VOLUME 4, NUMBER 1 SUMMER 2018
THE VERY FEW, THE PROUD

Women in the Marine Corps,

1977–2001

Colonel Nancy P. Anderson, USMC (Ret)

The Very Few, the Proud documents a generation of changes 

to accession and assignment policies pertaining to women 

seeking to serve in the U.S. Marine Corps between 1977 and 

2001. This history intentionally ends at the threshold of the 

Global War on Terrorism—the gateway to current history. 

Anderson’s research follows the changes in social and gender 

distinctions, definitions of combat and combat support, and the belief—by voters, legislators, and military leadership—in the value of using the best person to fill a military billet 

regardless of gender. The Very Few, the Proud draws upon hundreds of personal accounts 

of women who served during the period, personal archives of Marine Corps leaders, and 

journalistic accounts of the treatment of women in and by the U.S. military.

8.5 x 11 | 280 pp | August 2018

Email history.division@usmcu.edu for a print or digital copy.

STORY TO TELL

Marine Corps History is accepting article and book review submissions for 2019.

Marine Corps History publishes twice a year, and the editors are currently looking for new articles and book reviews on all topics within the long history of the Corps: Civil War, SpanishAmerican War, Banana Wars, WWI, WWII, Korea, Cold War, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, 

and women and minorities in the military. We are particularly interested in masters and PhD 

students who are ready to venture into scholarly publishing. Articles must be at least 4,000 

words, footnoted according to Chicago Manual of Style, and focus on some 

aspect of the Corps either directly or indirectly, including foreign marines 

and joint operations.

For more information about submission guidelines or history books available for 

review, please contact the managing editor at stephani.miller@usmcu.edu.
SUMMER 2018 1

PRESIDENT

Marine Corps University

Brigadier General William J. Bowers

...

DIRECTOR

History Division

[vacant]

DEPUTY DIRECTOR

Paul J. Weber

...

HISTORIES BRANCH

Douglas Nash, Paul W. Westermeyer, 

Dr. Breanne Robertson 

...

HISTORICAL REFERENCE BRANCH

Annette D. Amerman (Branch Head)

Kara R. Newcomer, Cassandra Bennett, 

Mike Westermeier

...

ARCHIVES BRANCH

Alisa Whitley (Branch Head)

Steve Coode, John Lyles, Shelia Phillips, 

Nancy Whitfield, Dr. James Ginther Jr. 

...

ORAL HISTORY SECTION

Dr. Fred Allison

...

EDITING AND DESIGN BRANCH

Angela J. Anderson (Branch Head) 

Jason Gosnell, Robert A. Kocher, Younghee Krouse, Stephani L. Miller, Jeffrey 

Moravetz

...

MARINE CORPS

HISTORY DIVISION

2044 Broadway Street

Quantico, Virginia 22134

Telephone (703) 432-4877

www.history.usmc.mil

...

COMMANDANT OF THE MARINE CORPS

Department of the Navy

Headquarters Marine Corps

3000 Marine Corps Pentagon 

Room 2B253

Washington, DC 20530-3000

OFFICIAL BUSINESS 

PCN 10600011300

ISSN 2381-375X

Director’s Foreword 3

Paul J. Weber

ARTICLES

“The Cleanest and Strongest of Our Young Manhood”: 6

Marines, Belleau Wood, and the Test of American Manliness

Mark R. Folse, PhD

The U.S. Army’s Influence on Marine Corps Tank Doctrine 23

Major Joseph DiDomenico, USA

Mobilization of the Organized Marine Corps Reserve 42

for World War II

Bryan J. Dickerson

Ernest Hemingway and a Few Good Men: 61

Confronting U-Boats in the Caribbean

Colonel Nicholas E. Reynolds, USMCR (Ret)

Fighting within the A2/AD Bubble: 72

The 1982 Falklands War as a Case Study for the 

Future Amphibious Task Force

Major Brandon H. Turner

HISTORY IN THE CLASSROOM

A Case Can Be Made: The Value of Historical Case Studies 91

to Contemporary Policy Analysis

William M. Morgan, PhD

HISTORY IN ACTION

Drawn Together: The Marine Corps’ Visual History 104

as Recorded by Combat Artists

Charles Grow

IN MEMORIAM

Lieutenant General Bernard E. Trainor, USMC (Ret) 116

REVIEW ESSAY

Rebel Power: Why National Movements Compete, Fight, and Win 118

and Us versus Them: The United States, Radical Islam, and the Rise 

of the Green Threat

Reviewed by Miles Kitts, PhD

 Volume 4, Number 1 Summer 2018

Cover art: Jungle Patrol, by Col Edward M. 

Condrea III, oil on linen.

Art Collection, National Museum of the 

Marine Corps
Scholarly Debate

Marine Corps History is a peer-reviewed, scholarly publication, and in that 

tradition we recognize that the articles published here are not the official 

or final word on any topic, merely the beginning of a conversation. If 

you think an author missed the target or failed to deliver, please join the 

debate by submitting an article for consideration. Email the managing 

editor at stephani.miller@usmcu.edu for deadlines and author guidelines.

BOOK REVIEWS

Remembering America: How We Have Told Our Past 121

Reviewed by Adrienne Chudzinski

The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial 123

Reviewed by Lawrence Provost

The Frozen Chosen: The 1st Marine Division 125

and the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir

Reviewed by Colonel Craig Price, USMC

Shadow Cold War: The Sino-Soviet Competition for the Third World 128

Reviewed by Aaron O’Connell, PhD

Blinking Red: Crisis and Compromise in American Intelligence after 9/11 130

Reviewed by Major Jessica J. Ryu, USMC

PT 109: An American Epic of War, Survival, and the 132

Destiny of John F. Kennedy

Reviewed by Frank A. Blazich Jr., PhD

We Were Going to Win, or Die There: With the Marines 134

at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and Saipan

Reviewed by Colonel Walt Ford, USMC (Ret)

American Grand Strategy in the Mediterranean during World War II 136

Reviewed by Major Harold Allen Skinner, USA (Ret)

Toxic Exposures: Mustard Gas and the Health Consequences 138

of World War II in the United States

Reviewed by Thomas Faith, PhD

Spider Web: The Birth of American Anticommunism 140

Reviewed by Vance Skarstedt

Veteran Narratives and the Collective Memory of the Vietnam War 144

Reviewed by Tal Tovy, PhD

 Volume 4, Number 1 Summer 2018

2

NOW AVAIL ABLE

The Legacy of Belleau Wood

100 Years of Making Marines 

and Winning Battles

AN ANTHOLOGY

The Legacy of Belleau Wood: 100 

Years of Making Marines and Winning Battles examines the Marine 

Corps during the last century, 

doing two things it does best: 

making Marines out of civilians 

and winning battles in defense 

of the United States. This anthology of articles demonstrates how 

Marines continue to follow in 

the footsteps of their Great War 

forebears, who fought the wars at 

hand while planning for the wars 

to come, refining and innovating 

tactics and organization so that 

the Corps remained relevant and 

effective in a rapidly changing 

technological environment.

8.5 x 11 | 368 pp | May 2018
Originally from Portland, OR, Paul Weber enlisted in the Marine Corps 

on 9 November 1982, reporting to San Deigo, CA, for recruit training on 

2 February 1983 and attending military occupational specialty (MOS) 

school at Fort Bliss, TX, as a Hawk pulse acquisition radar repairman. 

Selected for Officer Candidates School (OCS) in the summer of 1984, 

he attended OCS and The Basic School in 1985, eventually ending up 

in air defense. Weber earned a master’s degree in U.S. history while the 

Marine officer instructor at Miami University and retired in January 

2006. He reported to History Division as the deputy director in February 2010 and is currently the acting director.

FOREWORD

DIRECTOR’S

As this issue of Marine Corps History is readied for press, news reports closely follow the historic summit between the president of 

the United States and the leader of the Democratic 

People’s Republic of Korea. This seems an opportune 

time to contemplate and remember the importance of 

studying and learning history and to consider how the 

study of history is important to our understanding of 

current events.

Benn Steil’s excellent book The Marshall Plan: Dawn 

of the Cold War (2018), which covers the creation of the 

Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program), also includes an extensive discussion on the 

importance of understanding the history behind an 

event as far reaching as the Marshall Plan and, by extension, the history of any event, large or small. At 

Marine Corps History Division, we have a deep understanding of historical context and employ it every day 

in our mission to document and preserve the Corps’ 

history. We do our very best to faithfully ferret out all 

possible information about obscure events, eschewing 

the seemingly ever-more-popular quick fact gathering 

that now passes for research to feed the insatiable 24-

hour television news cycle in favor of the rigorous process of the professional historian.

The staff at History Division work hard to remember that however insignificant an event might seem to 

us now, when it occurred it became the focal point 

for the Marines on the spot and for their supporting 

families at home. For the Marines involved, an event 

may have been a life-and-death moment. History Division holds the records of thousands of such events—significant and insignificant—that provide a road map to 

what happened, when, how, why, where, and by or to 

whom. For Marines who did not come home, as well 

as their families, such events became the defining moments of their lives. For survivors years later, History 

Division is here to provide the facts and the circumstances surrounding individual points in time.

Marine Corps History represents the biannual stage 

on which we offer insightful answers to some questions, bringing the history back to life for a short time 

on the printed page. We seek to publish a wide range 

of articles and book reviews to engage the largest percentage of our patron base as possible. Readers and 

3

Paul J. Weber
4 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

patrons seek out the magazine for a variety of reasons. 

The active duty Marine wants to update unit lineage 

and honors certificates in preparation for an inspection. The students here at Marine Corps University 

need information to complete papers and research 

projects. The families of the fallen or those who served 

generations ago hope to find information to help them 

understand where and in what conditions their Marines served and what they might have seen or done. 

We have the daunting task of offering articles that 

cover the wide range of Marine Corps history—positive or negative—and that continually engage our audience and increase the historical scholarship in Marine 

Corps topics. In our fourth year of publication, we 

are reaching out to a larger historical community for 

articles. Prior service with the Marine Corps or any 

military branch is not required to submit an article; 

authors of any discipline and any experience level may 

participate. Solid scholarship on a topic about or relative to the Marine Corps and its history is all that is 

required.

As the official historical recordkeeper of the Marine Corps, History Division strives to remember and 

respect the contributions of each Marine to their oaths, 

to the Constitution, and to the country. Answering 

one of the many questions we field about Marines is 

an act of remembrance. We pull the casualty card to 

read about the one defining moment of a young Marine’s life—a Marine who grew up at Rural Route 2, 

Box 36, Somewhere, USA, who will never again stroll 

down the gravel lane to pick up the paper and that 

day’s mail. As one battalion commander put it when 

discussing casualties, the Marines lost will live in our 

memories as always being young. Each Marine is remembered as we answer the question related to their 

service and the incident that ended it or made them 

famous. It is hard to imagine from the distance of time 

and circumstance the impact the telegram, phone call, 

or casualty team visit must have had on those at home 

waiting for news of their Marine. We are fully aware 

that, across the expanse of time, the feeling of loss is 

not softened and the pride of participation in events 

that shaped our Corps today does not fade with time.

But make no mistake—History Division is also the 

keeper of the flame for the entire Corps, not just the 

individual Marine. While the individual often tugs at 

the heart strings more than units, commands, and organizations, we are here to support historical inquiry 

for and about the whole Marine Corps. We respond 

with equal dedication regardless of the question or the 

inquirer.

In this edition of Marine Corps History, you will find 

several scholarly articles on a variety of subjects that 

focus narrowly on individuals and on the Corps more 

broadly. Mark R. Folse explores the ways in which the 

U.S. government and the Marine Corps shaped the 

ideal of American manhood and used the image of 

Marines as the pinnacle of this ideal for recruiting and 

marketing, highlighting the Corps’ ability to transform 

the nation’s youth prior to and during World War I 

into strong, brave, steadfast men and model citizens, 

an image that persisted well into the 1970s. Army Major Joseph DiDomenico discusses the lessons learned 

from the initial failures and key successes of the Corps’ 

adoption of Army tanks and tank doctrine during 

World War II and how they impacted the Corps’ development of its own tank doctrine. Bryan J. Dickerson 

digs into the mobilization of the Marine Corps Reserve forces during World War II and explores the contributions of reservists to the war effort. The World 

War II exploits of Ernest Hemingway and his small 

group of compatriots in the Caribbean feature in Colonel Nicholas J. Reynolds’s article, which recounts not 

only how Marines enabled Operation Friendless to be 

carried out but how his association with Marines informed Hemingway’s last novel. Next, Major Brandon 

H. Turner draws parallels between Britain’s war with 

Argentina in the Falkland Islands and future conflicts the U.S. military may face in Anti-Access/Area 

Denial environments. Then, we hear from one of Marine Corps University’s schoolhouses with William M. 

Morgan’s overview of how the Marine Corps War College (MCWAR) employs case studies in the Diplomacy 

and Statecraft course to enable students—our nation’s 

future strategic leaders—to develop the insights and 

analytical tools that will assist them in responding to 
SUMMER 2018 5

the global challenges they will likely face during their 

careers. Finally, Charles Grow, deputy director of the 

National Museum of the Marine Corps, reflects on his 

time serving as a combat artist, the work that inspired 

his interest, and the role combat art plays in the nation’s strategic communications.

We also mark the passing of retired Lieutenant 

General Bernard E. Trainor, who was awarded multiple honors during his service and who, after retirement, embarked on a second career as a journalist, 

author, military analyst, and university lecturer.

As usual, we include several incisive reviews of 

the latest books on military and American history. 

We hope you enjoy this issue of Marine Corps History

and that each reader understands the spirit and pride 

that goes into its crafting. We have put our best foot 

forward, and we offer these articles in tribute to all 

Marines, regardless of their contributions, past and 

present.

Semper Fidelis, 

Paul J. Weber

Deputy Director

Marine Corps History Division

and Gray Research Center 

• 1775 •
6

“The Cleanest and Strongest 

of Our Young Manhood”

MARINES, BELLEAU WOOD, AND THE TEST 

OF AMERICAN MANLINESS

by Mark R. Folse, PhD1

I

n his memoirs published shortly after the Great 

War, Colonel Albertus W. Catlin, former commander of the 6th Regiment of Marines at Belleau 

Wood, remarked with pride on how his men had conducted themselves in battle. “Can we read what our 

college boys did in Belleau Wood,” he asked readers, 

“without thanking God that the soil trod by Washington and Lincoln, the Pilgrim Fathers and the builders 

of the great West, can still produce men of such stuff 

1

 Dr. Mark Folse recently completed his PhD at the University 

of Alabama. His dissertation, “The Globe and Anchor Men: U.S. 

Marines, Manhood, and American Culture, 1914–1924,” explores 

how Marines made manhood central to the communication of 

their image and culture, a strategy that underpinned the Corps’ 

efforts to attract recruits and acquire funding from Congress. 

Folse has published with Marine Corps History magazine and has 

written Keystone Battle Briefs for the Marine Corps History 

Division in Quantico, VA. He is the 2015 recipient of Marine 

Corps Heritage Foundation’s General Lemuel C. Shepherd Jr. 

Memorial Dissertation Fellowship, and he recently accepted the 

Class of 1957 Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the U.S. Naval Academy for the 2018–19 academic year. He is also a Marine veteran 

with combat tours to Afghanistan and Iraq as an infantryman in 

2004 and 2005, respectively. The title of this article was inspired 

by Georgia governor Hugh M. Dorsey’s words about Marines 

who fought in the Great War, which appeared in the December 

1919 issue of  the Recruiters’ Bulletin.  This quotation reflects the 

common assertion Marines and their admirers made about men 

who joined the Corps during the war: that they were the finest 

examples of American manhood. Hugh M. Dorsey, “Governors 

Endorse the Marine Corps,” Recruiters’ Bulletin, December 1919, 6.

as that?”2 For Catlin, the Marines’ cause was a high and 

2

 Albertus W. Catlin, “With the Help of God and a Few Marines”: 

The Battles of Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood (Yardley, PA: 

Westholme Publishing, 2013), 306. 

Marine Corps History Division

Col Albertus W. Catlin.
SUMMER 2018 7

holy one. America “went into this war solely to save 

the ideals of Christianity from destruction,” he wrote. 

“It is my country that sent the flower of its manhood 

to fight and die for that cause.”3 His Marines proved to 

him and to the rest of the country that America still 

made men of great quality—men that could proudly 

stand with the manly generations that came before.

Historians identify the June 1918 Battle of Belleau Wood as one of the most pivotal events in Marine Corps history. The bulk of the battle’s traditional 

scholarship has focused on its operational aspects.4

The question of why the battle became culturally significant for Marines and for the contemporary American public has received scant attention, however. This 

article addresses that question by exploring the shared 

cultural ideals between Marines and American society. Americans understood the Great War as a test 

of manhood. At the Battle of Belleau Wood, Marines 

demonstrated that American men were strong, courageous, and willing to sacrifice themselves for a high 

and noble cause. This understanding helps explain 

3 Catlin, “With the Help of God and a Few Marines,” 306. 4

 BGen Edwin Howard Simmons and Col Joseph H. Alexander, 

Through the Wheat: The U.S. Marines in World War I (Annapolis: 

Naval Institute Press, 2008); Robert B. Asprey, At Belleau Wood

(Denton: University of North Texas Press, 1996); Alan Axelrod, 

Miracle at Belleau Wood: The Birth of the Modern U.S. Marine Corps

(Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2007); Henry Berry, Make the Kaiser 

Dance: Living Memories of a Forgotten War—The American Experience 

in World War I (New York: Doubleday, 1978); Ronald J. Brown, A 

Few Good Men: The Fighting Fifth Marines—A History of the USMC’s 

Most Decorated Regiment (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 2001); Dick 

Camp, The Devil Dogs at Belleau Wood: U.S. Marines in World War 

I (Minneapolis, MN: Zenith Press, 2008); George B. Clark, Devil 

Dogs: Fighting Marines of World War I (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 

1999); Edward M. Coffman, The War to End All Wars: The American 

Military Experience in World War I (New York: Oxford University 

Press, 1968); Mark Ethan Grotelueschen, The AEF Way of War: 

The American Army and Combat in World War I (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Edward G. Lengel, Thunder and 

Flames: Americans in the Crucible of Combat, 1917–1918 (Lawrence: 

University Press of Kansas, 2015); Allan R. Millett, Semper Fidelis: 

The History of the United States Marine Corps, 2d ed. (New York: 

The Free Press, 1991); J. Robert Moskin, The U.S. Marine Corps 

Story, 3d ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1992); Michael S. Neiberg, 

The Second Battle of the Marne (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008); and William D. Parker, A Concise History of the 

United States Marine Corps, 1775–1969 (Washington, DC: Historical 

Division, Headquarters Marine Corps, 1970). 

why the battle was significant to Americans in the 

summer of 1918 and why it has been important to Marines ever since. The Corps proved to the public that 

American manhood was second to none and could 

pass the test of war.

Belleau Wood is a familiar concept among Marines even though the war in which it was fought 

seems to attract little popular attention compared to 

the other, larger world war of the twentieth century. 

Americans may have celebrated the victorious return 

of their troops in 1919, but Kimberly J. Lamay Licursi 

has argued recently that “Americans simply forgot the 

war after the first few parades welcoming doughboys 

home,” because their public memory of the Great 

War “never congealed into a consensus view, which 

would have helped create a sustaining and coherent 

memory.”5

 After the war, society moved on quickly 

without ever forming a lasting and significant memory of the conflict within American culture. This is 

simply not the case with the Marine Corps. As an institution, the Corps remembers well the long summer 

of 1918, the battles, the gas, and those who fell in the 

woods and wheat fields of France.

Belleau Wood stands out prominently among the 

Marines’ collective memory in part because of the efforts of Marine Corps historians (many of whom were 

Marines themselves) over the decades. Every general 

history of the Marine Corps published since 1918 has 

given special attention to the significance of Belleau 

Wood.6 Paul Westermeyer’s recent assertion captures 

well how Marines have attached meaning to a battle 

that many outside the Corps simply have not; at Belleau Wood, “Marine tenacity and media savvy catapult5

 Kimberly J. Lamay Licursi, Remembering World War I in America

(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2018), xv. 

6

 Willis J. Abbot, Soldiers of the Sea: The Story of the United States 

Marine Corps (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1918), 297–306; LtCol Clyde H. Metcalf, A History of The United States Marine Corps

(New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1939), 482–90; John H. Craige, 

What the Citizen Should Know about the Marines (New York: Norton, 1941), 22; LtCol Philip N. Pierce and LtCol Frank O. Hough, 

USMCR, The Compact History of the United States Marine Corps, 2d 

ed. (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1964), 182–83; Edwin Howard 

Simmons, The United States Marines: A History, 3d ed. (Annapolis: 

Naval Institute Press, 1998), 97–100; and Moskin, The U.S. Marine 

Corps Story, 112–24.
8 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

ed the Corps into even greater public consciousness, 

cementing the Marine Corps’ self-proclaimed reputation as an elite force into reality.”7

Marine Corps historians argue that the Great 

War offered many Marine officers important lessons 

in tactics, logistics, artillery, and air support that 

would be used later in amphibious doctrinal development. Allan Millett claims that “six months of extensive combat in France gave the Marine Corps enough 

practical experience to sustain two decades of serious 

study on the problems of attacking an entrenched 

enemy, problems particularly appropriate for an amphibious assault force.”8

 Marines also “proved” that 

they were elite warriors.9 Heather Marshall’s “‘It 

Means Something These Days to be a Marine’ ” argues 

that Belleau Wood and the Great War “was the coming-of-age story, the fulfillment of everything it had 

sought to become on paper since the late nineteenth 

century,” because the war reinforced Marines’ carefully constructed image as the country’s best troops.10

But many Marine historians, and even many actively serving Marines today, have forgotten a significant historical component about the Marines of the 

Great War. Lost among the drum and bugle histories 

of Belleau Wood and the war are the Corps’ claims to 

be good for the young men of the nation. This is surprising when one thinks about it. Marines, throughout 

the twentieth century, have claimed, as Victor Krulak 

did in the 1950s, that they are “masters of an unfailing alchemy which converts unoriented youths into 

7

 Paul Westermeyer, “The Rise of the Early Modern Marine 

Corps and World War I,” in The Legacy of Belleau Wood: 100 Years 

of Making Marines and Winning Battles, ed. Paul Westermeyer and 

Breanne Robertson (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps History Division, 2018), 2.

8

 Millett, Semper Fidelis, 318; see also Leo J. Daugherty III, “ ‘To 

Fight Our Country’s Battles’: An Institutional History of the 

United States Marine Corps During the Interwar Era, 1919–1935” 

(PhD diss., Ohio State University, 2001), 55. 

9

 Axelrod, Miracle at Belleau Wood, 229. 10 Heather Marshall, “ ‘It Means Something These Days to be a 

Marine’: Image, Identity, and Mission in the Marine Corps, 1861–

1918” (PhD diss., Duke University, 2010), 353. 

proud self-reliant stable citizens.”11 Within the context 

of the Great War, these claims came in the form of appeals to manhood.

American Manhood

Before U.S. entry into the Great War, the Corps 

claimed to give young, middle-class white men a 

chance to become fit, develop good character, see the 

world, and become “real men.” The Marine was strong, 

disciplined, clean of mind and body, and assertive—

embodying the Victorian manly ideal promoted by 

many contemporary civilian authors at the time.

According to American sociologists, physicians, 

politicians, and preachers of the time, manhood was a 

many-sided thing. Manhood was a stage in one’s life 

that came after boyhood and before old age. Metaphorically speaking, it was a national resource, something 

that was grown and harvested. The term manliness

tended to mean physical, mental, and moral manifestations of one’s manhood. Strength, self-control, courage, and kindness were all manly qualities.12 Therefore, 

11 “Preface,” in LtGen Victor H. Krulak, First to Fight: An Inside 

View of the U.S. Marine Corps (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 

1984), xv.

12 Luther H. Gulick, The Dynamic of Manhood (New York: Association Press, 1918), 9–14; Martyn Summerbell, Manhood in Its 

American Type (Boston: Richard G. Badger, 1916), 109; Kelly 

Miller, “Education for Manhood,” Kelly Miller’s Monographic Magazine 1, no. 1, April 1913, 12; George Walter Fiske, Boy Life and SelfGovernment (New York: Association Press, 1916), 28; Rev. Jasper 

S. Hogan, “Manhood as an Objective in College Training” (address to alumni of Rutgers College, 19 June 1912), 6–8; and R. 

Swinburne Clymer, The Way to Godhood (Allentown, PA: Philosophical Publishing, 1914), 89–90. 
SUMMER 2018 9

it tended to make up the bulk of one’s character.13

Manhood could be molded and hardened like 

steel. Therein lay the foundation of the Marines’ appeal: they shaped men into their own image. They 

claimed to recruit the finest specimens of American 

manhood and make them even better. The result was 

a strong, brave, clean, and morally upright man. He 

would be a proud and worthy citizen who had earned 

respect through his years of service, training, and 

struggle in the Marine Corps. Becoming a Marine benefited the man; being a Marine benefited the nation. 

As men became manlier, so did the country.

Manhood could weaken, become sick, tainted, 

and corrupted. People took that risk seriously because 

many saw healthy manhood as essential for both the 

man and the nation. R. Swinburne Clymer argued in 

1914 that the United States had much to lose if its manhood was weak. “The moment a nation loses its sense 

of manhood and strength,” he wrote, “at that moment 

does it begin to decay and to decline.”14 A people without strong manhood risked decline and foreign subjugation at the hands of manlier nations. Therefore, 

the United States needed “Manhood—virile, vigorous, 

strong, self-reliant, self-assertive manhood” to survive 

the age.15 Officials in the federal government echoed 

these sentiments. “A nation stands or falls, succeeds or 

13 The opposites of manliness and manhood in the nineteenth 

century tended to be childishness and childhood. With the rise 

of female suffrage movements and the perception of women 

encroaching on the traditional spheres of men, femininity and 

womanhood became the opposites. See Donald J. Mrozek, “The 

Habit of Victory: The American Military and the Cult of Manliness,” in Manliness and Morality: Middle-class Masculinity in Britain and America, 1800–1940, ed. J. A. Mangan and James Walvin 

(Oxford: Manchester University Press, 1987), 221–23; Peter G. 

Filene, Him/Her/Self: Sex Roles in Modern America, 2d ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 93; Joe L. Dubbert, 

“Progressivism and Masculinity in Crisis,” in The American Man, 

ed. Elizabeth H. Pleck and Joseph H. Pleck (Englewood Cliffs, 

NJ: Prentice Hall, 1980), 308; Michael Messner, “The Meaning of 

Success: The Athletic Experience and the Development of Male 

Identity,” in The Making of Masculinities: The New Men’s Studies, ed. 

Harry Brod (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1987), 196; and Michael S. 

Kimmel, “The Contemporary ‘Crisis’ of Masculinity in Historical 

Perspective,” in The Making of Masculinities, 143. 14 Clymer, The Way to Godhood, 77. 

15 Clymer, The Way to Godhood, 89–90. 

fails, just in proportion to the high-mindedness, cleanliness, and manliness of each succeeding generation of 

men,” claimed a writer for the U.S. War Department.16

Leading up to the Great War, many American 

intellectuals, public figures, politicians, and military 

officers argued that the men of their country suffered 

from emasculation. The closing of the frontier, the concentration of capital, and rapid industrialization compromised manly individualism that was founded upon 

the ability of men to own their own land, control their 

own labor, and become economically independent.17

Healthy manhood kept a nation free from destructive 

vices, tyranny, and bondage.18 Real manhood manifested itself, even became stronger, during times of 

trial, adversity, and struggle.19 During the Great War, 

Victorian ideals of manhood found “more concrete 

expression,” according to Peter Filene. Marine recruiters would have probably agreed with his claim that 

“through the crucible of combat a boy would emerge a 

man.”20 Seemingly immune to the emasculating effects 

of modern society, Marines promised to reinject the 

element of struggle and adversity deemed necessary 

for assertive manhood into men’s lives.

The term masculinity became fashionable around 

the turn of the twentieth century largely in response 

to the white middle class’s paranoia concerning the 

16 Outline of Plan for Military Training in Public Schools of the United 

States (Washington, DC: U.S. Army War College, 1915), 8. 17 Gail Bederman, Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History 

of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880–1917 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 10–13; Kimmel, “The Contemporary ‘Crisis’ of Masculinity in Historical Perspective,” 143–53; 

Michael Kimmel, Manhood in America: A Cultural History, 3d ed. 

(New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 62; E. Anthony Rotundo, “Body and Soul: Changing Ideals of American MiddleClass Manhood, 1770–1920,” Journal of Social History 16, no. 4 (July 

1983): 23–38, https://doi.org/10.1353/jsh/16.4.23; Kristin L. Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked 

the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars (New Haven: 

Yale University Press, 1998), 9; and Robert H. Zieger, America’s 

Great War: World War I and the American Experience (Lanham, MD: 

Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), 136.

18 Clymer, The Way to Godhood, 77. 19 Summerbell, Manhood in Its American Type, 40. 20 Peter Gabriel Filene, “In Time of War,” in The American Man, 

323. 
10 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

strength of its own manhood.21 While manhood was 

primarily about such inner qualities as character and 

morality, masculinity comprised more physical aspects. It had to do with appearances, activities, ways of 

speech, and even virility.22 Femininity encompassed its 

opposite. The male body was important to subscribers 

of both Victorian manhood and the new masculinity. 

But followers of the latter demonstrated their manliness less through work or moral uprightness and more 

through consumerism and muscular masculinity. 

Athena Delvin put it succinctly when she argued that 

the new form of men’s culture was “more physical and 

less intellectual, more competitive and less spiritual, 

more strenuous and less sensitive.”23 Strenuous activity became important precisely because the nature of 

middle-class work had changed. Masculinity needed 

demonstration in other ways since manual labor now 

largely fell to the working classes.

Marines’ wartime images spoke to these insecurities. Sharply dressed Marines pervaded their own imagery to illustrate how the Corps could make recruits 

more masculine.24 A cartoon image entitled “Honest 

Pride” shows a diminutive Marine private who has just 

entered the Corps looking up to a sergeant who is taller, has a thicker chest, broader shoulders, and stronger 

jaw line (figure 1). The new Marine is impressed by the 

sergeant’s medals and exclaims, “Gosh, I’d never have 

21 Mrozek, “The Habit of Victory,” 221–23; Filene, Him/Her/Self, 

93; Dubbert, “Progressivism and Masculinity in Crisis,” 308; 

Messner, “The Meaning of Success,” 196; and Kimmel, “The Contemporary ‘Crisis’ of Masculinity in Historical Perspective,” 143. 

22 Martin Summers, Manliness & its Discontents: The Black Middle 

Class & the Transformation of Masculinity, 1900–1930 (Chapel Hill: 

University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 16; and Athena Delvin, Between Profits and Primitivism: Shaping White Middle-Class 

Masculinity in the United States, 1880–1917 (New York: Routledge, 

2005), 9.

23 Delvin, Between Profits and Primitivism, 9. 24 For more analysis on the importance of the male body to 

masculinity, see Delvin, Between Profits and Primitivism, 4; Susan 

Bordo, The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and Private

(New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1999); Christina S. Jarvis, 

The Male Body at War: American Masculinity during World War II

(Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2004), 4; and John 

F. Kasson, Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man: The White Male 

Body and the Challenge of Modernity in America (New York: Hill 

and Wang, 2001), 19. 

room on my chest for all them medals.” The old timer 

replied, “Don’t worry; you’ll have enough chest when 

you’re with us a while. We guarantee to put a chest 

on an eel.”25 This image conveys the physical attributes 

men supposedly gained while in the Corps. The sergeant’s service in the Great War adds to his masculinity and prestige; in the background is a picture of him 

wearing the uniform that Marines wore on the western front with combat medals on his chest.

The Test of Manhood

Civilians and Marines argued that the Great War 

would put their manhood to the ultimate test.26

25 [Artist’s name illegible], “Honest Pride,” Recruiters’ Bulletin, December 1919, 21. 

26 Michael C. C. Adams, The Great Adventure: Male Desire and the 

Coming of World War I (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 

1990), 49. 

The Recruiters’ Bulletin, December 1919

Figure 1. “Honest Pride.”
SUMMER 2018 11

That was how many justified conscripting hundreds 

of thousands of young men into the military and 

then sending them overseas to fight the Germans. A 

preacher who addressed Congress in the spring of 1917 

called the draft “legislative action which will prepare, 

and build up the young manhood of America” so it 

would be “fit to take its place and to defend American 

rights and liberties.” 27 Marines understood and used 

these ideas about manhood as well. “War puts manhood to a tremendous test, and be it said to a man’s 

credit, that the coward is the exception, not the rule,” 

a writer for the Marines’ Magazine claimed.28 For a Marine who runs from battle, “never in his conscious moments can he drive away the specter of his failure to 

do his manly duty.”29 The consequences of failure were 

profound because an unmanly Marine failed not only 

himself but his comrades and his country.30

The challenge of war made men out of those with 

the courage to face it. Courage was a common aspect 

of manliness in the Great War era. “Without courage, 

a man is a poor specimen of a man, hardly worth calling a man,” wrote one civilian author.31 “Never was 

there a time in the history of the human race when 

real sturdy manhood, manly vigor and manly courage 

counted for as much as they do now,” claimed another.32 This rhetoric that linked courage with manliness 

pervaded Marine writings too. “We wanted to test our 

courage and manhood, facing death by shrapnel, cold 

steel, ball cartridge and gas,” Marine Sergeant Arthur 

R. Ganoe wrote.33 “If he plays a man’s part,” read the 

27 Congressional Record Containing the Proceedings and Debates of the 

First Session of the Sixty-Fifth Congress (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1917), 137. 

28 C. L. S., “The Red Badge of Courage,” Marines’ Magazine, July 

1917, 14. 

29 C. L. S., “The Red Badge of Courage,” 14. 

30 Bishop Junior, “Jim Bitter—Coward,” Marines’ Magazine, June 

1918, 4–6. 

31 H. G. Youard, Showing Ourselves Men: Addresses for Men’s Services 

(New York: E. S. Gorham, 1911), 9.

32 “Manhood!,” Manitoba Free Press (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada), 3 August 1918, 19.

33 Sgt Arthur R. M. Ganoe, “War Thunder Rocks the Earth at 

Villers-Cotterets: Vivid Picture of Greatest Bombardment of 

History Is Drawn by Marine Who Participated in Soissons Offensive,” Marines’ Bulletin, November 1918, 29.

Marines’ Magazine in July 1917, “he is consciously the 

victor over danger, over hardship, over the temptation 

to avoid the difficult duty, over himself; he can look 

upon his destiny—yes, upon death itself—with clear 

eyes, unashamed and unafraid.”34 Essentially, this author encouraged Marine audiences to live up to the 

Victorian manly standards and imagery that they promoted among each other.

A former congressman turned enlisted Marine, 

Sergeant Edwin Denby, made sure recruits at Parris 

Island, South Carolina, understood what was at stake 

for their manhood.35 Marines had to conduct themselves honorably and come back home clean and upright. “Nowhere in the world does a man stand more 

squarely on his own feet, to make or mar his character, than in the military service,” he said. “If you 

want to go back worthy to look your women in the 

face . . . it is up to you, men.”36 Denby spoke to the 

deleterious impact that alcohol and sexual contact 

with diseased women had not just on men’s honor 

but their health as well. Often, when progressives 

spoke of “cleanliness,” they meant clean bodies free 

from not just dirt and grime but also from venereal 

diseases. Around this time American physicians and 

preachers associated “clean living” with strong and 

healthy manhood while “lust, uncleanness, drink, 

gambling, swearing, lying, dishonesty, irreligion” 

could “ruin our Christian manhood.”37 Sergeant Denby drew on these ideas when he spoke with recruits 

34 C. L. S., “The Red Badge of Courage,” 14.

35 “Former Congressman a Marine,” Recruiters’ Bulletin, May 1917, 

32. Perhaps the most famous enlistee the Marine Corps gained 

was former congressman and successful Detroit attorney Edwin 

Denby. Nearly 50, and weighing more than 250 pounds, Denby 

was overage and did not meet the Corps’ physical standards. 

Nevertheless, MajGen George Barnett could not pass up on the 

opportunity to enlist a prominent American citizen. The Corps 

sent Pvt Denby down to the newly established recruit training 

depot at Parris Island, SC. While there, he served as a motivational speaker for new enlistees. When asked by the press why he 

enlisted, Denby replied, “The country needs men.” 

36 Catlin, “With the Help of God and a Few Marines,” 292. 37 Youard, Showing Ourselves Men, 9. For more on cleanliness and 

manhood, see Summerbell, Manhood in Its American Type, 99; and 

John S. P. Tatlock, Why America Fights Germany (Washington, 

DC: Committee on Public Information, 1918), 11. 
12 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

about how the Corps and the war would test them.

Many Americans perceived the war as a matter 

of honor. President Woodrow Wilson described the 

situation as such to persuade the American public of 

what was at stake: 

What great nation in such circumstances 

would not have taken up arms? Much as we 

had desired peace, it was denied us, and not 

of our own choice. This flag under which we 

serve would have been dishonored had we 

withheld our hand.38

American writing around this time took on chivalrous tones. The Germans insulted the United States 

with unrestricted submarine warfare that drowned 

American civilians. German foreign minister Arthur 

Zimmerman’s telegram to Mexico City called on Mexicans to invade the United States. To restrain from 

violence would have meant shrinking in the face of 

the enemy. That was a decidedly unmanly thing for a 

nation to do. On the congressional floor, one orator 

proclaimed: 

I regret that we are to have war; but if we 

are to maintain our self-respect, if we are 

to encourage the cultivation and development 

of those virile and patriotic virtues among our 

citizens, without which our Government 

cannot and should not survive, if we are 

not to become the laughing stock of mankind, mocked at and reviled by every other nation of the world, if we are not to be 

derided and sneered at as a Nation of degenerates, of money changers, and of cowards, is anything left to do consistent with 

a decent self-respect than to acknowledge 

the unquestioned fact that the German 

Government has waged war against us, to 

accept the challenge that has been so recklessly repeated in continued acts of war and 

aggression against us, and to meet it like and 

38 Woodrow Wilson, “Flag Day Address (June 14, 1917),” in Liberty, 

Peace, and Justice, Riverside Literature Series (Boston: Houghton 

Mifflin, 1918), 86. This speech was delivered in Washington, DC, 

on 14 June 1917. 

in the only manner befitting a great and a patriotic and manly nation? 39

Germany had thrown down the gauntlet and American manhood would have to accept the challenge or 

live in disgrace.

Chivalry coursed through Americans’ wartime 

perceptions of their own manhood.40 Popular conceptions of true manliness consisted of self-control 

and the courage to sacrifice for the greater good. A 

man needed courage “to play the man in life, to put 

his life in for all it is worth—this sort of manliness 

rings true, and often sounds its clear note of chivalry, nobility and Christian knightliness,” wrote George 

Walker Fiske.41 Even before America declared war on 

Germany, writers described American men as chivalrous. One characteristic of this was caring for others 

and helping people in need. One author wrote, “we . 

. . must recognize our American man as the knightly soul of the twentieth-century.”42 In the context of 

World War I, Americans and Marines saw themselves 

as chivalrous crusaders sent to rescue their allies from 

German barbarity.

Chivalry, with its emphasis on honor, Christianity, and battlefield prowess, was a much older cultural 

understanding of manliness that appeared often in 

Marine wartime imagery. In one image in the Marines’ 

Magazine, a Marine is depicted charging through a 

fire- and smoke-licked door of a church. Behind him 

is a crusader bedecked in armor with his sword drawn 

(figure 2). The artist saw the Marines as the modernday equivalent of crusaders of old sent to fight for a 

high and holy cause (democracy, in this case) in a foreign land against infidels (the Germans).

Two additional images conveyed the same theme 

of Marines coming to the rescue of Western civilization. The first depicts a small Marine with a bayo39 Congressional Record Containing the Proceedings and Debates of the 

First Session of the Sixty-Fifth Congress, 383–84, emphasis added. 40 Congressional Record Containing the Proceedings and Debates of 

the First Session of the Sixty-Fifth Congress, 383–84; Fiske, Boy Life 

and Self-Government, 17; and Summerbell, Manhood in Its American 

Type, 112–13. 41 Fiske, Boy Life and Self-Government, 17. 42 Summerbell, Manhood in Its American Type, 112–13.
SUMMER 2018 13

neted rifle chasing a caricature of the European war 

fleeing in terror; above him is a feminine-looking angel of peace (figure 3). The second image again shows a 

Marine confronting a savage-looking German to save 

civilization, personified here in the form of a helpless 

woman on the ground; behind them, Europe burns 

(figure 4). Both highly romanticized and symbolic images convey the belief that Marines saw themselves as 

brave men out to save civilization.

This imagery was founded upon the demonization of the German, the feminization of civilization, 

and the masculinization of Marines. Germans in these 

images appear barbaric and animalistic. Civilization 

appears in both images either as a woman supporting or being saved by the hero: the U.S. Marine. The 

savagery of the German is important in these images 

because of the stark contrast it creates with the other 

two figures. In these images, German barbarity enhanced the manliness of the Marine and the femininity of the woman.

This artwork reflects American writings and 

speeches that demonized German soldiers and painted 

Paul Woyshner, Marines’ Magazine, June 1917

Figure 2. “The Crusaders: The Old and the New.” 

Charles Elder Hays, Marines’ Magazine, October 1917

Figure 3. “U.S. Marine and European War.”

J. H. Ambrose, Marines’ Magazine, August 1917

Figure 4. “The Rescuer.”
14 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

them as savages who had lost their manhood to zealous 

militarism and barbarity.43 Marines hoped to demonstrate that Americans had not parted ways with their 

manhood the way the Germans had through their cruelty. They would stand up to the Germans and defeat 

them, the way knights of old slew monsters in fairy 

tales.

Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels spoke of 

this quest as a great opportunity for the young men of 

America. Fate had given them the chance to be heroes 

and to make the world a better place. To the Naval 

Academy’s 1918 graduating class he said, 

Fortunate youth! Fortunate because it is 

given you to prove that the age of chivalry 

is not dead—that chivalry was never more 

alive than now. The holiest of crusades was 

motivated by no finer impulse than has 

brought us into this war. To prove that life 

means more than force; to prove that principle is still worth fighting for; to prove 

that freedom means more than dollars; that 

self-respect is better than compromise; to 

be ready to sacrifice all so that the world 

may be made the better—what nobler dedication of himself can a man make?44

The young men going off to war had the chance to 

demonstrate American valor and honor. An entire 

American army, and two regiments of Marines in 

France, were about to get this opportunity. 

The Sacrifice of Manhood

Costly attacks across the wheat fields into Belleau 

Wood and its surroundings hold a strong place in Marine lore in part because the 5th and 6th Regiments 

suffered 1,087 casualties in one day. One month of combat for those woods yielded more than 4,598 casualties 

43 Wilson, “Flag Day Address (June 14, 1917),” 87; Tatlock, Why 

America Fights Germany, 5; and Ralph Tyler Flewelling, Philosophy 

and the War (New York: The Abingdon Press, 1918), 35. 44 Josephus Daniels, “As They Go Forth to Battle,” in The Navy and 

the Nation: The War-Time Addresses (New York: George H. Doran 

Co., 1919), 171. 

in the 4th Brigade alone.45 These casualties became a 

testament to Marine character and manhood. Shortly 

after the Armistice, three veteran Marines, Kemper F. 

Cowing, Courtney Ryley Cooper, and Morgan Dennis, published “Dear Folks at Home---”: The Glorious Story of the United States Marines in France as Told by Their 

Letters from the Battlefield.46 The book is full of masculine imagery presented in prose and graphic art. The 

editors picked letters for public consumption, which 

transformed them from personal missives into public expressions of Marine masculine culture. Through 

these letters, “Dear Folks at Home” also captures a carefully curated version of Marines’ combat experience. 

For much of the collection, Cowing and Cooper 

culled letters that contained ripping yarns of combat, 

danger, and Marine prowess. These letters were full of 

bravado to show readers the stuff of which Marines 

were made. Private Walter Scott Hiller expressed this 

pride to his mother when he wrote home from the 

front, “Do you think any man would regret being a 

part of such an organization, that have proven to be 

real fighters, that can go up against the Kaiser’s bestequipped and well-trained forces and give them the 

defeat we did? Not this man.”47 There was no cynicism or irony in these letters, which would later become common themes in post–Great War literature.48

These letters from France often expressed notions of manhood and sacrifice. One gets the impres45 Maj Edwin N. McClellan, The United States Marine Corps in the 

World War (Washington, DC: Historical Branch, Headquarters 

Marine Corps, 1920), 115.

46 Kemper F. Cowing, comp., and Courtney Ryley Cooper, ed., 

“Dear Folks at Home---”: The Glorious Story of the United States Marines in France as Told by Their Letters from the Battlefield (Boston: 

Houghton Mifflin, 1919), 3. Cowing compiled wartime letters 

penned by Marines, Morgan Dennis provided illustrations, and 

Cooper served as the editor. 

47 Walter Scott Hiller to his family, 16 June 1918, “Dear Folks at 

Home---,” 118. 

48 Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory (New York: 

Oxford University Press, 1975), 7–18; also see Mary Loeffelholz, 

ed., “World War I and Its Aftermath,” in The Norton Anthology of 

American Literature, 1914–1945, vol. D, 7th ed. (New York: Norton, 

2007), 1371–72; Jon Stallworthy and Jahan Ramazani, eds., “Voices 

From World War I,” in The Norton Anthology of English Literature: 

The Twentieth Century and After, vol. F, 8th ed. (New York: Norton, 2006), 1954–55. 
SUMMER 2018 15

sion that Marines fought and died at Belleau Wood 

with smiles on their faces. Lieutenant Merwin H. Silverthorne told his family that they were happy to go 

over the top and fight the Germans.

The first time I went “over the top” was on 

June 6th. Oh, what a happy bunch we were! 

I and the best friend I had were shaking 

hands with one another, happy and exultant in the fact that at last we were “going 

over.”49

When Silverthorne’s friend (a Marine he identifies as Steve Sherman) died from machine gun fire 

during their assault across the wheat field, he referenced his fallen comrade’s manliness explicitly: “He 

had met his end, but he met it like a hero, an American, and a man.”50

Silverthorne’s friend apparently died happy, 

at least according to the Marines who saw him fall: 

“They all are unanimous in saying he fell fighting with 

his face toward the enemy and a smile on his face.”51

Corporal John F. Pinson’s letter home also spoke of 

Marines enjoying the battle because it got them out 

of the trenches and into open warfare. “It was a real 

battle, and being in the open through wheat-fields 

and farm lands, was much to the Americans’ liking,” 

he claimed.52 According to Pinson, Marines enjoyed 

the bayonet charge across the wheat field. “The boys 

all swung into action,” Pinson wrote, “laughing and 

kidding each other as they charged the German machine guns as if they were at a drill, dropping every 

twenty yards or so to rake the German lines with rifle 

and machine-gun fire.”53 The editors of “Dear Folks at 

Home” must have found this last quotation particularly inspiring. They used a drawing by Morgan Dennis 

to depict the very scene that Pinson described. The 

Marines in this picture seem happy conducting the attack, exploding shells notwithstanding (figure 5). 

49 Merwin H. Silverthorne to his parents, 1 July 1918, “Dear Folks 

at Home---,” 118, hereafter Silverthorne letter. 

50 Silverthorne letter, 118. 

51 Silverthorne letter, 119. 

52 John F. Pinson to his family [no date given], “Dear Folks at Home-

--,” 160, hereafter Pinson letter. 

53 Pinson letter, 160. 

Cowing and Cooper used other images by Dennis 

to depict scenes of aggression and bravery that Marines 

described in their letters. Private E. A. Wahl wrote,

The spirit of our men is wonderful. It is beyond the wildest imagination. They walk 

right into the rifle and machine-gun fire in 

the most matter-of-fact way. They have just 

taken the Boches off their feet.54

Captain George W. Hamilton wrote about the 

first day of the Battle of Belleau Wood (6 June 1918), 

when his company assaulted across a wheat field under heavy German machine gun fire. The 49th Company, 5th Regiment, suffered heavy casualties that day. 

But his telling, accompanied by a drawing of a Marine 

charging a German machine gun crew, gives the impression that this was just another example of cour54 E. A. Wahl to Ann, 27 June 1918, “Dear Folks at Home---,” 143–44. 

Morgan Dennis, “Dear Folks at Home---” 

Figure 5. “The Boys All Swung into Action Laughing and Kidding 

Each Other.” 
16 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

age and prowess (figure 6). “It was only because we 

rushed the positions that we were able to take them,” 

he claimed, “as there were too many guns to take in 

any other way.”55 

Another image depicted a story told by Major 

Henry N. Manney Jr., the quartermaster of the 6th 

Regiment. According to Manney, the battle was deadly, but “the Marines lived up to their reputation and 

even bettered it. . . . This is open warfare, just our style, 

and nothing could be finer than the way our men went 

to it.”56 The image that accompanied Manney’s letter 

depicts a Marine protecting a wounded comrade. Together, they lay next to a thicket with artillery shells 

55 George W. Hamilton to his family, 25 June 1918, “Dear Folks at 

Home---,” 127. 

56 Henry N. Manney to his mother, 10 June 1918, “Dear Folks at 

Home---,” 135–36.

bursting midair in the background. The wounded Marine stares off into the distance, while dogged determination marks the face of his friend, protective but 

still battling (figure 7). 

To the compilers of this collection, tales of bravery and sacrifice meant Marines were exceptional men. 

Lieutenant Silverthorne wrote of losing some of his 

friends in combat. “A pang of deep sorrow will always 

pierce my heart when I think of some of my bosom 

friends,” he claimed, “men young in years, but men from 

the ground up, who have made the supreme sacrifice.”57

Their sacrifices at Belleau Wood revealed that 

Marines’ identity went deeper than their warrior image. Cowing and Cooper summed up the Marines of 

the 4th Brigade when they wrote, 

And these letters, with their optimism, 

with their cheer and their smiles, show that 

the Marines who were battling against the 

57 Silverthorne letter, 117–18. 

Morgan Dennis, “Dear Folks at Home---” 

Figure 6. “It Was Only Because We Rushed.” 

Morgan Dennis, “Dear Folks at Home---” 

Figure 7. “This Is Open Warfare, Just Our Style.” 
SUMMER 2018 17

Hun were something more than fighters. 

They were men—men in action and men in 

thought.58

The level of hope and emotions conveyed in their 

letters home meant their fighting spirit was restrained 

enough to hold on to their humanity. They had not 

given into the barbarism that American propaganda 

claimed had corrupted Germany’s manhood. 

Passing the Test

Sacrificing their own lives, in part, won Marines great 

acclaim despite official policies regarding press censorship. Army General John J. Pershing’s press policy dictated that no specific information regarding 

individual units could be reported to the American 

newspapers. Reporters, however, could label troops 

as Marines or soldiers if they omitted designations of 

division, regiment, or battalion. Through that censorship loophole, the American public received joyous 

news in June 1918 of U.S. Marines defeating the Germans in battle. Floyd Gibbons, a Chicago Tribune correspondent, had much to do with this public relations 

boon.59 After Marines successfully assaulted Hill 142 in 

the early morning hours of 6 June, he sent a brief report of it to Paris, which then went on to the United 

States.60 The front page of the Chicago Tribune that day 

read, “U.S. Marines Smash Huns: Gain Glory in Brisk 

Fight on the Marne.”61 That very evening, Gibbons 

suffered three hits from a German machine gun: two 

rounds through his left arm and one in the left eye. A 

few hours later, Gibbons crawled to safety under the 

cover of darkness.62 

58 Cowing and Cooper, “Dear Folks at Home---,” 169. 

59 Millett, Semper Fidelis, 303; Lengel, Thunder and Flames, 111–12; 

Simmons, The United States Marines, 99; and Moskin, The U.S. Marine Corps Story, 99–100. 60 Floyd Gibbons, “And They Thought We Wouldn’t Fight” (New York: 

George H. Doran Co., 1918), 298; another version of Gibbons’s 

report can be found in Abbot, Soldiers of the Sea, 298–300. 61 “U.S. Marines Smash Huns: Gain Glory in Brisk Fight on the 

Marne,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 6 June 1918, 1; and “Associated 

Press Dispatches Citing Marines in France,” Marine Corps Gazette

3, no. 2 (June 1918): 158–59. 62 Gibbons, “And They Thought We Wouldn’t Fight,” 312–22.

