibiou straining centers at El Toro and CampPendleton. Pendleton, in particular,was to be part of the experiences o fmost Marines who served in the Pa-cific either going or coming . In De-cember 1941, the area, as one privateon its original survey team remem-bered, was "pretty barren country" fitonly for cattle . His observation wa snot an uncommon sentiment of late r

For training in the field before World War II, Marines wore either summer servic ekhaki or one-piece blue denim coveralls with their field hats . The Marines belo ware communicators with state of the art equipment at Camp Elliott in 1941 .

Photo courtesy of C . M . Craig

Photo courtesy of C . M. Craig

Every Marine in the prewar era was required to qualify annually with his T/Oweapon and generally spent two weeks in preparing to fire for record . Here, WestCoast FMF troops are at the La Jolla rifle range in 1940 for their weapons training .

Marines, who followed him into th eseemingly endless brown hills andvalleys .

The Stage is Se tOn 22 November 1941, Genera l

Holcomb spoke to the Americanpublic on NBC radio as part of aNavy public relations program . Inhis brief remarks, he summed up theCorps' situation in the context of th ecountry's readiness. He noted thatthere were 61,000 Marines in unifor mand that :

Beyond the continental limits of theUnited States, Marines do duty as thefrontiersmen of the nation's huge newdefense network . The existing stationsfrom the Philippines to the Virgin Is-lands have had their garrisons in-creased. The Navy's newbases—Iceland, Newfoundland, Ber-muda, Santa Lucia, Antigua, Trinidad ,Jamaica, British Guiana, Dutch Har-bor, Samoa, Kodiak, the Hawaiian Is-land group, and other outlyin gstations—all are garrisoned and guard-ed, at least partially, by United State sMarines .

commanding the 1st ProvisionalBrigade in Iceland, telling him tha tit was "important to get the Brigad ehome" and promising "you can b esure that we will leave no stone un-turned to accomplish it :' Its men werewanted back in the 2d Marine Divi -

sion and the arrival of U.S. Armyreinforcements in strength in Icelan dgave the Marine Corps strong argu-ment for the recovery of its forces .The fact that the Marines had comeunder Army command did nothin gto lessen the urgency of the situation .

In his radio report, the Comman-dant did not mention the Marinesstationed in China, perhaps becaus ethe decision had been made to with -draw them. In September, the Ameri-can Consul-General at Shanghai, theNavy commander of the YangtzeRiver Patrol, and the CommandingOfficer, 4th Marines had jointl yrecommended that all U .S. navalforces in China be pulled out o fJapanese-controlled territory, arecommendation heartily endorse dby the Commander, Asiatic Fleet .The authorization for the evacuationwas delayed by State and NavyDepartment negotiations until 1 0November and it was the 27th beforethe first of two chartered passengerliners, the President Madison, load-ed half the 4th Marines and its equip -ment and departed Shanghai . Thenext day, the rest of the regimen tboarded the President Harrison andsailed.

Marine recruits are drilled on the parade ground at Parris Island in the early 1940s .Note the sun helmets on the troops as they march to the cadence of the DI .

Sketch by Vernon H. Bailey, Navy Art Collection

On the same day, he wrote toBrigadier General John Marston,

Helmets of World War II

Qne of the most noticeable changes in the Marin e

Corps uniform at the outset of World War II wa sthe transition from the M1917A1 helmet reminis-

cent of World War I to the familiar Ml helmet of Worl d

War II, Korea, and Vietnam .At the outbreak of World War II, Marines were wearin g

a modernized version of the helmet first introduced to Ma-rines serving in France during World War I . The America nM1917 helmet was nearly identical to the British "Brodi e

Pattern" helmet . In 1939, this helmet was superceded inthe Marine Corps by the improved M1917A1 helmet (a sshown below, worn by men of the 6th Marines in Iceland) .The padded leather liner and two-piece canvas chinstrapof this updated version of the "tin hat," as it was then called ,made it far more comfortable and sturdier than it spredecessor . The steel helmet shell remained the same . In

the Marine Corps, the helmet was worn both with an dwithout insignia and, while most Marines wore the hel -

met in the rough olive drab paint, some units, most nota-bly those in China, burnished, waxed, and polished theirs .

