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 ,

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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