While recovering, Gibbons constructed one of 

the most significant and powerful images of the Great 

War-era Marine Corps. Unlike Vera Cruz (1914) and 

the battles that came a generation later in World War 

II, there were no influential photographs taken of Marines in France. For much of American society, this 

dearth of iconic imagery from the western front led 

to a general fading of public remembrance of Belleau 

Wood and the Great War.63 However, Gibbons’s description of a Marine gunnery sergeant’s words to his 

men right before they attacked across the machinegun-swept wheat fields created an indelible image not 

forgotten by Marines today:

The minute for the Marine advance was approaching. An old gunnery sergeant commanded the platoon in the absence of a 

lieutenant, who had been shot and was out 

of the fight. This old sergeant was a Marine 

veteran. His cheeks were bronzed with the 

wind and sun of the seven seas. The service 

bar across his left breast showed that he had 

fought in the Philippines, in Santo Domingo, at the walls of Pekin, and in the streets 

of Vera Cruz. I make no apologies for his 

language. . . . To me his words were classic, 

if not sacred. As the minute for the advance 

arrived, he arose from the trees first and 

jumped out onto the exposed edge of that 

field that ran with lead, across which he and 

his men were to charge. Then he turned to 

give the charge order to the men of his platoon—his mates—the men he loved. He said: 

“Come on, you sons-o’-bitches! Do you want 

to live forever?”64

Gunnery Sergeant Dan Daly is thought to be the 

Marine that Gibbons described.65 By 1918, Daly had 

been in the Marine Corps for 19 years and won two 

medals of honor. He was the epitome of what a tough 

63 Licursi, Remembering World War I, xv. 

64 Gibbons, “And They Thought We Wouldn’t Fight,” 304. 

65 Simmons, The United States Marines, 99.
18 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

Marine should be.66 Gibbons’s imagery of this scene 

would help paint the soldiers of the sea as fearless heroes and men from their boots up.

What happened when news of the U.S. Marines’ victory against the Germans reached America 

was nothing short of a public relations dream for the 

Corps. “The United States Marines were the toast of 

New York yesterday,” the New York Times reported. “Everywhere one went in the cars, on the streets, in hotels 

or sky scrapers, the topic was on the marines, who are 

fighting with such glorious success in France.”67 Finally, 

the Marines had proven what many Americans wanted to believe: that American manhood could pass the 

supreme test of battle. “The battle on the entire front 

has lifted the Americans into the spotlight and convinced everyone that if needed the Americans have the 

spirit, dash, and tenacity to fight as well as any living 

soldiers,” read the Times-Picayune.

68 The Marines “have 

proved that the American can fight, even if he wasn’t 

brought up to be a soldier,” read another article.69

Marine historians tend to agree that World War 

I did more for bringing positive attention to the Marine Corps than any other event in the Service’s history up to that point.70 Marine manliness, performed 

and demonstrated on the battlefields of France, was 

66 “Three Times, But Not Out Yet,” Marines’ Magazine, October 

1918, 11–12; “Heroes of Belleau Wood Come Back Smiling,” Recruiters’ Bulletin, September 1918, 49; and Abbot, Soldiers of the 

Sea, 309–10. 67 “Valor of Marines Stirs All America,” New York Times, 9 June 

1918, 2. 

68 Don Martin, “Heroic Marines Whip Back Huns and Hold 

Gains,” Times-Picayune (New Orleans), 9 June 1918. 

69 Don Martin, “U.S. Marines Scored One of Biggest Allied 

Successes in Marne Fighting,” Washington Post, 8 June 1918; and 

“Marines Carve Lasting Niche in Fame’s Hall Recruits Flock to 

Ranks of Corps Whose Slogan Is ‘First to Fight’,” Times-Picayune, 

24 June 1918, 7. “When the Marines at Château Thierry surprised 

their foes by the determination of their advance they evidenced 

the kind of enthusiasm that is characteristic of all Americans 

and more intensely characteristic of the Marine than any other 

branch of the American military establishment,” “Marines Carve 

Lasting Niche.”

70 Millett, Semper Fidelis, 317; Moskin, The U.S. Marine Corps Story, 

144; and Marshall, “It Means Something These Days to Be a Marine,” 

353.

central to that popularity.71 “What sort of men are 

they?” asked Reginald W. Kauffman, a journalist for 

The Living Age. “‘The best,’ they will say—and, after 

living among them, I am not so sure that they are 

wrong.”72 The Marines at Belleau Wood convinced the 

Germans that Americans were a superior class of men, 

according to Floyd Gibbons. “The German has met 

the American on the battlefield of France and knows 

that man for man, the American soldier is better,” he 

boasted.73

French accolades lent further credence to the 

notion that American manhood had passed the test 

of battle. The French government renamed Belleau 

Wood Le Bois de la Brigade de Marine (Woods of the 

Marine Brigade) in honor of their victory. These 

were the woods “where the American Marines vanquished the flower of the Kaiser’s army.”74 Their success inspired their allies. “The Americans advanced 

in a solid phalanx, their strong determined faces and 

great physique an inspiration to their gallant French 

comrades,” claimed the Washington Post.

75 The famous 

French painter, Georges Scott, created La Brigade Marine Americaine Au Bois De Belleau to commemorate 

the American victory there.76 Full of the detritus and 

drab colors of modern war, La Brigade Marine presents 

a powerful scene of Marines driving the Germans before them. The Germans, so often depicted as monsters in other images, are reeling in defeat (figure 8). 

71 For how gender can be understood as a performance, see Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity

(New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1990).

72 Reginald Wright Kauffman, “The American Marines,” Living 

Age, July 1918, 45. 73 Kemper F. Cowing, “Floyd Gibbons, Devil Dog by Nature,” Marines’ Magazine, October 1918, 15. 74 “Bois Brigade De Marines, Name Given Belleau Wood, in Honor of U.S. Forces,” Washington Post, 11 August 1918; “Belleau Wood 

Given New Name in Honor of U.S. Marine Brigade,” Washington 

Post, 12 July 1918; McClellan, The United States Marine Corps in the 

World War, 62–63; and Millett, Semper Fidelis, 303–4. 

75 “U.S. Marines, Fighting Like Tigers, Hurl Foe Back nearly a 

Mile,” Washington Post, 7 June 1918. 

76 “French Artist Depicts U.S. Marines’ Victory,” Courier-Journal

(Louisville, KY), 10 October 1918, 2. 
SUMMER 2018 19

Marines: 

The Pride of American Manhood

For many Marines in France, occupation duty kept 

them busy along the Rhine until the summer of 1919. 

Most of them shipped home by August. When they 

arrived, the war had been over for nine months, and 

most of the troops had already returned. When the 2d 

Division reached American shores, the press treated 

them like heroes.

On 9 August 1919, the 2d Division, comprising 

both Army infantry and Marines, marched in Washington, DC, in a grand parade. Leading the column 

was the division commander astride a bay charger, 

Marine Major General John A. Lejeune. The parade 

drew huge crowds of people who cheered them on, 

waved American flags, and pelted the troops with 

roses. “This beats hand grenades,” a Marine sergeant 

reportedly said after catching some roses for himself.77

Lejeune greeted the crowds with broad smiles and 

waves as he led his men down the street and through 

the throngs of people to where the president, the secretary of the Navy, the Commandant of the Marine 

Corps, and other high-ranking military officers waited to review the troops.

Near the public library stood the reviewing 

stand and about 500 wounded veterans of the war. The 

crowds cheered even louder when they saw Lejeune 

remove his hat and nod in tribute to them. “Here 

come the Marines!” many cried as the 4th Brigade began to approach the reviewing stand led by Marine 

Brigadier General William C. Neville. “West Pointers 

never marched with more dash or vim than did these 

men,” a reporter claimed. “Everyone agreed that a fin77 “Devil Dog Division Captures Fifth Ave,” New York Times, 9 

August 1919, 9.

Georges Scott

Figure 8. La Brigade Marine Americaine Au Bois De Belleau, originally published in the United States Collier’s New Encyclopedia, vol. 10 (1921). 
20 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

er body of men was never seen in Fifth Avenue than 

the men commanded by Neville,” the report read. As 

the column passed the reviewing stand, the wounded 

Marine veterans standing near the public library “simply went wild.” Major General Commandant Barnett 

stood next to Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin 

D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt turned to Barnett and said, 

“I never saw a finer looking body of men and I never 

witnessed a more inspiring parade.” Barnett replied, 

“No wonder the Germans lost.”78

The Marines became a source of national pride. 

They did not defeat the Germans on their own, of 

course. The Army deserved more credit for fighting 

in the Château-Thierry sector than it received from 

the press, despite attempts of some Marines and journalists to correct misinformation.79 But many people 

associated the Marines with Germany’s defeat. The 

Washington Post published poems that credited the victory solely to the Marines. Isabel Likens Gates wrote 

a poem about the Marines fighting at Belleau Wood:

Awful and fierce the combat raged.

As the Huns came, wave on wave,

Against our men, and steel to steel,

Mid shot and shell, they’d break and reel

And at last before us gave

Our loss was great, but it sealed the fate

Of the Huns—and the world esteems

Like Spartans of old this tale will be told

Of Uncle Sam’s marines80

Bessie B. Croffut published a poem for the Marines shortly after their return home. The battles of 

the summer of 1918 were fresh in her mind as she 

78 “Devil Dog Division Captures Fifth Ave,” 9. For more descriptions of this parade and ones like it, see “Governor Hugs Hero 

Marines at Glory Fete,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 24 August 1919, 3; 

“March of Marines Thrills the Capital: 8,000 Men of the Fourth 

Brigade Are Reviewed by President, Cabinet, and Diplomats,” 

New York Times, 13 August 1919; and “More ‘Leathernecks,’ World 

War Heroes, Back in America,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 7 August 

1919. 

79 Edwin L. James, “Stories of the War that Didn’t Happen: Even 

the Marines Themselves Admit They Have Received an Oversupply of Credit,” New York Times, 25 May 1919. 80 Isabel Likens Gates, “The United States Marines,” Washington 

Post, 12 August 1919, 6. 

wrote specifically to praise the returning 4th Brigade. 

She presented the Marines as heroes:

Invincibles, at Belleau Wood who

fought

(“Hellwood,” now Wood of the U.S. 

Marines!)

Who stayed the Hun and there his 

lesson taught!

Whatever they call you, “leathernecks,” “gyrenes,”

“Go-Getters,” “devil-dogs,” you were 

the means 

Under a righteous God! You inspiration caught

From Freedom’s fount, to end those godless scenes 

And immortality with your best lifeblood bought!

You have redeemed your boast,

that of your corps—

As of your country—first in fight

to be

Where brave men battle for the right

and true!

You’ve shown the world what you

had shown before

Sailors of air and soldiers of the 

sea!

“There’s not a thing on earth U.S. 

Marines can’t do!”81

Conclusion

Because of Belleau Wood, Marines became the pride 

of their country briefly, the beau ideal of American 

manhood. The editors of the Recruiters’ Bulletin asked 

state governors from around the country to record 

their thoughts on the Corps, especially their performance in the Great War. Many of their responses 

were unequivocal. “In the Marine, the bloody Hun 

met his master,” Frederick D. Gardner of Missouri 

proclaimed. “The dauntless courage, the intrepidity 

and the dash of the Marines . . . filled the German 

soldiery with fear, sent a thrill through the armies 

81 Bessie B. Croffut, “U.S. Marines,” Washington Post, 19 August 

1919, 8. 
SUMMER 2018 21

of democracy and struck the world with wonder and 

amazement.”82

If American manhood defeated Germany, then 

Marines were its best examples. “They, the best red 

blooded, manhood, and flowery youth took the 

consequences in whatever fashion as they came,” 

one civilian author wrote.83 “You see—it was men, 

wasn’t it, who beat the Germans? Men who became 

fighters, Marines,” wrote another.84 Governor Hugh 

M. Dorsey of Georgia claimed that “the splendid 

achievements of the Marines in the World War are 

well known, they were the cleanest and strongest of 

our young manhood.”85 Many Americans looked to 

the Marine Corps now as an institution comprised 

of good men. “The Marine Corps stands for all that 

is good in the ideals of manhood—for strength, for 

loyalty, for fidelity and for cleanliness in mind and 

body,” Colorado governor Oliver H. Shoup asserted. 

“If you are a he-man, if you want action—enlist in 

the Marines!”86

Marines began immortalizing the Battle of Belleau Wood immediately after the war. “Dear Folks at 

Home---” and Catlin’s “With the Help of God and a Few 

Marines” came out in 1919. Charles Scribner’s Sons 

published Thomas Boyd’s Through the Wheat in 1923 

and John W. Thomason’s Fix Bayonets! two years later. 

Boyd and Thomason both fought at Belleau Wood. 

One of Thomason’s lasting contributions to the Corps’ 

remembrance of the battle was his depiction of the 

men who fought there:

They were the Leathernecks, the Old Timers. . . . They were the old breed of American 

regular, regarding the service as home and 

war as an occupation; and they transmitted their temper and character and viewpoint [sic] to the high hearted volunteer 

82 Frederick D. Gardner, “Governors Endorse the Marine Corps,” 

Recruiters’ Bulletin, December 1919, 6.

83 M. Krakower, “Schoolboy Essays Pay Original Tributes to Men 

of the Corps,” Marines’ Bulletin, January 1919, 28. 

84 William Almon Wolff, “Leading Advertising Experts Commend Success of Marines’ Publicity Campaign,” Marines’ Bulletin, 

Christmas 1918, 6. 

85 Dorsey, “Governors Endorse the Marine Corps.”

86 Shoup, “Governors Endorse the Marine Corps,” 29.

mass which filled the ranks of the Marine 

Brigade.87 

These Marines were tough, rugged, courageous, 

and confident. Several years after the battle, a retired 

Army officer who witnessed the Marines march up 

the Paris-Metz highway toward the fight remarked 

to Thomason that “they looked fine, coming in there .

. . . Tall fellows, healthy and fit—they looked hard and 

competent. We watched you going in . . . and we all 

felt better.”88

Near the fifth anniversary of the Battle of Belleau 

Wood, one Marine claimed that “recollection of those 

days of strife stirs all that is best in us; pride in the 

manhood of America, pride in the achievement of our 

Corps, pride in possession of our noble traditions.” 

The pride in themselves needed channeling into determination, “determination to be men, determination to keep bright the reputation won for us.”89 They 

tried to persuade people that they were elite warriors. 

But, deeper than that, they convinced themselves and 

many others that they were men. “The Marine Corps 

has made a wonderful name for itself,” wrote Arthur 

J. Burks, a Marine recruiter. He argued that when people described Marines they used descriptions in the 

following order: “‘cream of American manhood,’ ‘hemen,’ and the like.”90

Historians have stood clear of a gender analysis 

of the Corps, however. Regarding the Great War era, 

historians of gender have largely ignored the military, 

and military historians have largely ignored gender. 

Marion Sturkey’s Warrior Culture of the U.S. Marines 

probably speaks for many on the military side when he 

wrote, “Gender? Who knows? Who Cares? . . . Therefore, with respect to gender this book contains no deranged psycho-babble. . . . Any wacko liberal wimps 

who dislike this Warrior Culture ethos should find 

87 John W. Thomason, Fix Bayonets! With the U.S. Marine Corps in 

France, 1917–1918 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925), x–xi. 88 Thomason, Fix Bayonets!, xiii. 

89 “Belleau Wood,” Leatherneck, 9 June 1923, 8. 90 Lt Arthur J. Burks, “Selling the Corps,” Marine Corps Gazette 9, 

no. 2 (June 1924): 114.
22 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

something else to read.”91 He, like many military historians, does not see the value of studying manhood and 

masculinity in the Marine Corps.

What they all have missed is that Marines often 

communicated with each other and with the American public using shared ideas of manhood and masculinity. Americans praised the Marines using those 

notions. Battles like Belleau Wood became proof that 

Marines were good for the manhood of the country 

and that they gave American men the opportunity to 

be courageous, chivalrous, and battle-tested. Americans understood this message, and many believed it. 

Manhood continued to be important to Marines in the decades following the Great War. In 1930, 

a writer for Leatherneck claimed that Marines made 

men into gentlemen. Marines had “evolved from the 

mere waterfront brawlers of a former day to gentlemen of the first order,” and “it has not sapped their 

manhood or their ability to fight in the least.”92 During World War II, Captain Edward B. Irving claimed 

that the Marine Corps had reached the “full stature of 

its military manhood” and still made “gentlemen who 

can fight like hell!”93 In 1955, First Lieutenant Walter 

K. Wilson claimed that a man “should be sent to boot 

camp with the understanding that he is not only undergoing training and toughening up, but that he is 

encountering a test of manhood as well and is expected to face up to it.” Once he becomes a Marine, “he 

91 Marion F. Sturkey, Warrior Culture of the U.S. Marines, 3d ed. 

(Plumb Branch, SC: Heritage Press, 2010), xii.

92 “Yesterday and Today,” Leatherneck, August 1930, 26. 93 Edward B. Irving, “How Does the Marine Corps of 1918 Compare with the Marine Corps of 1942?,” Leatherneck, November 

1942, 272.

should feel that he is accepted as a man and that he is 

capable of shouldering his responsibilities.”94 The July 

1975 issue of Leatherneck published Victor Krulak’s letter to General Randolph M. Pate, where he claimed 

“that our Corps is downright good for the manhood of 

our country.”95 In the late 1970s, Marine General Robert H. Barrow wrote,

The opportunity for legitimate proving 

of one’s manliness is shrinking. A notable 

exception is the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps’ reputation, richly deserved, for 

physical toughness, courage and demands 

on mind and body, attracts those who want 

to prove their manliness. Here too their 

search ends.96

Battles like Belleau Wood became prima facie evidence in support of the Marines’ image and appeal 

throughout the twentieth century.

A study of manhood in the Marine Corps uncovers another rich layer of the institution’s past. It 

further reveals that the Corps flexed strong cultural 

muscles that would contribute to its staying power 

throughout the twentieth century. It also shows that 

there is still a great deal of work to do to fully understand and appreciate the history of America’s Great 

War-era Marines and the significance of the battles 

they fought.

• 1775 •

94 1stLt Walter K. Wilson III, “Reality: The Basic Premise of Democracy Is Philosophically Incompatible with the Efficiency of a 

Military Organization,” Marine Corps Gazette 39, no. 2 (February 

1955): 37. 

95 Victor H. Krulak, “Who Needs a Marine Corps?,” Leatherneck, 

July 1975, 11. 

96 Moskin, The U.S. Marine Corps Story, 712; and James A. Warren, 

American Spartans—The U.S. Marines: A Combat History from Iwo 

Jima to Iraq (New York: Free Press, 2005), 26. 
The U.S. Army’s 

Influence on Marine 

Corps Tank Doctrine

by Major Joseph DiDomenico, USA1

Doctrine provides solutions to tactical or operational problems. It is the frame of reference used by soldiers and leaders to organize, 

train, and fight. Over time, these principles become 

the paradigm for how units function, enabling troops 

and commanders to act quickly against foreseeable 

threats. In November 1943, crisis shifted the doctrinal 

paradigm for the U.S. Marine Corps at the Battle of 

Tarawa. When the battle ended, it cost the 2d Marine 

Division 3,301 casualties in only three days of combat. 

Armored forces in particular took upwards of 86 percent losses—the result of poor communication, poor 

planning, and ineffective firepower.2

 The American 

public demanded that Marine Corps leaders be held 

accountable for what they considered a catastrophic 

military failure.3 Commanding officers in the Fleet 

Marine Force (FMF) acknowledged improvements 

must be made to correct the problems encountered on 

Betio Island, among them the ineffective employment 

1

 Joseph DiDomenico is a major in the U.S. Army. He received a 

bachelor’s degree in history from the Virginia Military Institute, 

a master’s degree in military history from Norwich University, 

and a master’s in theater operations from the U.S. Army School 

of Advanced Military Studies. He is currently assigned to the 

1st Infantry Division Headquarters as a G5 Plans Officer and is 

deployed to Poland in support of Operation Atlantic Resolve. 

2

 Edward Bale, “Edward Bale Oral History Interview,” interview 

by Clarence Bryk and Wanda Cook, National Museum of the Pacific War, 22 September 2001.

3

 Derrick Wright, Tarawa, 20–23 November 1943: A Hell of a Way to 

Die (London: Windrow and Green, 1996), 150.

of tanks.4 These failures were the catalyst for doctrinal 

and technological changes that affected future Marine 

Corps campaigns in the Pacific theater of operations. 

After World War I and throughout the interwar period, the leadership of the Marine Corps recognized that armored forces would be an important 

factor to support the seizure of advanced bases and 

islands. Of higher priority, however, were developing 

systems to synchronize naval gunfire and developing an amphibious tractor to land troops.5

 After the 

outrage over losses during the Gallipoli campaign 

in 1915, these two problems had to be solved, and 

they overshadowed the incorporation of tanks into 

amphibious operations.6 As a quick and economic 

solution, the Marine Corps Equipment Board purchased tank technology from the U.S. Army in 1938.7

4

 A. H. Nobel, “Brief Report of Amphibious Operations for the 

Capture of the Gilbert Islands,” 6 January 1943, Record Group 

(RG) 38, Box 8, National Archives and Records Administration 

(NARA), College Park, MD; and “Brief on Tarawa Operation,” 

CINCUS Plans Division, 5 December 1943, RG 38, Box 8, NARA.

5

 Kenneth W. Estes, Marines Under Armor: The Marine Corps and 

the Armored Fighting Vehicle, 1916–2000 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2000), 16–17; Jeter A. Isely and Philip A. Crowl, The 

U.S. Marines and Amphibious War: Its Theory, and Its Practice in the 

Pacific (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1951), 23–24; 

and Victor Krulak, First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine 

Corps (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1984), 72–73. 6

 Oscar E. Gilbert, Marine Tank Battles in the Pacific (Boston: Da 

Capo Press, 2001), 16–17.

7

 Chief Ordnance to CMC, 26 April 1938, and minutes of MCEB 

meeting 31 May 1938, RG 127, Box 76, NARA; and LTC Lemuel C. 

Shepherd memo to CMC, 31 May 1938, RG 127, Box 154, NARA.

23
24 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

With this procurement of technology, the Army 

provided the Marine Corps its tactical and organizational doctrine and training at the Army’s tank 

school. The Army’s way of armored warfare became 

the foundation of Marine Corps tank unit structure 

and education. The Army’s armored tactics, however, 

were not designed to operate in the Pacific theater, 

where close infantry coordination was necessary, but 

rather were designed for independent armored formations.8

 The shortcomings of the Army’s tank doctrine 

to support the seizure of advanced bases resulted in 

a dramatic resource- and casualty-intensive progression of Marine Corps tank doctrine throughout operations in the Pacific theater that started at the Battle 

of Tarawa. 

At the start of fighting in the Pacific, Marine 

Corps doctrine regarding the role of tanks in an amphibious assault—outlined in the Tentative Landing Operations Manual of 1934—was vague.9

 As a result, the 

first Marine tank crews were trained to operate in 

independent armored formations. Army units were 

organized into units that extended from the four-tank 

armored platoon up to an entire armored division, 

as dictated by the recently published Army doctrine. 

This tactic was designed for Army units fighting in 

the terrain of Europe and North Africa, where an enemy armored threat was more prevalent. The Marine 

Corps later recognized that independent tank operations in restricted island terrain against an entrenched 

enemy was fatal for many tankers. During the Battle 

of Tarawa, coordination between infantry and armor 

was essential to survival. It forced the Marine Corps 

to modify its tactics and techniques. Tarawa, therefore, became the single point at which the Marine 

Corps’ doctrine and principles of tank warfare began 

to develop differently from the Army’s concept of armored warfare.

This article discusses how Army technology pur8

 Jon T. Hoffman, ed., A History of Innovation: U.S. Army Adaptation in War and Peace (Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of 

Military History, 2009), 53–55. 

9 Tentative Landing Operations Manual (Quantico, VA: Marine 

Corps Schools, 1934), Historical Amphibious File (HAF) 39, Archives Branch, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA.

chased by the Marine Corps Equipment Board in 1938 

hastily forced the Corps to also implement tank doctrine on Army operational principles. The actions of 

Marine Corps units in the central Pacific campaign are 

used as the sample for this assessment. This selection, 

while small, allows us to consider the effects of armor 

doctrine at every echelon of tactical command from 

the company level to the FMF by reviewing ad hoc 

lower-level adjustments to doctrine from the platoon 

to the battalion.10 From the regiment to the division, 

administrative standard operating procedures (SOPs) 

were established by the command to offset unclear or 

ineffective procedures.11 Above the division, organizational change was codified by the Marine Corps in the 

wake of the significant public pressure as a result of 

losses at Tarawa. This is seen in unit tables of organization and the tactical field manuals that were codified 

at the Tank Matters Conference in 1945.12

Context: The Interwar Period

By the close of World War I, the methods used to 

wage war were dramatically different than in previous 

10 Bale, “Edward Bale Oral History Interview”; and “Special Action Report of the Second Tank Battalion, from CO 2nd Tk Bn 

to CG 2nd Mar Div,” 14 December 1943, RG 127, Box 70, NARA.

11 R. M. Pate, enclosure A in report of conference, FMF PAC 

[Pacific] draft SOP Tank-Infantry Coordination, RG 127, Box 18, 

NARA; and FMF PAC draft SOP Tank-Infantry Coordination, 

RG 127, Box 18, NARA.

12 Report of conference for C/S FMF PAC, 3 May 1945, Conference on Tank Matters, RG 127, Box 18, NARA; R. K. Schmidt, 

report of conference for C/S FMF PAC, 3 May 1945, Conference 

on Tank Matters, RG 127, Box 18, NARA; R. L. Hall, memo for 

Tank Conference Report, 8 June 1945, RG 127, Box 18, NARA; 

USMC T/O E-80, Tank Battalion, Marine Division, approved 15 

April 1943, Subject Files: Tables of Organization, (E-80), Historical Reference Branch, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, 

VA; USMC T/O F-80, Tank Company, Marine Division, approved 4 May 1944, Subject Files: Tables of Organization, (F-80), 

Historical Reference Branch, Marine Corps History Division; 

USMC T/O G-76, Tank Company, Marine Division, approved 1 

May 1945, Subject Files: Tables of Organization, (G-76), Historical Reference Branch, Marine Corps History Division; USMC 

T/O G-80, Tank Company, Marine Division, approved 1 May 

1945, Subject Files: Tables of Organization, (G-80), Historical 

Reference Branch, Marine Corps History Division; and Amphibious Operations, Employment of Tanks, Phib 18, 1948, HAF 234, 

Archives Branch, Marine Corps History Division.
SUMMER 2018 25

conflicts. New technologies and capabilities like the 

tank, aircraft, accurate indirect fire, and new mechanized lift capabilities as well as the scope of how units 

organized, trained, and deployed were undergoing a 

revolutionary change. Synchronization and combined 

arms became foundational elements for wargames and 

exercises executed during the interwar period.13

Limitations, however, plagued the use of tanks 

during World War I, particularly speed and the considerable amounts of maintenance and logistics support required to ensure they were operational.14 Despite these 

shortcomings, there remained a lot of potential for 

the tank in battle. Its primary role was as an infantry 

support vehicle that had heavy and light capabilities. 

Light tanks boasted more maneuverability and speed 

and therefore offered the ability to exploit weaknesses 

in enemy lines quickly. Heavy tanks, however, had 

the primary mission to protect the infantry during a 

frontal assault on an entrenched position. This protection offered dismounted infantry an opportunity to 

get far enough through the deadly no-man’s-land that 

they would be able to breach the enemy position.15

This new capability gave ground forces breaching and 

outflanking options when assaulting enemy positions 

across a wide breadth of terrain. Ideally, this technology would avoid stagnant trench warfare. 

In 1920, the National Defense Act also played a 

role in the development of armored vehicles for both 

the Marine Corps and the Army. The act assimilated 

the Army tank corps into the infantry branch to preclude overspending by the Army. Simultaneously, the 

Marine Corps focused its efforts on developing mechanized vehicles to move troops and seize advanced naval bases in amphibious operations. Throughout the 

13 COS to CNO, 9 September 1941 and CNO to CoS, 11 September 1941, both in maneuvers memoranda, general correspondence, RG 337, NARA; Christopher R. Gabel, The U.S. Army 

GHQ Maneuvers of 1941 (Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of 

Military History, 1992), 56; and Williamson Murray and Allan 

Millett, eds., Military Innovation in the Interwar Period (New York: 

Cambridge University Press, 1996), 76–77.

14 David E. Johnson, Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers: Innovation in 

the U.S. Army, 1917–1945 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 

1998), 73. 

15 Maj George H. Osterhout Jr., “Tanks: General and Tactical,” 

Marine Corps Gazette 6, no. 3 (September 1921): 269–78.

interwar period, the Marine Corps closely monitored 

the Army’s mechanization process to help advance its 

small force technologically while under generally tight 

fiscal limitations.

In 1931, the mechanization of the Army became a 

critical point for the new chief of staff, General Douglas MacArthur. His guidance, with direction from the 

War Department, placed the lead effort for mechanization on the Army’s Cavalry branch. By 1933, the 

cavalry school published the mechanized manual to establish an initial draft of this experimental doctrine.16

In 1939, Brigadier General Adna Romanza Chaffee Jr., 

an influential leader in mechanized cavalry forces, began to analyze options for organization, doctrine, and 

technology of this force. As the analysis progressed, 

some leaders believed the use of independent armored 

divisions would play a dominant role in modern warfare. Between 1938 and 1941, the Army experimented 

with this concept in the first mechanized training operation known as the “Louisiana Maneuvers.”17

The field training exercises confirmed that 

mechanized forces could play a decisive role on the 

battlefield. With never-before-seen maneuverability 

and the overwhelming shock of their available combat 

power, it became clear that independent armored formations could provide operational and strategic impacts from the tactical level of war. Poland and France 

were invaded in 1940 with armored formations that 

broke through Polish and French defenses. This consequently prompted leaders to split the Army’s cavalry corps into two branches: cavalry and armor. The 

cavalry branch focused on reconnaissance and security 

while the armor branch emphasized decisive action to 

defeat an opposing all-armored force. The Army prepared its armored force to compete with tank divisions sweeping across Europe.18 As a result, the Army 

16 Maj Louis A. Di Marco, USA, “The U.S. Army’s Mechanized 

Cavalry Doctrine in World War II” (master’s thesis, U.S. Army 

Command and General Staff College, 1995), 8.

17 Di Marco, “The U.S. Army’s Mechanized Cavalry Doctrine in 

World War II,” 15.

18 Joseph H. Alexander, “Marine Corps Armor Operations in 

World War II,” in Camp Colt to Desert Storm: The History of U.S. 

Armored Forces, ed. George F. Hofmann and Donn A. Starry (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999): 185–216. 
26 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

began to document its tactics in a series of field manuals. The initial copies of the 17 series of field manuals included The Armored Force, Tactics and Techniques, 

Field Manual (FM) 17-10; Tank Platoon, FM 17-30; Tank 

Company, Light and Medium, FM 17-32; and The Armored 

Battalion, Light and Medium, FM 17-33.19 These manuals 

served as the foundation for tank doctrine and were 

developed throughout the late 1930s. Between 1940 

and 1942, most of the Army’s armored manuals were 

officially published and used to train its units. They 

included lessons of the Louisiana maneuvers and offered methods that could exploit the armored capabilities and maneuverability of the tank.

With technological advances and war looming 

on the horizon, the 1930s became one of the most doctrinally prolific periods in all of American military 

history. The Army developed its mechanized force 

throughout the 1920s and established an all-armored 

force with complex training maneuvers, approved tables of organization, and an entire series of manuals 

by the late 1930s. The Marine Corps, conversely, although it provided observers to the maneuvers, would 

not consider developing or organizing any armored 

units until the middle of the decade because of its focus on amphibious landings. 

In 1933, the Marine Corps established the Fleet 

Marine Force. This expeditionary force was organized 

to plan, support, and conduct amphibious operations 

in any environment. Within these complex operations, delineating roles and responsibilities for land, 

sea, and air forces was a critical concern for the FMF. 

By 1934, the Marine Corps drafted the Tentative Landing Operations Manual, and much like the Army’s 17 series field manuals, it provided structure and clarity to 

much of the complexity in amphibious operations for 

the FMF. It comprehensively covered command relationships, naval gunfire support, aerial support, shipto-shore movement, establishment of the beachhead, 

19 The Armored Force Field Manual, Tactics and Techniques, FM 17-10 

(Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1942); Tank Platoon, FM 17-30 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 

1942); Tank Company, Light and Medium, FM 17-32 (Washington, 

DC: Government Printing Office, 1942); and The Armored Battalion, Light and Medium, FM 17-33 (Washington, DC: Government 

Printing Office, 1942).

logistical activities, and the employment of tanks.20 To 

validate this doctrine, the Marine Corps conducted 

a series of fleet landing exercises (FLEXs). To avoid 

disasters such as those seen in the Gallipoli campaign 

in 1915, the Marine Corps knew it must synchronize 

combat power to efficiently land forces on an enemyheld beach, and it practiced these techniques during 

the FLEXs.

The FLEXs used the Tentative Landing Operations 

Manual as the protocol for organization and execution of amphibious maneuvers. While the Tentative 

Landing Operations Manual was incredibly detailed in 

some ways, in others it was not. It recognized the 

importance of tanks but was relatively vague about 

how to employ them, and it explicitly identified 

light tanks as being the most suitable for amphibious operations.21 Using this regulation as a guideline for amphibious operations, the Marine Corps 

organized its formations with tanks that could both 

meet the expectations of supporting infantry and 

the weight limits for transport by available naval 

shipping.22

To show some critical flaws of this older doctrine, the chapter on employment of tanks deserves 

scrutiny. The section acknowledged the role of tanks 

as an element that can be used to reduce friction at the 

beachhead and assist the infantry advance beyond the 

initial landing zone.23 The manual gives some guidance 

for the tactical employment of tanks in a variety of 

roles. They can support infantry in landings or drive 

forward without infantry support to seize key terrain 

or attack specific objectives that are important to the 

mission at hand.24

This portion of the manual is important because 

it parallels doctrinal employment of Army tanks. In 

the Army, tanks were fundamentally designed to combat armored divisions using mobility to seize terrain 

that was vital for the survival and tactical success of an 

20 Tentative Landing Operations Manual, table of contents. 21 Tentative Landing Operations Manual, 225. 22 Isely and Crowl, The U.S. Marines and Amphibious War, 55, 57; 

and Estes, Marines Under Armor, 9. 23 Tentative Landing Operations Manual, 226. 24 Tentative Landing Operations Manual, 225.
SUMMER 2018 27

operation. The Marine tentative manual clearly supports this opinion. 

In addition, the tactical principles described in 

the manual were considered critical for the employment of tanks. Tanks should be made available in large 

numbers to deliver a concentrated blow to the enemy 

and draw fire or be employed individually to draw fire 

from enemy defenses.25 This expresses the importance 

of mutual support among tanks. Massing the effects of 

armored forces to deliver a decisive blow to the enemy 

as described in the manual would thereby provide mobility to the accompanying infantry forces. This type 

of operation is also very similar to the Army’s theory 

and doctrine for fighting with armored forces. 

Ultimately, the meager two pages on tanks provided by the Tentative Landing Operations Manual were 

inadequate and the manual overall lacked detail on 

tank employment for amphibious operations. The 

Marine Corps’ tentative manual demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of the organization of 

tank units. Furthermore, tank technology had simply 

not been tested and would not be evaluated until the 

FLEXs commenced to validate the use of armor in amphibious assaults. As Marine tank units organized, a 

lack of Marine Corps tank doctrine to guide leaders 

led to a reliance on the Army’s armored force doctrine 

and training. 

In January 1935, the Marine Corps conducted 

FLEX 1. This exercise did not include any of the Corps’ 

tank units due to a shortage of funds. New budgetary 

resources allowed for tank procurement the following 

year and on 1 March 1937, the 1st Tank Company, 1st 

Marine Brigade, was activated at Quantico, Virginia. It was armed with five new Marmon-Herrington 

combat tanks, light (CTL), because they were the 

only armored vehicles at the time capable of meeting 

the weight limitations for transport on board naval 

artillery lighters.26 While the rest of the FMF continued to FLEXs 2 and 3, the newly organized tank 

company conducted organizational training to devel25 Tentative Landing Operations Manual, 226. 26 Arthur E. Burns III, “The Origin and Development of U.S. Marine Corps Tank Units: 1923–1945” (student paper, Marine Corps 

Command and Staff College, 1977), 20.

op further the technical and tactical needs of the unit. 

In January 1938, FLEX 4 took place and became 

the first to include the Marine tankers in an operational role. Although transporting the vehicles to 

shore proved difficult—because only one lighter with 

the capability to carry heavy vehicles was available—

the tactical employment of the tanks was a relative 

success. The tanks landed with the assault force and 

assisted in eliminating resistance on the beach. Conversely, tanks used in the defense provided an outstanding counterattack capability without infantry 

support. A report of the FLEX recounts their success 

as a “brilliant use of tanks made in a counterattack.”27

The initial success of the tanks was promising, but a 

lack of infantry support was considered a success by 

many commanders. This compounded the flaws of armor doctrine not only among the armor units but also 

among operational-level staff that were coordinating 

and planning the employment of tanks in an amphibious operation. 

After FLEX 4, technological advances improved 

the effectiveness of the current Marmon-Herrington 

CTL tanks, which were known to consistently throw 

tracks. After FLEX 5 in 1938, the newer CTL models 

suffered different mechanical issues from stresses induced by speed and lubrication of the vehicle.28 Although the Army’s M2 medium tanks outperformed 

the Marine Corps’ CTLs, the M2s weighed nearly 10 

tons, far too heavy for naval landing craft of the time.29

This forced the Navy to contact a private boat builder 

in New Orleans, Andrew Higgins, to assist in developing landing craft that were capable of giving an amphibious force a heavy lift capacity for newer tanks.30

The Marmon-Herrington manufacturers continued 

to make upgrades and lighten the CTL. However, in 

1938, the Marine Corps Equipment Board met to discuss the future of Marine tanks. They concluded that 

the Marine Corps would purchase some tanks from 

27 Fleet Landing Exercise No. 4 Reports, CG, 1st Marine Brigade, 

12 March 1938, RG 127, Box 2, NARA.

28 Estes, Marines Under Armor, 16–18. 29 Estes, Marines Under Armor, 9. 30 Alexander, “Marine Corps Armor Operations in World War 

II,” 189; and Isely and Crowl, The U.S. Marines and Amphibious 

War, 57. 
28 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

the Army’s arsenal of M2A4 light tanks and test their 

abilities during FLEX 6 in January 1940. 

Following FLEX 6, the Corps’ leadership considered the Army’s M2A4 far superior to the CTL. It offered more firepower and maneuverability, although 

its suspension was susceptible to weakness due to the 

effects of saltwater. Despite this vulnerability, the Marine Corps approved funding to purchase 18–20 of the 

Army’s M2A4 tanks. While the Marines monitored 

the progress of the Army’s tank development, they became aware of the unique and detailed doctrine that 

the Army developed after some lengthy armored maneuvers. 

The Army and Marine Corps developed their respective doctrines to support their new armored and 

amphibious missions. Although they developed their 

concepts separately, the two forces shared critical aspects of their technology and theory. Between 1934 

and 1941, significant training took place between both 

organizations with the objective to refine their tactics. 

Simultaneously, the two organizations shared technological and doctrinal innovations to facilitate preparations for the increasingly imminent threat in Europe 

and the Pacific. The Army and the Marine Corps also 

provided cross-training in amphibious doctrine as well 

as armor doctrine. The Army used the Navy’s Landing 

Operations Doctrine, Fleet Training Publication (FTP) 

167 (1938), almost verbatim to formulate its Landing 

Operations on Hostile Shores, FM 31-5 (1941). 

The interwar period saw aggressive mechanized 

training programs develop across the Army. In July 

1940, General Adna Chaffee was appointed as the 

chief of the Army’s armor branch and was given complete control over its doctrine, organization, and 

equipment.31 Chaffee, raised as a cavalry officer, became a staunch supporter of an independent armored 

force. The War Department accepted his general view 

of establishing an armored force and published it as 

doctrine in Field Service Regulations: Operations, FM 

100-5. It described the armored division as the basic 

unit of the combined arms that can conduct independent operations. It is organized specifically to per31 F. M. Andrews memo to Adjutant General, G-3, 5 July 1940, 

RG127, Box 8, NARA.

form missions that require mobility and firepower 

and achieve decisive effects, particularly in the rear 

and support areas of the enemy.32 This description 

shows how much independence the Army believes its 

tank units should retain. An armored force organized 

for independent operations served as the foundation 

for the Army’s 17 series field manuals used for training Army tank units. Those tactics were being taught 

to Marine armor units after FLEX 6 took place in 

1940. 

In late 1942, the Army’s new armored force manuals were published: The Armored Force Field Manual, 

Tactics and Techniques, FM 17-10, in March 1942; The 

Tank Company, Light and Medium, FM 17-32, in August 

1942; The Armored Battalion, Light and Medium, FM 17-

33, in September 1942; and The Tank Platoon, FM 17-30, 

in October 1942. These manuals became fundamental 

parts of training in both the Army and Marine Corps. 

While they stressed the maneuverability and independence offered by tank organizations, they provided 

guidelines and other combined arms parameters that 

should be used by armored force commanders. This 

would negatively impact the employment of tanks in 

the Pacific because of the different operating environment encountered. Deeply entrenched forces that 

were primarily dismounted, compounded by restricted island terrain, were a vast difference from the Army’s expected environment and the threat the Army 

would fight in Europe. 

It was efficient to share these aspects of their 

operations, however, the transfer of information between the Army and the Marine Corps without an 

accompanying analysis reduced the understanding of 

armor’s capabilities and came at a cost. Marine First 

Lieutenant Robert M. Neiman served as a tank officer 

in command of Company D, 2d Tank Battalion. While 

his light tank company organized at Camp Pendleton, 

California, he reflected on the lack of doctrinal information. Tank models differed each month and there 

were no tactical manuals, only technical manuals, 

and therefore much of their training revolved around 

maintenance. To receive tactical training, Lieutenant 

32 Field Service Regulations: Operations, FM 100-5 (Washington, DC: 

Government Printing Office, 1941), 278.
SUMMER 2018 29

Neiman had to send his officers and sergeants to the 

Army’s armor course at Fort Knox, Kentucky.33

Neiman described an important reality for many 

Marine tank officers. Because no systematic tactical 

training was available in the Corps’ tank training center at Jacques Farm at Camp Pendleton, they often 

received their schooling at the Army’s tank course at 

Fort Knox. The fundamental tactics they learned came 

from Army doctrine that was refined at the general 

headquarters maneuvers of 1941 and published in the 

17 series manuals. Marine tanker training at Jacques 

Farm allowed units to practice their tactics, but it included an inordinate amount of mechanical driving 

and technical training. It compounded the primary 

difference in Army and Marine doctrine and would 

negatively impact many Marine Corps tank organizations. 

Meanwhile, the amphibious doctrine was codified when the U.S. Navy published the Landing Operations Doctrine, FTP-167, in 1938. This document 

served as the reference for all amphibious operations 

conducted by the Navy. The manual drew heavily on 

the vague armor tactics, techniques, and procedures 

outlined in the Marine Corps’ own Tentative Landing 

Operations Manual of 1934. As the Corps continued to 

focus on amphibious operations, it struggled to develop an amphibious tank that possessed sufficient maneuverability to be useful in a land battle. Much of the 

Corps’ effort went into developing tracked transports 

that were capable of carrying troops and equipment 

quickly during the ship-to-shore phase and that provided some protection and maneuverability on land. 

As the Marine Corps received tank technology and 

doctrinal training from the Army, flaws crept into the 

development of its tank corps; they were exposed only 

when they became employed in the Pacific theater.

Armor Operations 1941–1943: 

The Testing Grounds

At the outbreak of war, many Marine tank battalions 

and companies were activated quickly and saw lim33 Robert M. Neiman and Kenneth W. Estes, Tanks on the Beaches: 

A Marine Tanker in the Pacific War (College Station: Texas A&M 

University Press, 2003), 55. 

ited training before shipping out, while the Army had 

many more armored units organized and in the field. 

Furthermore, a rush in equipping units with tanks 

created an environment in which multiple variants 

of tanks with different maintenance and support requirements resided in the same company or platoon, 

making it a logistical nightmare to sustain. Some 

tanks arrived at units across the theater without radios, periscopes, and other critical items, adding to the 

challenges encountered in the physical environment.34

In August 1942, the Marine-led offensive at the 

island of Guadalcanal began and became the testing 

ground for Marine armored units of the 1st and 2d 

Tank Battalions. Guadalcanal offered restricted terrain that exposed vulnerabilities in tanks when employed in dense jungles and along terrain with severe 

slopes. The tanks were landed following the infantry 

assault and given the primary task to expand the 

beachhead and defend Henderson Field, both areas 

of relatively open ground. In most cases, they were 

employed precisely as the Tentative Landing Operations 

Manual directed.35 Tanks helped to secure victory at a 

critical point of the battle: at the engagement along 

Tenaru Ridge on 21 August 1942. Tanks of the 2d 

Tank Battalion integrated into an infantry counterattack force that engaged a pocket of die hard Japanese 

defenders. Although the tank-led counterattack was 

extremely successful in this instance, this was not always the case. 

On 14 September, an unsupported platoon of six 

tanks advanced past a ridge occupied by Company K, 

3d Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment. Japanese forces 

ambushed the independent tank platoon, and as the 

platoon leader reacted, the tanks were unable to effectively coordinate movement through the dense jungle 

underbrush. The tanks struggled to communicate and 

maneuver to support one another, giving the Japanese 

an opportunity to destroy two tanks, disable a third, 

34 Estes, Marines Under Armor, 39. 

35 The Tentative Landing Operations Manual describes the use of 

tanks according to section 2-1002 and explains that “tanks may 

provide assistance step by step against defensive installations as 

they are successively encountered or they may drive forward to a 

definite objective without regard to the progress of the infantry.”
30 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

and cause a fourth to capsize in a river, drowning the 

crew.36

The counterattack at Henderson Field and Tenaru Ridge offered both success and failure for the two 

Marine tank battalions. It showed great potential for 

tanks when used as they were trained to fight, but it 

also revealed their vulnerability in some terrain. According to the Tentative Landing Operations Manual and 

the Army’s Armored Battalion, Light and Medium, FM 

17-33, the actions on 21 August were precisely in line 

with the doctrine while those of 14 September were 

not. By the completion of the battle on Guadalcanal, 

Marines presumed that the mutual support with infantry was key in dense jungle terrain, but there was 

no significant effort to capture this in any kind of 

doctrine. Furthermore, tanks in support of an amphibious force had yet to be tested.

Armor played a limited role in the overall success of the Guadalcanal campaign because of the restricted jungle terrain, but the use of tanks provided 

foreshadowing of ways to more effectively employ 

tanks in the Marine Corps. Although the environment 

confined tank units, the doctrine they were trained 

on only discussed the role of tanks in a beach landing. Guadalcanal opened an entirely new perspective 

on the employment of tanks as an exploitation force. 

Exploitation of the lodgment in restricted jungle terrain was an alien concept to Marine tankers. Tank 

and infantry cooperation took place in some units, 

but overall it was almost nonexistent in the campaign. 

The Army-influenced armor operations at the platoon 

and company level became the primary concern. By 

the end of the Solomon Islands campaign—although 

combined infantry-armor tactics was a new concept 

being discussed—capturing and employing those lessons was not taken seriously above the battalion level. 

Tank tactics were therefore left unrefined except for 

minor task organization changes that were taken directly from the Army table of organization for tank 

battalions operating in North Africa. Richard Tregaskis, a veteran journalist covering Guadalcanal, wrote 

in his book Guadalcanal Diary about his experience 

36 Alexander, “Marine Corps Armor Operations in World War 

II,” 191.

with tanks that functioned without infantry support; 

he described tanks fighting in the jungle as vicious 

and in independent formations without much coordination.37

After Guadalcanal, operations across the Solomon Islands and New Britain allowed tanks and 

infantry to test their mettle and tactics in a jungle environment but not during amphibious landings. Many 

Marine battalion-level leaders had a general concern 

about the light tanks adopted by the Army and their 

effectiveness in the jungle terrain. Light tanks had 

much less armor and were vulnerable to antitank attacks by up-close Japanese soldiers. They clearly required additional support from infantry, but Marines 

continued to plan operations in independent units as 

prescribed by the 1942 armored force field manuals 

and training courses. Combined with the inability of 

higher-echelon leaders to recognize the importance of 

organizational and doctrinal change, this eventually 

led to catastrophe at Tarawa, where close infantry and 

armor synchronization early on could have prevented 

substantial losses. 

By 1942, the landing ship, tank (LST) and landing 

ship, medium (LSM) were introduced, allowing heavier vehicles to be transported much closer to the beach 

landing. The M4 Sherman medium tank also was introduced to the FMF, and together these new assets 

made armor in the Pacific much more versatile. The 

Army’s newly developed M4A2 had heavier armor, a 

larger main gun, and a stronger dual diesel engine.38

The boost in sealift capability also provided versatility, expanding the types of armored vehicles that could 

be moved ashore. Other technological innovations 

emerged that increased the flexibility of tank units, 

including the EE-8 tank telephone, the dismounted 

flamethrower, and armored bulldozer. This gear contributed to previous successful Marine operations in 

New Guinea and the isolation of the Japanese fortress 

37 Richard Tregaskis, Guadalcanal Diary (New York: Random 

House, 1943), 142.

38 R. P. Hunnicutt, Sherman: A History of the American Medium 

Tank (Belmont, CA: Taurus Enterprises, 1978), 143; Steven Zaloga, Armored Thunderbolt: The U.S. Army Sherman in World War II

(Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2008), 321; and Bale, “Edward Bale Oral History Interview.”
SUMMER 2018 31

of Rabaul, yet the units bound for Tarawa received 

only minimal equipment and training on it. 

Armor in the Battle of Tarawa: 

The Proving Grounds

Operation Galvanic was the first large-scale opposed 

landing of forces in the Pacific theater to test armor 

in opposed amphibious doctrine. Like any military 

operation, it began with an in-depth assessment of 

the terrain and the enemy on the objective. The topographical assessment of the island revealed an average 

elevation of 8 to 10 feet, gradual slopes, and beaches 

of coral and sand.39 The contour of the terrain gave 

defensive machine gun fire and prepared positions the 

upper hand but seemingly offered an edge to armored 

units. There would be little protection for assault 

troops, making it more important to ensure tanks and 

other armored vehicles became integrated into the 

initial landing. 

Accordingly, based on the situation, the Tentative Landing Operations Manual described a purpose for 

tanks in every wave. In the leading assault wave, tanks 

would destroy beach defenses, and tanks in the following waves would be prepared to outflank identified 

enemy positions. Tanks as part of the reserve element 

could only focus on land warfare and could likely not 

affect actions on the beach.40 This engagement as part 

of a reserve, compounded by relative success in previous campaigns, made it seem that independent armor 

operations taught in Army doctrine would serve well 

on Tarawa. It directly correlated with the independent maneuver expectations of tank companies and 

platoons as outlined in the Army’s armored force field 

manuals. 

The 2d Marine Division had not yet used medium tanks in action.41 The division had one organic 

light tank battalion: the 2d Tank Battalion consisted 

39 Col Joseph H. Alexander, Utmost Savagery: The Three Days of 

Tarawa (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1995), 76–68; Isely and 

Crowl, The U.S. Marines and Amphibious War, 210–11; and Gilbert, 

Marine Tank Battles in the Pacific, 78. 40 Tentative Landing Operations Manual, 265. 41 Col Joseph H. Alexander, Across the Reef: The Marine Assault 

of Tarawa (Washington, DC: Marine Corps Historical Center, 

1993), 6.

of M3 Stuart light tanks, and for this operation it was 

reinforced with Company C of the 1st Corps Medium Tank Battalion, which included the new M4 Medium Sherman tank. This augmentation became one 

of many table of organization changes for the Marine 

Corps. It reduced the number of light tank companies 

from four to three, and the fourth became a medium 

tank company.42 

Company C, commanded by First Lieutenant 

Edward L. Bale Jr., included 14 M4 tanks. As the staff 

sequenced the assault of Tarawa, this would be the 

only company of armor available in the initial phase 

of the landing. The 18 remaining M3s of the 2d Tank 

Battalion would only come ashore as part of the reserve. First Lieutenant Bale’s tanks were scheduled 

as part of the fifth wave and assisted in exploiting a 

deeper penetration into the island after initial forces 

secured the lodgment.43 According to Marine Corps 

amphibious doctrine and the Army’s independent armor operations, the tanks would be most useful outflanking the Japanese defenders encountered on the 

beach. This would therefore provide the landing force 

an opportunity to secure the airfield farther into the 

island. What they encountered, however, was certainly not the ability to outflank identified Japanese 

defenses. 

Japanese defenses included eight coastal defense 

guns, 23 75mm guns, and 56 37mm antitank guns, as 

identified by photoreconnaissance. Marine planners 

believed that the Japanese would stubbornly defend 

their positions as part of their mission to cause as 

many casualties as possible to protect the airfield. 