Less than two years after the Marine Corps ' adoption

of the M1917A1, a U .S . Army research team at Fort Ben-ning under of Major Harold G. Sydenham, began work-ing on a new design for a two-piece helmet which offere d

far more protection for the wearer . Adopted by the govern -ment as the Ml helmet on 9 June 1941, the Hadfield man-ganese steel helmet was first made by the McCord Radiato rCompany of Detroit, Michigan, while the fiber liner wa smanufactured by the Hawley Products Company . At the

suggestion of General George S . Patton, the liner's suspen-sion system was patterned after a design by John T . Rid -dell that was used in contempory football helmets . The newhelmet was issued to the Marine Corps in the spring an d

early summer of 1942 and, by the time of the Guadalcana l

campaign later that summer, had all but supplanted the

old "dishpan " helmet . —Kenneth L . Smith-Christmas

Photo courtesy of Col James A . Donovan, USMC (Ret)

The destination of both liners wasthe naval base at Olangapo in thePhilippines where the 4th was to jointhe naval forces defending the is -lands, in particular the 1st SeparateBattalion at Cavite. The ships arrivedon 30 November and 1 December.The President Harrison, as planned ,was unloaded quickly in order toreturn to China and pick up the Ma-rines stationed at Peiping and Tient-sin, but it was too late . The JapanesePearl Harbor attack force was al-ready well on its way to its target .

The embassy guard detachment sin China were assembling their gearto ship out through the all-weatherport of Chinwangtao . The small Ma-rine camp there was named CampHolcomb, a fact that annoyed the

In 1940, Fleet Marine Force units stationed at the San Diego fields of the Mission Bay area, in khaki uniforms with th eRecruit Depot conducted some small unit training in the open 1903 Springfield rifle, and wearing World War I helmets .

Photo courtesy of Col James A . Donovan, USMC (Ret )

Photo courtesy of Col James A . Donovan, USMC (Ret )Scene at Camp Elliott in spring 1941 . The new base, near San Diego, was activate din mid-1940 . It housed west coast FMF units and also served for advanced training .

Sketch by Col James A . Donovan, USMC (Ret), Marine Corps Art Collectio n

Prewar Marine infantry battalions each rated 12 of these Browning .30-caliber, 191 7water-cooled machine guns . The overall weight of the gun with its tripod was 85pounds . Each weapon had a cyclic rate of fire of 400-520 rounds per minute.

Commandant somewhat as he be-lieved no Marine facilities should b enamed after living persons . He point-ed out in his 22 November letter toGeneral Marston that the camp stil lbore his name 'but it will be a thingof the past in a few days :' The Com-mandant was obviously referring t othe impending evacuation of the em-bassy Marines, but in fact these men ,trapped in a hopeless situation, les sthan 200 in number, were capture don the first day of the war .

In a general sense, the MarineCorps was ready to fight on 7 De-cember 1941, as it has always beenregardless of its size . Nearly a thirdof the Corps' strength was alreadyoverseas deployed to stations andoutposts, where it shared, often withNavy and Army forces, the challengeof being in the forefront of battle ifwar came . The few thousand Ma-rines who could realistically picturethemselves at risk of immediate at-tack embodied the spirit of thou-sands more who knew their turnwould come .

In the immediate future, once warbegan, the Corps would grow to un-heralded numbers, far beyond wha tany prewar Marine had imagined .The nucleus of Marines that wouldgive strength to this vast assemblage ,almost half a million men and wom-en by 1944, was already in place in

These Quonset huts at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, ParrisIsland, South Carolina, housed the large influx of recruits at

the beginning of the war. Recruits were also billeted in bar-racks and tents at the depots on both coasts until late 1945 .

Sketch by Vernon H . Bailey, Navy Art Collection

85 .

Uncle Sam — Marine

Cargo Net Landing

One of the things that have been said about the Marines is that the yare "first ashore and at the scene of action" This means that the me nwho join Uncle Sam's Marine Corps must be well trained in the dutyof getting ashore quickly. One of their drills that teaches them tomake a rapid landing from their transport employs a cargo net slun gover the ship's side. With their rifles dangling from their shoulders th e" Leathernecks" line up on the deck of the ship . Then at a given signa lthey climb over the side, using the cargo net as a rather unsteady lad -der. The first men down grab opposite sides of the net to help steadyit for those who follow. For training purposes the men land on astationary platform or pier over which the cargo net is hung (se epicture) .

90 .

Uncle Sam—Marine

Marine Sky Troops

Not to be outdone by their Soldier cousins, the "Soldiers of the Se an—the United States Marines—have also been experimenting withParachute Troops . This new idea of landing troops from the sk ypromises to be a valuable addition to Marine training, fitting nicelyinto their landing party duty. Similar to the training of Army SkyTroops, the Marines who volunteer for this service practice jumpingfrom various heights to become skillful in making a sudden landin gfrom the sky. They attempt to drop from lower and lower heights t ocut down the time it takes to reach the earth and thus to lessen th edanger of discovery by the enemy. The 'chute opens automatically .There is also an emergency 'chute which can be opened by the jumps rif necessary. The picture shows a detachment of jumpers being drop-ped from a slow-moving Navy blimp during an initial stage o ftraining.

63 .