Considering the restrictions of terrain and the enemy 

heavy weapons emplacements and pillboxes on the 

island, it seemed that Company C of the 1st Corps 

Tank Battalion (Medium) provided sufficient support 

to the division for the initial assault on the island. The 

tankers were trained to maneuver in relatively open 

terrain and armed with heavier armor and weaponry. 

If they were employed as they had prepared to fight, 

their mission on Tarawa seemed fairly easy. 

The integration of the newly assigned M4 tanks, 

42 USMC T/O E-80, approved 15 April 1943. 

43 Estes, Marines Under Armor, 1.
32 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

however, was extremely inadequate. While the division task force conducted detailed rehearsals on the 

island of Éfaté, French New Hebrides, Bale’s company 

of Sherman tanks held its rehearsals separate from 

the rest of the division at Nouméa, New Caledonia.44

“There was no training with the infantry. None at all,” 

explained Bale.45 The division rehearsal focused almost 

entirely on the ship-to-shore movement of troops and 

did not include critical enablers, such as the amphibious tractor battalions and aviation support assets. 

This indicated an institutional ignorance in the 

operational art of combined arms. Junior leaders involved in the operation, without any form of rehearsal 

or any doctrinal training on employing combined 

arms, were doomed from the beginning. No joint plan 

to properly synchronize use of the tanks existed in the 

Marine Corps. Worse still, there was no clear objective 

for the armor because the published doctrine instructed tanks to be used as an independent reserve and an 

exploitation force. Unfortunately, the guidance for 

tanks at the company level and below was similar to 

interwar Army doctrine, junior leaders learned. Tank 

battalions were organized as independent units at the 

division level, and their training and capabilities did 

not coincide with any training conducted with other 

forces, such as the infantry, amphibious tractor battalions, artillery, or air forces. 

Unfortunately, after the Solomon Islands, some 

concerns of independently employing tank units had 

already been pointed out. Close infantry support and 

prior planning may have mitigated the failures that 

resulted in heavy tank losses, but no one in the FMF 

staff considered this necessary prior to Tarawa. The 

development of the tank telephone and combined 

infantry tactics were discussed extensively among 

leaders; however, the fundamental lessons were not 

applied to any consolidated doctrine.

D-Day on Betio Island

The Tarawa Atoll was a small island chain surrounded 

44 2d Tank Battalion, USMC, “Special Action Report of the Second Tank Battalion, from CO 2d Tank Battalion to CG 2d Mar 

Div,” 14 December 1943, RG 127, Box 70, NARA.

45 Alexander, Utmost Savagery, 61.

by a coral reef that formed a lagoon protected from 

strong ocean waves. Betio Island was the southernmost island in the atoll and the primary objective for 

Operation Galvanic because of the airfield it maintained. This allowed the island to serve as a jumpingoff point to attack and seize the Marshall Islands.46

As the invasion force positioned its ships for the preassault bombardment and as transports entered the 

lagoon, the assault operation immediately began to 

go wrong. The fringing coral reef, covered by at most 

four feet of water, allowed tanks to maneuver where 

landing craft, vehicle, personnel (LCVPs), and landing craft, mechanized (LCMs), could not.47 The water 

levels only permitted a four-hour window for landing 

craft to land on the lagoon side of Betio. Additionally, a combined wire and coconut-log wall along the 

southern and western shores of the island channeled 

armor to approach elsewhere. 

The first report hinting at serious problems with 

the assault came from an LCVP in the first wave. The 

crew explained that their craft could not maneuver to 

the shore because it was striking the coral reef. During the hydrographic assessment of the island during 

planning, analysts had not recognized that a neap tide 

would restrict landing craft in crossing over the reef, 

even at the highest tidal period.48

Once on shore, more problems occurred. The 

newly assigned regimental commander of the 2d Marines, Colonel David M. Shoup, landed after the first 

wave and immediately encountered heavy fire, stiff 

resistance, and mounting casualties on the beach. He 

called for earlier tank support, believing that the tanks 

would be able to suppress the accurate enemy fire. As 

the LCMs carrying the tanks circled outside the reef 

awaiting their prescribed landing time, they received 

46 Isely and Crowl, The U.S. Marines and Amphibious War, 198. 47 Isely and Crowl, The U.S. Marines and Amphibious War, 6.

48 A neap tide occurs when the sun and moon are at right angles 

to the Earth. Since the gravitational pull on the water comes 

from opposite directions, the tide becomes lower or higher than 

normal. The neap tide that occurred at Betio, known as “dodging 

tides” by the Tarawa locals, was lower than expected for more 

than 24 hours, which continued to hamper resupply of troops 

and equipment to shore and made them susceptible to heavy 

Japanese machine gun fire. 
SUMMER 2018 33

an order to land the tanks on the coral reef and send 

them to the landing zone. During the approach, Bale 

ordered six of his tanks to Red Beach 1 on the western 

side of the landing zone, while the remaining eight 

headed to Red Beach 3 on the eastern side. The movement to the beaches, however, proved to be difficult. 

Massive craters in the coral reef, caused by shortfalling shells of the naval and aerial bombardments, 

swallowed seven tanks and their crewmen before they 

could even get to the beachhead. Additionally, two 

M4s were destroyed en route by Japanese guns, and an 

American dive-bomber accidentally struck another 

after it reached the shore.49

After successfully maneuvering across the reef, 

49 Estes, Marines Under Armor, 72–73.

the remaining four tanks made landfall. Without radio communications available to talk to infantry units 

on the ground, the tankers received only a vague order 

to “knock out all enemy positions encountered.”50 Although in line with the doctrine that many of them 

were trained on, this proved lethal for some tank 

crews. Because the tanks would maneuver forward 

independently without infantry support, they were 

virtually blind and vulnerable to Japanese counterattacks. By the end of the first day’s fighting, only two 

of the M4s remained operational and a third was severely damaged. The surviving armor forces gathered 

ammunition and organized with pockets of surviving 

infantrymen for the night.

The next two days of combat on Betio consisted 

of ad hoc tactics. Small groups of infantrymen and 

tankers coordinated with unofficial methods of communication. The infantrymen and tankers quickly 

established a series of hand and arm signals to corre50 Alexander, Across the Reef, 17.

Reference Branch, Marine Corps History Division, #64260

Light tank coming ashore over reef, Battle of Tarawa.

Reference Branch, Marine Corps History Division, #T-P-7-57406

Two left alive: members of a tank unit sit atop their giant vehicle, 

stalled in a water-filled shell hole. In the background rests other immobilized armored amphibious monsters.
34 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

spond with their actions.51 When not possible, infantrymen would often ride on the turrets of the tanks 

to converse with the tank commander. This allowed 

troops to speak with tank commanders, but it placed 

many lives at risk. Talking with the infantry support 

was critical for tank commanders. This enabled them 

to support one another through maneuver and direct 

fire. The reserve M3 tanks arrived on 21 November 

1943 to assist in securing the island. During numerous engagements that day and on 22 November, the 

37mm cannon of the M3 light tanks proved ineffective against Japanese pillboxes. Only the power of the 

51 Alexander, Utmost Savagery, 127, 152; Bale, “Edward Bale Oral 

History Interview”; Gilbert, Marine Tank Battles in the Pacific, 104; 

and 2d Tank Battalion, USMC, “Special Action Report of the 

Second Tank Battalion, from CO 2d Tank Battalion to CG 2d 

Mar Div,” 14 December 1943, RG 127, Box 70, NARA. 

M4’s 75mm cannon could neutralize dug-in enemy positions.52 On the final day of the battle, after a massive 

Japanese counterattack, a combined force of tanks, 

combat engineers, flamethrowers, and infantry from 

the 3d Battalion, 6th Marines, attacked the dwindling 

Japanese resistance. The troops maneuvered rapidly 

and, with close coordination, quickly rolled up the remaining Japanese elements.

On 23 November, the Marines finally secured 

the island, marking the end of the battle—but at a 

significant cost. With 3,133 total casualties, this was 

nearly the same amount of losses experienced on 

Guadalcanal. Since Tarawa lasted only 76 hours and 

Guadalcanal lasted almost six months, public officials 

52 Alexander, Across the Reef, 39.

Reference Branch, Marine Corps History Division, #63967

Medium tank in support of men along Red Beach #3 during the Battle of Tarawa. Burns Phillips Pier is just visible in the background. 
SUMMER 2018 35

demanded an explanation.53 The carnage of Tarawa 

was unparalleled compared with other battles up to 

this point in the war, and senior leaders were called 

on to respond. 

In an after action report on the battle for Tarawa, 

the atoll attack was said to resemble “in many respects 

the assault of a fort with the added complication of 

having to initiate the assault by a ship-to-shore movement” due to much more heavily defended enemy 

bunkers than expected.54 Sadly, photoreconnaissance 

had not previously revealed these emplacements, 

which caused a significant number of casualties, and 

53 Josh Hudak, “Through Crimson Tides: Tarawa’s Effect on 

Military Tactics and Public Perception of War” (master’s thesis, 

Clemson University, 2014), 47–48.

54 Brief Report of Amphibious Operations for the Capture of the 

Gilbert Islands, 6 January 1943, RG 38, Box 8, NARA.

the M3 light tanks, although maneuverable and fast, 

could not actually destroy them. 

The M4, with its heavier cannon and additional 

armor, was able to penetrate fortified Japanese bunkers. It became the tank of choice for the Marine 

Corps after Tarawa. In the face of losing 10 tanks during the initial landing, the two Company C tanks that 

survived, both M4s, outgunned every remaining enemy bunker. The Marines also recognized the effectiveness of the flamethrower and requested it be added 

as a tank weapon to increase the M4’s effectiveness.55

A lack of accurate intelligence and joint training 

was responsible for many losses at Tarawa, but most 

fatalities could have been prevented if combined tank 

and infantry tactics adapted to the environment ear55 A. H. Nobel, “Brief on Tarawa Operation,” CINCUS Plans Division, 5 December 1943, RG 38, Box 8, NARA.

Reference Branch, Marine Corps History Division, #63590

One of the force’s medium tanks put out of action. Notice the marks from direct hits on the side.
36 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

lier. Veterans of the battle realized that establishing a 

common communication platform between infantry 

and armor would have also reduced casualties, especially among tank units. The tactics developed on Betio often required tanks to maneuver in front of the 

advancing infantry. A lack of radio communications 

forced tank commanders to expose themselves often to 

communicate with the infantrymen, incurring unnecessary risk. Following the Solomon Islands campaign, 

the lessons learned called for equipping all tanks with 

the EE-8 tank infantry telephone. After Tarawa, it was 

no longer a discussion; close supporting tank infantry 

tactics were applied to all future campaigns.56

56 Estes, Marines Under Armor, 74.

Ultimately, the Army’s armored forces doctrine, 

used to train and equip Marine tank battalions since 

1938, had failed the Marine Corps on Tarawa. At 

the staff level, there was a lack of understanding of 

tank battalion vulnerabilities and capabilities. Leaders failed to capture tactical lessons of the Solomon 

Islands campaign that would have offered insight on 

how to use tanks in a more appropriate manner during an amphibious assault of a heavily defended area. 

If tank battalions were given a directive to act in an 

infantry support role, many tactical and organizational problems could have been dealt with during the 

preparations for the invasion. 

The ineffective employment of armor on Tarawa 

revealed other important issues that were not considReference Branch, Marine Corps History Division, #63805

Marine Corps tank knocked out during the battle.
SUMMER 2018 37

ered during the planning phase. The night of 21 November, a tank with a severely damaged main gun was 

repaired after mechanics cannibalized other disabled 

tanks.57 The responsive maintenance of damaged tanks 

was critical to the tactical accomplishments of tanks 

and infantry on 21 and 22 November. Tank rounds also 

were not readily available due to challenges establishing supply points on the highly contested beach. This 

forced many tanks to return to the beach and scour 

destroyed tanks for remaining main gun ammunition.58 Further debriefings revealed that heavy fire 

damaged tank periscopes, limiting the visibility of the 

entire crew. With limited communications abilities, 

periscopes proved critical in allowing tanks to provide accurate fire throughout the fight. Replacement 

periscopes also were scavenged from damaged tanks 

since additional periscopes were not on hand.59

Armor Operations 1943–1945: 

Codifying New Doctrine

The lessons from Tarawa were applied to units across 

the Pacific theater almost immediately. In the next 

year and a half, units fighting in the Pacific theater 

57 Alexander, Across the Reef, 18.

58 Estes, Marines Under Armor, 73.

59 Nobel, “Brief on Tarawa Operations,” 3.

adjusted their tactics through local unit SOPs. These 

SOPs were the temporary fix for the flawed doctrine tank units were taught to fight with. The procedures were modified to be suited to the expected 

adversary and the terrain they prepared to fight in. 

This is first seen in the invasion of Kwajalein Island 

in the Marshall Islands campaign on 31 January 1945, 

during which unit commanders reduced independent 

tank maneuvers to protect their vulnerable infantry. 

By 1945, Marine Corps units completely reorganized 

tank battalions, trained crews differently, and armed 

their tanks with a variety of more capable weapons to 

defeat entrenched Japanese forces. 

As the campaign in the central Pacific progressed north, the island of Saipan became the target 

in early summer of 1944. The battle presented another 

opportunity to expand on lessons from Tarawa. It was 

the first operation in which tank units used the new 

Table of Organization F-80. This included other innovations, notably the flame tank.60 First Lieutenant 

Bale, the commander of Company C that assaulted 

Tarawa, also saw combat on Saipan. He recognized a 

critical training deficiency among his tankers before 

Tarawa but saw dramatic changes in his company by 

the Battle of Saipan. After landing on the beaches, his 

tanks had to maneuver through 500–600 yards of water. Despite heavy mortar and artillery fire, his tanks 

maneuvered across the beaches, contacted the infantry, and immediately began to fight alongside them.61

The Battle of Okinawa was the culminating 

point of the war in the central Pacific. Okinawa saw 

the implementation of all the changes that tankers and leaders desired at Tarawa. The result was the 

deadly and systematic use of tanks and infantry on 

challenging terrain against a bitter enemy. Unlike any 

employment of tanks that took place in Europe at the 

same time, the Battle of Okinawa mirrored how tanks 

were employed nearly 30 years earlier in World War I. 

Operating strictly to support the maneuver of infantry forces engaging a heavily entrenched enemy, tanks 

gave maneuverability to a battlefield with otherwise 

restricted terrain. While the landing was unopposed, 

60 Nobel, “Brief on Tarawa Operations,” 67.

61 Bale, “Edward Bale Oral History Interview.”

Reference Branch, Marine Corps History Division, #64161

Members of a light tank crew pose in front of Japanese plane revetment.
38 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

the battle provided a valuable representation of how 

the use of armor had changed since Tarawa. 

By the end of the Second World War, an important conference brought together commanders from 

nearly every Marine tank battalion, amphibious tractor battalion, and staff for corps and division headquarters. This conference was the first formal event 

to modify armor doctrine. They met at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, on 26–29 April 1945 to discuss “tank 

matters.” The commanders reviewed and tentatively 

approved tank battalion organization, the FMF PAC 

Tank Infantry SOP (FMF Pacific [FMFPac]), flamethrower employment, and extensive tank modifications.62 The attendees addressed the vague interwar 

doctrine in the Tentative Landing Operations Manual 

and the inadequate prewar 17 series field manuals 

published by the Army. It began a process of developing sound techniques to use tanks in amphibious 

operations and general land operations for the Marine 

Corps. 

62 Memo from CG, FMFPAC, to the CGs of VAC, 3d, 4th, and 

5th Marine Divisions, serial number 00920-45, RG 127, Box 18, 

NARA.

Reference Branch, Marine Corps History Division, #121929

1st Marine Division, Okinawa, 11 May 1945. Flame-throwing tank and riflemen moving up to the frontline action on Okinawa.
SUMMER 2018 39

During the first two days of the conference, leaders discussed the future of armor and solidified the 

doctrine that Marine tank units would use.63 They 

spent a significant amount of time discussing the current SOP and possible revisions concerning the role of 

63 Schmidt, report of conference for C/S FMF PAC, 2. 

engineering and artillery assets during tank-infantry 

operations. By the third day, a draft SOP was developed, and the leaders discussed task organizational 

changes that might be necessary. The selection of an 

appropriate table of organization lasted two days and 

included a recommendation to acquire new Army 

M26 Pershing and M24 Chaffee tanks. By the fifth and 

final day, a new SOP and table of organization were 

developed. The discussion at the conference closed 

with a debate on the current M4 series tanks. They 

decided to increase its armor and communication capabilities and to replace the 75mm main gun with a 

Reference Branch, Marine Corps History Division, #121930

Marine riflemen moving up behind flame-throwing tank on Okinawa.

Photo by Sgt Frank C. Kerr, NARA 127-GK-234A-A2290

Marine M26 Pershing tanks were also used during the Korean War to 

give close support to leathernecks, as depicted here.

Courtesy Texas Military Forces Museum

An M24 Chaffee tank on display at the Texas Military Forces Museum.
40 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

new main gun based on tactical engagements at the 

Battle of Iwo Jima.64

Modifications to the tables of organization included ammunition, weapons and equipment, personnel, and general task organization of platoons, 

companies, and battalions. Before the Battle of Tarawa, the Marine table of organization for a tank battalion closely resembled the Army’s tank forces in 

Europe. After Tarawa, the first changes reflected a 

shift in the use of tanks. By the end of the conference, 

the new organization in general supported complete 

integration of tanks with infantry. Company headquarters were authorized jeeps, which were utilized to 

coordinate and move tanks throughout their zone of 

operation.65

The revised FMFPac SOP for tank-infantry coordination became the replacement for the Army’s 

Employment of Tanks with Infantry, FM 17-36. Developed in June 1944, it was a collection of revised tactics 

derived from after action reports from the Mediterranean theater and replaced the Army’s Tactics and 

Technique (FM 17-10) and The Armored Battalion, Light 

and Medium (FM 17-33). The new manual included logistical requirements and command and control techniques for operating with an infantry battalion. While 

this was important, it also discussed modifications to 

the task organization of these units at the company 

and platoon levels.66 Task organization modifications 

were discouraged throughout the manual. The manual 

still supported operations no lower than an organic 

company when attacking a pillbox, or even in jungle 

terrain.67 This new doctrine was disseminated to the 

armor community, including the Marine Corps. 

The conference members moved on to tackling 

the problems that plagued training. During the conference, commanders addressed the deficiency in 

training identified by Lieutenant Bale prior to Betio. 

Betio illustrated the necessity of tank-infantry training, which leaders incorporated into their operations 

64 Schmidt, report of conference for C/S FMF PAC, 1–3.

65 USMC T/O G-76, approved 1 May 1945. 

66 Employment of Tanks with Infantry, FM 17-36 (Washington, DC: 

Government Printing Office, 1944), 21.

67 Employment of Tanks with Infantry, 28–30, 37–41.

in the following campaigns to prevent uncoordinated 

support. Training, then, was also an addition to the 

new SOP. The conference ensured that the SOP captured the requirement for complete tank integration 

in all rehearsals. This would prevent confusion with 

landing craft during ship-to-shore movement and improve responsive tank support once the vehicles got 

ashore.68

The conference adjourned on 29 April 1945 and 

the FMFPac staff published the revised SOP and organizational charts. The draft—with its summary of 

all tentative changes to the table of organization recommendations on modifying the M4 and specialized 

equipment capabilities—was sent to every division 

commander and tank battalion for review. Between 

July and August 1945, comments concerning the outcome of the conference filtered back to the FMFPac 

staff. Commanders were almost unanimous in accepting the revisions and updates to tank matters from the 

conference.69 Some comments called for slight changes in organization and communication, but the final 

revision provided the table of organization and SOP 

that would serve as the foundation of armor employment in amphibious operations for the next series of 

Marine doctrine. 

Conclusion

As the Pacific war ended, the use of tanks proved 

a decisive aspect of ground operations against the 

Japanese. The “storm landings” by Marine and Army 

forces against stubbornly defended Japanese-held islands were like no other in history. By 1945, the Marine Corps tank no longer operated independently, 

as it did on Guadalcanal. Armor units were embedded with infantry battalions and had developed joint 

doctrine that efficiently processed Japanese defend68 Employment of Tanks with Infantry, 1–2.

69 P. A. Devalle, memorandum for Comments Concerning Report of Conference on Tank Matters, 29 June 1945, RG 127, Box 

18, NARA; R. L. Hall, memorandum for Tank Conference Report, 8 June 1945, RG 127, Box 18, NARA; G. B. Erskine, memorandum for Tank Conference Report, 22 June 1945, RG 127, Box 

18, NARA; and C. A. Laster, memorandum for Communication 

Comments of Tank Conference Report, 4 June 1945, RG 127, Box 

18, NARA. 
SUMMER 2018 41

ers. Reflecting on the employment of tanks in World 

War I, the utilization of tanks for the Marine Corps 

throughout the Pacific showed some strikingly similar characteristics to the use of tanks on the western 

front. Tanks were used in a direct support role for infantry assaulting a heavily entrenched enemy.70 They 

provided protection, maneuverability, and counterattack forces that supplemented the main assault. 

While Marine Corps tank doctrine changed between 1942 and 1945, it was clear that its foundation 

lies in the U.S. Army Armor School. The catalysts that 

drove the realization that Army doctrine was flawed 

in the use of tanks for the Marines were the lessons 

learned by the 2d Marine Division on Tarawa in 1943. 

The 2d Marine Division received a harsh and tragic education on the beaches of Betio, and it had a tremendous effect on strategic-level leaders in the Marine 

Corps and the Army. The primary lessons from Tarawa included enhancing communication and maneuver 

70 Osterhout, “Tanks,” 271–72. 

techniques for tank-infantry units, reorganizing and 

utilizing special equipment like the flamethrower and 

bulldozer to augment the mobility and effectiveness 

of tanks, and the overall need for improved rehearsals 

and training. 

The doctrine created during the interwar period 

overlooked critical vulnerabilities for armor supporting amphibious operations. The Marine Corps focused 

primarily on developing amphibious doctrine to allow infantry to efficiently assault a beach and thereby 

failed to synthesize the Army’s tank doctrine and apply it to Marine Corps operations. The impact that the 

short, violent Battle of Tarawa had on tank-infantry 

operations is captured in the tank matters conference 

and the postwar Amphibious Operations: Employment of 

Tanks, Phib-18, Marine Corps doctrine published in 

1946. The modifications to doctrine were a valuable 

correction to the flaws of the Tentative Landing Operations Manual of 1934. 

• 1775 •
Mobilization of the 

Organized Marine Corps 

Reserve for World War II

by Bryan J. Dickerson1

I

n fall 1940, the world was in the grips of its second 

global war. As part of America’s efforts to prepare 

for war, the Organized U.S. Marine Corps Reserve 

was mobilized for active duty by President Franklin 

D. Roosevelt in November and December 1940. Despite comprising only 2.5 percent of the Marine Corps’ 

total strength in World War II, these mobilized Reserve Marines made important contributions to the 

defense of the nation and the Allied victory in the 

Pacific. Yet the manner in which these Marines were 

mobilized and utilized during the war ensured that 

their achievements and sacrifices would be lost in the 

overall history of the Corps in World War II.

1940: A Nation Unprepared for War

Throughout the 1930s, totalitarian regimes in Germany, Japan, Italy, and the Soviet Union aggressively 

expanded throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia. By 

summer 1940, war raged across the globe. Due to its 

Great Depression and fierce isolationist sentiments, 

the United States was woefully unprepared for war. 

On 30 June 1940, the active duty U.S. Army numbered 

only 267,767 soldiers with another 300,000 serving in 

1

 Bryan J. Dickerson is a historian and author from New Jersey. 

He served in the U.S. Navy Reserve for eight years, attaining the 

rating of Religious Program Specialist, 1st Class (Fleet Marine 

Force), and deploying twice for Operation Iraqi Freedom with 

squadrons of 2d Marine Aircraft Wing. His book The Liberators of 

Pilsen: The U.S. 16th Armored Division in World War II Czechoslovakia was published in January 2018. He has a bachelor’s in history 

from Rowan University and a master’s in American history from 

Monmouth University.

the National Guard and an additional 120,000 soldiers in the Army Reserve. The U.S. Navy numbered 

only 160,997 sailors and had only six aircraft carriers 

in commission. The active duty Marine Corps numbered only 28,277. Expecting that the United States 

would be dragged into the war, President Roosevelt 

and many other U.S. leaders worked prudently to 

prepare the nation while not antagonizing the public. Roosevelt’s task was complicated further because 

he was also seeking an unprecedented third term as 

president.2

The stunning Nazi German victories in spring 

1940 provided major justification for a rapid and 

immediate American military build-up. The Army 

Reserve began mobilizing individual members that 

summer. On 19 July 1940, Congress enacted the VinsonWalsh Act (a.k.a. the Two-Ocean Navy Act) to expand and prepare the U.S. Navy for World War II. 

This act included expanding the combat ship strength 

of the Navy by 70 percent (1.325 million tons). As authorized by Congress, President Roosevelt called the 

National Guard to federal service in September and 

2

 Mark Skinner Watson, The War Department–Chief of Staff: Prewar 

Plans and Preparations, United States Army in World War II (Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1991), table 

1, 16; Carolyn A. Tyson, A Chronology of the United States Marine 

Corps, 1935–1946, vol. 2 (Washington, DC: History and Museums 

Division, Headquarters Marine Corps, 1977), 6; and Adm Ernest 

J. King, USN, First Report to the Secretary of the Navy, Covering 

our Peacetime and our Wartime Navy and Including Combat Operations up to 1 March 1944 (Washington, DC: U.S. Navy Department, 

1944), 8, 22.

42
SUMMER 2018 43

October 1940 and enacted the nation’s first peacetime 

draft. Also in October, the president authorized the 

mobilization of the entire U.S. Marine Corps Reserve 

(USMCR). Thus, the mobilization of the USMCR in 

late 1940 and into 1941 took place within the historical 

context of a nation hastily trying to prepare itself for 

a truly global war.3

 

The Marine Corps Reserve in 1940

The USMCR had been in existence since 1916. 

Its members were mobilized for World War I 

and served with distinction alongside their active duty counterparts. Immediately following 

the war, the USMCR went through several years 

of downsizing and neglect. In February 1925, the 

U.S. Congress passed legislation that made sweeping improvements to the Navy Reserve and the 

USMCR and authorized aviation units for the 

latter. The following year, Commandant of the 

Marine Corps Major General John A. Lejeune authorized the formation of several independent rifle 

companies; within a year, 16 had been organized. 

The USMCR quickly expanded, so much so that 

a regiment/battalion system was employed from 

1929 to 1935. In 1935, that system was abandoned 

3

 David I. Walsh, The Decline and Renaissance of the Navy, 1922–1944: 

A Brief History of Naval Legislation from 1922 to 1944 Pointing Out 

the Policy of the Government During These Years and Steps Taken to 

Rebuild Our Navy to Its Present Strength (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1944), 10–12; and Robert J. Cressman, 

The Official Chronology of the U.S. Navy in World War II (Annapolis: 

Naval Institute Press, 1999), entries for 30 June 1940 and 19 July 

1940, 52, 55.

in favor of independent battalions and squadrons.4

In fall 1940, the USMCR comprised three main 

components: the Organized Marine Corps Reserve 

(OMCR), the Fleet Marine Corps Reserve (FMCR), 

and the Volunteer Marine Corps Reserve (VMCR). 

The FMCR consisted of nondrilling reservists with at 

least four years of active duty service, and the VMCR 

consisted of nondrilling reservists with little or no active duty service. Together, the FMCR and the VMCR 

constituted the inactive Reserve, which had more 

than 9,000 members. The OMCR constituted the active Reserve and consisted of a ground component of 

23 battalions and an aviation component of 13 aviation squadrons. Members of the OMCR performed 

weekly training events at their reserve centers and annual field training at military installations across the 

country. Altogether, the USMCR had 16,477 members 

at the end of October 1940 (table 1).5

 

By fall 1940, the OMCR had grown to 23 battalions and 13 aviation squadrons. The ground component consisted of 21 infantry battalions and two 

field artillery battalions. Geographically they were 

4

 Col Susan L. Malone, USMCR, “The Reserves Turn 75,” Marine 

Corps Gazette 75, no. 9 (September 1991): 58–62; The Marine Corps 

Reserve: A History (Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 

2003), chapters 1 and 2; Robert W. Tallent, “In Reserve: The Old 

Standby,” Leatherneck, November 1954, 76–81; and Col Joseph C. 

Fegan, “M-Day for the Reserves,” Marine Corps Gazette 24, no. 4 

(December 1940): 24–29.

5

 Fegan, “M-Day for the Reserves,” 27–29; Malone, “The Reserves 

Turn 75,” 60–61; The Marine Corps Reserve, 50–51; “Reserves,” Leatherneck, January 1941, 37–41; and Tallent, “In Reserve,” 78–79. The 

modern equivalent for the FMCR and VMCR is the Inactive 

Ready Reserve (IRR), and the modern equivalent of the OMCR 

is the Selected Marine Corps Reserve (SMCR).

Table 1. Status of the Marine Corps Reserve, October 1940

Total strength 16,477

 Inactive Reserve 9,135

Fleet Marine Corps Reserve 2,043

Volunteer Marine Corps Reserve 7,092

 Organized Marine Corps Reserve 7,342

Ground component 6,431

Aviation component 911

Source: The Marine Corps Reserve: A History
44 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

located from Boston, Massachusetts, to Spokane, 

Washington (table 2). Though designated as battalions, these OMCR units in reality were well below 

the table of organization and equipment strength of 

a Marine Corps battalion, averaging only 250 Marines 

and sailors. 

The 23 battalion commanders represented a diverse range of age and military experience. Except for 

four lieutenant colonels and two captains, all of the 

battalion commanders were majors. Several had served 

during World War I, including Lieutenant Colonel 

Clark W. Thompson of the 15th Battalion (Galveston, 

Texas), Major Joseph R. Knowlan of the 7th Battalion 

(Field Artillery) (Philadelphia), and Major Edward 

Simmonds of the 6th Battalion (Philadelphia). The 

oldest battalion commanders were 52-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Harvey L. Miller of the 5th Battalion 

(Washington, DC) and 51-year-old Major Woodbridge 

S. Van Dyke II of the 22d Battalion (Field Artillery) 

(Los Angeles). The youngest battalion commanders 

were 33-year-old Major William Chalfant III of the 

4th Battalion (Newark, New Jersey), and 34-year-old 

Major Burdette Hagerman of the 17th Battalion (Detroit). The remaining battalion commanders were 

ages 36 to 49. Two battalion commanders had been in 

command for more than nine years, but conversely, 9 

of the 23 battalion commanders (39 percent) had assumed command in 1940.6

6

 Fegan, “M-Day for the Reserves,” 27.

Table 2. OMCR battalions and commanders, October 1940

Battalion Home station Commanding officer Age Assumed command

1st New York City, NY Maj George F. Doyle 39 1940

2d Boston, MA Maj Joseph T. Crowley 38 1937

3d New York City, NY Maj William P. Carey 43 1940

4th Newark, NJ Maj William Chalfant III 33 1940

5th Washington, DC LtCol Harvey L. Miller 52 1931

6th MB Philadelphia Maj Edward P. Simmonds 48 1936

7th (FA) MB Philadelphia Maj Joseph R. Knowlan 46 1934

8th Toledo, OH LtCol Iven C. Stickney 41 1932

9th Chicago, IL Maj Harold M. Keller 41 1933

10th New Orleans, LA LtCol Alfred A. Watters 42 1930

11th Seattle, WA Maj Clarence H. Baldwin 46 1932

12th San Francisco, CA Maj Frank C. Meyers 48 1940

13th Los Angeles, CA Maj John J. Flynn 49 1932

14th Spokane, WA Maj Edwin O. Partridge 42 1937

15th Galveston, TX LtCol Clark W. Thompson 44 1936

16th Indianapolis, IN Capt William C. Smith 36 1936

17th Detroit, MI Maj Burdette Hagerman 34 1937

18th St. Paul, MN Capt Robert J. Kennedy 40 1940

19th Augusta, GA Maj Walter W. Barr 41 1937

20th Portland, OR Maj Albert G. Skelton 43 1940

21st Charlotte, NC Maj George E. Golding 40 1940

22d (FA) Los Angeles, CA Maj Woodbridge S. Van Dyke II 51 1940

23d Roanoke, VA Maj Carleton Penn 47 1940

Notes: MB = Marine Barracks; and FA = field artillery.

Source: Fegan, “M-Day for the Reserves,” 24–29.
SUMMER 2018 45

There also was much diversity in the battalion 

commanders’ civilian occupations and experience. 

Lieutenant Colonel Miller was secretary of the District Boxing Commission. Lieutenant Colonel Thompson had served as a congressman for Texas. Major 

Knowlan worked in the insurance industry. Major 

Simmonds was superintendent of the Overbrook 

School for the Blind and president of the Springfield 

Township School Board in Pennsylvania. Major Van 

Dyke was a Hollywood movie director whose credits 

included Tarzan the Ape Man (1932). He also had been 

one of California’s delegates to the 1940 Democratic 

National Convention.7

The aviation component comprised 13 aviation 

7

 “In Memoriam: Col Clark W. Thompson, USMCR (Ret),” Fortitudine (Spring–Summer 1982), 23; “BrigGen Joseph R. Knowlan,” 

in “Twelfth Annual Mess Night Program,” 4th Marine Aircraft 

Wing, Marine Wing Motor Transport Squadron 4, 31 January 

1975 (copy provided by Col Thomas McCabe, USMCR [Ret]), 

hereafter Knowlan biography; military personnel file of Col 

Edward P. Simmonds, USMCR (deceased), National Personnel 

Records Center, National Archives and Records Administration 

(NPRC-NARA), St. Louis, MO, hereafter Simmonds personnel 

file; “W. [Woodbridge] S. Van Dyke,” biography, IMDB.com, accessed 21 May 2018; and “Capital Marines ‘Shake Down’ at Quantico,” Washington Post, 10 November 1940, B4.

squadrons that, like the battalions, were located 

across the country from New York to California (table 3). Eleven of the squadrons were Marine Reserve 

Scouting Squadrons; the remaining two were Marine 

Reserve Service Squadrons. In 1940, these squadrons 

were almost exclusively equipped with the Vought 

SB2U Vindicator dive-bomber.

The commanding officers of these 13 Marine aviation squadrons were among the leaders in aviation in 

the United States. Major Alton N. Parker of Marine 

Reserve Scouting Squadron 10 (VMS-10R) had flown 

in combat during World War I. As a member of Navy 

Captain Richard E. Byrd’s first Antarctica expedition, 

Major Parker was the first person to fly over the frozen continent on 29 December 1929. Major William J. 

Fox commanded VMS-7R; in civilian life, he was chief 

engineer for the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission and stood in for actor Errol Flynn 

as a stunt pilot in the 1941 movie Dive Bomber. Colonel 

Melvin J. Maas, commanding officer of VMS-6R, enlisted in the Marine Corps during World War I and 

learned to fly as an enlisted Marine; he was commissioned in the OMCR in 1925 and also served as a U.S. 

representative for Minnesota. Major Bernard Lewis 

Table 3. Mobilized OMCR aviation squadrons

Squadron Home station State Commanding officer 

VMS-1R NRAB Squantum MA Capt Nathanial S. Clifford

VMS-2R NRAB Brooklyn NY Maj S. A. McClellan

VMS-3R NRAB Anacostia DC Capt John B. Jacob

VMS-4R NAS Miami FL Maj Bernard L. Smith

VMS-5R NRAB Grosse Ile MI Capt Charles E. Adams

VMS-6R NRAB Minneapolis MN Col Melvin J. Maas

VMS-7R NRAB Long Beach CA Maj William J. Fox

VMS-8R NRAB Oakland CA Maj Raymond W. Conroy

VMS-9R NRAB Seattle WA Capt Joseph P. Adams

VMS-10R NRAB Kansas City KS Maj Alton N. Parker

VMS-11R NRAB Brooklyn NY Maj Karl S. Day

SS-2MR NRAB Grosse Ile MI Capt George E. Congdon

SS-3MR NRAB Seattle WA Capt Valentine Gephardt

Notes: SS = Service Squadron; MR = Marine Reserve Service Squadron; VMS = Marine Reserve Scouting Squadron; NRAB = Naval 

Reserve Aviation Base; and NAS = Naval Air Station.

Source: The Marine Corps Reserve: A History.
46 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

National Archives and Records Administration, 6728517

President Roosevelt would frequently use his fireside chats to annouce 

such issues as the limited national emergency or the mobilization of 

Reserve forces.

Smith of VMS-4R was the second Marine Corps aviator right after Lieutenant Alfred A. Cunningham. 

During World War I, Smith served as a naval intelligence attaché with the French Armée de l’Air, and 

studied lighter-than-air craft with them. The commander of VMS-11R, Major Karl S. Day, had earned 

the Navy Cross while flying bombers during World 

War I. After the war, he worked for American Airlines and was a pioneer in instrument flight.

8

Mobilizing the USMCR

Though mobilization of the USMCR had been discussed during summer 1940, the key decisions for its 

implementation were made and executed in October. The mobilization of both the Navy Reserves and 

USMCR was done under President Roosevelt’s Presidential Order No. 8245, which had declared a limited 

national emergency the previous year. On 5 October 

1940, Secretary of the Navy William Franklin Knox 

issued orders notifying Navy and Marine reservists to 

be prepared for mobilization on short notice. On 7 

October 1940, Commandant Major General Thomas 

Holcomb sent a Reserve mobilization plan to Chief of 

Naval Operations Admiral Harold R. Stark for approval. Two days later, the Commandant sent directives 

to the Marine Corps bases at San Diego, California; 

Quantico, Virginia; and the Marine Barracks at Navy 

Yards Philadelphia; Norfolk; Puget Sound/Bremerton; Washington; and Mare Island, California, to prepare to receive members of the OMCR battalions in 

8

 LtCol Edward C. Johnson and Graham A. Cosmas, Marine Corps 

Aviation: The Early Years, 1912–1940 (Washington, DC: History and 

Museums Division, Headquarters Marine Corps, 1991); Charles 

L. Updegraph Jr., U.S. Marine Corps Special Units of World War II

(Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters 

Marine Corps, 1977), 55; The Marine Corps Reserve, 90; “Gen. Karl 

Day, 76, A Marine Aviator,” New York Times, 22 January 1973, 34; 

Myrna Oliver, “Obituary: William Fox, Pioneering Engineer for 

County,” Los Angeles Times, 15 April 1993, hereafter Los Angeles 

Times Fox obituary; “William J. Fox, 95, a War Hero, Engineer, 

Stunt Man and Cowboy,” New York Times, 17 April 1993, hereafter 

New York Times Fox obituary; “Gen. Melvin J. Maas, 65, Dies,” New 

York Times, 14 April 1964; Paul Nelson, “How a Conservative Republican Got Elected to Congress by Democratic St. Paul—Seven 

Times,” MinnPost, 5 May 2015; and Robert Sherrod, History of 

Marine Corps Aviation in World War II (Washington, DC: Combat 

Forces Press, 1952), 3, 28.

early November. Table 4 shows the reported strength 

of each battalion in October 1940 and their planned 

initial duty stations. The next day, the Navy Department announced that the OMCR battalions would be 

mobilized on or about 7 November 1940. On 15 October 1940, Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps 

Brigadier General Alexander A. Vandegrift issued the 

orders to mobilize all 23 Reserve battalions. Exactly 

one month later, Vandegrift ordered the aviation units 
SUMMER 2018 47

and 1,000 members of the FMCR mobilized as well.9

One particular paragraph of Commandant Holcomb’s directive to the commanding general of the 

Fleet Marine Force would have a tremendous impact 

on the mobilized reservists. Commandant Holcomb 

9

 Assistant Commandant BGen Vandegrift was acting under the 

authority of Commandant MajGen Holcomb. Fegan, “M-Day for 

the Reserves,” 27–29; Malone, “The Reserves Turn 75,” 60–61; The 

Marine Corps Reserve, 50–51; “Reserves,” 37–40; Tallent, “In Reserve,” 78–79; Acting Commandant MajGen Alexander A. Vandegrift, Mobilization Orders, 15 October 1940, quoted in Fegan, 

“M-Day for the Reserves,” 24; Col Allan R. Millett, Semper Fidelis: 

A History of the United States Marine Corps (New York: MacMillan, 

1980), 347; Commandant MajGen Thomas C. Holcomb, memo 

to Chief of Naval Operations, “Mobilization of Organized Marine Corps Reserve,” 7 October 1940, Correspondence Files of 

the Commandant of the Marine Corps, NARA, RG 38, hereafter 

7 October 1940 CMC Memo to CNO; “Orders 24-HR Day For 

Plane Plants,” New York Times, 11 October 1940, 13; “Marine Corps 

Reserve Called to Active Duty,” Washington Post, 11 October 1940, 

1; Commandant MajGen Thomas C. Holcomb, memo to Commanding General, Fleet Marine Force, Marine Corps Base San 

Diego, CA, “Mobilization of Organized Marine Corps Reserve,” 

9 October 1940, Correspondence Files of the Commandant of 

the Marine Corps, NARA, RG 38, hereafter CMC memo to CG 

FMF MCB San Diego, 9 October 1940; Commandant MajGen 

Thomas C. Holcomb, memo to Commanding Officer, Marine 

Barracks, Navy Yard, Philadelphia, PA, “Mobilization of 6th 

Marine Corps Reserve Battalion,” 9 October 1940, Correspondence Files of the Commandant of the Marine Corps, NARA, 

RG 38, hereafter CMC memo to CO MB NY Philadelphia, 9 October 1940; Commandant MajGen Thomas C. Holcomb, memo 

to Commanding Officer, Marine Barracks, Navy Yard, Norfolk, 

VA, “Mobilization of Organized Marine Corps Reserve,” 9 October 1940, Correspondence Files of the Commandant of the Marine Corps, NARA, RG 38, hereafter CMC memo to CO MB 

NY Norfolk, 9 October 1940; Commandant MajGen Thomas 

C. Holcomb, memo to Commanding Officer, Marine Barracks, 

Navy Yard, Puget Sound, Bremerton, WA, “Mobilization of 20th 

Marine Corps Reserve Battalion,” 9 October 1940, Correspondence Files of the Commandant of the Marine Corps, NARA, 

RG 38, hereafter CMC memo to CO MB NY Bremerton, 9 October 1940; Commandant MajGen Thomas C. Holcomb, memo to 

Commanding Officer, Marine Barracks, Navy Yard, Mare Island, 

Vallejo, CA, “Mobilization of 12th Marine Corps Reserve Battalion,” 9 October 1940, Correspondence Files of the Commandant of the Marine Corps, NARA, RG 38, hereafter CMC memo 

to CO MB NY Mare Island, 9 October 1940; and Commandant 

MajGen Thomas C. Holcomb, memo to Commanding General, 

Marine Barracks, Quantico, VA, “Mobilization of Organized Marine Corps Reserve,” 9 October 1940, Correspondence Files of 

the Commandant of the Marine Corps, NARA, RG 38, hereafter 

CMC memo to CO MB Quantico, 9 October 1940.

wrote, “It is desired that, after a period necessary for 

completing administrative matters, the personnel of 

Reserve Battalions be absorbed in units of the Fleet 

Marine Force so that all units of the Fleet Marine 

Force will have a proportionate part of regular and 

reserve personnel.” While Holcomb’s directive would 

ensure a full integration of active duty and Reserve 

Marines as the Fleet Marine Force expanded to meet 

expected wartime contingencies, the Commandant 

also ensured that the OMCR and the inactive components of the USMCR would cease to function for the 

foreseeable future.10 

The mobilization paradigm for the USMCR in 

1940 was very much different than it is today. Today, 

USMCR units mobilize as units or provide detachments or individuals to augment other active and 

Reserve units. When the whole unit mobilizes, rear 

parties continue to function at the home training centers (HTCs). This was not the case in 1940. The purpose of the USMCR of 1940 was to provide trained 

Marines to augment the active duty forces. Once its 

members were mobilized, OMCR units were deactivated and remained in a dormant state throughout 

the war. OMCR units were neither intended to mobilize and deploy as units nor did the units maintain 

rear parties at the Reserve centers to continue operating while their Marines were mobilized. Furthermore, 

OMCR reservists were mobilized for the duration of 

the national emergency.

Within days of Roosevelt’s reelection, OMCR 

battalions began reporting to their HTCs for mobilization. Nearly all of them then travelled on to their 

initial duty stations at major Marine Corps and Navy 

installations on the East and West Coasts. Indianapolis’s 16th Battalion and several other battalions had to 

travel halfway across the country to reach their duty 

stations in San Diego. Other battalions had relatively 

short distances to travel to their duty stations. This 

included the 5th Battalion of Washington, DC, which 

reported to Quantico, and the 23d Battalion of Roanoke, Virginia, which reported to Navy Yard Norfolk. 

The 6th Battalion, based at the Marine Barracks, Phil10 CMC memo to CG FMF MCB San Diego, 9 October 1940.
48 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

Table 4. OMCR battalions, October 1940

Battalion Home station October 1940 strength Reporting duty station

1st New York City, NY 275 MB Quantico

2d Boston, MA 301 MB Quantico

3d New York City, NY 306 MB Quantico

4th Newark, NJ 277 MB Quantico

5th Washington, DC 388 MB Quantico

6th MB Philadelphia 322 NY Philadelphia

7th (FA) MB Philadelphia 240 MB Quantico

8th Toledo, OH 239 MB Quantico

9th Chicago, IL 329 MCB San Diego

10th New Orleans, LA 319 MCB San Diego

11th Seattle, WA 187 MCB San Diego

12th San Francisco, CA 327 NY Mare Island

13th Los Angeles, CA 224 MCB San Diego

14th Spokane, WA 212 MCB San Diego

15th Galveston, TX 334 MCB San Diego

16th Indianapolis, IN 213 MCB San Diego

17th Detroit, MI 219 MB Quantico

18th St. Paul, MN 144 MCB San Diego

19th Augusta, GA 286 NY Norfolk 

20th Portland, OR 92 NY Bremerton 

21st Charlotte, NC 75 NY Norfolk 

22d (FA) Los Angeles, CA 234 MCB San Diego

23d Roanoke, VA 104 NY Norfolk 

Notes: MB = Marine Barracks; MCB = Marine Corps Base; and NY = Naval Yard.

Sources: CMC memo to CO MB Quantico, 9 October 1940; CMC memo to CO MB NY Philadelphia, 9 October 1940; CMC memo to CG 

FMF MCB San Diego, 9 October 1940; CMC memo to CO MB NY Mare Island, 9 October 1940; CMC memo to CO MB NY Norfolk, 9 

October 1940; and CMC memo to CO MB NY Bremerton, 9 October 1940, all: Correspondence Files, Commandant of U.S. Marine Corps.
SUMMER 2018 49

adelphia Navy Yard, merely had to report to its HTC 

as its initial duty station was the Philadelphia Navy 

Yard.11 

By 9 November 1940, all of the Reserve infantry and field artillery battalions had been mobilized. 

The cost of mobilizing these 23 battalions was $177,764 

with an average cost per battalion of $7,729 and average cost per reservist of $31. Altogether, 239 officers and 6,192 enlisted men were mobilized from the 

ground forces. Seven officers and 1,183 enlisted Marines were disqualified for physical or hardship reasons or for holding vital jobs in the national defense 

industries. Remarkably, only 22 enlisted Marines that 

did not fall into one of the aforementioned categories 

failed to report for duty.12 

Seventeen of the mobilized battalions reported 

to the Marine Corps bases in either San Diego or 

Quantico. In San Diego, nine OMCR battalions were 

deactivated and their Marines were assigned to active 

duty units in the 2d Marine Brigade. After a period of 

training, most of these Marines were integrated into 

existing active duty units or helped form new ones. 

In the case of the latter, a cadre of active duty Marines was combined with mobilized reservists and new 

recruits to activate the new unit. The eight OMCR 

battalions that reported to Quantico were sent to 

Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in January 1941. In Cuba, the 

battalions were deactivated and their members became part of the 1st Marine Brigade. By the end of 

January 1941, nearly all of the mobilized Reserve battalions had been deactivated and their members absorbed into active duty units.13 

The experiences of three mobilized OMCR battalions are illustrative of how OMCR reservists were 

integrated into the active duty forces. After arriving 

at San Diego, most of the Marines of 14th Infantry 

Battalion (Spokane, Washington) were reassigned 

to 1st Battalion, 8th Marines. The battalion’s former 

11 The Marine Corps Reserve, 276–77; and “Reserves,” 37–40. 12 Fegan, “M-Day for the Reserves,” 24–29.

13 “West Coast,” Leatherneck, February 1941, 44–52; “Reserves,” 

Leatherneck, January 1941, 37–41; The Marine Corps Reserve, 59, 60; 

and “Marine Reserves to Move,” New York Times, 1 January 1941, 

24.

commanding officer, Major Edwin D. Partridge, became the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines’ operations (S3) officer. The 7th Reserve Battalion (Field Artillery) 

from Philadelphia reported to Quantico with its 

75mm pack howitzers. Two months later, the battalion was deactivated and most of its members became 

the nucleus of the newly activated 3d Battalion, 11th 

Marines, at Guantánamo Bay. Major Joseph Knowlan, 

the former commander of the 7th Reserve Battalion, 

became commander of the new 3d Battalion, 11th 

Marines. Not long after, Knowlan and many of his 

Marines were transferred to 1st Battalion, 11th Marines, with Knowlan assuming command of this battalion. The 6th Infantry Battalion of Marine Barracks 

Philadelphia remained intact far longer than nearly 

all of the other mobilized OMCR battalions. The 6th 

Battalion mobilized at the Philadelphia Navy Yard 

on 7 November. For reasons that are unclear, the 6th 

Battalion remained at the Navy Yard for the next six 

months, performing security, training for war, and 

working in various departments there. Meanwhile its 

members, including its commander, Major Edward 

Simmonds, were steadily being transferred to other 

units. On 1 April 1941, the battalion was downgraded 

to the 6th Reserve Company. A month later, all remaining personnel were reassigned and the unit was 

deactivated—one of the last, if not the last—Reserve 

units to do so.14

Between December 1940 and May 1941, the remainder of the USMCR was mobilized. On 16 Decem14 “Marine Reserves Start Active Duty,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 8 

November 1940, 6; “Detachments,” Leatherneck, April 1941, 60–

68; “Detachments,” Leatherneck, June 1941, 46–55; LtCol Ronald 

J. Brown, USMCR, A Brief History of the 14th Marines (Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters Marine 

Corps, 1990), 62; Squadron Historical Chronology, March 2009, 

Marine Wing Support Squadron (MWSS) 472, Marine Wing 

Support Group 47, 4th Marine Aircraft Wing, Marine Forces 

Reserve, on file at MWSS-472, hereafter MWSS-472 chronology; 

and “10th Motor Transport Battalion Has Trained Philadelphia 

Reserves 38 Years,” Newsletter (4th Marine Reserve and Recruiting District, Philadelphia, PA), August 1964, RG 127, NARA, 

8–9. The 7th Reserve Battalion (Field Artillery) is today known 

as 3d Battalion, 14th Marines, of the 4th Marine Division. The 

6th Infantry Battalion in 1964 was then known as the 10th Motor 

Transport Battalion.
50 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

ber, the 13 Marine Reserve aviation squadrons with 

their 92 officers and 670 enlisted men were mobilized. 

The four West Coast squadrons, VMS-6R from Minneapolis, and VMS-10R from Kansas City all went 

to San Diego for their initial duty station; the other 

seven OMCRs went to Quantico. Like their ground 

component counterparts, the OMCR aviation units 

were deactivated and their members reassigned to active duty units. After completing the mobilization of 

its ground and aviation units in mid-1941, the OMCR 

became inactive and the director of the USMCR, 

Colonel Joseph C. Fegan, was reassigned to other duties. Also in December 1940, 1,000 members of the 

FMCR were mobilized. The VMCR underwent two 

phases of mobilization. The first group of VMCR Marine reservists was mobilized on 14 December 1940. 

Six months later on 12 May 1941, the second group 

was mobilized. By the end of May 1941, all available 

Marine reservists—OMCR, FMCR, and VMCR—had 

been mobilized, placing a total of 15,927 reservists on 

active duty.15

The mobilization of the OMCR was an important part of the Marine Corps’ overall expansion to meet the increasing challenges of a world at 

war. The influx of the ground component Marines 

helped the Marine Corps to expand its two existing 

brigades and ultimately upgrade them to divisions. 

Accordingly, the 1st Marine Division was activated 

at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, from the 1st Marine Brigade and the 2d Marine Division was activated at 

Marine Corps Base San Diego from the 2d Marine 

Brigade. Mobilization of the OMCR squadrons also 

aided in the activation of the 1st Marine Aircraft 

15 Kenneth W. Condit, Gerald Diamond, and Edwin T. Turnbladh, Marine Corps Ground Training in World War II (Washington, DC: Historical Branch, G-3 Division, Headquarters Marine 

Corps, 1956), 5–6; and The Marine Corps Reserve, 59–60, 90–91.