Uncle Sam—Marine

Field Radio

The problem of field detachments of troops keeping in touch wit hheadquarters and bases of supplies is today largely solved by radio .At the Marine Radio Operators School, selected marines have a nopportunity to study elementary radio theory, elementary electrici-ty, radio sending and receiving, typing, Naval radio procedure an dfield radio sets . It qualifies them for positions of greater trust an dresponsibility while in Service for Uncle Sam and fits them for good -paying positions on the outside when their period of enlistment i sended. In the picture two marines are operating a portable radi osending and receiving set in the field. In this case they are keepingin touch with headquarters aboard a transport anchored in the har-bor a good many miles away.

29 .

Uncle Sam—Marine

Shore Duty

On shore marines live in large barracks or Service buildings wher ethey can be quickly mobilized for emergencies . When stationed o nshore at the Navy Yards and at Naval Stations their duties are to pro -tect government property from theft, injury, or fire, and to preven tdisorders of any kind. They also perform duties as infantrymen, ar-tillerymen, machine gunners, signal men, motor transport, and oc-casionally as mounted infantry. The picture shows marines on GuardDuty in a Navy Yard during a war emergency. At these times th eregulations are tightened and the marines have to be on the aler tto prevent suspicious-looking individuals from gaining any infor-mation that would be harmful to Uncle Sam's interest .

Save to get all these picture cards showing Uncle Sam's soldiers ,sailors, marines, airmen and civilians in training for NationalDefense .GUM, INC., Phila., Pa .

Printed in U. S . A ., 194 1

Collector cards donated by LtGen William R. Maloney, USMC (Ret )

Popular bubblegum cards printed in 1941 illustrate how the American public viewed the Marines of the prewar period .

1941. The generals were all veteransof World War I, Caribbean, and Chi-na service; the officers who wouldlead the battalions 'and regiments ,squadrons and air groups in the firs tmonths of war were also veterans o fextensive foreign pnd expeditionaryduty. Many of the company com-manders and flight leaders wer eproducts of the 1930s when the Ma-rine Corps wisely recruited the pickof Army ROTC honor graduates .The pilots of all ranks, although asyet only a few hundred in number,were skilled and capable, men wh ocould look forward to leading thou-sands of men who were in the train-ing pipeline .

Dominating the whole scene o fCorps mobilization and increases i nstrength was a solid core of noncom-missioned officers who had share dthe veteran officers' experiences andwho were, in the words of manyqualified to comment, truly "thebackbone of the Corps." In a realway, these sergeants and corporals ofwhatever stripe were the ones whoepitomized the Marine Corps tradi-

Sketch by Col James A. Donovan, USMC (Ret), Marine Corps Art Collectio n

Handy items in the prewar Fleet Marine Force were Cole carts, used to carrysuch weapons as heavy machine guns and their tripods, 81mm mortars and thei rbase plates, and ammunition for all the weapons in the infantry battalion .

tions of leadership and loyalty to fel -low Marines . They imbued in th emen with whom they served a feel-ing of what it means to be a Marine ,of what if takes to be a Marine .

In the war that was to come, onthe eve of the Pearl Harbor attack ,these Marines of all ranks had astrong identity with the past . Theywere the inventors, in General Hol-comb's words in his 1941 MarineCorps Birthday message, of ".this highname of distinction and soldierly re-pute" won for all by "those who havepreceded us in the Corps ." Theprewar Marines, both boot and vete-ran, were to add immeasurably to theCorps' laurels and traditions in thefirst year of fighting at Wake, Guam,Bataan, Corregidor, Midway, Makin,and Guadalcanal . Throughout th ecourse of World War II, they were themen of "The Old Corps" whose ac-complishments set the standard forall Marines .

Marine Corps Strength and Dispositions30 November 1941

Continental U.S. (non-FMF)

Major Bases (5) 14,707

Overseas (non-FMF)

Posts and Stations (24) 3,367Posts and Stations (43) 10,089 Tactical Units 5,498Headquarters and Staff 780 4th Marines (801 )Recruiting (4 Districts) 847 1st Separate Battalion (725 )Total 26,423 1st Marine Brigad e

(Provisional) (3,972 )Ships' Detachments (68) 3,79 3

Total 12,65 8

Continental U S. (FMF)

1st Marine Division 8,918

Overseas (FMF)

Defense Battalions (5) 4,3992d Marine Division (les sdetachments) 7,540

2d Marine Divisio n(detachments) 489

2d Defense Battalio n1st Marine Aircraft Wing

86 51,301

2d Marine Aircraft Win g(detachments) 73 3

2d Marine Aircraft Wing (less Total 5,62 1detachments) 68 2

Miscellaneous 63 3

Total 19,93 9

TOTAL OF CHART: 64,641 TOTAL MARINE CORPS: 65,881

SourcesThe basic source work for this peri-

od is the first volume of the series His-tory of U.S. Marine Corps Opera-tions in World War II, titled PearlHarbor to Guadalcanal and writtenby LtCol Frank O. Hough, Maj VerleE. Ludwig, and Henry I . Shaw, Jr.(Washington: Historical Branch, G-3Division, Headquarters U .S . MarineCorps, 1958) .