Wing and 2d Marine Aircraft Wing in July 1941.16

First Overseas Duty: Iceland

Despite overwhelming odds, Great Britain had staved 

off defeat by the Third Reich in 1940. The following 

year, the situation was still dismal, particularly in 

North Africa, where British forces suffered a series 

of major defeats. At British prime minister Winston 

Churchill’s request, President Roosevelt ordered U.S. 

forces to Iceland to protect the strategically vital North 

Atlantic island and free up British forces for employment elsewhere. The 1st Marine Brigade (Provisional) 

was formed from units of the 2d Marine Division with 

Brigadier General John Marston in command.17 The 

Marines were chosen for the Iceland mission because 

they were not prohibited from overseas service, unlike 

the mobilized National Guard members and recent 

Army draftees.18

In July 1941, the 1st Marine Brigade (Provisional) 

relieved British forces on Iceland and took over defense of the island. The brigade included Lieutenant 

Colonel Oliver P. Smith (future commanding general 

of the 1st Marine Division in the Korean War), Major 

David M. Shoup (future Commandant of the Marine 

Corps), and many mobilized Marine reservists. Captain Robert J. Kennedy (formerly of the 18th Battalion 

[St. Paul, Minnesota]) served as battalion S-3 (operations) for 3d Battalion, 6th Marines. Captain Harry A. 

Traffert Jr. (formerly of the 14th Battalion) served as 

16 LtCol Frank O. Hough, USMCR, Maj Verle E. Ludwig, and 

Henry I. Shaw Jr., Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal, vol. 1, History of 

U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II (Washington, DC: 

Historical Branch, G-3 Division, Headquarters Marine Corps, 

1958), 47–48; Danny J. Crawford et al., The 2d Marine Division and 

Its Regiments (Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, 

Headquarters Marine Corps, 2001), 1; and Danny J. Crawford et 

al., The 1st Marine Division and Its Regiments (Washington, DC: 

History and Museums Division, Headquarters Marine Corps, 

1999), 1. 

17 The 1st Marine Brigade (Provisional) was a new creation specific to the Iceland operation, unrelated to the 1st Marine Brigade, 

which had been expanded to become the 1st Marine Division in 

February 1941.

18 Col James A. Donovan, Outpost in the North Atlantic: Marines in 

the Defense of Iceland, Marines in World War II Commemorative 

Series (Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters Marine Corps, 1992), 2–5.
SUMMER 2018 51

battalion S-4 (logistics) for 2d Battalion, 10th Marines. 

Mobilized reservist Major Joseph F. Hankins served as 

executive officer of 2d Battalion, 6th Marines. The former commander of the 11th Battalion (Seattle), Major 

Clarence H. Baldwin, served as executive officer and 

battalion operations officer (S-3) for 1st Battalion, 6th 

Marines. The 1st Marine Brigade served in Iceland until being relieved by units of the U.S. Army in March 

1942.19

Wartime Utilization 

of OMCR Marines

Initially, the Marine Corps made some efforts to keep 

the mobilized OMCR Marines together with others 

from their Reserve units, even if their Reserve units 

had been deactivated after mobilization. Most of the 

mobilized reservists were from infantry units, so initially they were assigned to infantry units. However, 

the manpower needs of the rapidly expanding Marine 

Corps ultimately determined how and where these 

mobilized reservists served. This became of even greater importance once the United States entered World 

War II in December 1941. Thus, the wartime experiences of mobilized reservists were often in military 

occupational specialties much different from their 

Reserve experiences. This was especially true among 

the mobilized Reserve officers.

When the ground component of the OMCR was 

mobilized in November 1940, there were 23 battalion 

commanders then serving. Since every mobilized Reserve battalion was ultimately deactivated, every one 

of these officers was reassigned to other command 

and staff positions throughout the Marine Corps. 

Major Edward Simmonds served in a succession of 

stateside logistics assignments. Promoted to colonel, 

he served as commanding officer, Base Depot, and 

depot quartermaster at Camp Elliott, San Diego, 

from January 1944 to August 1946. Major Joseph R. 

Knowlan commanded 1st Battalion, 11th Marine Reg19 Smith commanded 1st Battalion, 6th Marines, and Shoup was 

R-3 (operations) officer for the 6th Marine Regiment. For the 

mobilized reservists’ assignments, see “Staff and Command List,” 

in Donovan, Outpost in the North Atlantic, 32; see also The Marine 

Corps Reserve, 97.

iment, 1st Marine Division’s field artillery battalion 

during the Guadalcanal campaign. Medically evacuated in October 1942, Knowlan served as commanding officer, Marine Barracks, Naval Air Training Base 

Corpus Christi, Texas, from February 1943 to April 

1945 and was discharged from active duty at the rank 

of colonel. Lieutenant Colonel Clark W. Thompson 

commanded Special Troops, 2d Marine Brigade, and 

1st Battalion, 22d Marines, in Samoa in 1942–43. He 

then returned to the United States and became director of the USMCR. As director, now-Colonel 

Thompson oversaw planning for the reconstitution 

of the USMCR that would occur after the war. Table 

5 illustrates some of the notable wartime assignments 

of the mobilized OMCR battalion commanders.20

The mobilized OMCR squadron commanders 

also had varied wartime experiences. Major Bernard 

L. Smith helped organize the Marine Corps’ Barrage Balloon Training School and its Barrage Balloon 

Squadrons. Major Karl S. Day was instrumental in 

organizing the Navy/Marine Corps’ instrument flight 

school in Atlanta, Georgia. During 1943, he organized 

and commanded Operational Training Squadron 8 

at Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Cherry Point, 

North Carolina, which trained pilots to fly the North 

American PBJ-1 twin-engine bomber—the Navy/

Marine Corps version of the North American B-25 

Mitchell. In 1944–45, he was the base commander of 

Marine Air Base Peleliu Island. Major William J. Fox 

supervised the reconstruction of Henderson Field on 

Guadalcanal and commanded Marine Air Base Guadalcanal until being wounded during a Japanese air 

raid on 31 January 1943. He also oversaw the construction of five airfields in southern California, including 

MCAS El Toro, which he also commanded. Colonel 

Melvin J. Maas flew combat missions in the south Pacific and earned the Silver Star while flying as an ob20 Simmonds personnel file; Col Francis Fox Parry, Three War Marine: The Pacific, Korea, Vietnam (Pacifica, CA: Pacifica Press, 1987), 

73; Knowlan biography; Patrick H. Butler III, “Thompson, Clark 

Wallace,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed 10 July 2017; and 

“In Memoriam: Col Clark W. Thompson,” 23. Edward Simmonds 

retired from the USMCR as a colonel in 1952. Joseph Knowlan 

retired from the Reserve in 1954 at the rank of brigadier general. 

Thompson retired from the Reserve on 1 June 1946 as a colonel.
52 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

server/aerial gunner with the U.S. Army Air Force in 

September 1942. In May 1945, he assumed command of 

the Awase Airbase on Okinawa. The following month, 

he suffered serious shrapnel wounds to his face; due to 

damage to his optic nerve, he became blind after the 

war.21

21 Updegraph, U.S. Marine Corps Special Units of World War II, 

55–56; Sherrod, History of Marine Corps Aviation in World War II, 

119, 144, 257, 439, 441, 445, 444, 448; “Gen. Karl Day, 76, a Marine Aviator,” 34; The Marine Corps Reserve, 90; New York Times

Fox obituary; Los Angeles Times Fox obituary; William Joseph Fox 

casualty cards, Marine Corps History Division, accessed 21 June 

2017; Maas obituary; and Melvin J. Maas casualty cards, Marine 

Corps History Division, accessed 21 June 2017.

As stated earlier, the Marine Corps initially made 

some efforts to keep mobilized members of OMCR 

battalions together. It is difficult to determine how 

long OMCR reservists stayed together after their battalions were deactivated and they were reassigned to 

newly forming active duty units. Some members of 

one mobilized OMCR battalion (Philadelphia’s 7th 

Battalion) remained together through the Guadalcanal campaign (August–December 1942) as part of the 

1st Battalion, 11th Marines. This included Lieutenant 

Colonel Knowlan, who served as commander of 1st 

Battalion, 11th Marines, and Captain Harry Zimmer, 

who served first as a battery commander and later as 

battalion executive officer. The commander of the 11th 

Table 5. Notable assignments of mobilized OMCR battalion commanders 

Battalion commander Battalion Position Unit Location

Baldwin, Clarence H. 11th Battalion commanding officer 2d Service Battalion, Gilberts

(colonel) 2d Marine Division

Barr, Walter W. 19th Battalion commanding officer 1st AMTRAC Battalion, Guadalcanal

(lieutenant colonel) 1st Marine Division

Chalfant, William III 4th Battalion executive officer 2d Battalion, Guadalcanal

(major) 1st Marine Regiment,

1st Marine Division 

Hagerman, Burdette 17th Battalion executive officer 3d Battalion, Guadalcanal

(major) 7th Marine Regiment, 

1st Marine Division 

Knowlan, Joseph R. 7th Battalion commanding officer 1st Battalion, Guadalcanal

(lieutenant colonel) 11th Marines, 

1st Marine Division

Partridge, Edwin O. 14th Regimental executive officer 7th Service Regiment, Okinawa

(lieutenant colonel) III Amphibious Corps

Simmonds, Edward P. 6th Commanding officer Base Depot Camp Elliott, 

(colonel) San Diego, CA

Thompson, Clark W. 15th Director (colonel) Marine Corps Reserve Washington, DC

Watters, Alfred A. 10th Regimental executive officer 6th Marine Regiment, New Zealand

(lieutenant colonel) 2d Marine Division

Sources: Henry I. Shaw Jr., Bernard C. Nalty, and Edwin T. Turnbladh, Central Pacific Drive, History of U.S. Marine Corps 

Operations in World War II, vol. 3 (Washington, DC: Historical Branch, G-3 Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps 1966), appendix G; Maj John L. Zimmerman, USMCR, The Guadalcanal Campaign (Washington, DC: Historical Section, Division of Public 

Information, Headquarters, Marine Corps, 1949), appendix E; Knowlan Biography; Maj Chas. S. Nichols Jr. and Henry I. Shaw Jr., Okinawa: Victory in the Pacific (Washington, DC: Historical Branch, G-3 Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1955), appendix 

III; Simmonds personnel file; and “In Memoriam: Col Clark W. Thompson.” 
SUMMER 2018 53

Marines, Colonel Pedro A. del Valle, later reported, 

“I noted an artillery battalion on Guadalcanal, largely 

Reserves from Philadelphia, who did a superb job—

outstanding.”22

Prior to mobilization, most OMCR officers 

served with either infantry or field artillery battalions. 

After mobilization, many OMCR officers remained 

with these branches. Major Justice Marion Chambers of the 5th Infantry Battalion served with the 1st 

Marine Raider Battalion during the Tulagi invasion 

in August 1942 and commanded the 3d Battalion, 

25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, during 

the Marshall Islands, Marianas Islands, and Iwo Jima 

invasions. He was wounded on Tulagi, Saipan, and 

Iwo Jima. For his heroic leadership on Iwo Jima, he 

was awarded the Medal of Honor. Captain Zimmer, 

of Philadelphia’s 7th Reserve Battalion (Field Artillery), served in 1st Battalion, 11th Marines, 1st Marine 

Division, on Guadalcanal and commanded another 

field artillery battalion (1st Battalion, 14th Marines, 

4th Marine Division) during the Marshall Islands and 

Marianas invasions. On 25 July 1944, he and several 

of his battalion staff were killed by a Japanese artillery shell on Tinian Island. Table 6 offers several more 

examples of the wartime service of mobilized OMCR 

ground component officers.23

Due to the manpower needs of the wartime Marine Corps, however, many other mobilized Reserve 

officers often found themselves in very different career fields. President Roosevelt’s son, James, mobilized 

with the 22d Battalion (Field Artillery) from Los An22 Knowlan biography; LtGen del Valle quoted in The Marine 

Corps Reserve, 98; Parry, Three War Marine, 43 and chapter 6; and 

“Marine Reserves to Move,” 24.

23 Kenneth E. John, “Medal of Honor Winner Justice Chambers Dies,” Washington Post, 1 August 1982, hereafter Chambers 

obituary; “Colonel Justice Marion Chambers, USMCR (Dec),” 

biography, Marine Corps History Division, hereafter Chambers 

biography; The Marine Corps Reserve, 87–88; Parry, Three War Marine, 43, 46; Brown, A Brief History of the 14th Marines, 42; and 

Richard Harwood, A Close Encounter: Marine Landing on Tinian, 

Marines in World War Two Commemorative Series (Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters Marine 

Corps, 1994), 19. Chambers was wounded on Tulagi, Saipan, and 

Iwo Jima. His wounds on Iwo Jima were so severe that he was 

medically retired at the rank of colonel in 1964.

geles. Yet he is best remembered for his role as executive officer of the 2d Marine Raider Battalion and for 

earning the Navy Cross during the battalion’s August 

1942 raid on Makin Island. First Lieutenant Gooderham L. McCormick and Captain Charles H. Cox of 

the 6th Battalion (Philadelphia) both attended the 

British Royal Air Force photographic interpretation 

school in 1941 and learned how to use aerial photography for intelligence purposes. Returning to the United States in November, they helped Navy Lieutenant 

Commander Robert S. Quackenbush Jr. establish the 

U.S. Navy School of Photographic Interpretation at 

Naval Air Station Anacostia, Washington, DC. Afterward, Cox served as assistant air intelligence officer 

on the staff of the commander, South Pacific Area, 

Vice Admiral William F. Halsey. McCormick served 

as the division intelligence (D-2) officer for the 4th 

Marine Division for the Marshalls, Marianas, and Iwo 

Jima invasions.24

Mobilized Marine aviators tended to stay within aviation for the war. While flying Grumman F4F 

Wildcat fighters with Marine Fighter Squadron 121 

(VMF-121) during the Guadalcanal Campaign, Captain Joseph J. Foss shot down 26 Japanese aircraft. 

That achievement made him the second leading Marine Corps ace of the war and earned him the Medal 

of Honor. Major Joseph Sailer Jr., formerly of VMS2R at Naval Reserve Aviation Base (NRAB) Brooklyn, 

commanded Marine Scout Bombing Squadron 132 

(VMSB-132) and flew 25 combat missions during the 

Guadalcanal campaign. While piloting Douglas SBD 

Dauntless dive bombers, he scored hits on the Japanese 

battleship Hiei, two cruisers, a destroyer, and several 

24 “Brigadier General James Roosevelt, USMCR (Dec),” biography, Marine Corps History Division, hereafter Roosevelt biography; military personnel file of BGen Charles Humphreys Cox, 

USMCR (Dec), NPRC-NARA, hereafter Cox personnel file; and 

military personnel file of BGen Gooderham Lauten McCormick, 

USMCR (Dec), NPRC-NARA, hereafter McCormick personnel file. Roosevelt retired in October 1959 and was promoted to 

brigadier general for meritorious combat service. After being discharged in 1946, Cox reactivated the 6th Battalion; he retired in 

1964. McCormick was discharged in 1948 and retired in October 

1956. Upon retiring, both Cox and McCormick were promoted 

to brigadier general for meritorious combat service.
54 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

Table 6. OMCR officers’ noteworthy assignments 

Name Rank Battalion Highest rank Noteworthy assignments Campaigns

Chambers, Justice M. Major 5th Colonel Commanding officer, Marshalls,

 3d Battalion, Marianas (WIA),

 25th Marine Regiment, Iwo Jima (WIA) 

 4th Marine Division (MOH)

Cox, Charles H. Captain 6th Lieutenant colonel Assistant Air Intelligence Solomons

 Officer, Commander, 

 South Pacific Ocean Areas

Donovan, James A. Second lieutenant 9th Major Executive officer, Marianas

 1st Battalion

 6th Marine Regiment,

 2d Marine Division

Krulewitch, Melvin L. Lieutenant colonel N/A Colonel Commanding Officer, Iwo Jima

 Division Support Group, 

 4th Marine Division

Layer, Walter First lieutenant 6th Lieutenant colonel Commanding Officer, Marianas

 3d Battalion

 2d Marine Regiment, 

 2d Marine Division

McCormick, Gooderham First lieutenant 6th Colonel D-2 (Intelligence), Marshalls, 

 4th Marine Division Marianas,

 Iwo Jima

Meek, Harold First lieutenant 16th Lieutenant colonel Communications officer, Guadalcanal

 9th Defense Battalion

Roosevelt, James Captain 22d Colonel Executive Officer, Makin Raid 

 2d Marine Raider Battalion (Navy Cross)

Scott, John W. Captain 6th Lieutenant colonel G-2 (Intelligence), Okinawa

 1st Marine Division

Zimmer, Harry First lieutenant 7th Lieutenant colonel Commanding officer, Saipan,

 1st Battalion Tinian (KIA)

 14th Marine Regiment, 

 4th Marine Division

Notes: WIA = wounded in action; KIA = killed in action; MOH = Medal of Honor.

Sources: Chambers biography; Cox personnel file; Donovan, Outpost in the North Atlantic, back cover. Donovan later fought in the 

Korean War with the 1st Marine Division and retired in November 1963 as a colonel; MajGen Melvin L. Krulewitch, USMCR, Now That 

You Mention It (New York: Quadrangle, 1973); LtCol Whitman S. Bartley, Iwo Jima: Amphibious Epic (Washington, DC: Historical 

Section, Division of Public Information, Headquarters Marine Corps, 1954), 175; Military personnel file of Col Walter F. Layer, USMCR 

(Dec.), NPRC-NARA (Layer commanded the 6th Infantry Battalion when it was mobilized for the Korean War and later commanded 

the 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, in Korea in the summer of 1952); McCormick personnel file; Military personnel file of Col 

Harold B. Meek, USMCR (Dec.), NPRC-NARA; Roosevelt biography; “John W. Scott Leads Marines,” Alumni News (University of 

Maryland), June 1944. Scott ended the war as a lieutenant colonel; Parry, Three War Marine, 43, 46; Brown, A Brief History of the 

14th Marines, 42; and Harwood, A Close Encounter, 19.
SUMMER 2018 55

transports. He was lost in action on 7 December 1942 

and posthumously awarded the Navy Cross. The former commander of VMS-1R, NRAB Squantum, Massachusetts, Lieutenant Colonel Nathaniel S. Clifford, 

served in the Solomon Islands with Marine Aircraft 

Group 21 and was lost in action on 3 August 1943.25

Mobilized enlisted members of the OMCR also 

served throughout the war in a variety of assignments. 

The mobilized members of the 16th Battalion are illustrative of this. Private Floyd Henry Davis and Corporal Albert Powhattan Rickert were part of the 1st 

Defense Battalion that gallantly defended Wake Island 

against overwhelming Japanese forces. Captured when 

the garrison was forced to surrender, Rickert and Davis survived several years of horrific treatment by the 

Japanese until being liberated at the war’s end. Private 

First Class James E. Hightshue of Company B served 

with the 2d Marine Division on Guadalcanal, Tarawa, 

and Okinawa. Brothers Nelson C. and Frederick A. 

Roetter served in the 16th Battalion together and 

were both mobilized in 1940. Staff Sergeant Nelson C. 

Roetter fought on Tulagi and Guadalcanal during the 

Solomon Islands campaign. Second Lieutenant Frederick A. Roetter earned an officer’s commission and 

served with 2d Tank Battalion, 2d Marine Division, in 

New Zealand, where he died from a noncombat accident. Field Cook Paul C. Phillips served with the Marine Detachment aboard the battleship USS Colorado 

(BB 45). Sergeant Harry H. Walter was wounded while 

serving with 1st Battalion, 28th Marine Regiment, 

5th Marine Division, on Iwo Jima. Sergeant Robert 

W. Edwards was wounded while serving with a field 

artillery battalion (3d Battalion, 10th Marine Regiment, 2d Marine Division) on Saipan. Corporal John 

A. Kraig was killed while serving with Anti-Aircraft 

25 The Marine Corps Reserve, 85, 90, 92; “Brigadier General Joseph 

J. Foss, ANG (Dec),” biography, Marine Corps History Division; 

Alexander S. White, Dauntless Marine: Joseph Sailer Jr., Dive-Bombing Ace of Guadalcanal (Fairfax Station, VA: White Knight Press, 

1996), 104–16; Sherrod, History of Marine Corps Aviation in World 

War II, 120, 140, 441, 444; casualty cards of Nathaniel S. Clifford, 

Marine Corps History Division, accessed 21 June 2017; and “Nathaniel S. Clifford,” American Battle Monuments Commission,

accessed 21 June 2017. After the war, Foss joined the South Dakota National Guard and rose to the rank of brigadier general.

Group, 3d Defense Battalion, in the Solomon Islands.26

One can get a sense of where and how mobilized 

OMCR members served during the war through casualty records. With mobilized members of the OMCR 

serving in nearly every battle and campaign in the 

Pacific theater, it was inevitable that some would 

become casualties. While it is difficult to quantify 

exactly how many mobilized reservists became casualties, one can get a sense of the casualties suffered by 

comparing mobilization rosters with Marine Corps 

casualty cards and casualty lists prepared by the Department of the Navy. 

The experiences of the 16th Battalion from Indianapolis illustrate the sacrifices suffered by mobilized OMCR reservists during World War II. The 

battalion’s mobilized members suffered casualties in 

battles across the Pacific theater beginning with the 

defense of Wake Island and ending with the capture 

of Okinawa some three and a half years later. As previously mentioned, two of its former members—Floyd 

Davis and Albert Rickert—became prisoners of war 

when Wake Island was captured by the Japanese in 

December 1941. Three former 16th Battalion members 

were killed in action and three others died as a result 

of noncombat accidents. Four former members were 

evacuated as a result of what was termed at the time 

26 “History of the 16th Battalion, United States Marine Corps 

Reserve,” Collection on the 16th Battalion United States Marine 

Corps Reserve, 1939 to 1990, S1242, Indiana State Library Special 

Collections; U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, 16th Battalion, Change 

Sheet 313, 8 November 1940, Collection on the 16th Battalion 

United States Marine Corps Reserve, 1939 to 1990, S1242, Indiana State Library Special Collections; and Welton W. Harris II, 

“Broomstick Brigade Rides Again,” Indianapolis News, November 

1940, E-1, Collection on the 16th Battalion United States Marine 

Corps Reserve, 1939 to 1990, S1242, Indiana State Library Special 

Collections. My thanks to Laura Eliason of the Indiana State Library for her assistance in obtaining the preceding documents. 

“Nelson C. Roetter Obituary,” Indianapolis Star, 3 February 2013; 

and “James ‘Eddie’ Hightshue Obituary,” Flanner and Buchanan 

Funeral Centers, Zionsville, IN, 30 January 2014. The information 

on Floyd H. Davis, John A. Kraig, Harry H. Walter, Robert W. 

Edwards, Paul C. Phillips, Frederick A. Roetter, and Albert P. 

Rickert was obtained by comparing the 16th Battalion’s mobilization roster with the Marine Corps History Division’s casualty 

cards database, accessed 12 July 2017. The 16th Infantry Battalion’s 

mobilization roster was obtained from the Indiana State Library 

Special Collections.
56 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

shell shock or combat fatigue. A total of 18 former members suffered casualties in combat. Table 7 summarizes 

casualties suffered by former 16th Infantry Battalion 

members during World War II.27

The rapid expansion of the Marine Corps due to 

wartime requirements opened up opportunities for 

enlisted Marines to earn officer commissions. This 

included mobilized OMCR enlisted members. Three 

members of the 6th Battalion (Philadelphia) all earned 

officer commissions, each by a different route. Edward 

B. Meyer was appointed to the U.S. Naval Academy in 

1943 and earned a commission as a second lieutenant 

in 1946. Norman J. E. Murken earned an officer commission through Officer Candidate School and then 

served as intelligence (S-2) officer for the 4th Pioneer 

Battalion, 4th Marine Division, during the Iwo Jima 

invasion. Anthony D. Davitt earned a Bronze Star and 

was meritoriously commissioned as a second lieutenant for his exemplary performance while supervising 

radio communications for Headquarters Company, 

2d Battalion, 20th Marine Regiment (Engineers), 4th 

Marine Division, during the Marianas invasion.28 

27 Casualty Cards Database, Marine Corps History Division, accessed 12 July 2017; ABMC Burials and Memorials online database, American Battle Monuments Commission, accessed 19 July 

2017; and State Summary of War Casualties from World War II 

for Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard Personnel from Indiana, 1946, U.S. Department of the Navy, Office of Public Information, Casualty Section, June 1946, 305199, NARA, accessed 16 

July 2017. The 16th Infantry Battalion’s mobilization roster obtained from the Indiana State Library Special Collections was 

cross-referenced with the above databases to ensure accuracy in 

identifying those battalion members who became casualties during World War II.

28 “BrigGen Edward B. Meyer, USMC,” in “Twelfth Annual Mess 

Night Program,” Marine Wing Motor Transport Squadron 4; 

military personnel file of LtCol Norman J. E. Murken, USMCR 

(Dec), NPRC-NARA, hereafter Murken personnel file; “2nd Lt 

Anthony D. Davitt,” Wilkes-Barre (PA) Record, 30 January 1945, 

3; Casualty Card Database, Marine Corps History Division, accessed 6 June 2017; and “2nd Lt Anthony D. Davitt,” Wilkes-Barre 

(PA) Record, 24 April 1945, 11. Meyer served in both the Korean 

and Vietnam Wars and retired as a brigadier general; he was mobilized again for the Korean War and retired from the USMCR 

as a lieutenant colonel. Davitt was wounded while serving with 

the 3d Battalion, 24th Marines, on Iwo Jima. 

Mobilization and 

Utilization Considered

The OMCR was designed to rapidly bring trained Marine reservists into active duty during a time of national emergency. In November and December of 1940, 

the OMCR performed exactly as it was intended. In 

doing so, the OMCR helped the Marine Corps to activate the 1st and 2d Marine Divisions and the 1st and 

2d Marine Aircraft Wings in 1941. As demonstrated 

above, these mobilized OMCR members served with 

distinction throughout the Pacific campaigns and in 

important stateside assignments.

Even before mobilization, the senior leadership 

of the Marine Corps had decided that the mobilized 

battalions and squadrons would be deactivated and 

their members absorbed into the expanding active 

duty Marine Corps. The mobilized OMCR Marines 

were then combined with active duty Marines and 

new recruits to bring active duty units up to strength 

or to activate new ones. With every OMCR battalion 

and squadron well below table of organization and 

equipment strength, it is hard to argue against this 

practice. The Marine Corps could have brought the 

OMCR units up to strength, but it appears that this 

would have been administratively more difficult. 

There were significant downsides to this approach of deactivating the OMCR units and absorbing their Marines into the active duty Corps. “The 

Reserve Battalions lost their identities when they 

merged with the brigade units,” Major Edward Partridge, commander of the 14th Battalion, recalled 

years later. “Individuals, also, quickly lost their identities as Reserves, becoming indistinguishable from the 

career Marines with whom they trained side by side,” 

he continued. With the OMCR units now deactivated 

and all of their members on active duty, the USMCR 

went dormant for the duration of the war. Unlike today, there were no rear detachments continuing to 

operate when the unit was mobilized. This meant that 

the entire USMCR had to be rebuilt when the war 

was over. Finally, the achievements and sacrifices of 

the OMCR members have largely been overlooked by 
SUMMER 2018 57

Table 7. 16th Infantry Battalion casualty list, World War II 

Name 1940 company Rank Date of casualty Type Location Unit 

Anderson, John Einar D 2dLt 22 November 1943 KIA Tarawa Company A, 1st Battalion,

 2d Marines, 2d MarDiv

Bauer, Edward Francis Henry B Capt 6 March 1945 WIA Iwo Jima 24th Replacement Battalion, 

 4th MarDiv

Baukat, Robert William A Sgt 31 July 1942 AD H&S Bty, 2d Special Weapons 

 Battalion, 2d MarDiv

Bowers, Noble Lester D PFC 21 February 1945 WIA Iwo Jima Company B, 1st Battalion,

 24th Marines, 4th MarDiv

Boyd, Paul Thomas D PltSgt 8 July 1944 WIA Saipan Company A, 1st Battalion,

 2d Marines, 2d MarDiv

Caldwell, James W. HQ Sgt 26 June 1944 KIA Saipan 1st Battalion, 29th Marines, 

 2d MarDiv

Carroll, Edward Thomas Jr. HQ 2 March 1945 SS (CF) Iwo Jima Company A, 1st Battalion,

 25th Marines, 4th MarDiv

Crawford, Paul Richard C Sgt June or July 1944 SS Saipan Company K, 3d Battalion,

 22d Marines, 

 1st Prov Marine Brigade

Davis, Floyd Henry B Cpl 23 December 1941 POW Wake Island 1st Defense Battalion

Dixon, David Joseph D Sgt 1 July 1944 SS (CF) Saipan Company B, 1st Battalion,

 21st Marines, 3d MarDiv

Edwards, Robert Welch A Sgt 7 July 1944 WIA Saipan HQ Battery, 3d Battalion,

 10th Marines, 2d MarDiv

Hargis, Saul Estal C GySgt 22 February 1945 SS (CF) Iwo Jima HQ, 3d Battalion,

 26th Marines, 5th MarDiv

Hussion, Alan Earl C Sgt 3 August 1944 WIA Guam Company B, 1st Battalion,

 9th Marines, 3d MarDiv

Kraig, John August B Cpl 20 November 1943 KIA Solomons AA Group, 

 3d Defense Battalion

Pendergast, Dallas Edward C Cpl 21 November 1943 WIA Tarawa Company F, 2d Battalion,

 8th Marines, 2d MarDiv

Phillips, Paul Carl D Field cook 22 July 1944 WIA Marianas Marine Detachment, 

 USS Colorado (BB 45)

Reynolds, Bliss Robert C 1stSgt 19 December 1944 AD Purcell, OK Naval Air 

 Gunnery School

Rickert, Albert Powhattan D Cpl 23 December 1941 POW Wake Island 1st Defense Battalion

Roetter, Frederick Arthur D 2dLt 11 June 1943 AD New Zealand Company A, 

 2d Tank Battalion, 2d MarDiv

Stinson, Marvin Odie D PltSgt 5 May 1945 WIA Okinawa Company E, 2d Battalion,

 5th Marines, 1st MarDiv

Walter, Harry Hill HQ Sgt 19 February 1945 WIA Iwo Jima HQ, 1st Battalion,

 28th Marines, 5th MarDiv

Notes: SS (CF) = shell shock (combat fatigue); KIA = killed in action; WIA = wounded in action; AD = Accidental Death; POW = prisoner 

of war.

Sources: To prepare this table, the 16th Battalion’s mobilization roster was cross-referenced with Marine Corps History Division’s Casualty 

Cards online database, the American Battle Monuments Commission Burials and Memorials online database, and the Department of the 

Navy’s State Summary of War. Casualties from World War II for Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard Personnel from Indiana, 1946. 

This was done to ensure accuracy in identifying those battalion members who became casualties during World War II. See footnote 27 for 

detailed source citation.
58 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

history because of the manner in which they served.29

Historiography

The contributions of the OMCR before and during 

World War II have largely been overlooked by historians of the titanic global struggle. For example, the 

Navy’s official 15-volume History of United States Naval 

Operations in World War II, written by preeminent historian Samuel Eliot Morison, does not mention the 

mobilization of either the USMCR or the Navy Reserve. David J. Ulbrich’s Preparing for Victory: Thomas 

Holcomb and the Making of the Modern Marine Corps, 

1936–1943 is a comprehensive analysis of Holcomb’s 

tenure as Commandant of the Marine Corps, but it 

contains only a few brief mentions of the USMCR. 

While a very comprehensive account, Robert Sherrod’s History of Marine Corps Aviation in World War II 

contains details of several prominent reservists but 

no mention about the mobilization of the Marine 

Reserve squadrons at all. Harry I. Shaw Jr.’s Opening 

Moves: Marines Gear Up for War was written as part of 

the Marines in World War II Commemorative Series. 

Shaw’s work describes the Marine Corps’ efforts to 

prepare for World War II but only briefly mentions 

the mobilization of the USMCR. Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal, volume one of History of U.S. Marine Corps 

Operations in World War II, contains two sentences 

acknowledging that the mobilization of the OMCR 

was an important factor in the Marine Corps’ expansion in 1940–41 and in the formation of two Marine 

divisions in February 1941.30

Two works in particular do devote significant attention to the mobilization of the USMCR for World 

War II. Of the official Marine Corps publications, Ma29 The Marine Corps Reserve. 30 Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations 

in World War II, 15 vols. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1947–62); David 

J. Ulbrich, Preparing for Victory: Thomas Holcomb and the Making 

of the Modern Marine Corps, 1936–1943 (Annapolis: Naval Institute 

Press, 2011), 88; Sherrod, History of Marine Corps Aviation in World 

War II; Henry I. Shaw Jr., Opening Moves: Marines Gear Up for War, 

Marines in World War Two Commemorative Series (Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters Marine 

Corps, 1991); and Hough, Ludwig, and Shaw, Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal, chapter 5.

rine Corps Ground Training in World War II contains the 

most information about the Reserve mobilization. The 

Marine Corps Reserve: A History was written and published by the reserve officers of Public Affairs Unit 4-1 

in 1966. The book’s third chapter is devoted to World 

War II, and at 41 pages long, it was the longest chapter 

in the book.31

Several publications state that approximately 70 

percent of the nearly 590,000 Marines who served in 

World War II were reservists. That figure is misleading because the entire USMCR in 1940 numbered 

only 16,400 or so, and only about 15,000 were actually 

mobilized in 1940–41. Following the 1940–41 mobilization, the USMCR went into a period of inactivation that lasted until 1946. Limited by the authorized 

strengths for its active duty forces, the Marine Corps 

classified the vast majority of its World War II officers and a great many of its enlisted Marines as reservists. Therefore, of the nearly 590,000 Marines who 

served in World War II, only 15,000 or about 2.5 percent were prewar reservists mobilized for war. Therein lies the problem. These mobilized reservists have 

literally become swallowed up in the massive World 

War II Marine Corps and lost within its history. Even 

the otherwise comprehensive The Marine Corps Reserve 

tends to lump prewar Marine reservists with those 

who joined after Pearl Harbor when discussing the 

wartime service of Marine reservists. Consequently, 

one of the purposes of this article is to highlight the 

contributions of those Marine reservists mobilized 

from the OMCR and to fill this significant gap in the 

historical record of World War II.32 

Lessons Learned

The mobilization of the OMCR in 1940 was a significant learning experience for the Marine Corps. One 

of the most important lessons learned was that the 

OMCR needed a greater diversification in its Reserve 

units. The prewar Marine Corps Reserve consisted of 

31 Condit, Diamond, and Turnbladh, Marine Corps Ground Training in World War II; and The Marine Corps Reserve, chapter 3. 32 For example, see The Marine Corps Reserve, 59. The remaining 

reservists were not mobilized due to being physically disqualified 

or having vital defense jobs.
SUMMER 2018 59

just four types of Reserve units: infantry battalion, 

field artillery battalion, scout bomber squadron, and 

aviation service squadron. Most of the Reserve units 

were infantry. While other military occupational specialties (MOSs) were represented in the units, the predominant MOSs were infantry related. As the active 

duty Marine Corps rapidly expanded in 1940–41, it 

quickly became apparent that more than just infantry 

MOSs were needed.

Accordingly, the USMCR leadership planned for 

diversification of units as they conducted the process 

of rebuilding the dormant OMCR in the later stages 

of World War II. These efforts were led by officer-incharge of the Division of Reserve Colonel Clark W. 

Thompson and Colonel Melvin J. Maas. Together, they 

drafted plans to activate 18 infantry battalions; seven 

field artillery battalions; a battalion each of tanks, amphibious tractors, and antiaircraft artillery; five signal 

companies; three engineer companies; two weapons 

companies; and 24 aviation squadrons. Reserve units 

would be reestablished in most of the cities that hosted units before the war.33 

The vigorous efforts to reestablish the USMCR 

and its active component paid off in 1946. By year’s 

end, there were some 2,630 officers and 29,829 enlisted Marines serving in the Reserves. There was 

an enormous pool of discharged veteran Marines 

who had served during the war, which enabled the 

USMCR to rapidly rebuild its manpower with experienced former active duty Marines. Altogether, the 

new OMCR consisted of 11 infantry battalions, two 

105mm howitzer battalions, one 155mm howitzer 

battalion, one tank battalion, and six fighter squadrons at the end of 1946. This included the reactivated 

OMCR battalions at Marine Barracks Philadelphia: 

the 6th Infantry Battalion and the 7th Battalion (Artillery), which had been reestablished as the 1st 155mm 

Howitzer Battalion. Within a couple years, Women’s 

33 The Marine Corps Reserve, 102–3.

Reserve platoons were added to many OMCR units.34

There was one important lesson that the Marine 

Corps failed to learn after World War II, which was 

the need to continue to operate the USMCR after its 

units and personnel had been mobilized. Less than five 

years after World War II’s end, North Korean forces 

invaded South Korea. In response, the USMCR was 

mobilized for war for the second time in 10 years. The 

mobilization paradigm of 1940 was used again, albeit 

under much more exigent circumstances. Again, the 

Marine Corps activated the OMCR units and personnel, relocated them to active duty bases, deactivated 

the units, and reassigned their personnel to active 

duty units. Again, the OMCR units went dormant 

during wartime. 

This time the Marine Corps leadership belatedly 

realized the drawbacks of having its Reserve component go dormant. Accordingly, in 1952, mobilized 

Marine Corps Reserve members were demobilized, 

OMCR units were reactivated, and the Reserve component was hastily rebuilt. The fact that the United 

States was also engaged in a Cold War with the Soviet Union was a factor in this rapid reconstitution of 

the USMCR. As was the case after World War II, the 

USMCR adopted greater diversification of its units. 

After more than 26 years of service as an infantry unit, 

the 6th Battalion was reactivated as the 2d Depot Supply Battalion.35 

The USMCR was not mobilized for the Vietnam 

War. When next called upon, the Reserves would not 

adopt the mobilization practices of 1940 and 1950. 

Marine units were mobilized for Operations Desert 

Shield and Desert Storm in 1990–91 and for Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom 

34 The Marine Corps Reserve, 102–3; Arthur Mielke, “The Peacetime 

USMCR,” Leatherneck, November 1946, 42–43; and Col Mary V. 

Stremlow, USMCR, A History of the Women Marines, 1946–1977 

(Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters 

Marine Corps, 1986), 40–41.

35 Capt Ernest H. Giusti, Mobilization of the Marine Corps Reserve 

in the Korean Conflict, 1950–1951 (Washington, DC: Historical 

Branch, G-3 Division, Headquarters Marine Corps, 1951); and 

TSgt Robert A. Suhosky, “Philadelphia Reservists,” Leatherneck, 

November 1955, 34–37. 
60 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

in the new millennium. Marine Reserve units mobilized either as detachments to augment other units or 

whole unit mobilizations. In both cases, the USMCR 

(renamed Marine Forces Reserve in 1994) continued 

to function with rear detachments operating when 

the whole unit was mobilized and deployed. This 

paradigm has ensured that unit integrity remains, the 

Reserve force in general continues to operate, and mobilized Reserve units receive the recognition for their 

service due to them.

Conclusion

The mobilization of the OMCR in November and December 1940 was the second mobilization of the force 

in its history. The OMCR functioned exactly as it was 

intended to, providing more than 7,300 trained Marines to help rapidly expand the active duty Marine 

Corps for war. The mobilization of the OMCR and the 

utilization of its members brought significant benefits 

to a Marine Corps attempting to quickly expand in 

the face of a rapidly deteriorating world situation. The 

influx of trained reservists helped the Marine Corps 

to activate the 1st and 2d Marine Divisions. These 

reservists then served with distinction in the Pacific 

campaigns and in stateside assignments. The manner 

in which OMCR members were mobilized also had 

certain drawbacks. The OMCR went dormant for the 

duration of the war and had to be completely rebuilt 

afterwards. Since the OMCR members were absorbed 

into the larger Marine Corps, their achievements and 

sacrifices have largely been lost in the larger history of 

the Marine Corps in World War II. 

• 1775 •
Ernest Hemingway 

and a Few Good Men

CONFRONTING U-BOATS IN THE CARIBBEAN

by Colonel Nicholas E. Reynolds, USMCR (Ret)1

Ahandful of Marines played a mostly forgotten 

but nevertheless pivotal role in one of Ernest 

Hemingway’s legendary exploits. They helped 

him conceive and run something he called “Operation 

Friendless,” which was a quixotic search for German 

submarines in the Caribbean during World War II. 

Without the Marines, the writer and his crew might never have been put to sea as U.S. Navy auxiliaries in 1942.

The story goes back to June 1941 when Hemingway and his third wife, Martha Gellhorn, found themselves in a meeting with Lieutenant Colonel John W. 

Thomason Jr. at “Main Navy” in Washington, DC, one 

of the many plain concrete temporary structures, or 

“tempos,” erected during World War I that had taken 

over the National Mall between the far more elegant 

Lincoln and Washington Memorials.2 The tempos had 

little to offer apart from shelter and rudimentary offices that were hard to heat in the winter and impossible to cool in the summer.

Thomason had a reputation for being impec1

 Col Nicholas E. Reynolds, USMCR (Ret), was officer in charge 

of the U.S. Marine Corp’s History and Museum Division’s Field 

History Branch from 2000 to 2004, and he is also the author of 

a recent New York Times best seller entitled Writer, Sailor, Soldier, 

Spy: Ernest Hemingway’s Secret Adventures, 1935–1961 (New York: 

William Morrow, 2017). Parts of this article originally appeared 

in Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy, especially in chapter 8, which describes the setting for the meeting between Hemingway and 

Thomason.

2

 The Navy’s principal offices were in the building referred to as 

Main Navy; other subordinate functions were housed elsewhere 

in the capital.

cable in his uniform. On this day, he most likely wore 

a set of summer service alphas, complete with field 

scarf and form-fitting blouse. His short, dark brown 

hair was parted in the middle, a slight eccentricity 

that distinguished him from other Marine officers of 

the day. Hemingway already knew that he had much 

in common with the Marine from Texas, who was 

only six years older. 

Thomason was a fellow World War I veteran, 

a hero of the grim fighting in the trenches in 1918 

who wore the Navy Cross for capturing an enemy 

machine gun nest, neutralizing two heavy guns, and 

killing 13 Germans along the way.3 While serving in 

the trenches, he began to sketch and to channel his 

experiences into art, becoming an accomplished artist and writer—as well as a heavy drinker, even by the 

Marine standards of the day. His sea stories, especially those collected in his first book, Fix Bayonets!, 

would soon become cult pieces for generations of 

Marines. Hemingway and Thomason had even traveled to many of the same places (Thomason spent 

two years in Cuba), and they knew many of the same 

people. Maxwell Perkins, the redoubtable editor at 

Charles Scribner’s Sons, worked with both writers. 

3

 There is an excellent summary of Thomason’s career in Donald 

R. Morris, “Thomason U.S.M.C.,” American Heritage 44, no. 7 (November 1993): 52–66. Other sources include John W. Thomason 

Jr., biographical file, Historical Reference Branch, Marine Corps 

History Division, Quantico, VA; and Martha Anne Turner, The 

World of Col. John W. Thomason, USMC (Austin, TX: Eakin Press, 

1984).

61
62 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

The stiff-looking New Yorker, who almost always 

wore a coat and tie, even to go deep-sea fishing, was, 

however, blessed with the ability to bond with his 

charges and connect them with each other. Another 

mutual friend was the swashbuckling soldier of fortune Charles Sweeny, whom Hemingway had first 

met in Europe in the 1920s and later described as “a 

very old pal and soldier in various armies, Venezuelan, against [President Cipriano] Castro, Mexican, 

with [President Francisco] Madero, Foreign Legion, 

U.S., Moroccan, R.A.F.” It was Sweeny who took the 

Hemingways to meet Thomason on that summer day 

in 1941.4

Detailed to the Office of Naval Intelligence 

(ONI), where his principal duty was to run the Latin 

America Desk, Thomason was still eager to hear what 

Hemingway and Gellhorn had to say about their recent trip to China, where the couple had gone to report on the Second Sino-Japanese War. That conflict 

had been going on for so long that many Americans 

could not remember when and why it had started, but 

it was an important precursor to World War II. The 

couple travelled widely in the war zone, speaking to 

the British in Hong Kong and both Chinese nationalists and Chinese Communists on the mainland. The 

resulting information was solid and useful, just the 

kind of background information that ONI wanted. 

After the meeting, Hemingway and Gellhorn returned to Finca Vigia, the home they were making for 

themselves on a hill a few miles outside Havana, Cuba.

The visit to Washington set the stage for a good 

relationship between Thomason and Hemingway. The 

Marine reported to Perkins that he was happy to meet 

“the very sensible and decent Hemingway” and hoped 

to see more of him.5

 For his part, Hemingway would 

later write that he quickly came to believe that Thomason possessed one of “the most intelligent minds I 

have ever talked to.”6

4

 Ernest Hemingway to Charles T. Lanham, 2 November 1946, 

in Carlos Baker, ed., Ernest Hemingway, Selected Letters, 1917–1961 

(New York: Scribner, 1989), 612; and Carlos Baker, Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1969), 365. 

5

 Quoted in Reynolds, Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy, 107. 6

 Quoted in Reynolds, Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy, 134.

A few months later, after the Japanese attack on 

Pearl Harbor finally propelled the United States into 

World War II, Hemingway remembered Thomason 

as he cast about for ways to make himself useful 

to his country. He wanted to fight at sea from his 

Brooklyn-built cabin cruiser, Pilar, which he had lovingly outfitted for deep-sea fishing. It was, one crewman remembered, “beautiful . . . with a black hull, a 

green roof, and varnished mahogany in the big cockpit 

and along the sides.”7

 The writer’s vision was to use 

Pilar to patrol the north coast of Cuba in search of 

German submarines, which were preying on shipping 

off the East Coast of the United States and in the Caribbean and finding it blissfully easy to sink, since the 

7

 Arnold Samuelson, With Hemingway: A Year in Key West and 

Cuba (New York: Random House, 1984), 24.

Official U.S. Navy Photo, Reference Branch, Marine Corps History Division

John A. Thomason Jr. as a major in the late 1930s. While assigned to the 

Office of Naval Intelligence, Thomason played a key role in facilitating 

Hemingway’s war work.
SUMMER 2018 63

United States had not been well prepared for the war 

at sea. One of the Germans’ happy hunting grounds 

ran between the Florida Keys and the northern coast 

of Cuba—home waters for Hemingway. 

Hemingway’s concept was in line with other U.S. 

Navy initiatives, which amounted to mobilizing civilian boat owners and asking them to keep a lookout 

for the enemy as they went about their business.8 The 

civilians were to report any sightings by radio, and the 

Navy would take it from there. The unofficial name 

for the civilian auxiliaries was the Hooligan Navy, 

many of whose members searched for the Germans 

for hours, days, and even weeks on end, working hard, 

if not always effectively. But Hemingway wanted to do 

more than find the enemy. The refinement on the basic plan that he proposed put him in a class by himself. 

After sighting and reporting the contact, he wanted 

to lure the U-boat alongside and then sink it. 

His assumption was that the Germans would see 

a fishing boat going about its business and approach to 

buy or seize fresh water and fish. Once the (hopefully 

unsuspecting) Germans were close, the crew of the Pilar would let loose with fragmentation grenades—pull 

the pin, wait a few seconds while smoke spurted from 

the top, and then toss—along with Thompson submachine guns, the heavy .45-caliber weapon favored by 

American gangster John Dillinger. They would even 

use a satchel charge with rope handles that was the 

size of a small footlocker. The Basque jai alai players 

who would crew for Hemingway and were so adept 

at throwing fast-moving balls would, at least in theory, be able to lob the hand grenades down the open 

hatches of the submarine, while other crewmen manhandled the explosive charge.9

 If even one grenade, 

let alone the satchel charge, found its mark the result 

could be devastating.

The problem was that Pilar and the average longrange U-boat were so mismatched. Pilar measured 38 

8

 See for example Homer H. Hickam Jr., Torpedo Junction: U-Boat 

War off America’s East Coast, 1942 (Annapolis: Naval Institute 

Press, 1996).

9 Jai alai is a dangerous sport, similar to squash or racquetball, 

played on an indoor court with a hard, fast-moving ball and a 

handheld cesta, or basket, something like a shorter lacrosse stick. 

It was popular in Cuba among Basque exiles from fascist Spain.

feet long and weighed less than five tons. Her prey 

could be up to 250 feet long and weigh something like 

750 tons. One was made of wood, built for pleasure 

and style in 1934, while the other was a state-of-the-art 

warship recently built out of German steel. One boasted handheld weapons, the other a 9.5cm or 10cm deck 

gun and sometimes two powerful 20mm antiaircraft 

machine guns mounted on the back of the conning 

tower (to say nothing of its primary weapon, torpedoes, which no German skipper would have wasted 

on a wooden cabin cruiser). Pilar would have a crew 

of 6–10 of Hemingway’s sporting friends. They would 

prove themselves to be dedicated, hard working, and 

loyal, but they were never more than gifted amateurs. 

The average U-boat crew, however, comprised about 

50 well-trained officers and men.

The writer knew that to realize his vision he 

would need official help from a kindred spirit such as 

Thomason.10 By now, Thomason was traveling in Latin 

10 The best sources for Hemingway’s initiative are Ellis O. Briggs, 

Shots Heard Round the World: An Ambassador’s Adventures on Four 

Continents (New York: Viking, 1957), 55–57; Spruille Braden, Diplomats and Demagogues: The Memoirs of Spruille Braden (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1971), 283–84; and Reynolds, Writer, 

Sailor, Soldier, Spy, 135–37, contains a discussion of the historical 

background and this sequence of events.

Ernest Hemingway Collection, John F. Kennedy 

Presidential Library and Museum

Hemingway’s boat, Pilar. The cabin cruiser was customized for deep-sea 

fishing in 1934 and outfitted for antisubmarine patrols in 1942.
64 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

America for ONI, and in mid-1942 the American embassy summoned him to Havana for consultations. He 

showed up suitably attired for a meeting at the chancery, which was then housed in a turn-of-the-century 

mansion on the fringes of Old Havana. Along with his 

World War I ribbons, Thomason sported a nonregulation black silk ribbon for his eyeglasses. The American ambassador to Cuba, Spruille Braden, presided 

while Hemingway outlined his concept of operations. 

He evoked the World War I precedent set by Q-boats, 

well-armed raiders masquerading as unarmed merchantmen, while Thomason twirled his eyeglasses and 

drained at least two tumblers of some kind of drink. 

The Marine knew the likely outcome of Hemingway’s 

plan was death with honor. He pronounced it not impossible, “only crazy.”11 It would take only one round 

from the U-boat’s deck gun to turn Pilar and its crew 

into a memory. But there was also a chance, however 

slim, of an unimaginably glorious victory. If Hemingway somehow pulled it off, it would be a tremendous 

boost to morale, something that the United States 

desperately needed at the time as it struggled to build 

up the strength to take on the Japanese in the Pacific 

and defend itself from U-boats in home waters.

Ambassador Braden liked Hemingway and his 

irregular approach to fighting the Germans. Though 

the proposal went “against all regulations,” the envoy 

gave his assent to what Hemingway named Operation 

Friendless after one of his many cats.12 As the Cuban government was unlikely to turn a blind eye to 

an armed privateer in home waters, and since Pilar’s 

identity and mission were meant to come as a surprise 

to the enemy, this operation would be secret. This was 

acceptable to Hemingway, a man who enjoyed wearing the mantle of secrecy and the insider advantage 

that it conferred. 

Thomason arranged for Hemingway to work 

through the naval attaché at the embassy in Havana, a 

Marine colonel named Hayne D. Boyden, who, not unlike Thomason, was an original. Boyden was a tall, thin 

man with a pointed nose, which gave him a birdlike 

aspect and probably explained his nickname or call 

11 Briggs, Shots Heard Round the World, x, 57. 12 Braden, Diplomats and Demagogues, 284.

sign rendered by Hemingway as “Cucu” or “Cuckoo.” 

Boyden’s record suggests that he was a devil-may-care 

pilot from the early days of Marine Corps aviation 

who took risks every time he got into the cockpit. 

In the early 1920s, he flew aircraft like the de Havilland DH-4B two-seater over Hispaniola. The DH-4B 

was a slightly improved British leftover from World 

War I whose original design flaws had earned it the 

nickname “Flying Coffin.”13 In 1927, Boyden earned the 

Distinguished Flying Cross for singlehandedly providing close air support to a besieged and outnumbered 

Marine detachment in Nicaragua. A note in the December 1933 issue of Leatherneck concluded that Boyden was “one of the most interesting personalities in 

Marine Aviation.”

He has spent a great part of his time in the 

Marine Corps in the warm tropical climes, 

flying in Santo Domingo, Nicaragua and 

Haiti, his present station. He likes . . . the 

romantic, alluring and mysterious tropics 

and is alive to all their fantastic influences.14

Hemingway would have agreed. His letters suggest that he liked Boyden, but sometimes found the 

colonel better suited to flying than running an office. 

As Operation Friendless evolved, the writer would 

comment that his dealings with the colonel sometimes 

got a little too “sketchy” for his comfort, so he asked 

a third party for help in drafting a written plan that 

would specify who was supposed to do what.15

Thomason and Boyden eventually arranged for 

Hemingway to receive radio gear, along with the munitions that Hemingway needed to realize his plan. 

ONI shipped the gear to the embassy in Havana in the 

diplomatic pouch, and it was then smuggled aboard 

Pilar. The hand grenades went over the transom in egg 

cartons, the disassembled guns in small pieces among 

other more innocent gear. The boat’s communica13 BGen Hayne D. Boyden, “. . . and Santo Domingo,” Marine Corps 

Gazette 56, no. 11 (November 1972): 58–59. 14 “Hayne D. Boyden, First Lieutenant, U.S.M.C.,” Leatherneck, 

December 1933, 23.

15 EH to Robert Joyce, 9 November 1942, Outgoing Correspondence, Ernest Hemingway Collection, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.
SUMMER 2018 65

Official U.S. Marine Corps Photo, Reference Branch, Marine Corps History Division

The Marine pilot Hayne D. Boyden, also known as “Cucu,” here as a first lieutenant flanked by his crew. While serving as the U.S. naval attaché in 

Cuba, he functioned as the link between Thomason and Hemingway.
66 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

tor, detailed by Thomason and Boyden, would be a 

24-year-old Marine warrant officer. Donald B. Saxon 

was a graduate of the Radio School at Marine Corps 

Base Quantico, Virginia, who had served with the 4th 

Marines in China and risen quickly through the ranks 

in the years since his enlistment in December 1936.16

An American diplomat described him as “a lovely 

uninhibited character,” and more than one source 

recorded that he had a bad case of jungle rot eating 

away at his feet, which some attributed to his service 

overseas. Saxon’s main pastimes were said to be hard 

drinking and bar fights.17

Boyden also did his best to support Hemingway’s 

flimsy cover story, designed to ward off any inquisitive 

Cuban officials, which was that he was conducting research on fish specimens for the American Museum 

of Natural History. Boyden prepared what might be 

called a “get out of jail free” note on official letterhead 

in an odd mix of English and Spanish that asked the 

reader to believe that Pilar needed “the radio apparatus” for its work, which was “arreglado” (in order) and 

“not subversive in any way.”18 If the letter failed to deter a full search, there would, presumably, be no way 

to explain why a fishing boat was also outfitted for 

war, and Hemingway might wind up in a Cuban jail 

until the embassy could intercede on his behalf.

There was yet another Marine—or more accurately a future Marine—serving on board. He was 

Hemingway’s de facto executive officer, Winston F. C. 

Guest, whom Hemingway first met in Africa in 1933 

on safari. A celebrated sportsman and socialite, Guest 

was one of a few polo players ever to have earned the 

10-goal designation. But he was more than an athlete; 

he had also earned a law degree from Columbia University, and he was a patriot. Guest wanted very badly 

to join the armed forces, but in the first part of the 

16 Donald B. Saxon biographical material, Historical Reference 

Branch, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA. 

17 Briggs, Shots Heard Round the World, 59–60; and Gregory H. 

Hemingway, Papa Hemingway: A Personal Memoir (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976), 71–72, recounts family lore about Saxon.

18 Hayne D. Boyden to Whom It May Concern, 18 May 1943, 

Incoming Correspondence, Museo Ernest Hemingway, Ernest 

Hemingway Collection, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library 

and Museum.

war his sports injuries kept him out of the Service, 

leaving him free to live and work with Hemingway 

in Cuba.19 Still, his accomplishments and personality 

made him an ideal deputy. Well-groomed, intelligent, 

and hardworking, he was also easygoing and eager to 

serve. Seven years younger than Hemingway, Guest 

deferred to his senior—and considerably more famous—friend, who bestowed on him the affectionate 

nickname “Wolfie” after finding that he looked like 

the actor Lon Cheney in the 1941 movie Wolf Man.

Pilar’s wartime service began during the summer 

of 1942, first with short-range outings into the waters 

around Havana. As summer edged into fall, more ONI 

equipment made its way aboard, and there followed 

training exercises and something like a shakedown 

cruise. Hemingway and his men spent time getting to 

know their weapons. This included a good deal of target practice (often to the detriment of some otherwise 

perfectly good navigation buoys) and continued to the 

point where the embassy’s coordinator of intelligence, 

the foreign service officer Robert P. Joyce, judged that 

“Pilar was . . . a camouflaged floating arsenal with a 

tough crew of experienced and highly trained machine-gunners and grenade throwers,” ready for combat.20 

After the shakedown period, Pilar ranged farther 

afield for longer periods, from the northwest coast 

of Cuba to the Old Bahama Channel hundreds of 

miles to the east. At least two deployments ran close 

to three months. In the spring of 1943, Pilar operated 

for a while out of a makeshift camp on a barren spit 

of sand known as Cayo Confites, where the crew appears to have displayed a more-or-less cheerful tolerance for hardship. Guest maintained contact with the 

nearby American consular outpost at Nuevitas, useful 

for ONI to funnel supplies and information. Through 

such intermediaries as well as a direct coded channel, 

Pilar stayed in touch with the embassy in Havana, 

19 “Robert Joyce Memoirs,” unpublished manuscript, Robert P. 

Joyce Papers, MS 1901, Box 1, Yale University Library, New Haven, CT, 51. The 6-foot-5-inch-tall Guest would, in any case, have 

required a waiver of the Marines’ wartime height limit of 6 feet 

and 2 inches.

20 “Robert Joyce Memoirs,” 53.
SUMMER 2018 67

which relayed messages to the Gulf and Caribbean Sea 

frontiers of the U.S. Navy. 

It was a frustrating business. Embassy Havana 

passed the most recent Navy intelligence on U-boat 

sightings and suspected locations to Hemingway and 

his crew. Pilar’s own radio gear intercepted some enemy transmissions. Hemingway would remember hearing German voices over the radio, especially late at 

night. By day, Pilar looked for the enemy, usually without any success. But there was at least one sighting, 

which occurred on 9 December 1942, of a probable 

U-boat. On that calm, clear day, Hemingway saw “a 

gray painted vessel” six to eight miles away, and sailed 

toward it to investigate.21 When the gray vessel turned 

broadside to Hemingway, it presented the silhouette 

of a conning tower on a long, gray deck. Gliding over 

the dead-calm sea, it was so large that it looked like an 

21 Pilar logbook, Other Material folder, Box 93, Ernest Hemingway Collection, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. For additional context, see Terry Mort, The Hemingway 

Patrols: Ernest Hemingway and His Hunt for U-boats (New York: 

Scribner, 2009), 185–88.

Ernest Hemingway Collection, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum

Hemingway’s third wife, Martha Gellhorn, awarding a shooting prize to Winston Guest, the sportsman who was Hemingway’s executive officer on 

Pilar’s war cruises. Guest went on to join the Marine Corps in 1944 and served honorably in the last phase of the war in the Pacific.
68 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

aircraft carrier to Guest. Hemingway would famously 

claim to have replied, “No, Wolfie, unfortunately she 

is a submarine and pass the word for everyone to be 

ready to close.”22 But as Pilar steered toward the intruder, the vessel put on speed and was soon out of 

range. The message went out immediately from Pilar’s 

tiny communications shack, presumably from the 

hand of Don Saxon, to the embassy in Havana, which 

in turn retransmitted the message to the Navy and the 

Fleet. The Navy paid Hemingway and Guest a small 

compliment that it did not pay to all members of the 

Hooligan Navy:

HAVANA REPORTS SUBMARINE BELIEVED TO BE GERMAN 740 TON TYPE 

IN SIGHT FROM 1210 Q TO 1340 Q 22-58 

N 83-26 W X INFORMANTS TWO RELIABLE AMERICANS ACCOMPANIED 

BY FOUR CUBANS.23

This submarine got away from both Hemingway 

and the Navy. But Operation Friendless continued 

22 Hemingway to Lillian Ross, 3 June 1950, Folder for 1942, Box 19, 

Carlos Baker Papers, Princeton University Library, Princeton, 

NJ.

23 Entry for 10 December 1942, WWII War Diaries, Caribbean Sea 

Frontier, April 1942 to December 1943, Records of the Office of 

the CNO, RG 38, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) II, College Park, MD, emphasis original.

well into 1943. In early June, intelligence reports indicated that the Germans were sending submarines 

back into the area after a hiatus of a few months, and 

Hemingway was ordered to scour obscure keys and 

bays for signs of the enemy, a nerve-wracking but ultimately unproductive task.24 Then, after what appeared 

to be a successful attack by a U.S. Navy plane in nearby waters on 14 June, the pressure eased. By 9 July, 

Saxon had broken out the coded transmission ending 

the patrol, and Pilar started the weeklong cruise back 

to Havana. 

It was just as well: the boat needed to go into the 

yard for an overhaul. Not designed for wartime service, her engine showed the signs of the long hours of 

patrolling, from loose valves to worn piston rings and 

a damaged propeller. Once on dry land, Hemingway 

ordered a new engine, and Don Saxon ordered round 

after round of drinks and wound up in jail.25

Despite the frustrations, Hemingway was reluctant to give up on his private war, conducted in his 

own way and with his own resources. He liked being captain of his own ship and hoped to resume the 

unconventional war patrols once Pilar emerged from 

the yard. But it was not to be. By now the threat had 

receded from Cuban waters, and Hemingway waited 

in vain for the Navy to renew his letter of marque. 

Christmas 1943 was depressingly quiet for him—without a mission and without a wife. Ever the aggressive 

reporter, Martha Gellhorn was thousands of miles 

away on assignment for Collier’s, covering a war whose 

focus had clearly shifted to the other side of the Atlantic. In November 1942, the U.S. Army had invaded 

North Africa and by May 1943 joined with the British Army to defeat the once-formidable Afrika Korps 

and its Italian confederates. It was now just a matter 

of time before the Allies invaded the mainland of Europe. By January 1944, Hemingway admitted as much 

24 Michael Reynolds, Hemingway: The Final Years (New York: Norton, 1999), 78.

25 Reynolds, Hemingway, 81.

Art and Picture Collection, New York Public Library

The enemy that, thankfully, Pilar and her crew never met up close.
SUMMER 2018 69

to himself and to Gellhorn.26 Pilar’s war was over, and 

its crew was free to go on to other adventures. 

Hemingway went to Europe, where he watched 

the fighting on D-Day from a landing craft in the surf, 

flew on combat missions with the RAF, and helped to 

liberate Paris. Saxon presumably returned to duty with 

ONI and then went on to a more conventional Marine 

posting at Camp Pendleton, California, in 1945. After the war, he settled in Florida, occasionally corresponding with Hemingway, who invited him to visit 

his island home outside the Cuban capital. In 1944, 

Guest was finally able to enlist in the Marine Corps 

at a recruiting station in Jacksonville, Florida, which 

earned him a trip to Parris Island, South Carolina, as a 

private. A few weeks later, he was able to become a second lieutenant on a waiver (presumably for his previous sports injuries and height) that was entered in his 

record as a “special order of the Commandant of the 

Marine Corps.” After commissioning, he joined one 

of the Marine air wings but apparently not as an aviator.27 A newspaper article describes that he went on to 

serve with distinction in China in the closing weeks 

of the war; he received the U.S. Army Soldier’s Medal 

for landing on a heavily mined airfield on 19 August 

to deliver badly needed humanitarian aid before the 

Japanese Army had officially surrendered and its soldiers were still ready and willing to kill Americans.28

Thomason and Boyden also shipped out to the 

Pacific. Boyden detached from the embassy in Havana 

in September 1943, and after a few months found himself in the Pacific theater in the summer of 1944. From 

December 1944 to June 1945, he did solid work as chief 

of staff and acting wing commander for the 2d Marine Aircraft Wing committed to the fighting in and 

around Okinawa. The Marine Corps recognized his 

26 Ernest Hemingway to Martha Gellhorn, 13 January 1944, in 

Reynolds, Hemingway, 88–89. The letter’s reproduction is set 

within an excellent overview of the issues in the writer’s life during this period. 

27 Winston F. C. Guest, service record, National Personnel Records Center, NARA, St. Louis, MO; and Winston F. C. Guest, 

biographical material, Historical Reference Branch, Marine 

Corps History Division, Quantico, VA.

28 “Capt. Guest Gets Soldier’s Medal,” New York Times, 27 December 1945. 

service with a Legion of Merit with Combat “V.” Upon 

retirement in June 1949, he was promoted to brigadier 

general on account of his combat service.29 Thomason 

was not quite as lucky. After detaching from ONI in 

spring 1943, he joined a fellow Texan, Navy Admiral 

Chester W. Nimitz, at his headquarters in Pearl Harbor for service as a war plans officer and inspector of 

Marine Corps bases in the Pacific theater. Worn out 

by years of hard living, to say nothing of his love for 

strong drink, he literally stumbled in the performance 

of his duties—falling off a pier while on an inspection 

tour near the front lines. Hospitalized in theater for 

pneumonia and then twice again after returning home 

for what he described as “my stomach affliction,” he 

died at San Diego Naval Hospital on 12 March 1944 

at age 51.30

Hemingway published little about his exploits 

during World War II in his lifetime. But off and on 

after 1945 he worked on a war novel that his estate 

published after his death—the three-part Islands in the 

Stream. The main character, Thomas Hudson, sounds 

and acts so much like Hemingway himself that one 

scholar called it “the clearest roman a clef [sic] in American literature.”31 There are many parallels between 

Hemingway and Hudson’s lives—in their families, activities, and likes and dislikes. The description of the 

nameless boat in Islands—“not big enough to be called 

a ship except in the mind of the man who was her 

master”—could have been used to describe Pilar.

32 Taken together, the parallels are so striking that it is fair 

to look to Hudson’s words for insights into Hemingway’s own mind-set. 

The third part of the novel is about hunting 

German submarines in Cuban waters. The major difference between what actually happened and the fic29 Hayne D. Boyden, biographical file, Historical Reference 

Branch, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA.

30 Turner, The World of Col. John W. Thomason, USMC, 340–41. The 

Thomasons had a home in La Jolla, CA, and Thomason was assigned to Camp Elliott, a Marine base that, by 1960, was turned 

over to the city of San Diego.

31 Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream (New York: Charles 

Scribner’s Sons, 1970); and Thomas Fensch, Behind Islands in the 

Stream: Hemingway, Cuba, the FBI and the Crook Factory (New 

York: iUniverse, 2010), 119. 

32 Hemingway, Islands in the Stream, 332.
70 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

tional version is that the novel’s long and frustrating 

search for the enemy leads to a series of firefights with 

shipwrecked German submariners on remote keys 

in Cuban waters. The novel is interesting for what 

it seems to say about Hemingway’s attitudes toward 

Marines—attitudes that have been drowned out by the 

far more numerous (and usually positive) comments 

in his correspondence about the soldiers he served 

alongside in Italy and France. Some of his letters hint 

at his respect for Marines and the Corps, as does his 

selection of essays by Thomason for the anthology on 

war that Hemingway edited in 1942.33 But it is only in 

Islands in the Stream that he writes directly about Marines, seemingly expressing himself through the voice 

of Hudson.

Islands gives pride of place to the Marine radioman, Peters, who is almost certainly based on Saxon. 

The many paragraphs about Peters reveal how this 

particular Marine tests the narrator’s generally positive views of Marines. More than once Hemingway/

Hudson questions Peters’s skill and his fitness for duty. 

Peters has trouble maintaining the communications 

equipment, much to the frustration of Hemingway/

Hudson: “That damned Peters with his radio out. . . . I 

don’t know how he has f——ed it.”34 Peters also drinks 

when he should not. The nameless boat in Islands did 

not have rules about drinking at sea except for the unwritten rule that every man must be able to do his job, 

which Peters violates by being drunk on duty. Mirroring the doubts that Hemingway/Hudson expressed, at 

least one crewmember is not sure that he wants to be 

in a firefight alongside Peters. Other members of the 

crew share their captain’s frustration with him. But 

Peters also has good traits; for the most part he works 

hard at fixing his radios when they break. Hemingway 

writes that Peters “always held himself as a Marine 

even when he was not at his best and he was proudest 

of the real discipline without the formalities of discipline which was the rule of the ship.”35 At least in 

the novel, Peters speaks German and proves his worth 

when he calls out to the enemy: “Peters spoke so it 

sounded like the voice of all German doom. His voice 

holds up magnificently, Thomas Hudson thought.”36

When Peters is killed in the firefight, the crew mourns 

his loss. 

That leaves one Marine character, Willie, who 

appears to be loosely based on Winston Guest. In33 See, for example, the reference to “honest Don” Saxon in 

Hemingway to Patrick Hemingway, 30 October 1943, in Baker, 

ed., Ernest Hemingway Selected Letters, 551–52; and Ernest Hemingway, ed., Men at War: The Best War Stories of All Time (New York: 

Bramhall House, 1942). Hemingway chose four selections by 

Thomason for this anthology.

34 Hemingway, Islands in the Stream, 343.

35 Hemingway, Islands in the Stream, 367.

36 Hemingway, Islands in the Stream, 424.

Pan American Airways photo

Hemingway, as he looked in early 1945, after his wartime adventures.
SUMMER 2018 71

stead of being physically unqualified to join the 

Service, Willie is “one expendable, medically discharged Marine.” But he is still willing to go in harm’s 

way to fight the remaining Germans. Hemingway/

Hudson views Willie as a “good, brave . . . son of a 

b——h,” who can be decisive when his captain is not. 

“He made up my mind for me when I was starting 

to put things off,” Hudson recounts. Willie finds and 

defeats the enemy in the climactic encounter, justifying Hemingway/Hudson’s conviction that he “would 

rather have a good Marine, even a ruined Marine, than 

anything in the world when there are chips down.”37

37 Hemingway, Islands in the Stream, 431.

This was high praise for the small sea Service and 

its men who helped Hemingway to fight his private 

war at sea in 1942 and 1943. It was an unusual kind of 

independent duty, well away from the mainline Fleet 

Marine Force. But it was still duty, sanctioned by two 

senior ONI Marines who placed men and equipment 

at Hemingway’s disposal. This small band of warriors 

may not have actually engaged any German sailors in 

combat, but they all discharged their duty and earned 

an honorable place in a footnote to the history of 

World War II.

• 1775 •
Fighting within the 

A2/AD Bubble

THE 1982 FALKLANDS WAR AS A CASE STUDY 

FOR THE FUTURE AMPHIBIOUS TASK FORCE

by Major Brandon H. Turner1

There are significant parallels between the 1982 

Falklands War and future conflicts the U.S. 

military will face. Although 30 years have 

passed and technology has changed, the Falklands War 

provides critical insight to the U.S. military as it develops ways to counter the Anti-Access/Area Denial 

(A2/AD) threat. Leading up to Operation Corporate, 

Great Britain’s military was slowly ending a protracted 

counterinsurgency conflict in Ireland, facing budget 

and force reductions, and focused on defending the 

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) from a 

potential Soviet invasion. In April, with little warning to the British military headquarters, Northwood, 

Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands.2

 Britain was 

caught off guard and unprepared to face a near peer 

threat 8,000 miles from the British Isles and without 

assistance from NATO. Argentina, with a sizeable 

force that included modern air and ground systems, 

1

 Maj Brandon H. Turner is an infantry officer and a graduate of 

the Marine Corps Command and Staff College and the School of 

Advanced Warfighting. He is currently assigned to U.S. Marine 

Corps Forces Special Operations Command. 

2

 John O’Sullivan, The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister: 

Three Who Changed the World (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2008), 

144–47; and Sir Lawrence Freedman, The Official History of the 

Falklands Campaign, vol. 2, War and Diplomacy (London: Routledge, 2005), 3, 15.

opposed British forces with a modern A2/AD threat.3

Fast forward to today, when the focus for the 

U.S. military is a withdrawal from counterinsurgency, 

reduction in forces and budgets, and a renewed focus 

against potential Chinese and Russian threats. The 

United States’ focus today, just as it was for Great 

Britain in 1982, is preparing for the most dangerous 

course of action. While China and Russia do pose a 

threat to U.S. interests, a war with either is not the 

most likely course of action in the near term. The 

United States will continue to face conflicts in the arc 

of instability with adversaries that pose formidable 

A2/AD threats to smaller Marine Corps units, such as 

an Expeditionary Strike Group/Marine Expeditionary 

3

 The Falklands invasion was nearly two centuries in the making. The Malvinas, as the Falklands are called by Argentina, were 

once claimed by not only Britain but also France, Spain, and Argentina. It was not until 1833 that ownership was solidified by 

Great Britain. During the 1970s, the Falklands were used in a diplomatic game: being held by Great Britain while at the same time 

being “offered” to Argentina. As diplomacy faltered, Argentina 

developed plans to seize the islands between July and October 

1982; this window was manpower-, equipment-, and weatherdependent. In late March 1982, scrap metal workers on South 

Georgia Island raised an Argentinean flag over their work site. 

This move prompted Great Britain to send the HMS Endurance 

(1967) with 22 Royal Marines to South Georgia to remove the flag 

and observe the workers. Using the South Georgia incident as 

cause to regain Argentinean honor, Argentina advanced its invasion timeline for the Malvinas. The UK received various signals 

an invasion was underway, but little could be done from 8,000 

miles away to stop the invasion.

72
SUMMER 2018 73

Brigade (ESG/MEB) and Amphibious Ready Group/

Marine Expeditionary Unit (ARG/MEU). Despite advancements in today’s A2/AD weapons technology, 

the 1982 Falklands War offers critical insights to how 

U.S. naval forces can counter modern-day threats and 

prepare for future threats to an amphibious force.

The Dawn of Modern A2/AD 

Warfare: Establishing the 

A2/AD Environment

By the early 1980s, Argentina, as compared to the rest 

of Latin America, possessed a modern, well-equipped 

and -trained military force. The United States and 

other NATO countries, including the UK, supplied 

Argentina with some of the most modern equipment 

for the late 1970s and early 1980s.4

 In the context of 

A2/AD, Argentina possessed excessive amounts of 

antipersonnel, antitank, and antiship mines; modern night vision optics; antitank missile systems; antiaircraft missile and gun systems; and heavy towed 

howitzers. Furthermore, their air and naval components possessed a variety of modern fast attack aircraft, with one of those platforms capable of carrying 

the AM-39 Exocet air-to-surface antiship cruise missile system.5

 Last, Argentina was a strong ally to the 

United States against the Soviet Union; for a Latin 

American country, this represented a strong bargaining piece. Leading up to the spring of 1982, Argentina 

held a strong diplomatic and military position in the 

south Atlantic.

Argentinean military forces invaded the Falkland 

Islands, 300 miles east of Argentina and 8,000 miles 

south of Great Britain, on 2 April 1982 with an invasion force of 2,000 soldiers and marines.6

 The invasion 

was a strategic move by the Argentinean government 

to gain national solidarity and instill popularity in 

Argentina’s president and leader of its military junta, 

4

 Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 80–84.

5

 Adm Sandy Woodward, RN, with Patrick Robinson, One Hundred Days: The Memoirs of the Falklands Battle Group Commander

(Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1997), 201–3. 6

 Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 5–11.

General Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri.7 The Argentineans focused their invasion at the population center of 

Port Stanley on East Falkland. They faced little opposition from a small garrison of 70 Royal Marines and 

a small contingent of local defenders.8 During most 

of April, the Argentinean force increased to around 

13,000 military personnel with a majority placed in a 

defensive posture around Port Stanley (figure 1).9

Argentina placed eight infantry regiments on 

East and West Falkland: two regiments on West Falkland and six regiments on East Falkland, with five of 

those centered around Port Stanley and supported by 

an artillery regiment.10 Protecting the skies with antiaircraft weapon systems around Port Stanley, the 

Argentine Army and Air Force defended with twelve 

30mm Hispano Suiza guns, six Tiger Cat missile 

launchers, eight 35mm Oerlikons, eleven 20mm Rheinmetall guns, and one Roland twin missile launcher.11

Additionally, the Argentineans possessed AN/TPS-43 

and AN/TPS-44 radar units, vital in their ability to 

7

 Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands 

(New York: W. W. Norton, 1984), 45–49.

8

 Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 4–11. 

The Royal Marines assigned to the Falkland Islands were there 

to protect the governor, provide assistance to the local population, and maintain a limited defense of the Falklands and its territories. In total, there were 69 Royal Marines. A former Royal 

Marine who was living in the Falklands reenlisted upon hearing 

of the coming invasion. Additionally, the HMS Endurance had 11 

Royal Navy sailors, and the islands were able to provide 23 men 

from the Falkland Island Defence Force (FIDF). 9

 “During April C-130 Hercules transports of Air Force, Electras 

and Fokker Fellowships of the Navy, Fokker Friendship and Fellowship airliners of the semi-military airline LADE, and Skyvan 

light transports of the Coast Guard, flew in more than 9,000 

service and civilian personnel and 5,000 tons of equipment and 

supplies.” Jeffrey Ethell and Alfred Price, Air War South Atlantic 

(New York: Berkley Publishing Group, 1983), 30.

10 Martin Middlebrook, The Fight for the Malvinas: The Argentine

Forces in the Falklands War (London: Viking Adult, 1989), 56–60. 

Argentine Army artillery units are organized into groups or grupos, with three batteries per group. As stated by Middlebrook, 

the Argentine Army did not have artillery regiments. A group is 

the equivalent of a battalion. 

11 Middlebrook, The Fight for the Malvinas, 60–61. The large majority of antiaircraft weapon systems were centered around Port 

Stanley, with two 35mm Oerlikon each placed at Goose Green 

and Moodybrook.
74 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

see beyond the horizon.12 Ground antiair units alone 

presented a formidable protective shield against British air and naval forces.

In addition to the ground forces on the Falklands, 

Argentina possessed one of the most sizeable naval 

fleets and air forces in Latin America.13 Their naval 

forces included not only cruisers, corvettes, amphibious shipping, and a battleship but also submarines 

and an aircraft carrier. In total, Argentina possessed 

17 combatant ships and three submarines to main12 Ethell and Price, Air War South Atlantic, 31. 13 Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 75.

tain maritime superiority.14 Although relatively large, 

the Argentinean fleet was an aging fleet with World 

War II-era ships, or at best ships built in the 1960s 

without modernization, besides the MM-38 Exocet.15

Due to the Falklands’ close proximity to Argentina, Argentinean air components stationed modern 

fighter-attack and fighter-bomber aircraft on the Falklands or near the coast of Argentina well within range 

14 David Brown, The Royal Navy and the Falklands War (New York: 

Pen and Sword, 1987), 371–74. Argentina conducted its amphibious landing with 31 total ships: one aircraft carrier, one cruiser, 

six destroyers, three submarines, three corvettes, five patrol 

crafts, one landing ship, tank (LST), one oiler, four naval and 

three merchant transports, and three “spy” trawlers. 

15 Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 75.

Pebble Island

Two infantry

regiments

(Port Howard)

One infantry

regiment

(Darwin Goose 

Green)

Five infantry

regiments

(Port Stanley)

100 miles

160 miles

Created by author, courtesy of History Division

Figure 1. Argentinean force laydown of the Falkland Islands, 2 April–14 June 1982.
SUMMER 2018 75

of the Falklands. From the Argentinean mainland, 

Argentine air elements could strike targets in and 

around the Falklands with their assortment of Dassault Mirage IIIEA’s, Israeli Aircraft Industries (IAI) 

Neshers (Daggers), and McDonnell Douglas AQ-4 

Skyhawks with extended range and time on station 

via aerial refueling provided by Lockheed C-130 Hercules.16 Positioned on the Falklands, Argentina placed 

34 Fabrica Militar de Aviones (FMA) IA-58A Pucara, 

Beechcraft T-34C Turbo-Mentor, and Aermacchi MB16 Ethell and Price, Air War South Atlantic, 26; and Christopher 

Chant, Air War in the Falklands, 1982 (Oxford: Osprey, 2001), 19–

22. After Argentina bought IAI Neshers from Israel in the late 

1970s, Argentina renamed the Nesher the Dagger.

Aircraft used during the operation

Trewlew

 BAe Canberra B.Mk 62

 Learjet

San Julian

 McDonnell Douglas AQ4 Skyhawk

 Israel Aircraft Industries Dagger

Rio Gallegos

 Dassault Mirage

 McDonnell Douglas AQ4 Skyhawk

 Israel Aircraft Industries Dagger

Rio Grande

 Israel Aircraft Industries Dagger

 McDonnell Douglas AQ4 Skyhawk

 Dassault Mirage

 Dassault Super Etendard

Trelew

582 nautical miles

San Julian

421 nautical miles

Rio Gallegos 430 nautical miles

Rio Grande

382 nautical miles

Argentina

Stanley

Created by author, courtesy of History Division

Figure 2A. Argentinean air bases supporting operations in the Falklands and types of aircraft.
76 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

339 light attack aircraft (figures 2A and 2B).17 While 

these aircraft may have been small and not nearly as 

fast as other aircraft, the British still considered them 

a viable threat. The most dangerous Argentinean aircraft to the British task force was the French-made 

Dassault Super Etendard with the AM-39 Exocet airto-surface antiship cruise missile. In total, Argentina 

possessed 130 operational fixed-wing attack aircraft 

for the defense of the Falklands.18

By the end of April 1982, Argentina constructed 

a defense at the water’s edge with an air-mobile reserve, supported by a navy and air force to maintain 

superiority of the Falklands. Argentina had a well17 Ethell and Price, Air War South Atlantic, 26. 18 Ethell and Price, Air War South Atlantic, 26. In total, Argentina 

possessed 247 fixed-wing aircraft, but only about 130 were able to 

offer support due to maintenance readiness or not operational 

due to lack of parts or qualified pilots and ground crews. 

established A2/AD environment that extended from 

the Argentinean coast to about 150 miles east of East 

Falkland. If the Battle of Gallipoli is considered the 

dawn of modern amphibious warfare, Argentina’s occupation of the Falkland Islands can be considered 

the dawn of the modern A2/AD warfare.

Movement to the Amphibious 

Objective Area: 

The Task Force Sets Sail

From the British standpoint, the 1982 Falklands War 

Pebble Island

Darwin 

Goose Green

Port Stanley

Aircraft used during 

the operation

Port Stanley Airport

 FMA IA 58 Pucara (Fortress)

 Aermacchi MB-339

 Beechcraft T-34 Mentor

 • Short SC.7 Skyvan and 

 Lockheed C-130 Hercules

 flights occurred almost daily 

 until the Argentinian surrender 

 on 14 June 1982

Darwin Goose Green

 FMA IA 58 Pucara 

Pebble Island

 FMA IA 58 Pucara

 Beechcraft T-34 Mentor

 Short SC.7 Skyvan

Created by author, courtesy of History Division

Figure 2B. Argentinean air bases on the Falklands and types of aircraft.
SUMMER 2018 77

was not only unexpected, it also was “unplanned.”19

No operational plan existed in the event of war over 

the Falklands, nor were there substantial forces in 

the south Atlantic to provide a swift or effective response.20 From the start of the scrap metal incident 

on South Georgia Island in mid-March to preinvasion on 1 April, the British government and military 

commanders held planning meetings to discuss and 

debate diplomatic and military responses to a possible 

Argentinean invasion, but these discussions yielded 

very little detail, nor did they provide guidance to 

commanders.21 With the invasion underway and news 

arriving to the British public on 2 April, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher announced the following day 

before the House of Commons, “a large task force will 

sail as soon as preparations are complete.”22

With her public statement, Admiral Sir Henry 

Leach, First Sea Lord, designated Admiral Sir John 

Fieldhouse as commander in chief Fleet, commander 

19 Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands, 67; Michael 

Clapp, Amphibious Assault, Falklands: The Battle of San Carlos 

Water (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1996), 35; and Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 3, 11–14, 

54–55. It was no surprise to the British that Argentina wanted 

to claim or reclaim the Falkland Islands. The British were not 

only ambivalent to the Falklands but also were very much focused on domestic issues and the Cold War in 1982. Indications 

and warnings of pending aggression were first realized in midMarch 1982. Even though small indications existed, it was never 

believed that an invasion would actually occur. Although small 

planning meetings were held, nothing substantial was ever 

produced to acquire manpower, ships, heavy equipment, and 

gear. On 31 March 1982, Adm Sir Henry Leach told the prime 

minister that he could mobilize a task force by the weekend. 

With this proclamation and approval by the prime minister, 

the Royal Navy and Royal Marines had their orders. The only 

units available to respond to the Argentinean invasion were the 

Royal Marines stationed on the Falklands, the Antarctic patrol 

vessel HMS Endurance, and two nuclear powered submarines 

(SSNs) located within the south Atlantic. The HMS Endurance, 

underway at the time, could do little after supporting operations on South Georgia Island, so the ship turned north for 

Ascension Island and away from the Argentinean navy and air 

power. The two SSNs were given the order to move south and 

observe the area until given further instructions. 20 Clapp, Amphibious Assault, Falklands, 35. 21 O’Sullivan, The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister, 144–47. 22 Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands, 78.

Task Force (CTF) 317/CTF 324 (figure 3).23 The Royal 

Navy was no longer planning but instead embarking a force that had not been seen in scope and size 

since the Suez Crisis of 1956.24 Amphibious Operations, 

Joint Publication 3-02, dictates the five phases of an 

amphibious operation as planning, embarkation, 

rehearsal, movement, and action (PERMA).25 These 

phases can be looked at as subphases within the Joint 

Phasing Model.26 Due to the relative surprise of the 

Argentine invasion and the political and strategic 

need to show British resolve, the British task force 

used the nonstandard phases of an amphibious operation: embarkation, movement, planning, rehearsal, 

and action (EMPRA).27 Typically, a U.S. amphibious 

force will execute PERMA or EMPRA during Phases 

0–3 under the geographic combatant commander’s or 

Joint Force commander’s operational plan.28 EMPRA 

played a large role in the many difficulties the British 

faced in the following weeks, the first of which was 

what units to assign CTF 317.

Outside of plans designed for supporting NATO 

within Europe, the British military headquarters at 

Northwood did not possess plans that encompassed 

a brigade-size deployment. Instead, the embarkation 

plans used for Operation Corporate were based on 

Norway’s contingency plans for countering a Soviet 

23 Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 29–31. 24 Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 29; and 

O’Sullivan, The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister, 148.

25 Amphibious Operations, Joint Publication (JP) 3-02 (Washington, 

DC: Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2014), I-7. 26 Joint Operations, JP 3-0 (Washington, DC: Joint Chiefs of Staff, 

2017), V-13. Joint Phasing Model: Phase 0-Shape, Phase I-Deter, 

Phase II-Seize the Initiative, Phase III-Dominate, Phase IV-Stabilize, and Phase V-Enable Civil Authority.

27 Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 15–20; 

and Joint Forcible Entry, JP 3-18 (Washington, DC: Joint Chiefs 

of Staff, 2012), I-5–I-6. EMPRA is nonstandard doctrine for Marine Expeditionary Units (MEUs) taught by the Expeditionary 

Warfare School and Expeditionary Warfare Training Groups 

Atlantic and Pacific. During the past 30-plus years, MEUs have 

been forced to embark at a moment’s notice with little warning. 

Under such circumstances, planning must be conducted while 

underway to the objective area and well after embarkation has 

been completed.

28 Joint Forcible Entry, I-5–I-6.
78 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

invasion.29 This plan would account for the type of 

supplies needed for a cold-weather environment but 

not the ships and antiair systems needed to oppose 

Argentinean forces in the air and on the seas 8,000 

miles from the British homeland. In response to the 

diverse threat posed by Argentina, the task force was 

correspondingly diverse, and assembled with ships 

and ground units not typically accustomed to operating with each other.

A larger force than that assigned to the Norway 

plan was required due to the increasing Argentinean 

ground force on the Falklands. The Royal Marines’ 3 

Commando Brigade (3CDO), commanded by Brigadier General Julian H. A. Thompson, was the assigned 

force for the Norway contingency plan. 3CDO’s yearly 

training in Norway, combined with its Arctic Warfare Cadre, made 3CDO the ideal choice for the austere, cold-weather environment of the Falklands. Yet 

3CDO—the premier British ground force—was not 

enough in the face of a larger, modern force.

Royal Marine commandos, by their nature, are 

extremely fit, agile, and above all expeditionary. Any 

unit assigned directly to 3CDO needed to conform to 

this model. The best option were the British Army’s 

29 Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 54–55.

paratrooper battalions. In the end, 3d Battalion, Parachute Regiment (3PARA) and 2PARA reinforced 

3CDO.30 Furthermore, 3CDO received an artillery 

battalion, a Rapier antiaircraft battery, additional 

communications and signals equipment and personnel, and Commando Logistics Regiment 3 (CLR3). 

This brought the initial landing force, 3CDO, to 

around 5,500 marines and paratroopers.31 This was a 

substantial force to penetrate the A2/AD bubble and 

land successfully.

To fracture the A2/AD bubble, the task group 

was comprised of more than 100 ships and submarines, 

with the majority of them embarking from Great Britain and Gibraltar or already underway from the midAtlantic. Operational control was placed in the hands 

of Rear Admiral John F. “Sandy” Woodward, desig30 Julian Thompson, 3 Commando Brigade in The Falklands: No Picnic (London: Pen and Sword, 2009), 1–16, 27. 31 Julian Thompson, The Lifeblood of War: Logistics in Armed Conflict

(London: Brassey’s, 1991), 284. 3CDO reinforced stood at 5,500 

troops, plus or minus. Later during the land campaign, 5th Infantry Brigade joined 3CDO, bringing the total landing force to 

approximately 9,000 troops. For the purposes of this article, the 

focus is closing the force (3CDO) in San Carlos Water at the 

height of fighting within the A2/AD bubble. 

Commander in 

Chief, Fleet

CTF 317/CTF 324

Adm John Fieldhouse

Carrier Battle 

Group

CTG 317.8

RAdm John F. Woodward

Amphibious 

Group

CTU 317.0

Commo Michael C. Clapp

Landing Group

CTU 317.1

BGen Julian H. A. 

Thompson

South Georgia 

Group

CTG 317.9*

Capt Brian Young

Flag Officer, 

Submarines

CTG 324.3

VAdm Peter G. M. Herbert

*Once Operation Paraquet was complete, most of the ships assigned to CTG 317.9 rejoined CTG 317.8 for the remainder of Operation Corporate.

Created by author, courtesy of History Division

Figure 3. Chain of command / task organization, 9 April–28 May 1982.
SUMMER 2018 79

nated commander of Task Group (TG) 317.8.32 Of the 

100-plus ships, warships were the smaller percentage 

of the task force as compared to support ships.33 Combatant ships included two aircraft carriers, eight guided missile destroyers, 15 frigates, one diesel and five 

nuclear powered submarines, two amphibious assault 

ships, three mine sweepers, and five small vessels.34

The Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) supported the carrier group and the amphibious task force, providing 

23 ships, while the British commercial merchant fleet 

provided an additional 40 ships classified as shipstaken-up-from-trade (STUFT).35

Gaining and maintaining control of the sea by 

Royal Navy combatants was only half of the solution 

to the maritime problem. The task force embarked 

74 aircraft, both rotary and fixed-wing. As with any 

operation, aircraft conducted not only combat air 

patrols (CAP) to maintain air superiority but also antisurface and antisubsurface operations to maintain 

sea superiority. The most decisive of these aircraft 

were the 33 Royal Navy British Aerospace Sea Harrier 

FRS.Mk 1s and Royal Air Force (RAF) Hawker Siddeley GR.Mk3 Harriers.36 These Harriers were used to 

protect the fleet against air and surface threats and for 

close air and deep air support (CAS and DAS) provided to special operations and the landing force. Additionally, to protect the fleet against the Argentine 

submarine threat, the task force embarked 25 antisubmarine helicopters.37 Finally, the task force possessed 

28 helicopters for assault support.38

As for landing force logistics, the task force loaded its complement of ships as items appeared at their 

ports of embarkation. To meet the prime minister’s 

intent, the majority of combatants sailed in 72 hours, 

32 Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands, 62–62, 83–84; 

and Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 29. 33 Ratio of Royal Navy “warships” to support ships from the RFA 

and STUFT: 40 : 60.

34 Brown, The Royal Navy and the Falklands War, 358–62.

35 Brown, The Royal Navy and the Falklands War, 365–70.

36 Chant, Air War in the Falklands, 1982, 17–18; and Freedman, The 

Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 773. 37 Ethell and Price, Air War South Atlantic, 233.

38 Ethell and Price, Air War South Atlantic, 233.

with the last few underway by 7 April.39 Due to the 

impromptu loading of ships, identification and reorganization of cargo for debarkation took nearly three 

weeks.40 This reorganization was done while underway and at Ascension Island, the intermediate staging 

base for the task force halfway between Great Britain 

and the Falklands. Restow of supplies and equipment 

became the priority for the task force to have a timely off-load in the Falklands, but it came at the cost 

of more effective planning and rehearsals.41 EMPRA 

and the task force’s haphazard means of embarkation 

would cause additional problems as the force closed 

on the Falklands.

Shaping the Amphibious 

Operations Area

Rather than conducting shaping operations for 

months or multiple weeks, only 20 days of shaping operations were available in support of Operation Corporate. The task force was under a very tight timeline 

because of the coming south Atlantic winter, and the 

carriers were expected to operate until the Northern 

Hemisphere’s fall before they would be needed to conduct critical in-port maintenance. Operationally, the 

task force accomplished little in the immediate weeks 

following the Argentinean invasion due to the 8,000 

miles of separation between the two opposing forces. 

At midnight on 12/13 April, the British government 

announced a maritime exclusion zone (MEZ) of 200 

nautical miles around the Falkland Islands enforced 

by three Royal Navy nuclear submarines.42 Drawing 

first blood at this point could have prevented a diplomatic solution to the crisis. Instead of attacking the 

39 Kenneth L. Privratsky, Logistics in the Falklands War: A Case 

Study in Expeditionary Warfare (London: Pen and Sword, 2015), 

40–42.

40 Privratsky, Logistics in the Falklands War, 76–77. 41 Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 54. 42 Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 88; 

and Brown, The Royal Navy and the Falklands War, 84. The zone 

was “defined as a circle of 200 nautical miles from latitude 51° 41' 

South and longitude 59° 39' West, approximately the center of 

the [Falkland] Islands.” Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 88. The first forces to arrive at the MEZ around 

the Falklands were three of the Royal Navy’s nuclear submarines, 

HMS Spartan (S 105), Splendid (S 106), and Conqueror (S 48).
80 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

Argentine Navy, the British submarines observed the 

opposing naval forces. Not only were the submarines 

able to gather accurate intelligence concerning the 

movement and locations of the Argentine Navy, but 

they were also able to ascertain that sea mines were in 

fact being placed off the coast of Port Stanley and that 

coastal defenses were in place.43 With British submarines providing real-time intelligence, the task force 

could turn to more detailed planning.

As the task force gathered around Ascension 

Island, Admiral Fieldhouse flew to the intermediate 

staging base and transferred to the HMS Hermes (R 

12), Woodward’s flagship, to meet with his commanders on 17 April.44 Fieldhouse had two main goals for 

this meeting. One was to stress the need to close in on 

the Falklands as soon as possible before popular support in the UK was lost. The other was to review and 

provide recommendations to the landing plan. The 

commander, Amphibious Task Force (ATF), Commodore Michael C. Clapp, designated commander of 

Task Unit (TU) 317.0, and the commander, Landing 

Force, Brigadier General Thompson, designated TU 

317.1, could not provide a definitive answer for a landing site at that time, but they were able to determine 

the following requirements for shaping operations to 

successfully land the landing force regardless of the 

location:

a) The total MEZ must be effective and remain so throughout Operation Corporate.

b) The threat of the Argentine aircraft carrier must be removed.

c) Air and sea superiority must be established and held over East and West Falkland and the surrounding area.

d) Port Stanley airfield must be neutralized 

(including air defense weapons) and the 

Argentine air assets (both fixed wing and 

helicopter) stationed on East and West 

Falkland must be destroyed.

43 Brown, The Royal Navy and the Falklands War, 84–85. Sea mines 

were seen being placed within Cape Pembroke, and 105mm howitzers were placed near the shores to prevent naval fires and an 

amphibious landing. 

44 Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 203.

e) Accurate intelligence of beaches, terrain, 

and enemy positions is essential.

f) Argentine logistic dumps must be harassed and their effectiveness reduced.45

Out of the six requirements for shaping operations, 

four pertained to gaining and maintaining access. The 

need to control the air and sea prior to the ATF’s arrival was not lost on Woodward, Clapp, or Thompson.

With political pressure gathering each day, and 

regardless of the task force’s readiness, it was time to 

close on the Falklands.46 Woodward’s carrier battle 

group departed Ascension Island on 18 April, arriving in range of the MEZ for the group’s Harriers by 

30 April, thus turning the MEZ into a total exclusion 

zone (TEZ).47 Concurrent with TG 317.8 commencing 

operations to gain access, Clapp’s amphibious force 

(TU 317.0) with Thompson’s reinforced 3CDO (TU 

317.1) started its 4,000-mile movement from Ascension Island to the Falklands.48

Gain and Maintain Access: 

Enforcing the TEZ

Woodward’s battle group had a multitude of objectives to accomplish before the amphibious landing, 

with the most important of those being to gain air 

and sea superiority. With South Georgia Island secured and some of the ships from the South Georgia 

Group returning to Woodward, TG 317.8 consisted of 

12 combatant ships, the majority of the helicopters 

for antisubmarine warfare, assault support for special operations, and the Harriers for CAP and CAS/

DAS.49 Additionally, the submarine force (TG 324.3) 

possessed six submarines in the south Atlantic, with 

some of those submarines responsible for enforcing 

the TEZ.50

Securing the sea and air were simultaneous missions, but it was securing the air that proved most 

45 Clapp, Amphibious Assault, Falklands, 86.

46 Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 210–11. 47 Brown, The Royal Navy and the Falklands War, 107–12.

48 Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 203. 49 Martin Middlebrook, The Falklands War (London: Pen and 

Sword Military, 2012), 113.

50 Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 89–91.
SUMMER 2018 81

difficult throughout the operation. Identifying the 

route from Ascension to the Falklands was not hard 

considering the British task force was under political 

pressure to make its presence known in the south Atlantic as soon as possible, and the Argentineans were 

well aware of this pressure. The task force had only 

one choice: to travel the fastest possible route to the 

Falklands in a straight line.

On 21 April, well before the task force arrived 

at the exclusion zone, an Argentine Air Force Boeing 707, the first of many, located Woodward’s carrier 

battle group. The sighting of 707s would continue over 

the following days as the task force maneuvered south. 

Considering the Argentinean 707s were unarmed and 

well north of the TEZ, there was little the task force 

could do besides launch Harriers to intercept and observe.51 After such actions became daily occurrences, 

the British government released a statement declaring 

that the British task force would engage any Argentinean military aircraft coming within 25 nautical miles 

of British ships. Encountering “nonhostile” Argentinean aircraft at 25,000 feet and noncombatant shipping 

outside of the TEZ raised issues for the task force’s 

rules of engagement.

Rules of engagement were a continuous topic of 

discussion with very open-ended answers during the 

conflict. Within the TEZ, rules of engagement were 

not an issue. It was outside of the TEZ where issues 

arose as soon as the task force arrived at Ascension 

Island. As with any military operation, the element 

of surprise is a must. Although the task force went 

to great lengths to disguise its movement, it was 

still extremely difficult to conceal more than 100 

ships relatively massed together in the south Atlantic. Throughout the operation, commanders debated 

whether the task force could and should engage Argentinean forces outside of the TEZ.

Gain and Maintain Maritime 

Superiority: The Unseen Power 

of the Submarine Force

Woodward’s carrier battle group entering the TEZ 

51 Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 220–21.

was the forcing function to apply more liberal action 

within the rules of engagement constraints. On 2 May, 

the Argentinean cruiser ARA General Belgrano (C 4), 

escorted by two destroyers, was underway 40 nautical 

miles southwest of the TEZ. Although the cruiser was 

well outside of the TEZ, it was declared an imminent 

threat to the British task force and was sunk by the 

British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror (figure 4).

This action was controversial because the Argentinean cruiser was outside of the TEZ, on the opposite 

side of the Falklands from the British task force, and 

368 Argentinean lives were lost at sea.52 On the same 

day, Woodward’s TG 317.8, via antisurface/subsurface 

helicopters, attacked two small Argentinean naval vessels, sinking one and permanently disabling the other.53 With the sinking of the General Belgrano and two 

other vessels neutralized, the task force had its needed 

effect.54 Argentinean leadership pulled back nearly all 

surface combatants, to include the Argentinean aircraft carrier ARA Veinticinco de Mayo (V 2). With one 

move, the British obtained maritime supremacy.55

Gain and Maintain Air Superiority: 

The Unattainable Goal

During the Falklands campaign, neither side maintained air supremacy, but considering that the British task force lost 10 percent of its shipping due to 

enemy air actions, it was the task force that paid the 

highest price. From the start, the Argentineans possessed a 1-to-4 advantage over British Harriers. The 

Argentineans chose to use their aircraft in a CAS/

DAS role, compared to the British task force’s choice 

to use its Harriers for DAS, CAS, and CAP, with the 

52 Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands, 146–50.

53 Adrian English and Anthony Watts, Battle for the Falklands (2): 

Naval Forces (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 1982), 22.

54 Middlebrook, The Falklands War, 150–53.

55 English and Watts, Battle for the Falklands (2) Naval Forces, 21–22.
82 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

majority of aircraft tasked to defend the task force.56

Additionally, the RAF had the Avro Vulcan B.Mk 

56 Chant, Air War in the Falklands, 1982, 86. There were two types 

of Harriers used in the 1982 Falklands War: the Sea Harrier and 

the GR Mk.3 Harrier. The Sea Harrier was flown by the Royal 

Navy’s Fleet Air Arm Squadrons 800, 801, and 809. The Sea Harrier was both air-to-air and air-to-ground capable. The Fleet Air 

Arm provided the majority of Harriers to the task force. Adding 

to the total number of Harriers were those provided by the Royal 

Air Force Squadron Number 1 who flew the GR Mk.3 in an airto-ground role for both CAS and DAS. 

2A bomber. The Vulcan bomber, like much of the 

British military inventory, was a Cold War-era aircraft meant to conduct bombing missions from home 

bases in England and Europe; it did not have the 

range needed for deep strategic bombing. Regardless 

of this shortcoming, on 1 May, a Vulcan bomber at 

10,000 feet attacked the Port Stanley airfield with 21 

of its 1,000-pound bombs.57 Although Operation Black 

57 Chant, Air War in the Falklands, 1982, 40–41.

Trelew

San Julian

Rio Gallegos

Rio Grande

Location of CTG 317.8

on 2 May

HMS Conqueror (S 48) torpedoes and 

sinks ARA General Belgrano (C 4) on 

2 May

Maritime exclusion zone (MEZ) 

established on 12 April

Total exclusion zone (TEZ)

established on 30 April

200 nautical 

miles TEZ

Stanley

Argentina

Created by author, courtesy of History Division

Figure 4. Sinking of the ARA General Belgrano, 2 May 1982.
SUMMER 2018 83

Buck had little effect and the Port Stanley airfield 

was operational shortly after the bombing, the “Vulcan Air Raid” was a strategic move for British forces. 

It proved that if worse came to worst, the RAF could 

strike targets on the Argentinean mainland.58 This may 

have been unlikely due to British political statements 

and diplomatic relations with allied nations and the 

United Nations, but the Vulcan bombing did prove 

the point. Finally, the Vulcan bombing gave yet another win to the British people back home, the first being 

South Georgia Island, and the next being the sinking 

of the General Belgrano. With three consecutive wins by 

the British, it was Argentina’s turn at the scoreboard.

Argentina Scores a Hit

The AM-39 Exocet was new to the Argentinean military and to the world. The year prior to the invasion, 

Argentineans fielded the French-built antiship cruise 

missile along with the aircraft to carry it, the Dassault 

Super Etendard. Originally, the Falklands invasion 

was to occur in the South Atlantic’s late winter/early 

spring. One reason for the later invasion date was the 

need to properly train crews and fit the Super Etendard for the Exocet. Unfortunately for the Argentine 

Naval Aviation Command (Comando de la Aviacion 

Naval Argentina), after the South Georgia incident 

General Galtieri advanced the invasion date by nearly 

six months without the Super Etendard crews and aircraft fully operational.59

By April, the 2d Naval Fighter and Attack 

Squadron possessed four operational Super Etendards 

and 10 trained pilots for that aircraft.60 Furthermore, 

Argentina possessed just five AM-39 Exocet air-tosurface antiship cruise missiles.61 The odds were not in 

58 Gregory Fremont-Barnes, A Companion to the Falklands War 

(Gloucestershire: History Press, 2017), 48–51. Operation Black 

Buck 1 was followed up with Harrier bombing runs on the airfield and six more Vulcan bombings (Black Buck operations 2–7).