Other histories of value for thi speriod include : Col Robert D. Heinl ,Jr., Soldiers of the Sea : The UnitedStates Marine Corps, 1775-1962 (An-napolis : U.S. Naval Institute, 1962) ;Allan R. Millett, Semper Fidelis : TheHistory of the United States MarineCorps (New York: Macmillan Pub-lishing Company, 1980) ; and RobertSherrod, History of Marine CorpsAviation in World War II (Washing-ton: Combat Forces Press, 1952) .

All oral history transcripts address-ing the prewar years in the Oral His-tory Collection, Marine Corp sHistorical Center, Washington, D.C . ,were examined . The interviews withthe following officers were found par -ticularly useful :

Col James R . Aichele; BGenCharles L . Banks; MajGen RobertBlake ; Col Justice M. Chambers; Maj -Gen John P. Condon; Gen Robert E .Cushman, Jr. ; LtGen Karl S. Day;MajGen Marion L. Dawson; LtGenPedro A. del Valle; BGen Lester A .Dessez; BGen Edward C. Dyer; LtGenGeorge F. Good, Jr. ; MajGen Louis R .Jones; MajGen Raymond L . Murray;LtGen Herman Nickerson; MajGenOmar T. Pfeiffer; LtGen Donn J .Robertson; and LtGen Julian C.Smith .

The Personal Papers Collection ofthe Historical Center was also consult-ed for relevant material . The cor-respondence of Gen Thoma sHolcomb, MajGen William P. Up-shur, and Gen Alexander A . Van-degrift contain many significantletters that bear upon the prewa rperiod .

In addition to researching, writing ,and editing significant portions of th eprewar years narrative in the abovementioned Pearl Harbor to Guadal-canal, the author also consulted thehistories of the 1st and 2d Marine Di-visions and was fortunate enough totalk with many of the Marines men-tioned in the oral history reference sabout their experiences.

About the AuthorH

enry I . Shaw, Jr., former chief historian ofthe History and Museums Division, was a

Marine Corps historian from 1951-1990 . He at-tended The Citadel, 1943-1944, and was gradu-ated with a bachelor of arts cum laude in historyfrom Hope College, Holland, Michigan . Hereceived a master of arts degree in history fro mColumbia University. Mr. Shaw served as a Ma-rine in both World War II and the Korean War .He is the co-author of four of the five volumesof the official history of Marine Corps operation sin World War II and was the senior editor of mostof the official histories of Marines in Vietnam .

In addition, he has written a number of brief Marine Corps histories . Mr. Shawhas written many articles on military history for professional publications and hashad more than 50 signed book reviews appearing in such publications as MilitaryCollector & Historian, Military Affairs, Marine Corps Gazette, Leatherneck, Th eWashington Post, New York Historical Society Quarterly, and the United StatesNaval Institute Proceedings .

About the Cover : In 1940, Fleet Marine Force units stationed at the San Dieg oRecruit Depot conducted small unit training in the open fields of the Mission Bayarea, in khaki uniforms with 1903 Springfield rifles, gas masks, and World WarI helmets . (Photo courtesy of Colonel James A. Donovan, USMC [Ret]) .

THIS PAMPHLET HISTORY, one in a series devoted to U .S . Marines in theWorld War II era, is published for the education and training of Marines b ythe History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps,Washington, D.C., as a part of the U.S. Department of Defense observanceof the 50th anniversary of victory in that war .

Editorial costs of preparing this pamphlet have been defrayed in part b ya bequest from the estate of Emilie H . Watts, in memory of her late husband,Thomas M. Watts, who served as a Marine and was the recipient of a Purpl eHeart .

WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIE SDIRECTOR OF MARINE CORPS HISTORY AND MUSEUMS

Brigadier General Edwin H . Simmons, USMC (Ret )

MANAGING EDITOR ,WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIE S

Benis M . Frank

EDITING AND DESIGN SECTION, HISTORY AND MUSEUMS DIVISIO NRobert E . Struder, Senior Editor; W. Stephen Hill, Visual Informatio n

Specialist; Catherine A . Kerns, Composition Services Technician

Marine Corps Historical CenterBuilding 58, Washington Navy Yard

Washington, D.C . 20374-0580

1991

PCN 190 003115 00

Ir)4: VV'VV :ff 19/15

U .S . GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1992-307-990150641