59 Middlebrook, The Falklands War, 36; and Chant, Air War in the 

Falklands, 1982, 51. 60 Ethell and Price, Air War South Atlantic, 26–29, 41; and Chant, 

Air War in the Falklands, 1982, 53. 61 Chant, Air War in the Falklands, 1982, 55–56. Although Argentina bought more than five AM-39s from France, once the invasion was underway France stopped the delivery of the additional 

Exocets.

favor of the Super Etendard pilots, but they just needed one missile to make an impact on the British task 

force. As is still true today, in 1982 the ultimate target 

for the Super Etendard pilots was always a task force 

aircraft carrier.62 Although striking, or better yet sinking, a British aircraft carrier could “win the war,” this 

was unlikely considering how few Exocets the Argentineans possessed. Considering the limited number of 

Super Etendards, any ship within the task force could 

be a potential target, not just aircraft carriers. On 4 

May, after the Super Etendard squadron aborted two 

previous attempts, an Argentinean Super Etendard 

launched an AM-39 Exocet at the British task force. 

This was the first combat test for the Exocet, a textbook maneuver, and it went quite well.

The British destroyer HMS Sheffield (D 80) was 

hit and suffered significant damage with 24 wounded 

and 20 killed.63 If there was ever a time that diplomacy 

would have stopped the coming British assault, it had 

just passed. Strategically, all cards were on the table 

from this point forward, and the British were not 

backing down. Tactically, the attack showed that the 

task force was not impregnable, and that gaining air 

superiority was more vital than ever before.

During the next six weeks, the Argentine Air 

Force and naval fighter attack and bomber aircraft 

made runs at the task force and later on 3CDO with 

considerable success. The majority of attacks occurred 

from aircraft stationed within Argentina. British intelligence knew the Argentineans would attack from 

both the mainland and from the Falklands. Their two 

biggest concerns were the Exocet and the positioning 

of aircraft on the Falklands.

These were two separate problems with different 

solutions. First, for aircraft departing Argentina, the 

British assumed that Argentina did not have a reliable air-to-air refueling system. This was a mistake. By 

making this assumption, the task force discounted the 

amount of on-station time aircraft would have to loiter and attack a target or group of targets of choice. 

Initially CAPs defended around Woodward’s carrier 

group, and then later the limited number of Harri62 Chant, Air War in the Falklands, 1982, 51–56.

63 English and Watts, Battle for the Falklands, 23.
84 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

ers was split between defending the carrier group, 

the amphibious task force, and the landing force. The 

Argentineans made their land-based runs on the ATF 

and LF, while the air-to-air refueled aircraft focused 

on the carrier group at sea. Consequently, the number 

of Harriers were lessened for the CAP, and the Argentineans exploited this weakness.

The second concern was the Argentinean aircraft 

positioned on the Falklands. This was dealt with by the 

use of Harriers and special operations. Most notable 

of these actions was the Special Air Service (SAS) raid 

on Pebble Island. Pebble Island, located on the northern edge of West Falkland, possessed a 1,600-foot-long 

grass airfield. Grass airfields were not uncommon on 

the Falkland Islands because they lacked a road network connecting the many villages. Also, considering 

that the islands are around 100 miles by 160 miles, 

traveling from settlement to settlement took a considerable amount of time by vehicle. Instead, the various 

villages possessed grass airstrips for postal services and 

delivery of supplies via small, privately owned aircraft.

Argentinean planners were well aware of the 

many grass airstrips available. The Argentine Air Force 

forward deployed light attack aircraft to Port Stanley, 

Goose Green, and Pebble Island. The British believed 

that, after runway improvements were conducted, 

Argentinean air elements would use Port Stanley and 

other airfields—specifically, that they would try to use 

Port Stanley for fast attack aircraft like the Skyhawks, 

Mirages, or (best case for the Argentineans) the Super Etendard.64 Although fast attack aircraft never deployed to the Falklands, light attack aircraft did.

64 Ethell and Price, Air War South Atlantic, 2. The Argentine Air 

Force never used Stanley for fast attack aircraft for two reasons. First, the airfield was too short in a wet environment. The 

Falklands receives high winds and rain quite often, and the wet 

airstrip could not support fast flying aircraft. Second, the Argentineans had considered extending the airfield. The British 

knew Argentinean engineers had the matting for this extension. 

Argentine Air Force planners chose not to extend the airfield 

because Stanley did not have the facilities, both hangars and fuel 

storage, for their fast attack aircraft.

Woodward’s Advance Amphibious 

Force Opens the Gate

Pebble Island was vital to the Argentineans for two 

reasons: 1) early warning radar coverage and 2) the 

positioning of troops and aircraft to protect their 

northern flank. TPS-44 and TPS-43 radar sets were 

positioned near the homes on the outskirts of Port 

Stanley.65 These positions were not ideal, but they 

were still effective for identifying the incoming British task force, both air and sea. The only downside was 

that Port Stanley is surrounded by mountains except 

in one direction, so radar coverage was only able to 

look east. The Argentineans needed to fill this gap in 

coverage. 

Additionally, the Argentinean air force needed 

to spread its forces to cover East Falkland from the 

north, south, and east. To fill both gaps, Pebble Island 

(named Base Aérea Militar [BAM] Borbon) was the 

logical choice; it would provide a greater range of radar coverage and prevent a northern approach by the 

task force.66 For reasons unknown, during April and 

into May, the additional TPS-44 and TPS-43 radar sets 

available never made their way to BAM Borbon to fill 

in the radar gap. The establishment of the MEZ/TEZ 

may have prevented filling the gap, or perhaps a radar set was disabled in Port Stanley due to high winds 

and was replaced with the spare TPS set.67 Although 

a radar system never made its way to BAM Borbon, 

the aircraft and troops to protect it did. Positioned 

on Pebble Island were around 100 troops armed with 

small arms, antitank weapons, and 60mm and 81mm 

mortars.68 Just as important as the reinforced company on the island were the light attack aircraft. BAM 

Borbon maintained six Pucaras, four Turbo Mentors, 

and one Short SC.7 Skyvan 3M-400.69

Just like the Argentineans, British planners iden65 Ethell and Price, Air War South Atlantic, 30–31. 66 Pebble Island was known to the Argentineans as Isle Borbon. 

Thus, the name for the Pebble Island forward airfield was BAM 

Borbon.

67 Ethell and Price, Air War South Atlantic, 31, 50, 221–22. 68 Francis MacKay with Jon Cooksey, Pebble Island: The Falklands 

War 1982 (South Yorkshire, UK: Pen and Sword Military, 2007), 

40, 47.

69 MacKay and Cooksey, Pebble Island, 84.
SUMMER 2018 85

tified Pebble Island as a good choice for both radar 

and aircraft positioning. This was later confirmed in 

May when British ships and aircraft picked up Argentinean aircraft departing and landing in the vicinity of 

Pebble Island. Harriers were focused on bombing Port 

Stanley and Goose Green, while Vulcan raids focused 

on Port Stanley. The threat on Pebble Island was assigned to the SAS.

In a daring raid on the night of 15–16 May, 45 men 

from D Squadron SAS were inserted via Westland 

WS-61 Sea King helicopters from the HMS Hermes

and supported by the HMS Broadsword (F 88) and 

Glamorgan (D 19). In the next five hours, from insert 

to extraction, the SAS element was able to destroy 11 

aircraft, crater the airfield, and confirm that a radar 

station was not located on Pebble Island.70 This limited short-duration raid opened the gate for Clapp’s 

amphibious task force.

Landing Site Selection: 

The Best of Bad Options

The amphibious landing of 3CDO, Operation Sutton, 

was set for 21 May. Thompson and Clapp narrowed 

down the landing sites and beaches from 50 to a possible 3, and then finally selected San Carlos Water.71

Not a single landing site on East or West Falkland was 

ideal for an amphibious landing. Each landing site had 

its problems: either being too close to the enemy’s defensive positions, too narrow, too shallow, or too far 

away from the objective area. Although San Carlos 

Water had its drawbacks, it was the best landing site 

for fighting within the A2/AD bubble.

San Carlos Water is a bay that sits on the western 

side of East Falkland; its only access point is the Falkland Sound, which splits the two main islands. The 

task force would have to approach the island either 

70 Middlebrook, The Falklands War, 84, 190–91. HMS Broadsword 

was assigned as the antiair defense ship for HMS Hermes. HMS 

Glamorgan was to provide fire support to the SAS during their 

raid on Pebble Island. Glamorgan went within seven miles of Pebble Island. Varying accounts exist concerning how many aircraft 

were destroyed. Some accounts state 11 and others state 10. Due 

to a hard landing, one Pucara was down for maintenance. Thus, 

the British did destroy 11 aircraft, though 1 was already disabled.

71 Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 201–2.

from the north or from the south, thus closing some of 

the distance between the British ships and Argentinean aircraft stationed on the mainland. An approach 

into San Carlos Water via the sound would be slow 

regardless of a movement from the north or the south. 

Additionally, an approach from the north would push 

the ships into radar range of land-based radar units 

around Port Stanley. Although Pebble Island had been 

neutralized, the threat of an unidentified radar unit 

still existed, especially around the northeastern portion of East Falkland near the Argentinean defensive 

positions. Although there were drawbacks with movement toward and the location of the bay, the bay itself 

made up for them.

At San Carlos Water’s opening, ships have to 

pass through a gap no larger than 1.5 kilometers (km). 

Then the bay opens up to 3.5 km and then narrows 

down from there. Although San Carlos Water is an 

extremely tight fit for a group of ships, it has calm 

waters and multiple beaches. Surrounded by high 

hills and mountains, San Carlos Water is relatively 

ideal for the defense of a landing and amphibious task 

force. Having such high terrain surrounding the area 

negates the use of air-to-surface missiles (i.e., the Exocet) and forces attacking aircraft into a very short target identification-to-engagement timeline. San Carlos 

was not the ideal landing site, but it was the best one 

available to the amphibious task force.72

As the task force crept closer to the landing 

date, it was obvious that air superiority could not be 

obtained in time. The best Woodward could do was 

mitigate the threat through deception operations. Deception operations are a must in warfare, and Operation Corporate was no different (figure 5). Woodward 

and Clapp devised a deception plan, named Operation Tornado, to draw attention away from the San 

Carlos Water landing.

At 0400 Zulu time zone, the same time the actual 

landing at San Carlos Water commenced, the cruisers 

HMS Ardent (F 184) and Glamorgan positioned themselves off the coasts of Goose Green and Port Stanley, 

72 Woodward, One Hundred Days, 189.
86 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

respectively.73 Under naval gunfire provided by the 

cruisers, SAS forces raided Goose Green. Off the coat 

of Port Stanley, the Glamorgan conducted radio transmissions simulating a coming invasion. Additionally, 

Special Boat Service (SBS) troops were inserted near 

the town and made contact with locals to spread the 

word that the task force was about to land. Operation Tornado, a seemingly small act, drew enough attention away from San Carlos Water and bought 

sufficient time for the task force to start its landing 

unimpeded.74

Deception operations, an early morning nauti73 Middlebrook, The Falklands War, 208; and Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 467–69. Zulu time, or Universal Time Coordinated (UTC), refers to the time at the prime 

meridian and is primarily used in military and civil aviation.

74 Woodward, One Hundred Days, 244–45; and Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 469.

cal twilight landing, and SBS securing the landing 

site prior to 3CDO’s landing enabled the initial waves 

to land unopposed. If there was a significant delay in 

their movement, or any other factor not in favor of 

the landing force, this could have turned Operation 

Sutton into an opposed landing.75 Through detailed 

planning, intelligence, and sheer will, Commodore 

Clapp was able to fit the majority of his amphibious 

task force in and around San Carlos Water by the 

early daylight hours of 21 May.76 Although the day 

started off without incident, it was only a matter of 

time before Argentina’s fixed-wing assets attacked the 

amphibious task force.

75 Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 470. 

The landing was delayed by one hour due to a malfunction in the 

satellite navigation system for the HMS Fearless, but this was a 

minor issue, as stated by Thompson. 

76 Clapp, Amphibious Assault, Falklands, 132–43.

Pebble Island

Port Howard

Darwin/

Goose Green

Port Stanley

San Carlos Water

HMS Ardent 

(F 184) SAS

HMS Glamorgan 

(D 19)

Deception 

operations

Deception 

operations

CTU 317.0

radar picket

CTU 317.0

CTU 317.1

Created by author, courtesy of History Division

Figure 5. San Carlos Water deception operations, 21–27 May 1982.
SUMMER 2018 87

Defending the Landing Force: 

Fighting within the Bubble

Clapp and Thompson knew that the most dangerous 

spots for the landing force during an air attack would 

be on the ships in San Carlos Water or in transit to the 

shore. Getting the landing force ashore during the early hours of 21 May was paramount to mitigate the air 

threat’s potential. Additionally, the 3CDO’s defensive 

posture had to be set in the event that enemy forces 

counterattacked from Goose Green or Port Stanley, 

via the regimental air-assault reserve. With 3CDO’s 

battalions set, 40, 42, and 45 Commando with 2PARA 

and 3PARA, the chances of stopping or pushing the 

landing force back into the sea were slim.77 Although 

Argentinean ground forces could do little harm to the 

landing force at San Carlos Water, the Argentineans 

could strike hard at the landing force with their air 

components.

The amphibious task force and 3CDO were well 

inside the A2/AD bubble with aircraft attacking from 

the Argentinean mainland and Port Stanley. The coming days were referred to as “Bomb Alley” for the 

amount of ordnance delivered from Argentinean aircraft.78 From 21 to 25 May, the Argentine Air Force 

and Navy produced 180 sorties with about 80 operational fast attack aircraft.79 Out of the 180 sorties, 

117 sorties reached their targets, with 19 Argentinean 

aircraft being destroyed, a loss rate of 1 in 4. Compare 

this to the British task force, which with 33 Harriers 

produced 300 sorties, about 2 sorties per day per Harrier.80 Of the 33 Harriers, 4 were operational losses 

due to surface-to-air antiaircraft fire, a loss rate of 1 

in 8.81 Although sortie generation and sustainment of 

aircraft were higher for the Harriers, their part in the 

77 Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 463–74.

78 Fremont-Barnes, A Companion to the Falklands War, 58. 79 Ethell and Price, Air War South Atlantic, 152–56, 234–36. Onehundred eighty sorties were flown by Skyhawks, Daggers, and 

Super Etendards; operational aircraft at the start of the conflict

were 6 Canberras, 11 Mirages, 46 air force Skyhawks and 11 navy 

Skyhawks, and 34 Daggers. Argentina lost some aircraft by 21 

May, but these losses were minimal. 

80 Ethell and Price, Air War South Atlantic, 152–56. 81 Ethell and Price, Air War South Atlantic, 248–51. 

defense of the ATF could only do so much. Defense of 

the ATF also fell upon the ships within the ATF, the 

antiair battery, and man-portable air-defense systems 

(MANPADS) within 3CDO.

Although the high surrounding terrain mitigated 

the air-to-surface threat, it also hampered the ATF’s 

surface-to-air weapon systems. Some of the ships within the ATF had the latest antiair missile systems. Due 

to the hills and bluffs surrounding San Carlos Water, 

those systems were unable to acquire, identify, and 

prosecute targets in an effective manner. By choosing 

this terrain, the ATF took a risk in being unable to use 

their antiair missile systems.

Meant to aid in antiair defense, 3CDO had two 

Rapier antiaircraft batteries attached. These units 

were neither organic to the landing force, nor were 

they systems/units 3CDO was accustomed to operating with in training. Unfamiliarity and misuse of the 

weapon system led to its ineffective use during Bomb 

Alley and follow-on point defenses during the campaign.

The first problem occurred during embarkation. 

The Rapier systems were organic to the RAF and 

Army and not meant for travel via amphibious ships, 

where exposure to saltwater and rough seas are common. To protect the sensitive components to the missile systems, they were placed below deck, well away 

from sea exposure; however, these components were 

never reorganized for immediate debarkation as the 

ATF closed on San Carlos Water. Considering the air 

threat, these items should have been in wave two or 

three, rather than some of the last waves on the afternoon of 21 May. As a result, the Rapier systems were 

out of commission for most of 21 May.82

The second problem with the Rapier was its 

misuse around San Carlos Water. The Rapier was intended for a point defense (e.g., a bridge, headquarters, or a small sensitive site). San Carlos Water was 

an area defense spread out over nearly 60 square miles. 

Instead of preparing to engage aircraft aimed at one 

82 Fremont-Barnes, A Companion to the Falklands War, 204–6; and 

Privratsky, Logistics in the Falklands War, 75.
88 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

small area, the task force ineffectively employed the 

Rapier to engage aircraft attacking multiple areas, 

flying low and fast, and spread over a large surface. 

Compounding this problem, the Rapier was extremely difficult to move, requiring helicopter support to 

lift each system and reset or reposition it. Even after 

21 May, systems were continuously reset by Sea King 

helicopters. Logistically, the Rapier was a burden. For 

each day of use during the ground campaign, the Rapier air-defense battery required 1 Sea King helicopter 

out of the 11 dedicated to 3CDO to refuel and conduct 

maintenance on the systems.83 This taxed 3CDO’s helicopter support, exposed these helicopters to aircraft 

attacks, and again, meant that Rapier systems were 

out of commission during the resetting.84 Additionally, the key radar for the system was left in the UK, 

so each system had to rely on sight to identify an incoming target, rather than having radar warning and 

preparing to engage once the enemy aircraft was in 

range of one of the systems.85

The only air defense weapons organic and attached to 3CDO were the Blowpipe MANPADS provided by 3CDO Air Defense Troop and 43 Battery, 

32d Guided Weapons Regiment (Royal Army). The 

Blowpipe was a 42-pound, shoulder-fired antiaircraft 

missile with a range of 1.5 nautical miles. Out of 95 

missiles fired during the ground assault, nearly onehalf malfunctioned, and only 1 shot down an enemy 

aircraft.86 For the time, the Blowpipe was the best 

3CDO had for its own internal defense against the 

low, fast-flying Argentinean aircraft.

The Cost of Amphibious Operations 

in the A2/AD Environment

Separate from Clapp’s ATF, on 25 May the container 

ship SS Atlantic Conveyor was struck by an Exocet. 

83 Thompson, 3 Commando Brigade in the Falklands, 88.

84 Thomspon, 3 Commando Brigade in the Falklands, 68–70.

85 “The DN181 Blindfire radar trackers were left in the UK, obliging the crews to depend on the organic surveillance systems or 

in many cases to resort to optical tracking.” Fremont-Barnes, A 

Companion to the Falklands War, 204. 86 Fremont-Barnes, A Companion to the Falklands War, 52.

As with every attack upon Woodward’s TG 317.8, 

the intended target was an aircraft carrier, either 

HMS Invincible (R 05) or Hermes. Soon after the missile strike, the Atlantic Conveyor sank, and with it 

not only supplies for 3CDO, but more importantly, 3CDO’s heavy-lift helicopters. With the loss of 

four Boeing CH-47 Chinooks, 3CDO was forced to 

make its movement across the Falklands by foot.87

Although not directly part of the ATF, the Atlantic 

Conveyor’s sinking proved how complex and interconnected the A2/AD environment is for both the 

attacker and defender.

By the end of Bomb Alley, Clapp’s ATF suffered 

damage to six ships and lost three.88 Considering 

Clapp’s TU-317.0 consisted of 20 ships, 45 percent of 

his ATF suffered from attacks within San Carlos Bay. 

Due to ordnance malfunctions and survivability of the 

ships, those damaged continued to fight. Clapp’s ATF 

lost 15 percent of its fleet. Thompson’s landing force 

suffered fewer casualties due to its twilight landing 

and digging-in around the areas surrounding San Carlos Bay. Operation Sutton ended with the movement 

of 3CDO to its objectives at Port Stanley and Goose 

Green. Essentially, 3CDO fought within the A2/AD 

bubble and successfully fought out of it. Although 

3CDO made its movement toward its objectives inland and Argentinean air had been significantly reduced, the A2/AD fight was not over.

During the next two weeks, attacks occurred 

against British naval and ground forces, although they 

were not as intense as Bomb Alley had been. The next 

and most significant of all air attacks in terms of lives 

lost was against the RFA Sir Tristram and Sir Galahad

at Fitzroy. During the off-load of 5th Infantry Brigade 

87 Julian Thompson, “Reflections on the Falklands War: Commander, Amphibious Task Force–Commander, Landing Force” 

(lecture, U.S. Marine Corps University Expeditionary Warfare 

School, Quantico, VA, 28 March 2017).

88 Fremont-Barnes, A Companion to the Falklands War, 58–59; 

and Clapp, Amphibious Assault, Falklands, 172. HMS ships damaged: Broadsword (F 88), Argonaut (F 56), Antrim (D 18), RFA Sir 

Lancelot (L 3029), RFA Sir Tristram (L 3505), and RFA Sir Galahad 

(1966). Ships sunk: Ardent (F 184), Antelope (F 170), and Coventry 

(D 118). 
SUMMER 2018 89

units on the early afternoon of 8 June, two Mirages 

and two Skyhawks attacked in broad daylight.89 Although the beach at Fitzroy was undefended, the Argentineans held Mount Harriet 10 miles due east with 

a clear view of the landing site.90 In this attack, the 

British lost 2 men on the Sir Tristram and 48 killed and 

57 wounded on board the Sir Galahad.

91 Once again, 

neither the Rapiers, which were in the process of being emplaced, nor the CAP over the landing force 

were able to prevent this attack.

Additionally, on 8 June, LCU “Foxtrot-4” from 

the HMS Fearless (L 10) was sunk while in Choiseul 

Sound near Goose Green, resulting in the loss of six 

crew members. Although minor, it proves that any 

target, regardless of size and task, is considered a 

threat to a defending force. Sections of Daggers and 

Skyhawks attacked the HMS Plymouth (F 126), positioned north of Falkland Sound within the radar 

picket for TU 317.0, resulting in five wounded and the 

ship suffering limited damage. Due to the overtaxing 

of Argentinean aircraft, weather, and a change to conducting night attacks by British ground forces, 8 June 

was the end of air attacks, but threats still remained 

to the task force.

In the early hours of 11 June, a land-based MM-38 

Exocet struck the HMS Glamorgan. At the time, the 

Glamorgan was providing fire support to 45 Commando in the attack of Mount Harriet and Two Sisters.92

As the sun rose, the Glamorgan stayed on station for 

as long as possible, supporting the commandos before 

turning seaward. With the Glamorgan crossing in front 

of the modified trailer-mounted MM-38’s line of sight, 

this sea surface-to-surface Exocet launched and deto89 Hastings and Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands, 279–84. 90 Middlebrook, The Falklands War, 304. 91 English and Watts, Battle for the Falklands, 30. 92 Thompson, 3 Commando Brigade in the Falklands, 160–62; and 

Fremont-Barnes, A Companion to the Falklands War, 106.

nated above the stern of the ship.93 The Glamorgan suffered severe damage with 13 killed, but continued to 

fight a few days later on 13–14 June, just in time to see 

the end of the war.94

The Falklands campaign came to an end on 14 

June 1982, with all objectives secured by ground forces 

and the subsequent Argentinean surrender. The recapture of the islands came at a very high price. For 

TF 317, it suffered a total of 253 killed in action; of 

those, 131 were killed on ship or at sea.95 British ground 

forces suffered 80 killed in action and 269 wounded in 

action.96 3CDO being reinforced by 5th Infantry Brigade helped in many ways, but what enabled the lower 

killed-in-action list was the medical team placed at 

Ajax Bay in San Carlos Water. “The Big Green Machine,” as it was termed by the hospital staff, was able 

to keep alive every single British casualty that it received.97 This was a time before the “one hour golden 

rule,” and it proved how effective self-aid and buddyaid can be in such a conflict. Additionally, this was 

a phenomenal feat considering the field hospital was 

located in Bomb Alley.98

93 Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 550. 

The MM-38 was delivered via air transport into Stanley Airport 

during Operation Corporate. Although the airstrip had been attacked by Vulcan bombers and Harriers, the airstrip stayed open 

to most transport aircraft, one of those being an aircraft that 

delivered MM-38s to the Argentinean battlefield. Indirectly, it 

was the inability of the British task force to gain air supremacy 

that led to this successful attack.

94 Clapp, Amphibious Assault, Falklands, 263; and Fremont-Barnes, 

A Companion to the Falklands War, 106. The HMS Glamorgan survived this Exocet attack; it was the only ship to suffer an Exocet strike and survive. Despite the damage from the Exocet, the 

Glamorgan would provide future fire support to the Scots Guards 

in their attack on Mount Tumbledown, 13–14 June. 

95 Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 781.

96 Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 782–83. 97 Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 615–17.

98 Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 616, 

782, 783. Not classified as wounded in action but rather injured 

in action were a total of 147 paratroopers and commandos; the 

majority of those injuries were cold weather injuries (i.e., hypothermia, trench foot, or frostbite). Typically, U.S. and British 

forces aim to have an injured person at a Role III medical facility 

within one hour of the injury to save life and/or limb. 
90 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

Conclusion: The Falklands War 

as a Blueprint for Today’s 

Amphibious Force

According to the recently published Marine Corps 

Operating Concept, the key drivers of change influencing the future operating environment are complex 

terrain, technology proliferation, information as a 

weapon, battle signatures, and an increasingly contested maritime domain.99 Excluding information as 

a weapon, the 1982 Falklands War offers potential 

solutions or starting points in minimizing the effects 

of these key drivers.100 Technology has significantly 

improved during the past three decades not only for 

the United States but also its adversaries. The same 

can be said for the opposing forces in 1982. Each side 

had strengths and weaknesses, but the consensus going in was that it would not be a costly war due to the 

slight technological advances held by British forces 

and their overall better conditioning. Argentina was 

grossly underestimated and proved to be a near peer 

competitor to the United Kingdom.

British forces held a slight technological edge 

very similar to that held by the United States today. 

Many of our foes already have or will have near peer 

capabilities that counter our offensive and defensive 

capabilities. Additionally, the Falklands campaign provides an example of a force comparable in size to today’s Marine Corps ESG/MEB. Some, if not all, of the 

problems seen by the British task force will be seen by 

our ESG/MEBs in future conflicts.

There is never a perfect solution to any problem, especially one involving military operations. The 

fog of war combined with political end states will 

99 Marine Corps Operating Concept: How an Expeditionary Force Operates in the 21st Century (Washington, DC: Headquarters Marine 

Corps, 2016), 5.

100 Information operations (IO), as with most twentieth-century 

warfare, was present in the 1982 Falklands War, but was contained to limited press releases and statements at the United 

Nations. IO was held at the strategic level and its effects on operations were minimal during the campaign.

cause unforeseen consequences to any plan. The 1982 

Falklands War is—more than any other—as close to a 

perfect campaign as possible to study amphibious operations in the A2/AD environment.

It is not beyond belief that the United States 

could end up in a Falklands-type situation. In the 

future, the United States could enter into a highintensity conflict that takes the ESG/MEB into an 

area where there are few allies and increasing logistical burdens. China, Russia, and Iran supply U.S. adversaries with technologies that will test our forces to 

their limits. These technological advances in A2/AD, 

coupled with an amphibious task force that lacks allies and safe havens, will sound all-too similar to the 

1982 Falklands War.

The U.S. military’s focus today, just as it was for 

Britain in 1982, is preparing for the most dangerous 

course of action. Preparing for the most dangerous 

course of action is a requirement that cannot be overlooked. However, thinking that the A2/AD environment only exists around China and Russia creates a 

false sense of security. While China and Russia do pose 

a threat to U.S. interests, a war with either of them is 

not the most likely course of action in the near term. 

The United States will continue to face conflicts in 

the arc of instability with adversaries that pose formidable A2/AD threats to smaller units such as an ESG/

MEB and ARG/MEU. Despite advancements in today’s A2/AD weapons technology, the 1982 Falklands 

war offers critical insights to how U.S. naval forces 

can counter modern-day threats to an amphibious 

force and prepare for future threats.

• 1775 •
HISTORY IN THE CLASSROOM

A Case Can Be Made

THE VALUE OF HISTORICAL CASE STUDIES 

TO CONTEMPORARY POLICY ANALYSIS

by William M. Morgan, PhD1

North Korea lies at the center of the most 

dangerous flashpoint in contemporary international affairs. Ever since the outbreak of 

the Korean War 68 years ago, every presidential administration has struggled to maintain peace on the 

peninsula while, since the 1980s, aiming at complete 

denuclearization of North Korea. How can we help 

prepare the next generation of strategic leaders to deal 

with the North Korea problem? Or, for that matter, 

any current international challenge?

This article explains how we use case studies in 

the Diplomacy and Statecraft (DS) course at the Marine Corps War College (MCWAR), where our desired 

educational outcome is enabling students to acquire 

insights and analytical approaches useful in evaluating 

and skillfully responding to today’s global challenges.2

 Noting that students respond best to interesting, 

compelling topics, the DS program uses a case study 

on the atomic bombings of Japan to generate helpful 

takeaways. Rather than allow this case study to stand 

alone, instructors reinforce it with other case-based 

seminars sequenced during the academic year, ending 

1

 William M. Morgan is a professor of strategic studies and director of the Diplomacy and Statecraft course at U.S. Marine Corps 

War College. A former Marine, Dr. Morgan spent more than 30 

years in the Foreign Service of the U.S. Department of State. 

2

 Diplomacy and Statecraft (DS) is one of five MCWAR core 

courses. Composing roughly one-quarter of the curriculum, DS 

explores the D in DIME (diplomatic, informational, military, 

and economic—the four instruments of national power) with 

historical case studies, theoretical seminars, and many seminars 

analyzing U.S. relations with specific countries, such as China, 

Russia, Turkey, Iran, India, and Mexico. 

with an assessment of student learning in the form 

of a graded exercise: a policy recommendation memorandum about North Korea. That graded assessment 

requires student mastery of factual material about 

North Korea but, more importantly, it measures student ability to apply critical thinking and analytical 

techniques to create a new or revised American policy 

toward the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea 

(DPRK).3

 This ability will be useful for students as 

they become generals, ambassadors, and senior advisors, and as they face challenges similar to those posed 

by the DPRK.

The DS course is only part of the overall curriculum. Our other core courses are: War, Policy and 

Strategy; Leadership and Ethics; Joint Warfare; and 

National Security. All enable student insights and 

takeaways from varied angles and on varied topics. 

We make extensive use of matrix games, role-playing 

exercises, and field studies. Such diverse course offerings increase the integration and complementarity 

across the entire curriculum. It is important to note 

that MCWAR offers more than a hundred seminars, 

each emphasizing several insights or takeaways.

3

 When we create a specific class—whether a case study, discussion seminar, matrix game, role-play, etc.—we start with the 

Officer Professional Military Education Policy (OPMEP) Joint 

Learning Outcomes (JLOs), making sure the educational objectives for the class mesh with the JLOs. We also shape the class 

to address the four MCWAR Program Outcomes and the four 

DS Learning Objectives. Given that thousands of analysts have 

worked on DPRK policy for decades, we expect the students to 

construct policy revisions that are new for them, though not necessarily something completely original.

91
92 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

What Kind of Case Study?

Scholars note two categories of cases. Retrospective 

cases place students as outsiders examining an entire 

episode, including actors, competing interests, and 

eventual outcomes. Students analyze what did happen 

and what might have happened if other paths were 

taken. A second category, decision-forcing cases, place 

students as leaders at the decision point, knowing 

only what the decision maker knows. Students analyze possible options for action. Only at the end is the 

real-world outcome revealed and analyzed.4

Within these two categories, the many varieties 

of case studies share common characteristics.5 They 

focus on a discrete event, crisis, or turning point. The 

case study goal is acquisition of insights from disciplinary content by critical thinking and application of 

analytical techniques. Insights, or takeaways, are not 

school solutions or even “truth.” Vicki L. Golich of the 

California State University San Marcos notes that although so-called discussion seminars and case studies 

share traits, such as Socratic questioning and robust 

student preclass preparation, they are not identical. 

For example, discussion seminars might compare and 

contrast international relations theories, but cases anchor “academic instruction in reality by engaging students in the analysis of specific situations.”6

In my role as a MCWAR instructor, I prefer cases 

that tell stories of a real-world crisis, turning point, or 

crucial policy decision. The best stories portray people 

4

 Abundant information on case studies can be found at The 

Case Method in Professional Military Education, the website and 

blog of Dr. Bruce I. Gudmundsson, director of the Case Method 

Project at Marine Corps University. For an excellent example 

of preparing a case study at the tactical level, see 1stLt Zachary 

Schwartz, “Case Method PME,” Marine Corps Gazette 100, no. 4 

(April 2016): 65–67. The Institute for the Study of Diplomacy of 

the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and the 

Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University have vast 

collections of case studies in international affairs. 

5

 Laurence E. Lynn Jr. describes decision-forcing and four other types of cases: policy-making, problem-defining, conceptapplication, and illustrative. Lynn, Teaching and Learning with 

Cases: A Guidebook (New York: Seven Bridges Press, 1999), 107–10. 6

 Vicki L. Golich et al., The ABCs of Case Teaching, Pew Case Studies 

in International Affairs (Washington, DC: Institute for the Study 

of Diplomacy, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, 

Georgetown University, 2000), 13.

in emotionally charged conflict. Conflict lies at the 

heart of a compelling case: conflict among decision 

makers, conflict among options, and conflict among 

estimates of outcomes. Students will remember these 

compelling stories much longer than dry facts. And 

the stories can be memory joggers, unlocking related 

memories. Golich stresses the storytelling aspect of 

case studies: “They recount . . . real events and problems so that students experience the complexities, ambiguities, and uncertainties confronted by the original 

participants. Most cases reveal key moments or conversations in a major event.”7

 By evaluating issues and 

factors present in the case study that are also present 

in contemporary challenges, students can jump-start 

their analysis of present-day concerns.

I teach cases two ways. The chief difference between them is curriculum time and a writing exercise. Regular cases consist of two to three contact 

hours and four to six preengagement hours with a 

seminar group of 15.8

 Alternatively, in a portion of 

MCWAR’s curriculum called the Advanced Studies Program (ASP), I teach 10 deep-dive seminars 

for approximately five to seven students. Each ASP 

case requires four contact hours, 20 hours of preengagement, and a 750-word paper that the students 

present and defend during the first 90 minutes. The 

paper must address a fundamental question of the 

case. For example, during this year’s seminar on Pearl 

Harbor and the origins of the Pacific War, students 

wrote on the question: What was the chief cause of 

the Pacific War? That paper forced students—prior to 

class—to evaluate inherent subtopics, such as the role 

of Japanese militarism, prewar foreign policies, and 

immediate precipitating factors like the American 

oil embargo. Second, it compelled them to synthesize 

a coherent point of view from disparate, sometimes 

conflicting, data. The ASP deep dives, triple the intensity of regular seminars, are akin to second- or 

third-year doctoral seminars. Longer case studies allow more variety and detail in the preengagement 

7

 Golich, The ABCs of Case Teaching, 12. 8

 MCWAR seminar groups are similar to conference groups in 

other professional military education (PME) schools. However, 

at MCWAR, we re-form the seminar groups every two months.
SUMMER 2018 93

material, while the lengthier Socratic discussion generates more insights and takeaways.

A virtue of a decision-forcing case is that the 

students identify with or become the decision maker. 

In retrospective cases, some of the same effect can be 

achieved by examining a decision point and asking 

whether there were better options. A question such 

as whether there were better alternatives to President 

John F. Kennedy’s naval quarantine of Cuba gets students intimately involved in the decision maker’s dilemma. Students also tend to buy into a case if each 

of them is required to orally present a sophisticated 

answer to the same key question. This kicks in the 

competitive juices as everyone wants to impress their 

peers. In the longer but smaller ASP seminars, there 

is time for students to distribute, present, and defend 

their short essays.

Case instructors gently guide the discussion using a thorough knowledge of the topic coupled with 

careful preparation. They prepare a lesson plan or 

“questioning plan” to shepherd the students, via Socratic dialogue, toward critical thinking and generating rich takeaways. Experiencing content evaluation 

through critical thinking and creating insights help 

students retain such skills long after they depart the 

classroom. Instead of being told something—for example, a lecture presenting an analysis of the causes 

of the Pacific War—the students develop their own 

interpretation before class begins and join the group 

evaluation. This is the heart of experiential learning, 

or learning from the experience of doing.

Socratic questioning requires of the student at 

least a basic level of domain or disciplinary knowledge. In a case seminar on the origins of the Pacific 

War, we usually begin with big-picture questions. 

For students who failed to preengage the assigned 

material, the Socratic dialogue might go something 

like this:

Q: What was the main cause of the war? 

A: The sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. 

Q: Why did Japan attack Pearl Harbor? 

A: Because the militarists decided to. 

Q: What goals or desires motivated their attack? 

A: I guess they wanted to conquer Asia. 

Q: Why did they think that such aggressive 

expansion was in Japan’s interest? 

A: I am not sure. 

Q: Did the idea of controlling Northeast 

Asia evolve over time or appear suddenly? 

A: (Guessing) Maybe it evolved over time? 

Q: If so, what were the major turning points 

in that evolution? 

A: I am not sure. 

At this point, we have reached a level where Socratic 

questioning simply illuminates the gaps in student 

ability to evaluate key questions because of a shallow 

knowledge base. 

Meaningful critical thinking rests on factual 

(disciplinary) knowledge. Even the best critical thinkers cannot parse the causes of the Pacific War without 

knowing something about U.S.-Japan relations before 

Pearl Harbor. Nothing kills a Socratic dialogue faster 

than ill-prepared students, though an ill-prepared instructor comes close. This leads us to preengagement, 

the absolutely indispensable precursor to a rewarding 

case study.

Preengagement

The popular buzzword flipped classroom is sometimes 

taken to mean merely abandoning the one-way data 

transmission of lectures for acquiring information before class. But listening to a recorded lecture is hardly an advance over attending a lecture. It is simply a 

change in the timing of data acquisition. What makes 

a real pedagogical difference is student preengagement with those assigned study materials before class.

Like most instructors, I match the preengagement materials (e.g., readings, documents, videos, etc.) 

to student capabilities and to my case seminar goals. 

The materials must provide an overview of the topic 

but also enough material to elicit capable responses at 
94 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

the desired Socratic level. I am fortunate to teach at 

the senior school of the Marine Corps to students at 

the O5/O6 (lieutenant colonel and colonel) and GS14–15 ranks. Their wealth of life and career experiences, coupled with the work habits that got them where 

they are, ensure they arrive in class prepared.

Preengagement is much more than just doing the 

reading, listening to a lecture, or watching a documentary film and then showing up for class expecting the 

instructor to sort it all out. Graduate students must 

meaningfully preengage, evaluating the material using 

key analytical questions, perhaps suggested by the instructor in a preclass handout or, ideally, developed 

by the student. These questions are not simple extractions of fact from memory, as in, “When was the Tokyo firebombing?” A key analytical question might be: 

What were the short- and long-term impacts of firebombing on Japanese leadership? The latter is worth 

pondering before class and reexamining in seminar. 

Preengagement means posing key questions, 

thinking through the answers, and formulating sophisticated interpretations or judgments. Early in the 

academic year, I model this required behavior by providing extensive key-question lists or issues for consideration, as our lesson card template describes them. 

A bit later in the year, students often are required to 

turn in short lists of key questions. In smaller classes, 

to jumpstart the discussion, each student is asked to 

voice a key question, which is then written on the 

board. Or they can vote for a key question already on 

the board. After all students have weighed in, we start 

the discussion with the key questions on the board. The 

goal is to instill in the students the habit of developing 

and addressing key questions on their own. Instructors 

must take up key questions in the Socratic conversation. Nothing annoys students more than preparing 

for serious discussion and having the instructor veer 

into valueless ratholes or pet topics. 

Case seminars do not produce “school solutions” 

or answers in the sense of unquestioned truth. But all 

answers are not equal. Simply trading opinions produces an atmosphere in which all answers are “right” 

answers. Instructors encourage better answers by 

asking students to prioritize or rank-order the arguments, query the underlying assumptions, and evaluate the importance and reliability of the evidence. 

The best topics contain good arguments for several interpretations. Students end up on various sides 

of an issue—a desired result because it generates an 

enthusiastic give-and-take. In some future job, when 

someone dumps a mass of murky, contradictory information on their desk, they need to be able to evaluate 

the issues and formulate the necessary policy recommendation, intelligence assessment, or military course 

of action—and pack it into a concise memo, as in the 

real world. 

A Sample Case: 

The Atomic Bombings of Japan

The atomic bombings case study kicks off the Diplomacy and Statecraft course. The topic is compelling, 

lends itself to many analytical approaches, and serves 

as a nice introduction to several abilities that students 

need to practice in later seminars. As noted above, the 

most important graded assessment of the course occurs near the end of the spring semester. Role-playing 

as the National Security Council senior director for 

Asia, students write a policy recommendation memo 

for the president on whether policy objectives and 

policy actions toward North Korea should be revised, 

and if so, how. They must display mastery of concepts 

and techniques they studied during the year. There are 

a number of these, but a critical one is the concept 

of empathy—not sympathy, but the ability to understand all aspects of the adversary’s environment and 

decision-making context. Another critical one is the 

ability to evaluate the mind-set and will of the adversary’s leader or leadership group. 

For this initial 15-person seminar, students are 

allotted three contact hours and seven hours for 

preparation. Six of the preparation hours consist of 

reading 125 to 150 pages. Some instructors assign a specially prepared case study—perhaps a 35-page overview 

of the topic. I prefer journal articles, book chapters, 

documents, and video segments that together give a 

detailed overview, albeit with conflicting interpretations of the final months of the war and the surrender deliberations. Included in the reading are three 
SUMMER 2018 95

U.S. documents bearing on Operation Olympic (the 

planned November 1945 invasion of Kyushu), American casualty estimates, and a detailed timeline of 

the chaotic surrender deliberations among Japanese 

leaders.9

 For the seventh preparation hour, students 

prepare (and turn in) five to eight key questions they 

developed to parse the required reading. 

Students warm up with a big-picture question 

previously distributed; for example, “Why did Japan 

surrender on 14 August and not earlier or later?”10

Each student must comment. This results in a useful, 

wide-ranging discussion on key questions of paramount interest to the students.

Then we explore three aspects of the atomic 

bombings. First, we examine the uniqueness of the 

military-dominated Japanese decision-making structure. By a decades-old practice called “The Right of 

Supreme Command” the army and navy ministers had 

to be serving, active-duty officers. Should a minister 

leave office, only the relevant service could nominate 

a successor. Thus if Army Minister Korechika Anami 

resigned and the army refused to put forward a replacement, the government would collapse. With no 

government to implement policy, Japan could not surrender, even if, as ultimately happened, the emperor 

commanded it. Politicians tended, therefore, to defer 

to military recommendations on foreign and domestic policy.11

The army and navy ministers did not command 

the forces themselves. In the Meiji Era, when the idea 

9

 For details on Operation Olympic, see “ ‘Downfall’ The Plan 

for the Invasion of Japan,” in Reports of General MacArthur: The 

Campaigns of MacArthur in the Pacific, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. 

Army Center of Military History, 1994), 407.

10 Emperor Hirohito’s imperial rescript accepting the Potsdam 

Declaration was broadcast to the Japanese people at noon, 15 

August 1945, Japan Time. However, 14 August is a better date 

for Japan’s surrender. On that day, the emperor’s intervention 

during an Imperial Conference led to a cabinet decision to surrender. The Foreign Ministry swiftly cabled this news to its embassies in Sweden and Switzerland for transmission to the Allies. 

Washington received the surrender reply shortly before 0300 on 

14 August. The formal surrender occurred on the battleship USS 

Missouri (BB 63) on 2 September. 11 Richard B. Frank, Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire (New York: Random House, 1999), 86–87.

of a prime minister and a national legislature formed 

by political parties first appeared, the military insisted that politicians could not be trusted to place 

national interest above corrupt politics and therefore 

should not control the armed forces. Thus, both the 

army and the navy general staffs were placed under 

the emperor’s authority instead of the civilian cabinet’s. By war’s end, the Supreme War Council, dubbed 

the “Big Six,” managed day-to-day strategic decisions. 

The prime minister, foreign minister, and army and 

navy ministers were members, joined by the army and 

navy chiefs of staff. The chiefs were not cabinet ministers.12 

Most military officers and many civilians in the 

top leadership felt themselves charged with assuring 

Japan’s destiny to become Great Japan, an autonomous resource and security zone stretching across 

East Asia. Its two most familiar names are “A New 

Order in East Asia” and “The Greater East Asia CoProsperity Sphere.” These leaders deeply absorbed 

traditional cultural concepts from the Shinto religion and the cult of noble samurai. They believed 

that fighting spirit and resolve would overcome tactical and resource deficiencies. They were proud that 

Japan had overcome the helpless vulnerability of the 

mid-nineteenth century, when Western intrusions 

collapsed the weak Shogunate and imposed the hated 

unequal treaties. Many leaders would rather die than 

give up the dream of a powerful, impregnable Great 

Japan, even as the real Japan was reduced to rubble.13

Despite the constraints of their mind-set, Japanese leaders knew they had lost the war, but they 

hoped to avoid an unconditional surrender resulting 

in humiliating occupation and political reordering. 

Their unfounded assumption was that, if they could 

inflict enough pain on American forces, a conditional 

surrender might be possible. As the bloody Iwo Jima 

12 William M. Morgan, “Pacific Dominance: The United States 

versus Japan,” in Great Strategic Rivalries: From the Classical World 

to the Cold War, ed. James Lacey (New York: Oxford University 

Press, 2016), 482–83. 

13 For the development of the autonomous resource zone, see 

Michael A. Barnhart, Japan Prepares for Total War: The Search for 

Economic Security, 1919–1941 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 

1987).
96 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

and Okinawa campaigns failed to soften the Americans, the militarists did not abandon the assumption, 

they doubled down. They planned to continue the war 

for months, gambling that defeating or significantly 

damaging the first landing on the home islands, which 

they correctly calculated would come in Kyushu, 

might bring negotiations. They called this “decisive 

battle” plan Ketsu-Go (Operation Decisive).14

By the summer of 1945, American leaders were 

more aware than on the eve of Pearl Harbor of the special mind-set of most military and civilian leaders in 

Japan. Years of fighting to the death in island battles, 

enduring strangulation by American submarines, and 

suffering the devastating firebombings demonstrated 

that Japanese leaders as a group were not rational actors as Americans thought of rationality. Immense 

pressure had not brought the Japanese to surrender 

by 6 August, when the Enola Gay (a Boeing B-29 Superfortress) bombed Hiroshima. Indeed, they built 

up in Kyushu twice the force levels expected by U.S. 

planners—so much so that in mid-August top planners 

considered canceling Operation Olympic or landing 

elsewhere. The Japanese surrender mooted the issue.15

Analyzing Japan’s internal surrender deliberations can be eye-opening for students. They are surprised by how the dogged unwillingness to surrender 

diverged so sharply from rational actor theory. Many 

believe that pressure inevitably forces adversaries 

down a predictable path. If the adversary is not moving fast enough down the path, increase the pressure. If we do X, the enemy will surely do Y, goes the 

simplistic assumption. The important variable is the 

pressure level, not the adversary’s will and manner of 

thinking, that will influence the reaction to the pressure. That reaction may be quite unpredictable and 

appear irrational.

Rational actor theory postulates that leaders rationally weigh the pros and cons of options and choose 

14 Frank, Downfall, chapters 11–13, 164–213.

15 Frank, Downfall, 211–13; and Douglas J. MacEachin, The Final 

Months of the War with Japan: Signals Intelligence, US Invasion Planning, and the A-Bomb Decision (Washington, DC: Center for the 

Study of Intelligence Monograph, Central Intelligence Agency, 

1998), Appendix C, Document 17, “Alternatives to OLYMPIC,” 

Joint War Plans Committee Memo 397, 4 August 1945. 

the value-maximizing one, that is, the predictable and 

rational path. Many historians agree that Japan had 

lost the war and should have surrendered after Saipan 

fell in July 1944. That disaster forced General Hideki 

Tojo to resign as prime minister but did not trigger 

consideration of surrender. Japan suffered devastating 

defeats in the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa in 

late 1944 and early 1945. The firebombing campaign 

started with Tokyo on 9–10 March and by summer 1945 

obliterated more than 40 percent of Japan’s 66 major 

cities, making about 9 million people homeless.16 No 

oil tanker reached mainland Japan after March 1945. 

The rail network and intracoastal shipping suffered 

enormous damage. Food imports from mainland Asia 

plummeted. The population in 1941 consumed barely 

enough food for subsistence and, by 1945, consumed 

roughly 200 daily calories below maintenance level, 

meaning people were losing one and a half to two 

pounds per month.17 The cabinet foresaw starvation in 

the wake of an expected scanty rice harvest, estimated 

to be the worst in 14 years. Indeed, during 1946, the 

United States had to bring in substantial food supplies. After mid-1944, the value-maximizing option 

for Japan was ending the war, hopefully by conditional surrender.

Defeat was crystal clear, yet Japan fought on. 

Why? Because the Japanese decision-making structure 

placed the surrender decision in the hands of people 

whose values, beliefs, ideals, traditions, and spirit prevented them from surrendering the concept of Great 

Japan that had driven prewar expansion and the war 

itself. Many officers would rather die than surrender 

that ideal and identity.18 The preengagement material 

and a film clip shown in class offer insights into the 

mind-set of Japanese decision makers.19

16 Thomas W. Zeiler, Unconditional Defeat: Japan, America, and the 

End of World War II (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2004). 17 Frank, Downfall, 350–52. 18 This unique mind-set also underlay Japan’s 7 December 1941 

attack on the far stronger United States, despite awareness that 

Japan would lose a long war. See Morgan, “Pacific Dominance,” 

499–502. 

19 Rather than use the film as a preclass assignment, I find that 

this particular film clip is best discussed immediately after viewing. It also breaks up the seminar with a different activity.
SUMMER 2018 97

The film clip comes from Japan’s Longest Day, a 

compelling dramatization of the contentious and 

delicate internal deliberations that finally brought 

surrender. Made in 1967, the film closely follows the 

multivolume history by the respected Japanese historians of the Pacific War Research Society. Famous postwar movie stars filled the cast, among them Toshiro 

Mifune, brilliantly playing the key role of the conflicted Army Minister Korechika Anami.20 General Anami 

wished to fight the war to the death but also felt a 

martial duty to follow the emperor’s desire to end the 

war by accepting the Potsdam Declaration and the 

Byrnes Note.21 Anami could have scuttled surrender 

by resigning his post, collapsing the government, and 

thereby removing the legal mechanism to implement 

the emperor’s wish. Instead, he went along, assailed by 

doubt, torn between obligations to the emperor and 

to hardline younger officers. He committed suicide as 

Japan surrendered. Other hardliners never agreed to 

surrender. Army Chief of Staff Yoshijiro Umezu and 

Navy Chief of Staff Soemu Toyoda, like Anami, were 

Big Six members who opposed surrender. The deputy 

chief of the naval staff, Admiral Takijiro Onishi, father of the kamikazes, lectured Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo that Japan could still win by committing 

20 million people to suicide missions.22 Fortunately, 

Onishi’s view did not prevail. Onishi also committed 

suicide at the end of the war.

What moved the Japanese decision-making cadre? This is the second aspect of the case: an analysis 

of immediate triggers that enabled the surrender 

decision. Was it the 6 August Hiroshima bomb? 

The 9 August Nagasaki bomb? Were both bombs 

required? Was it the 9 August Soviet entry into the 

20 Japan’s Longest Day, directed by Kihachia Okamoto (Tokyo: 

Toho, 1967), film. The English-subtitled version appeared in 

1968. Mifune starred in many famous films, such as Rashomon, 

The Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, and Throne of Blood. Born in China 

to Japanese parents, Mifune spent World War II as an enlisted 

soldier in an aerial photography unit. 

21 The Potsdam Declaration (26 July 1945) called on Japan to surrender unconditionally.

22 These would obviously include many individual and group actions on the ground and seas, not just in the air, as at war’s end 

Japan had but several thousand airframes. 

war? Were both bombs plus Soviet entry needed?23

On 9 August, the Big Six met in the prime minister’s underground bomb shelter to evaluate the scary 

and confusing early reports from Hiroshima. While finally digesting that a single atomic weapon obliterated 

the city, they learned that another atomic weapon had 

just destroyed Nagasaki. Concurrently, they received 

reliable reports that at midnight—about 12 hours earlier—the Soviets launched a massive blitzkrieg against 

the shrunken Kwantung Army in Manchuria.

Given the incalculable pressure level at that moment, one might think that the Big Six would decide 

to surrender. But the best they could do was agree to 

attempt a negotiated surrender via a conditional reply 

to the Potsdam Declaration, which called for unconditional surrender but promised that ultimately Japan’s 

government would be shaped by the Japanese people. 

The Big Six considered four desirable conditions: 1) 

preservation of the imperial house and emperor as 

Japan’s supreme authority, 2) no occupation, 3) selfdisarmament, and 4) identification and prosecution 

of war criminals by the Japanese. All Big Six members supported retention of the imperial house. Prime 

Minister Kantaro Suzuki, Foreign Minister Shigenori 

Togo, and Navy Minister Mitsumasa Yonai sought 

only this course, called the “one-condition surrender.” 

Army Minister Anami, Army Chief Umezu, and Navy 

Chief Toyoda wanted multiple conditions, or the 

“four-condition surrender.” Deadlocked after arguing 

for hours, the Big Six adjourned around 1330 on 9 August. The cabinet then convened with Suzuki presiding and Togo, Anami, and Yonai present. The same 

argument, one or multiple conditions, deadlocked the 

cabinet until its adjournment at 2200.

Early that morning of 9 August, Emperor Hirohito sent his close advisor Marquis Koichi Kido, lord 

keeper of the privy seal, to inform Prime Minister Su23 The following portrayal of the process of surrender is drawn 

chiefly from Frank, Downfall; Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan (Cambridge, MA: 

Harvard University Press, 2005); Sadao Asada, “The Shock of the 

Atomic Bomb and Japan’s Decision to Surrender,” Pacific Historical Review 67, no. 4 (November 1998): 477–512; and Soichi Oya, 

Japan’s Longest Day (Tokyo: Pacific War Research Society, Bungei 

Shunju, 1965).
98 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

zuki that he wished to end the war by using the Potsdam Declaration. Suzuki could not bring either the Big 

Six or the cabinet to that consensual decision. In the 

afternoon, as the cabinet meeting made no progress, 

former prime minister Fumimaro Konoe and former 

foreign minister Mamoru Shigemitsu pushed Kido 

to persuade the emperor to make a “sacred decision” 

(seidan) to break the deadlock. The emperor agreed 

to appear at an Imperial Conference. This was an extraordinary step, especially if the emperor intended to 

make a decision. In the past, it was highly unusual to 

convene an imperial conference without a clear agenda and premeeting consensus on the policy that would 

receive the emperor’s blessing. As one member of the 

inner circle put it, Imperial Conferences were staged 

to preserve the fiction that the emperor personally 

approved the recommended course of action. Accordingly, the emperor did not participate in the scripted 

discussion and indeed almost never spoke.24

Late on 9 August, the first Imperial Conference 

convened in the form of the emperor, the Big Six, and 

a few invited officials. The Big Six divided as before, 

with Anami, Umezu, and Toyoda urging multiple 

conditions. Togo explained the one-condition surrender. Baron Kiichiro Hiranuma, head of the Privy 

Council, suggested a toughening of Togo’s single condition from “preservation of the status of the emperor 

within the national laws” to Allied acceptance of “the 

understanding that the Allied Proclamation would 

not comprise any demand that would prejudice the 

prerogatives of His Majesty as a Sovereign Ruler.” 

This language revision changed no minds. The deadlock continued. Ignoring Anami’s call, Prime Minister Suzuki positioned himself before the emperor and 

asked for the emperor’s decision between one or four 

conditions. Hirohito replied that he supported Togo’s 

one-condition idea. Anami and the diehards must 

have been shocked by the monarch’s intervention. The 

Foreign Ministry quickly sent a message, using Hi24 Toshikazu Kase, Journey to the Missouri (New Haven, CT: Yale 

University Press, 1950), 234–35. When the emperor committed 

to surrender is the subject of considerable debate, though the 

consensus is that it was probably in June 1945, when Okinawa 

was clearly lost. 

ranuma’s language, to the Allies via Japanese embassies in Sweden and Switzerland. The Japanese awaited 

the Allied reaction.25

In Washington, policy makers debated whether 

Japan’s condition was significant enough to alter how 

the United States would occupy, reform, and administer Japan. They did not know the exact political stances of the various Japanese leaders, but they knew some 

kind of accommodation regarding the imperial house 

might bring surrender. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes crafted a reply, called the Byrnes Note, which offered weak reassurance about the imperial institution 

without tying American hands.

On 12 August, international radio announced 

the Byrnes Note, which simply stated that “the authority of the Emperor and the said Japanese Government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme 

Commander of the Allied Powers.”26 Disappointed, 

Togo and Suzuki nevertheless decided to recommend 

cabinet acceptance. The emperor told Togo that he 

supported acceptance. The emperor conferred that afternoon with his relatives, 13 princes from five houses, 

and gained their support. Army Chief Umezu and 

Navy Chief Toyoda met with the emperor—he was 

their immediate superior, as they reported directly to 

the throne—and urged rejection of the Byrnes Note. 

The emperor reprimanded them, saying his mind was 

made up. 

On 13 August, the Big Six and the cabinet once 

more deadlocked over the Byrnes Note. Coup plotting began among mid-level officers, including Anami’s brother-in-law. The emperor again passed word 

to Prime Minister Suzuki that he wanted acceptance 

of the Byrnes Note. At 1600 on 13 August, the cabinet 

deadlocked one last time, unable to reach the required 

consensus, but only one civilian minister joined Anami and Navy Chief Toyoda in urging rejection. Twelve 

25 Kase, Journey to the Missouri, 238–39. For the text of the Japanese note—with Hiranuma’s proposed language—see Magic Diplomatic Summary, 10 August 1945, National Security Archive 

Briefing Book Number 162, Document 64-a, National Security 

Archive, George Washington University, Washington, DC.

26 James F. Byrnes, “Secretary of State Byrnes’ Reply to Japanese 

Surrender Offer, 11 August 1945,” World War II Resources, 12 December 1997; and Kase, Journey to the Missouri, 241.
SUMMER 2018 99

cabinet ministers supported accepting the note. Suzuki announced that he would again ask the emperor to 

break the deadlock and scheduled an Imperial Conference for the following morning. That night, the coup 

plotters showed Anami their plan, but he said and did 

nothing. 

On 14 August, Anami arranged to delay the second Imperial Conference so that several of the most 

senior officers could lobby the emperor. Admiral of 

the Fleet Osami Nagano and Field Marshal Hajime 

Sugiyama urged continuing the war, but Field Marshal Shunroku Hata, who commanded the defenses 

in Kyushu, frankly stated that he had no confidence 

in repelling an invasion. The emperor declared that 

the military situation had changed suddenly. The Soviet Union entered the war. Suicide attacks could not 

compete with the “power of science.” He saw no alternative but to accept the Potsdam terms.27 

The 25-minute film segment ends with the final 

Imperial Conference of the Japanese Empire. At 1050, 

the Imperial Conference began. Remarkably, the Big 

Six joined the cabinet ministers for the gathering. This 

allowed Army Chief Umezu and Navy Chief Toyoda 

to attend. Prime Minister Suzuki summarized the inconclusive deliberations of the Supreme War Council 

and cabinet and regretted that the government could 

not reach a consensus decision. He asked the emperor 

to hear minority views and render his decision. Anami, Umezu, and Toyoda in turn urged rejection of the 

Byrnes Note. Suzuki asked for the emperor’s decision. 

Hirohito slowly rose amid dead silence. In emotional 

remarks, wiping his eyes at one point, he explained 

why the war could not continue. He asked all present to respect his decision. He offered to personally 

explain surrender to the troops or undertake any task 

that would end the war. The emotional shock of his 

words and his resolute intervention brought some 

ministers to their knees, sobbing. The emperor turned 

to the prime minister: “Suzuki, prepare the docu27 Frank, Downfall, 314.

ments to end the war.”28 He walked slowly from the 

room. The war was over.

Historians robustly debate how the atomic 

bombings (singly or together) and the dreaded Soviet 

entry influenced the emperor’s decision to intervene 

and the strength of the so-called peace and war factions among the extended leadership group.29 What 

is clear is that, in the end, pressure worked. “Ah-ha!” 

rational actor advocates sometimes say. Not so fast.

Equally clear is that pressure was tremendously 

inefficient and slow. If Japan had surrendered in August 1944, when ultimate defeat was obvious, the Philippine, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa campaigns would not 

have been necessary. Japanese cities would not have 

been firebombed or hit with atomic weapons. Tens of 

thousands of American military casualties, hundreds 

of thousands of Japanese soldiers and civilians, perhaps an equal number of Chinese soldiers and civilians from the entire Asian combat theatre would have 

survived the war. Very likely, the benign American 

occupation would have played out the same way. Pressure had won the war by August 1944 but could not 

bring surrender for another horrible, bloody year.

To get its way, America had to apply an additional, almost unimaginable level of pressure. Why? 

Because of the will and mind-set of the Japanese, especially the leadership. A takeaway here is that, in future 

situations, a decent understanding of adversary will 

and mind-set is essential to a prudent evaluation of 

how the adversary will react to pressure, particularly 

if, unlike the Japanese in August 1945, the adversary 

can inflict catastrophic damage on the United States. 

Moreover, adversary will and mind-set should be considered at the earliest stage of planning, even during 

28 Learning of the decision for surrender, ultranationalist midlevel officers immediately attempted a coup, seizing the Tokyo 

Imperial Palace and other facilities. Shizuichi Tanaka, general of 

the Eastern Army, stormed over to the palace with troops and 

squelched the revolt. Within a day or two, the military rooted 

out the rebels everywhere. This allowed the surrender to proceed. 

Like Anami, Tanaka committed suicide at the end of the war.

29 An excellent historiographical overview comes from J. Samuel 

Walker, Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs against Japan, 3d ed. (Chapel Hill: University of North 

Carolina Press, 2016).
100 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

the determination of national goals or objectives, but 

certainly at the strategic level where the necessary 

force structure, estimated time to complete the mission, and acceptable casualty and resource levels are 

considered. Due to events at Pearl Harbor, the Pacific 

War was not an optional war. Where war is optional, 

however, proper understanding of adversary will and 

mind-set will help prevent an unexpected quagmire. 

How much pressure will be needed? Can we apply it 

hard enough and long enough? Might our pressure result in a lashing out?

A third aspect of the atomic bombings that we 

briefly explore is how American leaders considered 

the moral-ethical dilemma posed by the new nuclear 

weapon. I neither offer my view nor do I expect the students to generate one acceptable to the group. Rather, 

each person formulates their own answer. When responses regarding the moral-ethical angle are solicited, several people usually observe that atomic bombs 

were nothing special, just bigger bombs. Dead is dead, 

they say. They assert the nuclear bombings were no 

different than killing roughly the same number with a 

thousand-plane raid, as in the 9–10 March 1945 Tokyo 

firebombing that killed a hundred thousand people, 

the vast majority civilians.

In class, we note two previous examples of the 

use of new weapons. In World War I, mustard gas was 

widely used. In 1917, Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare violated the common understandings of 

traditional cruiser warfare and precipitated American intervention. But in World War II, unrestricted 

submarine warfare was the norm. On the other hand, 

poison gas was not used, though several nations maintained deterrent stocks. What thinking deemed unrestricted submarine warfare acceptable and poison gas 

unacceptable?30

Here, I introduce new information. During 

World War II, several new weapons were considered, 

such as a “dirty” bomb scattering radiological material across a city—or base or airfield—killing the inhabitants over several days or weeks and rendering 

the area uninhabitable. Another idea was poisoning 

30 As my colleague James Lacey has noted, Adolf Hitler was 

gassed in World War I.

Nazi water reservoirs, perhaps with radioactive material. A third idea was an anthrax bomb to spew deadly 

powder across enemy cities. Though murky, the historical record suggests the British ordered but never 

used anthrax bombs from a factory in Indiana.31 Allied decision makers and strategic leaders declined 

to use radiological weapons, poison in reservoirs, or 

anthrax bombs. Why was the atomic fission weapon 

acceptable and other new and deadly weapons unacceptable? Keeping in mind the search for insights, not 

school solutions, the moral-ethical aspect generates an 

energetic give-and-take. Students reflect on how to 

construct personal guidelines should they face such a 

decision.

Sequencing Case Studies

We next take up several other case studies and seminars and explain how they connect to the atomic 

bombings case and to the graded policy recommendation memo on North Korea. 

Class number two, a discussion seminar on international relations theory, includes a look at Constructivism, which remains much less familiar to students 

than Realism. Constructivism suggests that state behavior, especially in the long term, emerges from the 

leadership and population’s values, beliefs, traditions, 

and ideas, similar to the factors shaping the mind-set 

of the Japanese leadership.

Next, students play a prisoner’s dilemma game 

in class. One of the takeaways is what might be called 

the “last-round danger.” In real-world diplomacy, interactions go on for years, akin to a game of hundreds 

of rounds. In a tense negotiation, the last-round danger occurs when one side has secretly abandoned diplomacy and plans an attack. The other side does not 

recognize that diplomacy is in the final round and is 

thus blindsided. Pearl Harbor is an example of an unrecognized last-round danger.

Third, the students scrutinize before class a com31 Barton Bernstein, “Churchill’s Secret Biological Weapons,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 43, no. 1 (January 1987): 46–50, https://

doi.org/10.1080/00963402.1987.11459474. Bernstein suggests that 

fear of German retaliation rather than moral scruples deterred 

the British from using biological weapons.
SUMMER 2018 101

pelling new essay by Janice Gross Stein on emotion 

in threat perception. Students are prone to think—

given the justifiable popularity of Daniel Kahneman’s 

Thinking Fast and Slow (2011) and similar books—that 

our perceptions of adversary threats are processed 

through two distinct cognitive processes. The first is 

heuristics: rules of thumb, emotions, and quick gut 

reactions. The second is calm, logical, evidence-heavy 

deliberation. Stein persuasively argues that emotions 

infuse not just the “system one” heuristics but also 

the supposedly logical, rational “system two” deliberations. Her article has significant implications for 

policy makers who must judge how an adversary will 

perceive a policy action, emotionally or rationally.32

Our third and fourth classes focus on a two-part 

case study of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Students read 

chunks of Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow’s classic, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (1971), and all of The Cuban Missile Crisis (2006) by 

Don Munton and David Welch. They become familiar 

with Allison’s three analytical paradigms: Rational 

Actor (Model One), Organizational Behavior (Model Two), and Governmental Politics (Model Three).33

They evaluate Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and 

President Kennedy’s understanding of the decisionmaking context of the adversary. As Munton and 

Welch argue, the two leaders initially lacked empathy 

but gained it during the crisis. They finally negotiated a deal that met the basic needs of each man. Last, 

students explore the amazing Castro letter. During 

the crisis, when Cuban prime minister Fidel Castro 

sensed that Khrushchev was weakening, turning away 

from confrontation to deal making, he dragooned Soviet ambassador Alexander Alexeyev into shaping his 

rants into a passionate letter to the Soviet premier, 

32 Janice Gross Stein, “Threat Perception in International Relations,” in The Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology, 2d ed., 

ed. Leonie Huddy, David O. Sears, and Jack S. Levy (Oxford: 

Oxford University Press, 2013), 364–94, https://doi.org/10.1093

/oxfordhb/9780199760107.013.0012.

33 Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2d ed. (New York: Longman, 1999), 

4–5; and Don Munton and David A. Welch, The Cuban Missile 

Crisis: A Concise History, 2d ed. (New York: Oxford University 

Press, 2012).

transmitted 26 October 1962. Rather than live under 

occupation after the expected American invasion, 

Castro would rather die. Use the nuclear weapons, 

he urged. In a 1992 conference in Havana with former 

American, Russian, and Cuban officials, Castro admitted to Robert S. McNamara that he would rather, 

as McNamara described it, bring the temple down on 

his head than give up his revolutionary dream.34

Our fifth class, “Analytical Techniques for Policymakers,” is a short review of proven techniques, some 

from the intelligence community, such as questioning 

key assumptions, analysis of competing hypotheses, 

and evaluating analogies. A lengthy practical application focuses on placement, Richard Neustadt and Ernest R. May’s technique of sophisticated biographical 

analysis. Students create placements of Khrushchev, 

whom they have studied in the two previous classes, 

and of a significant contemporary figure, General 

Qassem Suleimani, head of the Iranian Qods Force. 

Placement is a key skill for evaluating how a decision 

maker will react in various contexts.35

Kim Jong Un and North Korea Policy

In the spring semester, students participate in seminars on Chinese leadership trends, Chinese foreign 

policy, the People’s Liberation Army, the South China Sea dispute, the U.S.-Japan alliance, and security 

issues on the Korean Peninsula. The DPRK issue is 

deeply explored. After the five foundational seminars 

34 Fidel Castro letter to Nikita Khrushchev, 26 October 1962, National Security Archive, George Washington University, Washington, DC. For Castro’s and McNamara’s remarks in the 1992 

Havana conference, see James G. Blight and Janet M. Lang, The 

Fog of War: Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (New York: 

Rowman and Littlefield, 2005), 74–81. 

35 Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, Thinking in Time: The 

Uses of History for Decision Makers (New York: Free Press, 1986). 

Their placement concept assesses an individual from the time of 

parents’ adolescence, with special attention given to times of extreme emotion, domestic political change, and career shocks and 

successes. Other systems for collecting and analyzing leader biographies exist in the intelligence and foreign policy worlds. Access 

to classified material may supply additional data on a subject, 

but placement is a skill or technique that evaluates data regardless of the classification level. Hence it is useful in both classified 

and unclassified settings.
102 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

at the beginning of the year and the six East Asia seminars, the students are well prepared to think their way 

through a policy recommendation memo similar to 

one that might be written in the real world. The memo 

requires them to evaluate whether American policy 

objectives (ends) and policy actions (ways and means) 

are realistic, proportional, and achievable. Then they 

recommend any necessary revisions to those policy 

objectives and policy measures.

During the evaluation and recommendation process, they pose (and investigate) key questions needed 

to fully evaluate the issues. By this time in the academic year, students have developed similar questions 

many times. Among many important questions and 

observations useful in evaluating North Korea policy 

are the following:

• Remembering the importance of understanding Japan’s unique decision-making structure, 

do we understand the DPRK decision-making 

structure and Kim’s role in it? Can he act without regard to the effect his actions have on his 

power? Or does he feel he can never act in a 

way that looks weak?

• Recalling the spirit and powerful self-image of 

General Anami, who prided himself on military rectitude and preferred death to what he 

saw as dishonor, how should we engage Kim? 

Just as with Anami, is his behavior motivated 

by beliefs, values, desire for respect, fear, etc.? 

If so, what beliefs, what fear, and what values? 

Is a proportional or prudent act on our part 

likely to be misunderstood and perhaps even 

trigger a disproportionate reaction? 

• Do we understand how he thinks, including 

any information on his thinking processes in 

any previous crises? Is he so invested in his 

position that any threat to it—from a U.S. 

preemptive strike or an internal coup or even 

an escalating border clash—might cause him 

to use nuclear weapons, as Castro had urged 

in the Cuban crisis, not caring that it would 

mean his death?

• If persuasion or inducements are our tactics, 

what do empathy, analysis of his decisionmaking context, and Neustadt and May’s 

placement technique tell us about what might 

be persuasive or serve as inducements?

• Have we matched our objectives with the 

pressure, persuasion, and inducements that 

we can (or should) apply? Certain objectives 

will require a lot more pressure, persuasion, or 

inducements than others. Incalculable pressure on the Japanese did not work for a long, 

long time, and even then it was touch and go 

inside the leadership hierarchy. Could we generate that much pressure on North Korea and 

maintain it?

• Will Kim accede to pressure in the end, or 

will he pull the temple down upon his head, as 

Castro was ready to do? Unlike the Japanese, 

who, at the end of the war, could not seriously 

wound the United States, Kim may be able to 

inflict great damage on the Republic of Korea (ROK) and Japan right now. In the near 

future, he may be able to damage the United 

States as well.

• Though the United States did not locate the 

bunkers storing the warheads for the mediumrange ballistic missiles and intermediate-range 

ballistic missiles in Cuba, the Central Intelligence Agency prudently assumed that missile warheads were present on the island. But 

American analysts could not imagine that dozens of tactical nukes were also in Cuba. Those 

weapons would have decimated the invasion 

urged by Air Force General Curtis LeMay and 

other senior military and civilian leaders. Accordingly, do we know everything Kim has 

and where it is located? Is it possible that he 

could load a crude nuclear bomb on a midget 

sub or onto a shipping container and detonate 

the bomb in a South Korean or Japanese port?

• What eventualities or situations might trigger a last-round move by Kim? How would 

we know when he reached this point? What 

indications might there be? Will his thinking 

about that situation parallel ours?

• In a tit-for-tat situation, might he react un-
SUMMER 2018 103

predictably and disproportionally to what we 

consider a prudent, proportional response? 

Said another way, should there be a naval clash 

along the Northern Limit Line or shelling of 

islands (similar to the Yeonpyeong Islands bombardment in 2010), and the ROK-U.S. leadership crafts a kinetic response, do we have 

a reasonable idea of how the escalatory chain 

will play out?36

Conclusion

Though historical case studies can be useful in 

strengthening student abilities, they are not answers 

or lessons that we can directly apply to contemporary 

policy challenges. A historical episode is unique, a 

one-off event. We should be humble about the insights 

and assessments we glean from case studies. We might 

have it wrong. We might ask, what happens if we fol36 The Northern Limit Line refers to a line drawn approximately 

mid-channel between the North Korean coast and five islands.

low a certain course and it goes wrong? If we cannot 

anticipate and cope with likely second- and thirdorder effects, we should be very cautious about making a highly risky move or a move with completely 

unknown risk levels. That said, decision makers must 

decide. They cannot let themselves be paralyzed by the 

complexities of unclear data, unpredictable risk, and 

the inevitable uncertainty of intelligence assessments. 

Case studies allow students to experience those complexities in real situations, polish critical thinking 

skills, and prepare themselves to make crucial decisions or skillfully advise those who do. Case studies do 

not lead to perfect judgments, but they often lead to 

better ones. Former national security advisor Samuel 

R. Berger pointed out: “History is written through 

a rear-view mirror but it unfolds through a foggy 

windshield.”37 Perhaps case studies can help wipe a bit 

of the fog off the glass.

• 1775 •

37 Hearing before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks 

upon the United States, eighth public hearing (24 May 2004) 

(testimony of Samuel L. Berger, former assistant to the president 

for national security affairs). 
HISTORY IN ACTION

Drawn Together

THE MARINE CORPS’ VISUAL HISTORY 

AS RECORDED BY COMBAT ARTISTS

by Charles Grow1

Art can be found in almost every location humans have existed. We are drawn to leaving 

our mark. While times change, people remain 

relatively the same. Not surprisingly, as archaeologists 

uncover warriors in every clime and place, from numerous eras, they also find artistic elements on artifacts and in living spaces that decorate, inspire, and 

communicate. The well-known Bayeux Tapestry, for 

example, is a hand-stitched graphic novel of the Norman conquest of England, culminating with the Battle 

of Hastings in 1066. Images tell stories, whether they 

are scratched on cave walls, sewn on tapestries, pieced 

from glass, or painted on canvas. During the past 150 

years, artists have done much to document their countrymen’s endeavors on the battlefield. Some attempted 

to record victories, glories, and achievements, whereas 

others tried to document simple truths through image. 

In the United States, artists such as Winslow Homer, 

Harvey Dunn, George Harding, Kerr Eby, and John 

W. Thomason Jr. went to war and produced artwork 

of their experiences. Their work emerged alongside 

the development of daguerreotypes and modern film 

photography. The interest in hand-created imagery 

1

Charles Grow serves as deputy director of the National Museum 

of the Marine Corps in Quantico, VA. He served a career in the 

Marines as a combat artist and combat photographer. He worked 

as an adjunct professor for five years with Strayer University. 

Author’s statement: combat art should inspire thought, questioning, or an emotional response. The viewer should be challenged to empathize with the Marines and their circumstances. 

What would the viewer do or feel if they were asked to do the 

Marine’s mission, endure their hardships, etc.?

among modern audiences did not wane from the late 

1800s through the early 1900s but instead increased. 

This was in part due to technological limitations with 

cameras and emulsions, which required very long exposures. Art also endured because of its emotive quality, the artist’s ability to distill scenes down to their 

essence. 

Fast forward to World War II, during which 

countries around the world fielded artists and cameramen. Both visual disciplines continue to coexist 

and complement one another. Marine Corps Brigadier General Robert L. Denig was tasked by the Commandant to keep the Marines’ stories during the war 

in front of the American public. To that end, he recruited photojournalists, photographers, motion picture cameramen, and artists. This group of talented 

professionals underwent training, donned uniforms, 

and set off for the Pacific with general orders to: “Go 

to war; do art.” Denig trusted the artists to tell authentic stories with their drawings and paintings, rather 

than create propaganda.2 By the end of the war, the 

work created by the artists had been used in publications, war bond advertisements, recruiting posters, 

and public exhibitions around the country. 

Because of my love of reading and history, I grew 

up with a basic understanding of works created by the 

artists who documented the Civil War, World War I 

2

 Benis M. Frank, Denig’s Demons and How They Grew: The Story 

of Marine Corps Combat Correspondents, Photographers, and Artists

(Washington, DC: Marine Corps Combat Correspondents and 

Photographers Association, 1967).

104
SUMMER 2018 105

(Thomason in particular), World War II, and Vietnam. 

Thomason’s work illustrated books like Fix Bayonets, 

which I checked out of the library.3

 These souls endured great hardships to experience one of mankind’s 

most horrific and incredible endeavors and to relate 

those experiences in sculpture and painting. Learning 

about them led to more reading and more learning 

about combat artists. Their work spoke of people who 

3

 Capt John W. Thomason Jr., Fix Bayonets (New York: Charles 

Scribner’s Sons, 1926).

Art Collection, National Museum of the Marine Corps

(Top) “Oh Lordy, They’ve Got Us Bracketed . . .” by John Thomason. Watercolor on paper. Incoming German artillery surrounds World War I 

Marines in France.

(Right) Before Zero Hour by John Thomason. Watercolor on paper. Marines huddle together in a trench in France during World War I.
106 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

persevered and stories that mattered. I wanted my 

artwork to matter, to resonate with people intellectually, historically, and emotionally. When faced with 

going to art school to learn how to paint better, which 

I could not entirely afford, or living a life that would 

result in stories worth telling, I chose the latter and 

in 1982 I enlisted in the Marines. Practice and study 

could replace things learned in art school, but only 

life experience would inform what I chose to paint. I 

approached my recruiter with a much deeper understanding of the combat art program than he had, and 

to his credit, he listened. He offered no guarantees and 

suggested that I pack a portfolio for my trip to Parris 

Island, South Carolina. I signed up for an open contract enlistment, assured that my work would speak 

for itself. It was not until a few years later that I realized how slim the odds were for me to become a U.S. 

Marine Corps combat artist. There had only been a 

handful of enlisted combat artists between 1942 and 

the early 1980s. Tom Lovell, John Clymer, Harry Jackson, Richard M. Gibney, Paul T. Arlt, John DeGrasse, 

Richard Yaco, Henry Casselli, James Butcher, and 

James Fairfax were primary enlisted artists to document the period between World War II and Vietnam. 

Subsequent to Vietnam, the numbers of enlisted artists reduced even more, with Arturo Alejandre and 

Art Collection, National Museum of the Marine Corps, ACN 29-4-516

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by Charles Waterhouse. Acrylic on untempered Masonite. As a rifleman on Iwo Jima, the artist, Cpl Charles 

Waterhouse, received a gunshot wound to the left arm on 21 February 1945. Col Raymond Henri, head of the Combat Art Program, was later cited 

as having said, “Thank God they did not hit his drawing arm!”
SUMMER 2018 107

Jorge Benitez being the primary enlisted participants. 

I was blessed to be in the right place at the right time 

and with a portfolio to help pry the door open. 

Toward the end of boot camp, my senior drill instructor and his “heavy” called me to the duty hut.4

 They 

reviewed my test scores and suggested that I consider 

a number of military occupational specialties (MOSs), 

such as intelligence or translator. Then, against their 

better judgment, they marched me down to the graphic shop, where I was interviewed by Gunnery Sergeant 

Donald D. Moore, staff noncommissioned officer in 

charge (SNCOIC) of the Graphics Section. Moore’s 

artwork was everywhere in those days, including pencil portraits of Dan Daly, Chesty Puller, and others. 

He reviewed my portfolio and put me in contact with 

the Combat Art curator, Jack Dyer. Both gentlemen 

were impressed with my work and both were instrumental in getting me to draw and paint for the Marine 

Corps—but not immediately. Combat art was an additional duty, not a fulltime MOS. There was an MOS 

titled combat artist (officer), but there was no enlisted 

equivalent. In a sad twist of fate, I was assigned the 

4

 The “heavy” drill instructor is the one who rides recruits the 

hardest—the loudest, roughest, most harsh of the drill instructor 

team.

Art Collection, National Museum of the Marine Corps, ACN 13-4-98

Last Man by Henry Casselli. Acrylic on canvas. This acrylic painting 

shows three Marines at a checkpoint in Hue City, Vietnam, ca. March 

1968.

Art Collection, National Museum of the Marine Corps, ACN 13-9-144

Corpsman by Henry Casselli. Pencil on paper. The artist’s caption reads: 

“A Corpsman is often called ‘Doc.’ He is everyone’s friend, especially 

when the going gets tough giving not only physical aid but often a spiritual boost. Although a Navy man we feel he’s as much a Marine as we 

are.”

Art Collection, National Museum of the Marine Corps, ACN 37-1-10

Fire Support Base Dick by Richard Yaco. Watercolor on paper. The artillery fire support base “DICK” was built by the 9th Marines in 48 hours. 

Six 105mm howitzers sit in a cutaway position on this high mountain 

peak position operated by Company E, 2d Battalion, 12th Marines.
108 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

MOS for basic photographer, and stationed at Parris 

Island as permanent personnel. Dreams of deployment, doing Marine things, and living a life worth 

painting evaporated quickly. So I started drawing and 

painting everything I could and figured that I would 

serve an honorable enlistment and return to civilian 

life as a more seasoned artist.

A few years later, I was lucky enough to be headed to the Persian Gulf in support of Operation Desert 

Storm. Jack Dyer had been in communication with my 

SNCOIC and officer in charge (OIC); my primary assignment was to be a combat artist. Colonel H. Avery 

Chenoweth, an infantry officer who served in Korea 

and Vietnam, was tasked with being the OIC of the 

Marine Corps Combat Art Team. We both reported 

to History Division, which at the time also included 

the Museums Branch, where Jack Dyer managed the 

art collection. I spent a few days going through the art 

collection with Dyer. He showed me works by Lovell, 

Clymer, and Jackson—all of whom created artwork 

as enlisted Marines during World War II. I perused 

pieces created by Howard Terpning, who had served 

as an enlisted Marine in China after World War II and 

went to Vietnam as a civilian combat artist for the 

Marine Corps. Two of the most impressive collections 

I reviewed were created by former Sergeants Casselli 

and Yaco. Both men enlisted to become combat artists, and both got to do that in Vietnam. Poring over 

hundreds of works, I saw that war through their eyes. 

They had unfettered access to enlisted Marines, and 

their art told timeless stories of an unvarnished truth. 

I also spent a little time talking with two of my heroes, 

Colonels Peter Michael Gish and Charles Waterhouse. 

Both of these esteemed gentlemen were veterans of 

multiple wars, both had primary MOSs other than art, 

and each gave me solid insight into what to expect, 

look for, and consider as I charted my own course as 

a Marine and an artist. Neither violated the prime diArt Collection, National Museum of the Marine Corps, ACN 37-4-249

The Trench by Richard Yaco. Acrylic on paper. Marines of the 26th Regiment find themselves under heavy enemy artillery fire at Camp Carroll, 

South Vietnam.
SUMMER 2018 109

rective: go to war, do art. What I chose to cover was up 

to me, as it had been for all the artists before me. The 

Marine Corps did not want propaganda, it wanted an 

authentic visual record of my experiences. 

During Desert Shield, I was initially attached 

to 2d Marine Division, then I Marine Expeditionary 

Force (I MEF), and finally 1st Marine Division (1st 

MarDiv). I spent the entirety of Desert Storm with 1st 

MarDiv. I was fortunate enough to fall under the wing 

of two senior Marines who helped me understand 

the operations plan and move around the battlefield. 

Lieutenant Colonel Charles H. Cureton was the field 

historian for 1st MarDiv. Master Sergeant Alexander 

Ortiz was the combat camera chief for 1stMarDiv. I 

learned much from both Marines. Both leaders imbued me with a better understanding of the broader Marine Corps from a historical, operational, and 

practical perspective. Each of them pushed me to see 

different perspectives and to be as productive as possible; this was a rare opportunity for a sergeant of Marines. Thanks to the mentorship and access afforded 

by Cureton and Ortiz, I was privileged to document 

preparations for war, planning efforts, combat service support, reconnaissance, tactical deception, and 

almost every major element of the division. It was a 

dream come true. It was also one of the only times in 

my career that art was a primary focus. The majority 

of the rest of my career required me to do artwork on 

my own time, after hours, once my primary mission 

and other additional duties were complete. 

During my time in the first Gulf War, I learned 

that artists could do things that cameras could not. 

For some of the time we were shrouded in darkness, 

as oil fires blackened the skies and droplets stained 

our uniforms and skin. On a couple of occasions, I was 

tasked with doing tactical sketches, at least in part 

because the heat of the desert prevented clear intelArt Collection, National Museum of the Marine Corps, ACN 44-23-8

Counter Attack on the Dunes by Howard Terpning. Acrylic on canvas. A 

rifleman moves to a better firing position on the sand dunes where his 

unit has been momentarily pinned down by a Viet Cong ambush. He 

carries the M16 rifle firing 5.56mm ammunition.

Art Collection, National Museum of the Marine Corps, ACN 44-4-3

Moving Up by Howard Terpning. Acrylic on paper. A Marine grenadier 

and Marine rifleman move to an attack position in response to a Viet 

Cong ambush south of Hoi An, South Vietnam.
110 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

Art Collection, National Museum of the Marine Corps, ACN 301-6-77

Sgt. Cowart, USMC by Charles Grow. Pen and ink on paper. Sgt Cowart and his sniper team provide overwatch on a hill above Cape Haitien, September 2004.

Art Collection, National Museum of the Marine Corps, ACN 301-6-78

HM-3 Corpsman R. R. Coyle, USN 2/2 by Charles Grow. Pen and ink on 

paper. HM 3 R. R. Coyle, USN, 2d Battalion, 2d Marines, aid station, 

carries an elderly Haitian woman to her quarters near a feeding site in 

Cape Haitien. The woman got dizzy and fell. Coyle put her in the shade 

and cooled her off in October 1994.

Art Collection, National Museum of the Marine Corps, ACN 301-6-79

Golf Company 2/2 by Charles Grow. Pen and ink on paper. A villager 

describes a weapons cache with Capt Griffen before the Marines seize 

a weapons cache at the police barracks in Grand Rivier du Nord, Haiti. 

Capt Griffen was appointed liaison by LtCol Joseph at Force d’Armee 

d’Haiti. Marines visited Grand Rivier du Nord on 28 September 1994 

with two Sikorsky CH-53 Super Stallions.
SUMMER 2018 111

ligence photographs. There were a few occasions when 

the camera was useless and the only visual record of an 

event was my notes and sketches. For instance, when 

the intelligence Marines and interrogators/translators 

marked enemy prisoners of war after dark, there was 

sufficient light to make out shapes, but not enough for 

the fastest film. When we engaged in firefights enveloped in pitch black, getting a photographic exposure 

was impossible. I also was able to composite memories 

into a single canvas—something that would have been 

pretty difficult in the film days of camera work. For 

instance, when traveling through the wide-open desert, I saw an interesting contrast of East and West, low 

tech and high tech, peace and war. A flight of Sikorsky 

CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters passed overhead with 

cargo slung below, a logistics convoy rolled by, and 

a Bedouin herded his camels; they were there at the 

same time, but not in a way that would make a single 

good photograph. The objects would have appeared 

as mere specks on a wide panoramic photo. I merged 

these elements into a scene that depicted events that I 

repeatedly saw in Saudi Arabia. 

About a year and a half later, I deployed to Somalia as a combat camera officer for Marine Forces 

Somalia, which largely comprised Marines from I MEF 

and 1stMarDiv. This deployment had two combat artists, both of whom were attached to I MEF. Colonels 

Peter Michael Gish and Donna Neary roamed the 

theater creating artwork. The artists produced an incredible body of drawings and paintings. Meanwhile, 

I dispatched photographers and videographers on air 

and ground missions. Combat Camera supported the 

immediate needs for a largely local military audience. 

By contrast, the artists’ imagery continues to tell stoArt Collection, National Museum of the Marine Corps, ACN 301-10-1

Ground War Day by Charles Grow. Pastel on paper. SSgt Gary W. Weiser 

receives a five paragraph order from Company E, 2d Battalion, 7th Marines, commander, Task Force Grizzly. He wears a British military antigas suit on the second day of the ground war during Operation Desert 

Storm in Kuwait.

Art Collection, National Museum of the Marine Corps, ACN 301-1-32

Cpl. Birch & Lucky the Wonder Dog by Charles Grow. Watercolor on paper. 

Portrait of Cpl Birch and Lucky the Wonder Dog, mascot of Company 

K, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, after the battle of al-Khafji, the northernmost seacoast town in Saudi Arabia on 1 February 1991.
112 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

ries to a much broader audience. Both missions were 

important, as are both audiences. 

Roughly 18 months later, I was deployed to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and to Haiti. Jack Dyer’s petition 

with my chain of command resulted in my being dispatched as a combat artist attached to 2d Battalion, 

2d Marines. This time I was a chief warrant officer, so 

getting access to plans and operations was relatively 

easy. I was able to identify with and engage with the 

enlisted Marines, and it was easy to talk with the officers. My approach to this deployment was different. I 

kept a journal, made sketches, and engaged in as many 

activities as possible. I wanted to feel what the Marines felt, and I wanted those feelings to come through 

the work I created. When I returned to Camp Pendleton, California, I found that my command’s offer to 

provide a little studio time was quickly overcome by 

more pressing matters. So the work I produced about 

Haiti was limited to what I could create after duty 

hours, when I got home from college, and before physical training the next morning. 

I submitted for retirement from the Marine 

Corps in June 2001, and learned that my preretirement physical would serve as my deployment physical three months later in September 2001. The Corps’ 

leadership wanted to quickly dispatch a Marine Corps 

Combat Assessment Team (MCAT) to support Operation Enduring Freedom, and my name was on the 

roster for Afghanistan. Jack Dyer also wanted to send 

a combat artist and asked if I would be able to create 

anything for the collection. Luckily for us, then-Staff 

Sergeant Michael D. Fay was attached to the MCAT 

for the sole purpose of being a combat artist. Fay was 

able to focus entirely on living the Marine experience 

from which he created artwork. I primarily analyzed 

and evaluated processes to expedite support for the 

warfighters and sketched on rare occasion. When I returned from deployment, I eventually created a painting based on one of my experiences. Upon retirement 

from the Marines, I joined Dyer in curating the art 

collection at the Museums Branch. 

After being associated with the program for 36 

years, I see more value in the role of combat art. Although our society has become saturated with digital 

cameras and web-based media, combat art continues 

to play a role in our nation’s strategic communication. Art makes the Marine experience accessible to 

people who have no connection to, or perhaps interest in, the military. Art creates an opportunity for 

dialogue between disparate elements of the American 

public. It is broadly accepted that roughly 1 percent 

of the country’s citizens serve in the military. That 

means an overwhelming majority of Americans have 

no real connection to the men and women defending 

their freedom. Art has bridged and will continue to 

bridge that gap. Over the years, the art in our collection has been on public display in spaces as varied 

Art Collection, National Museum of the Marine Corps, ACN 335-23-316

Lance Corporal Fuller Mourns by Michael D. Fay. Watercolor and graphite 

on paper. This painting depicts LCpl Fuller mourning fallen Marines 

in Iraq.
SUMMER 2018 113

as the Rayburn House Office Building (U.S. House 

of Representatives), the Museum of Modern Art in 

New York City, the National Air and Space Museum 

in Washington, DC, and at college campuses and regional museums around the country. Artwork was 

one of the elements that the Commandant used to 

engage with more African American college students 

as the Corps pushed for greater diversity in the officer ranks. One of the artists whose work was used for 

outreach was Master Sergeant James Fairfax, himself 

an African American. Fairfax understood how poorly 

the first African American Marines had been treated, 

and he was able to help young college students understand that the Corps was trying hard to change and 

desperately needed some of them to serve as Marine 

officers.5 Fairfax’s experience in and paintings of Vietnam helped to create a starting point for discussions. 

His work included images of combat and of more 

humanitarian endeavors, which made the Marines 

seem more human to the college students whose only 

personal perspective of the Corps was filtered by the 

overwhelmingly negative experience of the Montford 

Point Marines some 25 years earlier in North Carolina.6

 During the late 1960s and early 1970s, we expected 

and experienced a few protestors. Forty years later, we 

experienced more protestors at the Farnsworth Art 

Museum in Rockland, Maine. Chief Warrant Officer 

2 Michael Fay’s Fire and Ice exhibit opened to a number of protestors who collectively felt that the exhibit 

“glorified” war. Fay, dressed in his service uniform 

with ribbons and badges, went outside and welcomed 

them in. They walked through the exhibit and saw a 

number of psychological portraits of young people doing difficult things in austere environments. Within 

a couple of hours, all but one of the protestors had a 

changed perspective; they could support the warrior 

without having to support the war. 

Artwork can distill an experience, leaving just the 

bare essence of what happened for subsequent generations to ponder and consider. A group of uniformed 

and civilian artists created an exhibit in 2011 titled The 

Joe Bonham Project, which focuses on wounded servicemembers. This exhibit contained more than 100 works 

by 17 artists, and it earned critical acclaim with audiences in Washington, DC, and in locales around the 

country and on the internet. The artists created visceral drawings and paintings from life while sitting in the 

hospital rooms of recovering wounded warriors. Each 

piece makes an incredible statement about the grit 

5

 MSgt James Fairfax, informal discussions with author, various, 

1991–2005.

6

 Sent to boot camp at Montford Point (now Camp Gilbert H. 

Johnson, Jacksonville, NC), the first African American Marines 

were segregated from all-white boot camps. They experienced 

significant racial prejudice from their fellow Marines and the local community surrounding Montford Point.

Art Collection, National Museum of the Marine Corps, ACN 335-1-262

Lance Corporal Adrian Jones by Michael D. Fay. Watercolor, pen, and ink 

on paper. LCpl Jones’s portrait was drawn as part of Fay’s work with the 

Wounded Warrior’s project in 2006. Jones was wounded during Operation Iraqi Freedom. The caption in the lower right corner of the work 

reads: “LCpl Adrian Jones Wounded by an IED on September 25, ’05 in 

Ramadi, Iraq.”
114 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

and resilience of the mostly young people who came 

home physically changed. Taken in its entirety, the exhibit can be emotionally overwhelming. Freedom has 

a high price, and the art makes that abundantly clear. 

The Joe Bonham Project has since been exhibited in multiple cities during the following years.7

Today, I am the deputy director of the National 

Museum of the Marine Corps. One of my recently assigned additional duties is to manage the Combat Art 

Program. In this capacity, I recruit, train, equip, and 

deploy artists. I am now the person who tells them, 

“Go to war; do art.” I am also faced with opportunities 

to make the program more reflective of the face of the 

Corps and to get the artwork in front of a broader 

range of audiences. Learning from the past, we are 

working to create an MOS for enlisted combat artists. 

Like the officer MOS, it will be a “free” MOS, which 

is tantamount to a skill designator that can be earned 

by any Marine. In retrospect, one of the strengths of 

the collection is that the works are produced by infantry, pilots, communicators, logisticians, engineers, 

and other MOSs. These various perspectives weave 

7

 Carol Kino, “Portraits of War,” New York Times, 25 May 2012.

together to tell a more complete and objective story 

of the entire Marine Air-Ground Task Force. During 

World War I, World War II, and Vietnam, the Services benefited from very talented artists who deployed 

as uniformed and civilian artists. Today, we are taking 

a hybrid approach and relying on both uniformed and 

civilian artists. Our recent artists include Chief Warrant Officer 2 Fay, Staff Sergeant Kristopher J. Battles, 

Colonel Craig H. Streeter, Sergeant Elize McKelvey, 

and civilians Victor Juhasz, Richard Johnson, John 

Deckert, and Jenna Chew. Collectively, these artists 

have experienced and documented more than a dozen 

operations for the Marine Corps, Navy, and the Canadian forces. Their work is represented in three national collections and has been featured in several major 

publications and exhibits. Additionally, the more 

experienced artists have been actively engaged in the 

recruitment, screening, and training of new artists. 

The more experienced artists lead and support artistic 

critiques and motivate the younger or newer artists to 

push themselves, develop their artistic skills, and hone 

their ability to see with creative minds. 

After I retire from civil service, I will likely 

spend some time painting and sculpting other Marine 

Art Collection, National Museum of the Marine Corps, ACN 301-1-34

Getting Tactical by Charles Grow. Watercolor on paper. Cpl Christiansen, Truck Company, Headquarters and Service Battalion, 2d Marine 

Division, prepares his vehicle for whatever lies ahead during Operation 

Desert Shield in preparation for Operation Desert Storm.

Art Collection, National Museum of the Marine Corps, ACN 301-1-61

Welcome To Mogadishu by Charles Grow. Watercolor on paper. This sign 

stood at the gate of the airport, where everyone would see it as they 

drove off of the airfield and into Mogadishu, Somalia.
SUMMER 2018 115

experiences. After his own retirement, Charles Waterhouse continued to paint and sculpt from his experiences at Iwo Jima and in Vietnam. In the 1990s, 

Richard Gibney created more than 50 paintings based 

on his time in the Pacific. Mike Gish has painted other 

Art Collection, National Museum of the Marine Corps, ACN 301-1-70

Getting Ready by Charles Grow. Watercolor on paper. A member of 1st 

Squadron, Company G, 2d Battalion, 2d Regiment, checks the sharp 

edge of his bayonet as he prepares for crowd control duty along the 

parade route at the plaza, Cape Haitien, Haiti, 30 September 1994. Operation Uphold Democracy, Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task 

Force Caribbean.

images from his experiences in Vietnam, Somalia, and 

northern Iraq. These artist warriors reinforced my belief that art is not something you do, it is something 

you are.

• 1775 •

Art Collection, National Museum of the Marine Corps, ACN 2015.187.3

Missing Him by Charles Grow. Oil on canvas. The artist’s granddaughter 

and her dog stare through the front door, wishing their Marine would 

come home. The gold star above her head indicates that 1stLt Matthew 

R. Davis will not be coming home.
IN MEMORIAM

Lieutenant General 

Bernard E. Trainor, USMC (Ret)

2 September 1928–2 June 2018

Lieutenant General Bernard E. Trainor enlisted 

in the U.S. Marine Corps at the end of World 

War II and was called to active duty in 1946. 

Private Trainor attended recruit training at Marine 

Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina. 

Later, he was selected for officer training under the 

Holloway Program (later Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps [NROTC]) and assigned to College of the 

Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts, as a midshipman Marine option. Upon graduation, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant and attended The Basic School in Quantico, Virginia, until December 1951. 

He then joined the 1st Marine Division (1st MarDiv) 

in Korea, where he served as an infantry platoon leader with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines. 

Returning from overseas, his next assignment 

was as assistant S3 (operations) with the 8th Marines, 

2d Marine Division, followed by a tour of sea duty on 

USS Columbus (CA 74). He was promoted to captain 

and was detachment commander until 1955. He then 

served as a staff officer with Headquarters Marine 

Corps. Captain Trainor next served on exchange duty 

with the British Royal Marine Commandos, where 

he commanded Alpha Troop, 45 Commando, on the 

island of Malta. In 1959, he rejoined 1st MarDiv and 

served successively as a company commander in reconnaissance, antitank, and infantry battalions (3d 

Battalion, 5th Marines). 

His Fleet Marine Force tour was followed by 

NROTC duty at the University of Colorado. Major 

Trainor then attended the Marine Corps Command 

and Staff College at Quantico in 1964. Upon graduation and before going to Vietnam, he attended a Special Forces course at the U.S. Army installation at Fort 

Bragg, North Carolina. In Vietnam, he served in an 

unconventional warfare unit (special operations group 

Official U.S. Marine Corps photo

LtGen Trainor’s official portrait.

116
SUMMER 2018 117

[SOG]). The unit’s operations remained classified until publicly recognized in 2001 by award of a Presidential Unit Citation for heroism. Returning from Vietnam, Trainor taught at the Marine Corps Command 

and Staff College until 1969, at which time he attended 

the U.S. Air Force’s Air War College in Montgomery, 

Alabama. Upon graduation as a distinguished graduate and recipient of the Air University’s Anderson 

Memorial Award for politico-military thought, Lieutenant Colonel Trainor returned to Vietnam where 

he commanded 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, and subsequently the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion. He had the 

honor of returning the latter’s battalion colors to the 

United States and presented them before President 

Richard M. Nixon as part of 1st MarDiv’s homecoming parade in 1971.

He then reported to Headquarters Marine Corps 

as a joint plans officer and was promoted to colonel. 

In 1974, he was reassigned to New York City as director of the 1st Marine District, responsible for recruiting and reserve matters in the northeastern states. 

Selected for brigadier general in 1976, he reported to 

Parris Island as assistant depot commander, until ordered to Quantico in 1978 as director of the Marine 

Corps Education Center as a major general. In 1981, he 

assumed the duties of director of plans at Headquarters Marine Corps until his appointment to lieutenant general as deputy chief of staff for Plans, Policies, 

and Operations and Marine Corps deputy to the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff in 1983. He retired from active duty on 

30 June 1985.

Lieutenant General Trainor was awarded the 

Navy Distinguished Service Medal, two Legions of 

Merit, a Bronze Star, and two Navy Commendation 

Medals—all with combat “V”—as well as the Combat 

Action Ribbon, Presidential and Navy Unit Citations, three Vietnam Crosses of Gallantry with silver 

stars, and the Vietnamese Honor Medal (First Class). 

He earned the Navy-Marine parachute wings and held 

two campaign stars for Korea and four for Vietnam. 

After retiring from military service, Trainor embarked on a second career as a university lecturer, 

journalist, author, and military analyst. He served as 

chief military correspondent of the New York Times

and coauthored a trilogy of books: The Generals’ War: 

The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf (1995), Cobra 

II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq

(2006), and The Endgame: The Inside Story of the Struggle 

for Iraq, from George W. Bush to Barack Obama (2012). 

Trainor also served as director of the National Security Program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. 

In 2001, he was awarded the Secretary of Defense 

Medal for Outstanding Public Service for matters relating to Korea. Lieutenant General Trainor also held 

a master’s degree in history and did advanced study for 

a PhD while at the University of Colorado. In 2013, he 

received the American Veterans Center’s Goodpaster 

Prize for military thought and performance, and in 

2017 he was honored by the establishment of the Lieutenant General Bernard E. Trainor USMC Veterans 

Fellowship by the Foreign Policy Research Institute. 

He lived with his wife Margaret “Peggy” Trainor 

in Potomac Falls, Virginia, with their four daughters. 

Lieutenant General Trainor passed away at his home 

on 2 June 2018 at age 89 due to cancer, according to 

his wife. Funeral services were held on 15 June 2018 

in Sterling, Virginia, and Bernard E. Trainor will be 

interred at Arlington National Cemetery.

• 1775 •
REVIEW ESSAY

Miles Kitts, PhD1

Rebel Power: Why National Movements Compete, Fight, and Win. By Peter Krause. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University 

Press, 2017. Pp. 264. $89.95 cloth; $24.95 paperback.)

Us versus Them: The United States, Radical Islam, and the Rise of the Green Threat. By Douglas Little. (Chapel Hill: 

University of North Carolina Press, 2016. Pp. 328. $30.00 cloth; $19.99 e-book.)

1

 Miles Kitts holds a PhD in political science from the University 

of Queensland, Australia.  He specializes in strategic studies, 

international security, great power politics, terrorism, and 

insurgency. His doctoral thesis focuses on counterinsurgency and 

is soon to be published by Lexington Books.

Rebel Power: Why National Movements Compete, Fight, 

and Win by Peter Krause is an intriguing and insightful 

book that studies why national independence 

movements succeed or fail in securing national 

independence. 

Krause argues that the key determinant for 

success or failure is the number of groups within the 

broader movement as well as the relative strength 

between these groups. Krause calls his argument 

movement structure theory. Krause finds that one 

powerful group that dominates the entire movement 

is most likely to secure a nation’s independence, 

while a national movement that is divided among 

many weak groups is least likely to achieve this goal. 

Relative strength between groups is determined by 

the number of members belonging to the group, the 

group’s wealth, and the extent of popular support for 

the group. 

A group’s position within the movement’s power 

structure determines that group’s behavior. The 

stronger the group the more likely it is to engage in 

risk-averse behavior to avoid jeopardizing its position, 

while the weaker the group the more likely it is to 

engage in risky behavior in an attempt to ascend 

the ladder of power within the movement. Krause 

discusses at length the various interactions between 

groups as being based on the strength and behavior of 

these groups.

Rebel Power does not clearly identify its subject 

of focus until late in the first chapter. At times, the 

writing becomes difficult to understand due to the 

complexity of the topic, particularly when describing 

the positions of groups within a movement’s power 

structure hierarchy. This may require readers to reread 

certain passages several times to understand the 

author’s message.

The case study chapters yield some interesting 

insights. The Palestine case study shows how a fractious national independence movement is its own 

worst enemy. The Israel case study’s most illuminating 

aspect is the little-known 1948 Altalena incident, when 

Jews fought each other while Arabs invaded their 

newly created State of Israel. The Algeria case study 

shows how a national independence movement can 

employ violence outside of its desired territory; this is 

shown in how the violence inside Algeria spilled over 

into the French metropole. The Ireland case study 

adds a depth of complexity to the theory by showing 

the possibility of subdividing movements; it does this 

by splitting the movement’s groups into being either 

Irish Nationalists or Republicans. 

The concluding chapter reiterates the strengths 

of movement structure theory and then provides a list 

of issues for further research. Krause recommends that 

governments should decide whether to make enemies 

118
SUMMER 2018 119

or friends of groups within national independence 

movements based upon each group’s strength and not 

its ideology. 

Movement structure theory is basically a structuralist approach to the international balance of 

power between countries applied to groups within 

a national independence movement at the substate 

level. By relying on balance of power theory, movement 

structure theory inherits the weakness of its benefactor: 

how to measure a group’s strength. Though Rebel 

Power identifies a group’s strength as comprising a 

combination of the number of its members, its wealth, 

and the extent of its popular support, the book does 

not mention how strength is determined when groups 

vary in these factors. Is a group with many members 

but little wealth and popular support stronger than 

another group with fewer members but greater wealth 

and popular support? The book’s second limitation 

is that it does not elaborate on the rival theories to 

movement structure theory. Krause makes several 

references to movement structure theory being a 

better theory for explaining the behavior of national 

independence movements than other theories, but 

it does not specify or explain those other theories. 

These limitations could be overcome through further 

research.

All in all, Rebel Power is an insightful book that 

expands our understanding of national independence 

movements. This reviewer recommends it for 

academics; lay readers will probably find it rather 

unengaging.

Us versus Them: The United States, Radical Islam, 

and the Rise of the Green Threat by Douglas Little looks at 

how the United States has approached relations with 

the Middle East during the Cold War and afterward. 

Little begins with a description of the American 

public’s hostility toward Islam and Muslims and 

includes background information about the history of 

the Islamic world. He then gives an account of U.S./

Middle East policy during the Cold War. The Cold 

War chapter asserts that the main focus of this policy 

was to counter Soviet involvement in the region rather 

than directly address matters relating to the region’s 

Muslims. Little argues that keeping attention on the 

Soviets led the United States to misunderstand the 

interests and motives of the region’s Muslims, which 

resulted in problematic dealings.

The next four chapters are devoted to U.S./

Middle East policy from the presidency of George H. 

W. Bush through that of Barack H. Obama, with each 

chapter focusing on each U.S. president’s Middle East 

policy. However, the chapter on Obama only covers 

his first term, with his second term being covered in 

the concluding chapter. 

The argument Little makes is that throughout 

its history America has engaged in a competitive “us 

versus them” mentality toward a range of perceived 

“others,” and now the United States has turned such 

behavior toward Muslims. 

In the concluding chapter, Little touches on how 

the Middle East’s Muslims also engage in their own us 

versus them behavior toward non-Muslims, but then 

quickly moves on to other matters. 

By way of lessons learned, Little concludes that 

the Cold War shows that the best way to deal with 

radical Islam is to contain it while also being willing 

to reach out to radical Muslims to make peace deals. 

Furthermore, Little argues that the lessons of the 

Middle East since 1989 are that the United States has 

been too supportive of repressive governments within 

the region and that too many civilians have died from 

America’s use of force. Little asserts that America 

must turn away from its Islamophobic tendencies. 

Us versus Them has its limitations. The first is that 

it presents a one-sided account of the unsympathetic 

dynamic between America and the Islamic world. By 

not looking at the Muslim side of the ledger, the book 

undermines its perspicacity on the subject.

Another limitation is that the historical narrative 

running throughout the book is largely unoriginal and 

at times questionable, as with its claim that President 

Ronald W. Reagan’s Cold War policies were ineffective 

until Mikhail Gorbachev essentially saved Reagan 

with Perestroika (economic and political restructuring) 

and Glasnost (open discussion of political and social 

issues). 

The book’s most problematic part is its concluding chapter. In it, Little invokes the thinking 
120 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr as the basis for 

overcoming America’s adversarial mentality toward 

Muslims. However, Little does not acknowledge that 

the basis for Neibuhr’s own thinking is the us versus 

them worldview of good versus evil.

Apart from the issue of Little’s practical recommendations being implemented (i.e., how can 

nebulous, evasive transnational terrorist networks 

actually be contained?), there is the problem of the 

book’s narrow focus generating a narrow conclusion. 

Specifically, by looking only at how America views the 

Muslim world, Little inevitably reaches the conclusion 

that it is the United States that must change its views 

and actions. This is a simplistic conclusion, as the 

Islamic world plays a part in the interactive dynamic 

of intercommunal conflicts.

The greatest strength of Us versus Them is that 

it accounts America’s involvement in the AmericanMuslim conflict dynamic, and its greatest weakness 

is that it reinforces that dynamic by blaming 

America for generating the dynamic. This reviewer 

recommends reading this book along with others for a 

more balanced view on the subject.

Reading Rebel Power and Us versus Them in 

combination reveals to this reviewer that the United 

States will be fighting radical Muslims for a long time, 

and that strategies to combat them must be based 

on clear assessments of each radical Muslim group’s 

strength relative to each other. 

• 1775 •
BOOK REVIEWS

Adrienne Chudzinski1

Remembering America: How We Have Told Our Past. By Lawrence R. Samuel. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska 

Press, 2015. Pp. 204. $29.95 cloth, paperback, and e-book.)

In Remembering America: How We Have Told Our Past, 

Lawrence R. Samuel provides a thoughtful and engaging analysis of the evolution of American history—

as both an academic discipline and a subject of public interest—over the course of the twentieth century. 

In his opening paragraph, Samuel notes that “no cultural history of American history currently exists” and 

thereby sets the ambitious goal of filling this perceived 

void in the literature (p. 1). Though such scholars as 

Michael Kammen, David Thelen, and Roy Rosenzweig 

produced superlative histories that chronicle the cultural history and public memories of the American 

past, Samuel sets his study apart by focusing on the 

ways in which historical pedagogy in secondary education and at the collegiate level have adapted to trends 

and developments in both the academy and in public 

culture. 

Samuel organizes his book into six chronological chapters, which begin in the 1920s, move through 

the end of the century, and reflect the various ways 

in which the story of the national past has been narrated and revised in accordance with social and political shifts in the United States. Throughout, Samuel 

is strongest in his examination of the intersection of 

American history and education, particularly the 

ways in which young Americans have learned about 

1

 Adrienne Chudzinski is a visiting assistant professor at Miami 

University. She teaches modern U.S. history and specializes in 

the study of public memory, identity, and violence. Her current 

research explores racial violence in Birmingham, AL, and the mythology of the civil rights movement in the United States.

their nation’s past in high school and college classrooms. Educators in the early twentieth century asked 

which events and moral lessons should be taught to 

children as they debated whether the country’s youth 

could navigate historical complexities and contradictions. Discussions of whether to teach students that 

several of the Founding Fathers were slave owners, for 

example, revolved around a larger central question: 

Should educators protect the nation’s mythic narratives or strive to provide students with a more complete (albeit morally ambiguous) perspective of the 

national past?

In response to questions like these, Samuel skillfully summarizes and synthesizes the perspectives of 

professional historians in the academy with their counterparts in primary and secondary schools. Though attention is paid to familiar figures such as Charles A. 

Beard, Daniel J. Boorstin, and Howard Zinn, Samuel 

enlivens these conversations by introducing readers to 

lesser-known individuals. For instance, when describing the debate about how American military history 

should be taught, Samuel features the reflections of 

U.S. Army Captain Elbridge Colby and Colonel Oliver 

L. Spaulding Jr. As early as the 1920s, Samuel explains, 

Colby and Spaulding “argued that the beautification 

of our military history was doing more damage than 

good” by offering children a false or incomplete representation of the realities of modern warfare (p. 17). 

In this sense, Remembering America not only traces historiographical trends during the past 100 years, but it 

explains how these shifts were reflected in pedagogical 

121
122 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

objectives and thus provides readers with a nuanced 

understanding of the discipline and its place in the 

American educational system. 

In line with the book’s strong emphasis on education and pedagogy, Samuel observes that concerns 

about the “historical illiteracy” of adolescents and 

young adults existed throughout the twentieth century. Yet, as educators worried about how failings in 

civic instruction might affect the nation’s future, public interest in American history, as presented through 

popular culture, only increased. Though nostalgic representations of the past continued to captivate moviegoers, young Americans’ knowledge of pivotal historic 

events was alarmingly inadequate. In 1943, a survey 

conducted by the New York Times confirmed the suspicion that Americans were historically illiterate when 

it revealed that 25 percent of college freshmen could 

not recall who was president during the Civil War; 

an even larger percentage were unsure of who led the 

nation during World War I (p. 30). By describing how 

cultural changes related to war, the Depression, and 

foreign relations influenced the types of narratives

—patriotic, progressive, critical, consensus—that dominated remembrance of the national past, Samuel 

effectively highlights the tension between public interest in, and actual knowledge of, American history. 

Nevertheless, Samuel does not give equal consideration to pedagogy and popular culture, and at times, 

his examination of the latter fails to provide the same 

depth as the former. Discussions of popular culture 

gain strength as the book moves into the post–World 

War II era and explores the role of film, television, 

literature, and popular attractions like Disneyland’s 

Main Street U.S.A. and Frontierland in educating the 

American public. Even so, Samuel frequently offers 

examples of movies, books, or museum exhibits that 

would benefit from additional context. For example, 

when discussing the contentious political climate of 

the 1990s, Samuel rightly asserts that “the acrimonious row over the Enola Gay exhibit at the Smithsonian 

Institution . . . was emblematic of the decade’s culture 

wars” (p. 128). Yet, for those unfamiliar with said exhibit and controversy, a few sentences describing the 

nature of the dispute at the National Air and Space 

Museum in Washington, DC, along with the perspectives of those involved, would go a long way in illustrating his larger point about the politics of narrating 

the American past.

In the final chapters and conclusion, Samuel 

moves beyond the geographic borders of the United 

States to explore the globalization of American history. Whereas the latter half of the twentieth century 

saw educators attempting to incorporate histories of 

previously marginalized populations into the dominant narrative of the American past, Samuel explains 

that today, historians are working to further expand 

the subject by positioning it in a global context. Samuel offers a compelling conclusion as he urges historians to embrace new pedagogical methods that enliven 

the discipline and emphasize its contemporary relevance instead of sending “the message to students that 

it is dead and irrelevant” (p. 170). In our current era, in 

which diverse and divisive perspectives fight for top 

billing on the evening news, Remembering America reminds us of the necessity of understanding not only 

“how we have told our past” but how we have taught it. 

• 1775 •
SUMMER 2018 123

Lawrence Provost2

The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial. By Robert Jan van Pelt. (Bloomington: Indiana University 

Press, 2002. Pp. 592. $45.00 cloth; $34.00 paperback; $33.99 e-book.)

The title of the book The Case for Auschwitz raises eyebrows, but the contributions of Robert Jan van Pelt’s 

work are important, not only for the field of Holocaust studies but for the field of historiography and 

its role in humanity.

The Case for Auschwitz is derived from a libel suit 

that David Irving, a well-known Holocaust denier, 

launched against Deborah Lipstadt in the United 

Kingdom. Lipstadt labeled Irving for what he was and 

still is: a denier of the Holocaust as historical fact. Irving took great offense to this characterization and 

brought the court case against Lipstadt. In the United 

Kingdom, the burden of proof in libel cases rests with 

the defendant, which meant that Lipstadt and her 

team had to prove that Irving was a Holocaust denier 

and by extension that the Holocaust happened.

The Case for Auschwitz speaks predominantly of 

the evidence for the Holocaust but also casts the Holocaust in other historiographical and even spiritual 

terms. In Judaism, there is a special place for grandparents and grandchildren that signifies life. In the 

Nazi extermination camps, it was the old people and 

children who were always chosen to be murdered and 

separated from the few who were allowed to live. The 

camps were much more than extermination camps—

they were places of annihilation, where survivors were 

few and the numbers of murdered prevailed.

The Holocaust continued long after it became 

apparent that Germany had lost the war, leading one 

to the conclusion that the war was not Germany’s 

primary objective but rather a means to an end for 

2

 Larry Provost served in Iraq and Afghanistan in the U.S. 

Army. He is currently pursuing a master of legislative affairs degree at George Washington University.

the killing of Jews. The trains kept coming, and when 

the Russians approached, the Germans moved the inmates westward on death marches.

The Auschwitz extermination camp represents 

the moral and spiritual epicenter of the most violent 

crime ever perpetuated against the Jewish people. 

More Jews were murdered at Auschwitz than any other place in human history. It is the battleship, the end 

of the line, and the foundation of Holocaust literature and litigation. To prove the Holocaust, one must 

prove Auschwitz—to be “for” it.

In The Case for Auschwitz, Robert Jan van Pelt 

does just that. Van Pelt is an architectural historian, 

a field not often thought of in terms of Holocaust historiography. Yet, it was this very background that van 

Pelt used as an expert witness in the Irving trial to systematically destroy Irving’s arguments that Auschwitz 

was never a factory of death.

Using his background as an architectural historian, van Pelt’s discussions about chimneys, gas chambers, construction plans, and other related matters 

destroy the latest arguments of Holocaust deniers and 

prove they have no basis in fact.

It is a shame that he had to do so, for as van Pelt 

points out, there is a plethora of other evidence that 

Auschwitz was an extermination camp. There were 

witnesses to the gassings who escaped, gas chambers 

and gas discovered at a similarly large camp, contractor 

documents, drawings by inmates (that later matched 

archeological digs and witness testimony), extensive 

cyanide residue in the gas chamber ventilator covers, 

orders of Zyklon B gas, the accounts of Rudolf Vrba 

and Alfred Wetzlar who escaped from Auschwitz in 

April 1944, the 1945 Polish forensic investigation, and 

confessions by perpetrators such as Rudolf Hoss who 
124 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

served as commandant of Auschwitz. All of this evidence was shared at the Irving trial. In fact, Irving 

once acknowledged the Holocaust as a historical fact.

The Case for Auschwitz is a hard read—not because 

of van Pelt’s prose but because any argument about 

Auschwitz is not possible without wrangling through 

debates of how many people could be killed per hour, 

per day, per month, etc. The reader can become numb 

reading about the monstrosity of the Nazis’ crimes, 

which is perhaps a response the Third Reich counted 

on. Van Pelt senses this almost two-thirds through the 

book and, immediately before a page that discusses 

the mathematics of total number of Jews killed at 

Auschwitz, inserts a picture of Jewish women and 

children disembarking from an Auschwitz train. Van 

Pelt wrote under the picture, “When considering the 

numbers mentioned on the opposite page, it is good 

to remember that they concern people who were murdered because they were considered mere figures.”

The Case for Auschwitz also shows the sickening 

arguments of Holocaust deniers; for example, Irving’s defenders compared the execution of inmates 

in the United States in a prison gas chamber with 

the gassing of Jews. The Holocaust deniers have said 

that the level of gas residue left does not match what 

would correspond to normal standards. As van Pelt 

points out, it is rather important to remember that 

the Nazis did not adhere to U.S. public health standards of the gassing of a single prison inmate in a 

controlled environment when they executed hundreds of men, women, and children in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

In the end, Lipstadt was found not guilty and Irving was found to have willingly engaged in Holocaust 

denial by not conducting proper research and trusting 

unverifiable sources as well as ignoring a plethora of 

evidence for the existence of Auschwitz and its use as 

an extermination camp.

While reviewing The Case for Auschwitz, this author traveled to Europe to include Berchtesgaden, 

Nuremberg, and Dachau. A chance to visit Auschwitz 

did not present itself, but the totality of what the Nazis did to the Jewish people was impressed upon me 

based on these visits while reading The Case for Auschwitz.

The Case for Auschwitz is a very important and 

well-written book. Though the text flows seamlessly 

from one chapter to the next, and van Pelt presents 

often-complex material in an easy-to-understand format, The Case for Auschwitz is emotionally difficult 

reading. There is nothing pleasurable about reading this book. Finishing it may be the only relief the 

reader finds. However, The Case for Auschwitz is more 

than an ordinary history. It serves a public purpose by 

providing a text that is meticulously researched and 

documented with extensive footnotes.

The meaning and purpose of history is very important to van Pelt. He realizes the historian is objective and that objectivity means recognizing good 

and evil. He writes “that interpretations of history 

that ignore evil were doomed to remain shallow and 

ultimately meaningless” (p. 67). While historians are 

not scientists and deal with imperfection in accounts 

(much like police do with even the best of witnesses), being a historian does not preclude a historian 

from judgment. Regarding Auschwitz, a convergence 

of many pieces of evidence from a variety of sources 

prove that the Holocaust happened, even if the Hoss 

confession is taken away.

The Case for Auschwitz will serve, for decades to 

come, as an important text in the study of the Holocaust as well as the meaning and role of the historian.

• 1775 •
SUMMER 2018 125

Colonel Craig Price, USMC3

The Frozen Chosen: The 1st Marine Division and the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir. By Thomas McKelvey Cleaver. (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2016. Pp. 324. $28.00 cloth; $15.00 paperback; $12.00 e-book.)

In mid-December 1950, the commanding general of the 

1st Marine Division, Major General Oliver P. Smith, 

wrote to the Commandant of the Marine Corps, 

General Clifton Cates, about his division’s recent operations near the Chosin (Changjin) Reservoir. After 

recounting the herculean efforts and heroic actions of 

his Marines, he closed the letter with the following 

three sentences: “The officers and men were magnificent. They came down the mountains bearded, footsore, and physically exhausted, but their spirits were 

high. They were still a fighting division.”4

 A veteran 

of some the worst fighting in World War II, General 

Smith possessed an understated and subdued personality. It is difficult to imagine him capable of articulating a more heartfelt tribute to his division. In a similar 

vein, modern authors and historians have difficulty 

capturing the enormity of the division’s accomplishments during its six-week-long campaign in North Korea. The intensity of the battles, each more severe than 

the one preceding, was such that they demand center 

stage in most accounts. However, the tactical focus 

often robs the campaign of its strategic significance 

in the larger Cold War, and to the Marine Corps’ survival as a separate Service. A recent addition to the literature of the campaign, Thomas McKelvey Cleaver’s 

The Frozen Chosen: The 1st Marine Division and the Battle 

of the Chosin Reservoir, attempts to weave the tactical 

and strategic together into a single story and illuminate the tactical impacts of strategic incompetence.

3

 Col Craig Price is currently assigned as a member of the Marine 

Corps War College faculty.

4

 MajGen Oliver P. Smith, CG, 1st Marine Division, to General 

Clifton Cates, CMC, 17 December 1950, ChosinReservoir.com.

Cleaver comes to this task through personal experience; as a child, he met a distant cousin who had 

just returned from the Chosin campaign. This youthful brush with a veteran of the battle inspired a lifelong interest in the Korean War and inspired him to 

connect with many veterans of the campaign. His personal interviews with veterans offer a fresh narrative 

thread, a viewpoint becoming more rare as Korean 

War veterans fade into history. Cleaver combines his 

interviews with extensive use of secondary sources, 

making The Frozen Chosen an engaging and thoughtprovoking account of a critical era in twentiethcentury history, albeit an account that contains little 

new research or analysis.

Placing the Korean War in context requires understanding the global challenges faced by the United States after the Second World War.  By 1946, the 

United States and its allies recognized that the Soviet 

Union intended to check the spread of Western-style 

democracy, and where possible, advance a Soviet ideological agenda. In response, the United States developed a strategy to contain Soviet advances. Effective 

containment meant the democracies of the West must 

answer Soviet challenges everywhere they occurred, 

resisting Soviet efforts through political or economic 

means, and in rare circumstances via military operations. Containment did not mean the rollback of the 

Soviets from ground already gained; rather, it meant 

the prevention of any further loss of nations to Soviet 

control. Implementation of this strategy required the 

United States to keep a credible level of both nuclear 

weapons and conventional military power. Nuclear 

weapons created an umbrella that placed both the 

western and eastern blocs under an existential threat, 
126 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

but under that umbrella localized conflict raged as 

the Soviets sought to exploit the vulnerability of postwar Europe and the end of colonialism. Civil wars in 

Greece and China as well as the French Indochina 

War became early flash points to test the resolve of 

the West.  U.S. leaders in Washington accepted the 

idea of containment in principle, but domestic political reality did not support the strategy and left the 

U.S. military ill-prepared to respond to this new era of 

global security challenges.

World War II left the U.S. government in debt 

and the public exhausted by war and sacrifice.  For 

various reasons, President Harry S. Truman found 

common ground across the political spectrum for his 

policy of demobilization of the conventional military. 

The U.S. Army, Marine Corps, and Navy saw significant reductions in budgets, troop strength, and equipment. Only nuclear weapons research and aircraft 

development received any substantial postwar investment. This mismatch of strategic ways and means left 

the United States in an untenable position of having 

nuclear superiority but having limited means to address military problems occurring below the threshold of nuclear war. Cleaver explains the problem well, 

drawing a connection between strategic and budgetary decisions made in Washington and the general unpreparedness of the land force for a major theater war.

The story of American unpreparedness is even 

more compelling when told from the viewpoint of 

the Marine Corps. In 1950, the Service was a shadow 

of the six-division, 500,000-member force that broke 

the back of Imperial Japan just five years before. During this period, the Marine Corps fought bureaucratic 

battles in the Service unification struggles that followed victory and survived as an independent military 

branch only through the intervention of Congress. 

Even with congressional backing, on the day the North 

Korean People’s Army crossed the 38th parallel into 

South Korea, there were less than 75,000 active duty 

Marines. The Marines who remained possessed World 

War II–era weapons and equipment and their units 

were staffed at peacetime strengths, relying on reserve 

augmentation to reach full strength. Marine amphibious doctrine developed during the war was still the 

basis of its training and structure as was the Service’s 

commitment to air-ground integration and combined 

arms. Nonetheless, when the war started, the successful 

deployment of the 1st Marine Division required aggregation of units, rapid mobilization of the reserve, and 

reliance on an existing cadre of combat-experienced 

leaders. This cobbled-together force turned the tide in 

Korea, and through a series of dramatic battles, culminating in the landings at Inchon and the seizure 

of Seoul, opened the door for United Nations (UN) 

forces to take the offensive into the North.

After the initial North Korean attack, UN forces in Korea were  pushed south to the Pusan Perimeter. At several points, it looked as if the UN troops 

might have to evacuate the peninsula to avoid capture 

by the advancing North Korean troops.  One reason 

this did not occur was the rapid buildup and effective employment of carrier and shore-based aviation 

assets.  Cleaver’s background as a pilot and aviation 

writer comes through clearly as his narrative demonstrates the deadly effectiveness of close air support 

and interdiction. The British and American carriers 

proved their worth in the summer of 1950, and their 

aircraft, along with Japan-based planes of the U.S. Air 

Force, dropped tons of bombs on targets throughout 

Korea, preventing the North Koreans from completing their planned seizure of the south.  

Throughout the book, Cleaver returns to strategic issues as he unfolds the tactical situation.  He 

describes the command dynamic between President 

Truman, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the UN commander, Army General Douglas MacArthur. He takes 

on the relationship between MacArthur and his subordinates, including Major General Edward M. Almond, 

who commanded X Corps, to which the 1st Marine 

Division belonged.  In war, personalities matter, and 

Cleaver’s narrative provides a strong description of 

how this dynamic shaped tactical decision making 

among senior commanders. These dysfunctional relationships and personal biases played a key role in the 

decision to move UN forces deeper into North Korea, despite the overwhelming evidence that doing so 

might trigger Chinese intervention.

The Frozen Chosen is, at its core, a chronicle of 
SUMMER 2018 127

Marines at war. Cleaver does not disappoint in his description of close-in fighting and the conditions faced 

by the combatants. He includes aspects of the Chinese 

experience to illustrate the size of the battle, its ferocity, and the magnitude of suffering on both sides. In a 

manner similar to earlier works on the campaign, he 

focuses on Captain William E. Barber’s Fox Company 

(Company F), 2d Battalion, 7th Marines, and their 

struggle to hold Fox Hill, the high ground in the Toktong Pass. The pass became the choke point along the 

main supply route between Yudam-ni and Hagaruri. Both the 5th Marines and 7th Marines needed to 

transit the pass to unite with the rest of the division 

at Hagaru-ri. Cleaver leavens his descriptions of the 

battles to hold Fox Hill and break out from Yudamni with individual veterans’ stories. The combination 

of these stories with a more traditional recounting of 

combat actions creates an effective description of the 

division’s fight on the reservoir.

Cleaver incorporates the story of the Army’s 

Regimental Combat Team 31 (RCT 31, often referred 

to as Task Force Faith) into his account of the campaign.  The chain of events that left this regiment 

isolated on the east side of the reservoir is worthy of 

close study by every military officer. This tragic episode has essential lessons on command and control, 

combat leadership, and training.  Facing overwhelming numbers and without effective communications, 

RCT 31 fought and delayed two Chinese divisions east 

of Chosin. Cleaver’s recounting of this incident leaves 

no doubt that the successful withdrawal of the 1st Marine Division owed much to the valor and sacrifice of 

these soldiers.

The Frozen Chosen is an overview; it whets the 

reader’s appetite for more information and analysis 

but moves on without quenching the provoked hunger. Minor style issues appear, including the naming 

convention of Marine organizations.  Cleaver misses 

a minor detail about the life of Major General Matthew B. Ridgway, who commanded the Army’s 82d 

Airborne Division in World War II, not the 101st. Although this error in the life of a key leader is significant, it does not detract from the narrative.

Students of the Korean War or Marine Corps 

history will find few surprises in this book.  Those 

new to the era and its events will find it an excellent 

starting point for further research and study. Readers 

should view The Frozen Chosen as an introduction to 

a fascinating era of American military history and a 

haunting reminder of the costs of unpreparedness.

• 1775 •
128 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

Aaron O’Connell, PhD5

Shadow Cold War: The Sino-Soviet Competition for the Third World. By Jeremy Friedman. (Chapel Hill: University of 

North Carolina Press, 2015. Pp. 304. $37.50 cloth; $27.95 paperback; $19.99 e-book.)

Since the start of the Cold War, many American historians have told the story of that four-decade-long 

struggle as a bipolar confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, with only passing or 

occasional mention of any of the other countries in 

or affected by the conflict. Moreover, far too many 

American researchers still use almost exclusively 

American sources—State Department cables, newspaper accounts, institutional and governmental records, 

and oral interviews with American policy makers—

that afforded ample insight into American decision 

making but offer very little on Russian and Chinese 

motivations and actions. And unsurprisingly, because 

American scholars have worked primarily from their 

own records, they have found that just about everything, even Soviet-Chinese competition in Africa, 

seemed to be a response to things happening in their 

own society. They were, to paraphrase Carly Simon, 

so vain that they thought every war was about them, 

even the ones that the United States was totally uninvolved in.

Jeremy Friedman’s Shadow Cold War moves us far 

beyond that myopic approach and offers a fresh perspective that understands the Cold War for what it 

was—a truly global conflict. With research from more 

than a dozen archives in 10 countries, Friedman’s account of the Sino-Soviet competition for influence 

across Asia and Africa covers the mid-1950s through 

the mid-1970s with perspectives from the Soviets, the 

Chinese, and the developing countries each was try5

 Aaron O’Connell is associate professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin and a colonel in the Marine Corps 

Reserve. He is the author of Underdogs: The Making of the Modern 

Marine Corps (2012) and the editor of Our Latest Longest War: Losing Hearts and Minds in Afghanistan (2017).

ing to shape. Friedman shows us that, for all the talk 

of a worldwide threat from a hierarchically controlled 

Communist monolith (a common refrain from the political right in Cold War America), there were real and 

persistent ideological differences between China and 

the Soviet Union—divisions that almost propelled the 

two countries into a full-scale war in 1969.

Much has been written on the Sino-Soviet split 

in the past: What caused it? When did it start? How 

serious was it and when did it become so? Friedman’s 

greatest contribution to the literature is not so much 

to settle those questions but to test out a new hypothesis on how Sino-Soviet competition affected aid, development, and foreign policy in the Third World. He 

posits that China and the Soviet Union had widely 

divergent ideologies about the purpose and goals of 

world Communism—differences that could have been 

put aside but were not. The Soviets, already invested 

in the global order through their UN Security Council 

membership and victory in World War II, were the 

more pragmatic and moderate at the outset. The Chinese, occupied and humiliated by imperial powers for 

much of the earlier century and unacknowledged by 

the UN until 1971, were more militant and uncompromising. As a result, the Soviets found themselves under constant criticism from their Chinese Communist 

brethren for being too accommodating and, in words 

that were probably uttered daily by Chairman Mao 

Zedong about any number of groups both inside and 

outside of China, “insufficiently revolutionary.” 

The Chinese had the luxury of militancy; the Soviet Union did not. As the only Communist nuclear 

power in the early Cold War, it needed to keep Eastern European Communist parties in political alignment, stave off nuclear war with the West, and repair 
SUMMER 2018 129

the damage of Stalinist excesses at home—all priorities 

that put interventions in the decolonizing world on 

their grand strategic back burner. Under the constant 

pressure from the Chinese, the Soviet Union responded by tacking to the left and toward extremism, appropriating some of China’s more militant positions 

and eventually providing direct, extensive, and expensive military aid to insurgencies in Africa and Asia. 

This helped the Soviet Union win the competition 

over influence with China, but in Friedman’s words, it 

was “a Pyrrhic victory” that threatened to destabilize 

détente with the West and saddled the Soviet Union 

with expensive aid and support programs it could not 

afford (p. 218). China, on the other hand, fared better 

in the long run. Its foreign policy may have collapsed 

in the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, but ceding 

the mantle of Communist leadership to the Soviets 

helped it avoid the financial and military overcommitments that ruined the Soviet Union in the 1980s. 

For Friedman, the reasons for the Communist 

powers’ radically different worldviews stemmed from 

each nation’s history and those histories led to interpretations of Marxism that drove—or at a minimum, 

shaped—policy. For the Russians, imperialists in their 

own right until World War I, the primary objective of 

foreign policy was always anticapitalism: hastening to 

the arrival of worldwide socialism by convincing governments to seize control of the means of production 

and advance through the stages of noncapitalist development. For China, a victim of imperialism throughout much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, 

the principal goal was not anticapitalism but antiimperialism, which naturally led them to support decolonizing movements in Africa, Southeast Asia, and 

the rest of the Third World. 

These differences put the two Communist partners on a collision course. Even in the early and still 

cooperative years of the 1950s, the Soviets focused 

mostly on the economic preconditions for Communist government and hawked the pseudoscience of 

Karl Marx’s historical materialism. The Chinese focused on more aggressive responses to the West, supported anticolonial governments, and took actions 

that would strengthen the Chinese state even when 

they bore no relation to Marx’s vision of a coming end 

of history. For Friedman, these ideological differences 

were much more than political rhetoric or propaganda; they formed foreign policy frames that filtered options and shaped programs on the ground. 

This book is adapted from Friedman’s doctoral 

dissertation at Princeton University, and as such it is 

well documented with a truly impressive source base. 

Dissertations typically draw their evidence from four 

to five archives in one country; at better-funded research universities, occasionally, a student may find 

funding to visit one or two foreign archives. The research for Shadow Cold War is in another league altogether. Friedman visited archives in 10 countries, 

including Russia, China, Portugal, South Africa, Mozambique, Serbia, Romania, Chile, and others. Some 

of these archives are no longer open, which makes 

the book even more valuable as a window into a stilltightly guarded area of Cold War history and memory. 

The book also makes good on a promise that has 

become fashionable in Cold War history but is rarely 

accomplished well: “globalizing” the Cold War by shifting attention away from the bipolar confrontation 

between the United States and Russia and exploring 

the broader effects of the superpowers’ competition 

over models of government in the decolonizing world. 

Friedman’s narrative is sometimes dizzying; in any 

given chapter, he is just as likely to narrate actions in 

Indonesia, Ghana, Vietnam, and Algeria as he is to 

explain the details of Russian and Chinese negotiating positions, all with occasionally hasty transitions, 

but that can be forgiven as a necessary choice in an 

extremely ambitious and impressive first book. This 

work is recommended for university libraries, scholars of decolonization, and Cold War history scholars.

• 1775 •
130 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

Major Jessica J. Ryu, USMC6

Blinking Red: Crisis and Compromise in American Intelligence after 9/11. By Michael Allen. (Washington, DC: Potomac 

Books, 2013. Pp. 256. $29.95 cloth; $19.95 paperback and e-book.)

In Blinking Red, Michael Allen carefully navigates the 

waters of government bureaucracy to unravel the intricacies of changes in the intelligence community 

after the tragic attacks on 11 September 2001 (9/11). 

Allen states, “The aim of the book is to be the definitive history of this chapter of the tremendous change 

in our government after September 11, 2001” (p. xvi). 

The author seeks to evaluate “whether the intelligence 

failures on 9/11 and in Iraq have been addressed” (p. 

xi). To accomplish this, he studied the bill responsible 

for the creation of the director of national intelligence 

position and the creation of the National Counterterrorism Center, focusing on determining how the 

“national-security enterprise fully operates today” 

(p. xi). From an insider’s perspective, Allen takes the 

reader on a journey through the complex process of 

changing the Intelligence Community. This book will 

benefit any Marine who is interested in better understanding the process of legislative change. 

Michael Allen served as the legislative affairs officer for the Homeland Security Council in the White 

House in 2004. While in this position, Allen observed 

the White House’s response to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States 

(the 9-11 Commission) and was a key participant in 

the follow-on actions, gaining firsthand knowledge of 

the process. Leveraging his own experiences and memories, as well as consulting with other members of the 

proceedings and numerous White House and congressional documents, Allen provides unique insights into 

the complexities of enacting the Intelligence Reform 

and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. Allen writes, 

6

 Maj Jessica J. Ryu currently serves with 2d Intelligence Battalion at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, NC.

“I have tried to paint a portrait of the personalities 

and pressures that impact legislation, while also seeking to illuminate aspects of the legislative process that 

are typically unseen, particularly the machinations of 

the congressional leadership and the role of the White 

House in influencing legislative outcomes” (p. xvi). 

Allen’s detailed approach to providing this history is commendable but also somewhat confusing at 

times. This book requires a fundamental understanding of how the government enacts legislation, specifically the roles of the executive and legislative branches. 

The use of names throughout the book make it a bit 

difficult to follow, but the author provides a detailed 

index and list of references that makes it more easily 

navigable. Despite this one minor difficulty, anyone 

who reads the book will benefit from a more thorough 

understanding of the changes derived from the 9/11 

Commission’s recommendations. 

For Marines seeking to better understand the 

post–9/11 changes implemented in the intelligence enterprise, this book provides a detailed picture of the 

difficulties encountered by policy makers. It focuses 

on the 9-11 Commission’s proposal to create a new 

leader for the Intelligence Community, specifically 

a director of national intelligence, and to establish a 

National Counterterrorism Center. Prior to 9/11, the 

senior leader of the Intelligence Community was the 

director of the Central Intelligence Agency. While 

this sounds like a fairly simple change to an organizational chart, there were quite a few hurdles that policy 

makers had to overcome, specifically those posed by 

Congressman Duncan D. Hunter (R–CA) and Congressman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R–WI). Allen 

details the personality conflicts that do not typically 

appear in news articles on this topic, providing the 
SUMMER 2018 131

reader with a clearer understanding of the challenges 

faced by those who advocated drastic changes to the 

intelligence community. 

In Blinking Red, Allen manages to take the reader 

into the private rooms where senators, congressmen, 

and countless congressional staffers debated and negotiated their way to an intelligence bill. Allen’s insight 

into how President George W. Bush intervened with 

congressional leaders when necessary gives the reader 

an understanding of the significant efforts behind the 

implementation of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations. He clearly articulates the challenges coming 

from both the Democratic and Republican sides, as 

well as the compromises that occurred to get the bill 

successfully through the House of Representatives. 

Marines who read this book will gain a new perspective and understanding of why changes at this level 

seem cumbersome and slow at times.

While the author focuses on the strategic level 

of government, Marine Corps readers will gain an appreciation for the level of difficulty and effort that 

goes into enacting policy changes. While the process 

may seem simple from the outside perspective, Allen’s book builds the reader’s understanding of the 

associated complexities. With the specific focus on 

Congressman Hunter, a former U.S. Marine, and his 

endeavors to ensure the bill’s language facilitated continuous intelligence support to the Department of 

Defense, Blinking Red sheds light on how former servicemembers now serving in the legislative branch can 

advocate for the U.S. military’s interests. 

The events of 9/11 drove changes to the construct 

of the Intelligence Community. While readers may 

still debate whether those changes were beneficial to 

the community, Allen provides his readers an opportunity to better understand the process of how those 

changes came to fruition. His perspectives on this 

significant legislative action will help Marines better 

understand those changes and what our policy makers 

were thinking after 9/11. 

• 1775 •
132 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

Frank A. Blazich Jr., PhD7

PT 109: An American Epic of War, Survival, and the Destiny of John F. Kennedy. By William Doyle. (New York: William Morrow, 2015. Pp. 352. $27.99 cloth; $15.99 paperback; $9.74 e-book.)

On 2 August 1943, in the early morning darkness of 

the Blackett Strait in the Solomon Islands, the Imperial Japanese destroyer Amagiri suddenly loomed into 

view and ran through the American patrol torpedo 

boat 109 (PT 109), commanded by U.S. Navy Lieutenant (junior grade) John F. Kennedy. As the Japanese 

cruised to a safe port, Kennedy and 10 of his surviving 

crew collected themselves and managed to reach small 

uninhabited islands. For seven days, the survivors of 

PT 109 evaded nearby Japanese forces and strove to establish communication with friendly forces. Kennedy 

and his men were ultimately rescued with the aid of 

an Australian Coastwatcher, Solomon Island natives, 

and fellow PT boat comrades. Author William Doyle’s 

book contends that the loss of PT 109 and the ordeal 

of survival and rescue “made John F. Kennedy—both 

the man and the myth,” and forever shaped the future 

president’s view of the world and himself (p. xii). 

The book is organized into 14 chapters, 9 of 

which center on Kennedy’s service in the Solomons 

from April to December 1943. The initial two chapters 

provide a brief introductory overview of Kennedy’s 

youth prior to the war, the use of his father’s influence 

to obtain assignment to PT boats, his training as a PT 

officer, and deployment overseas. The latter chapters 

focus on author John Hersey’s magazine article about 

PT 109’s story to a national audience in 1944 and how 

this complemented his father’s influence to boost the 

younger Kennedy’s political career. The later chapters 

provide interesting vignettes about a 1951 trip to Asia 

and efforts to locate Kohei Hanami, the commander 

7

 Frank A. Blazich Jr., PhD, is a historian at the Smithsonian Institution. He is the editor of Bataan Survivor: A POW’s Account of 

Japanese Captivity in World War II (2016) and is currently researching various aspects of twentieth-century U.S. Navy history. 

of the destroyer Amagiri, and Hanami’s correspondence and friendship with Kennedy. The final chapter 

and epilogue examine the 1960 presidential campaign 

through the lens of PT 109’s story, the Kennedy family connection with postwar Japan, and the legacy 

of PT 109 in the decades after the president’s assassination. Three succinct appendices at the end of the 

book reproduce a lost 1946 narrative of the incident 

by Kennedy, letters exchanged between Kennedy and 

Hanami, and Kennedy’s 1957 writings about his memories of the two islanders who helped rescue the young 

officer and his men. Illustrations are placed throughout the manuscript to complement the text and three 

nicely illustrated maps placed after the introduction 

outline the Battle of Blackett Strait, the loss of PT 109, 

the movement of the survivors, and their subsequent 

rescue.

Doyle’s account flows along at a crisp, even pace, 

and his chronological organization of events allows 

readers to orient themselves with the subject matter. 

Doyle’s control of technical detail and broader context 

of the Pacific War enables readers with only a passing knowledge of the war and of Kennedy to comprehend and digest the text. Doyle, currently a Fulbright 

Scholar at the University of Eastern Finland, began 

his career in the business world, first with marketing 

firm J. Walter Thompson and later as director of original programming and executive producer at HBO. He 

is author or coauthor of several New York Times best 

sellers, notably American Gun (2013), coauthored with 

Chris Kyle, A Soldier’s Dream (2011), and An American 

Insurrection (2001). In PT 109, the subject matter is personal, with Doyle acknowledging how “I grew up in 

the America that was shaped by John F. Kennedy,” (p. 

xiv) and how his mother served in the 1960 Kennedy 
SUMMER 2018 133

presidential campaign office. In his writing, Doyle 

makes efforts to retain objectivity with his main subject, although the writing and presentation invariably 

leads a reader to be pulled into the Kennedy charm 

and mystique. While not a hagiography, there is certainly a strong undercurrent of affection for Kennedy.

Neither the argument nor subject matter are 

new ground for historical examination. Kennedy and 

PT 109 are both subjects of numerous other books, 

articles, and even a 1963 film featuring actor Cliff 

Robertson as the future president. Doyle draws his 

material from the previous efforts to document the 

man and machine, notably Robert J. Donovan’s PT 109: 

John F. Kennedy in World War II (1961); Joan Blair and 

Clay Blair Jr.’s The Search for JFK (1976); John Hersey’s 

17 June 1944 article in the New Yorker, “A Reporter at 

Large: Survival”; and Nigel Hamilton’s 1992 biography, 

JFK: Reckless Youth. The author conducted archival research at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and 

Museum in Boston and at archives in Japan, Australia, 

and the Solomon Islands. Doyle apparently did not 

research at Naval History and Heritage Command or 

the National Archives, the former possessing rather 

extensive records on PT 109. He did not make an exhaustive review of all available sources, which would 

have generated a deeper analysis, and certainly other 

books are available that take this approach, which the 

author consulted, notably John J. Domagalski’s account of PT 109 and its three commanding officers, 

Into the Dark Water (2014). Doyle interviewed 16 contemporaries of Kennedy regarding PT boats, Kennedy, 

and his naval service. There are no specific citations 

used in the chapters, but there are chapter endnotes 

referencing cited material and delving deeper into 

particular questions or details. Scholars desiring a 

bibliography will be disappointed and have to contend with searching the chapter endnotes, written at 

times as an annotated bibliography, to locate individual sources. A review of Doyle’s endnotes and sources 

demonstrates the author examined the primary works 

on the subject matter together with period secondary 

publications. 

Although the thesis and subject matter are not 

new, Doyle has done due diligence with his source 

material. Regarding previous scholarship, Doyle’s account is in essence a post-revisionist analysis. His research offers a few new details from Kennedy’s own 

hand and uses these and other scholarship to guide 

his analysis and conclusions. The analysis strikes a 

balance between previous examinations regarding 

Kennedy’s actions immediately prior to and following the loss of his boat and the subsequent survival of 

Kennedy and his crew. Doyle seeks a middle ground 

and ostensibly places the collision as “probably a onein-a million, fluke event that Kennedy had no way to 

defend against in time,” adding, “a different PT boat 

skipper with more combat experience might have operated that night in a way that avoided the collision” 

(p. 295). Although this analysis might disrupt Doyle’s 

well-written narrative, it is frustrating to find the author’s conclusions on Kennedy’s actions hidden among 

chapter endnotes.

With crisp writing and a journalistic, narrative 

style, Doyle’s balanced work reintroduces—and perhaps inspires—new generations of Americans to an 

example of how the cauldron of war can shape the 

future individual and collective destinies. The author 

achieves his objectives in this regard, and the book will 

be an enjoyable read for anyone unacquainted with 

this formative period in the future president’s life. 

• 1775 •
134 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

Colonel Walt Ford, USMC (Ret) 8

We Were Going to Win, or Die There: With the Marines at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and Saipan. By Roy H. Elrod. Edited 

by Fred H. Allison. (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2017. Pp. 320. $29.95 hardcover.)

The history of the U.S. Marine Corps is framed by 

those who served, fought in the Corps’ illustrious battles, or simply fulfilled a calling to support their country. Their stories make up the history—a history that 

flourishes when another Marine’s story is revealed. 

Often it is coincidence that affords an opportunity to 

add to the legacy of the Marine Corps with the tale 

of another Marine’s service. It was coincidence, an 

inquisitive nature, and personal initiative, combined 

with a penchant for maintaining records, that brings 

the tale of an individual Marine, serving in some of 

America’s most turbulent times, to the fore in We Were 

Going to Win, or Die There: With the Marines at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and Saipan. This is the story of retired 

Marine Lieutenant Colonel Roy H. Elrod, raised on a 

small farm near Muleshoe, Texas, who caught the attention of the head of the Marine Corps’ oral history 

program, retired Marine Major Fred H. Allison, who 

also grew up in Muleshoe. 

Allison joined the Corps and later earned his 

PhD in military history from Texas Tech University 

in Lubbock. He had never heard of Elrod, but a family member in Muleshoe mentioned the World War 

II veteran, who was living in Fredericksburg, Virginia, Allison’s home at the time. That’s when initiative 

kicked in. Allison met Elrod, finding a proud Marine 

who kept meticulous records and a detailed, accurate 

8

 Col Ford is a former editor of Leatherneck magazine and publisher for the Marine Corps Association. He authored three Marine Corps History magazine articles on the Marine Corps Reserve 

in World War I and a pamphlet on the Marines in the September 

1918 Battle of Saint-Mihiel, one of the pamphlets in the forthcoming Marine Corps History Division’s Marines in World War 

I centennial series. 

recollection of his life and time in the Corps, beginning prior to World War II. For an oral historian, Roy 

Elrod was a true gift. There followed hours of recorded 

and transcribed interviews, and although Elrod has 

now passed on, his impressive legacy lives through Allison’s efforts and the University of North Texas Press.

For the Marine veteran or anyone interested in 

life as an enlisted Marine in the pre–World War II Marine Corps, this book is a boon. Elrod’s experiences, 

from recruiting to recruit training, military occupational specialty assignment, follow-on training, and 

deployment to the Pacific area as one of the very first 

Marines sent overseas in the war provide a fantastic 

education of enduring value—a ready reference for a 

Marine’s personal library. Elrod’s recollections of combat in three of the bloodiest battles of World War II 

add significant value.

Growing up in the Great Depression era, Elrod 

focused on personal improvement, leaving the family 

farm to attend Texas A&M University in College Station. Like most young men of the time, paying for a 

university education posed significant hardship. With 

war looming, Elrod left school after one year, shipping 

off to recruit training at Marine Corps Base San Diego in September 1940 (prior to the base name being 

changed to Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego). 

In the opening chapters, Elrod describes the enlisted 

promotion examination system, pay, daily life in the 

barracks, and training, including a one-day, 50-mile 

platoon hike and a 180-mile regimental training hike. 

He also details the Marine Corps’ rapid wartime expansion and his deployment to American Samoa as a 

37mm antitank gun section leader in the 8th Marines, 

2d Marine Brigade, and his unit’s being sent to rein-
SUMMER 2018 135

force the exhausted 1st Marine Division in the Battle 

of Guadalcanal.

On Guadalcanal, Elrod’s antitank unit often fought 

as infantry, fending off fanatical attacks by a welltrained Japanese enemy heretofore undefeated. His 

descriptions of living and fighting amid the jungle rot, 

malaria, and dysentery, all while on near-starvation 

rations and with ragged uniforms and overused equipment, bring home the intensity of the fighting; his recollections point to just how close the battle came to 

being lost. On Guadalcanal in January 1943, Elrod led 

his men in driving back a Japanese attack, for which 

he would later be awarded a Silver Star. 

Guadalcanal was followed by rest and refit in 

New Zealand, which Elrod describes in some detail. 

His story then moves to the battle for Betio, Tarawa 

Atoll, which he describes as “hell realized” (p. 159). By 

this time, Elrod was experienced with embarking, unloading, and employing his 37mm antitank gun in amphibious operations. His expertise paid dividends at 

Tarawa, where his was the sole 37mm gun to get into 

action, crossing the barrier reefs and coconut tree-log 

seawall. He rigged ropes, slings, and harnesses, and his 

Marines pulled the guns while others pushed through 

mid-chest to thigh-deep water to get his gun over the 

seawall and into action. Elrod notes that enemy fire 

was so intense on Tarawa that if you stood, you were 

hit, so attacking or even moving wounded was a real 

challenge. Hard decisions were made, as operating the 

gun was the critical mission. He tells that he knew 

they were winning when more Japanese bodies littered the ground than Marines.

After Tarawa, Elrod relates the recovery, rebuilding, and training in Hawaii and then the June 1944 

attack against the Japanese on Saipan. Now a captain, 

Elrod commanded a halftrack platoon in this combat 

operation (his third). Logistics worked at Saipan better than in his previous amphibious operations; food, 

water, ammunition, and repair parts were more readily available. For the first time, as he describes, civilians 

on the battlefield impacted tactics—the Chamorro 

people caught between two deadly armies. His luck 

ran out on Saipan; Japanese artillery fire near the end 

of the battle caused his medical evacuation to Hawaii 

and then San Diego. 

An experienced historian, Allison scrupulously 

screened Elrod’s recollections, using his knowledge 

and official records to ensure accuracy. Each of Elrod’s 

chapters are prefaced with historical insights into the 

coming story, and detailed endnotes at the close of 

each chapter provide the reader more opportunities 

for learning. Allison surrounds Elrod’s chapters with 

the detailed history of the time, giving the reader an 

even greater appreciation for Elrod’s contributions to 

Corps and country and his deeds of valor. 

Elrod served with distinction as a private, corporal, sergeant, lieutenant, and captain in combat, all in 

the same unit: Weapons Platoon, 8th Marines. His detailed recollections of the varied responsibilities and 

experiences as he rose through the ranks provide invaluable insight into life as a combat Marine. Equally 

important, oral historian Allison does a superb job of 

placing all the action in perspective with a fast-paced, 

concise, and easily read history of each of the battles 

marking Elrod’s service.

Elrod retired from active duty in 1961 and passed 

away at his home in December 2016 before he could 

see his story in print. But Allison’s exceptional work 

ensures Elrod’s sacrifices and experiences as a Marine 

will be remembered.

• 1775 •
136 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

Major Harold Allen Skinner, USA (Ret) 9

American Grand Strategy in the Mediterranean during World War II. By Andrew Buchanan. (New York: Cambridge 

University Press, 2014. Pp. 324. $119.00 cloth; $32.99 paperback; $26.00 e-book.)

Readers interested in studying strategy are advised 

to read Andrew Buchanan’s American Grand Strategy. Buchanan, a history lecturer at the University of 

Vermont, advances a convincing reinterpretation of 

American involvement in the Mediterranean theater 

during World War II. As Buchanan notes in a thorough 

historiographical survey, most historians treat American involvement in the Mediterranean as coerced 

and unwilling. Well-documented objections raised by 

key American military leaders, such as Army Chief 

of Staff George C. Marshall and General Dwight D. 

Eisenhower, are used to support this assertion. United 

States participation, so the conventional story goes, 

was largely due to the politically astute manipulation 

of British prime minister Winston Churchill. 

Buchanan challenges that simplistic notion, arguing instead for a broad reinterpretation based on 

all the elements of national power, not just military 

strategy. Buchanan unpacks his thesis in the opening 

chapter, arguing that the Americans willingly adopted 

a broader approach based on President Franklin D. 

Roosevelt’s “grand strategic notions” (p. 9). He notes 

that Roosevelt’s pragmatic and opportunistic blending of the efforts of all instruments of national power 

is obscured or downplayed in prior historiography; in 

part, as Buchanan notes, “Roosevelt’s decision-making 

process was notoriously opaque, with numerous and 

9

 Maj Harold Allen Skinner, USA (Ret), serves as the command 

historian for the 81st Regional Support Command, U.S. Army 

Reserve, at Fort Jackson, SC. He is the author of The Transformation of the German Reichsheer (2013) and is currently in the final 

stages of writing a staff ride guide for the Battle of Kings Mountain. 

often conflicting lines of command concentrated in 

his own well-concealed hands.” To better understand 

the development of American grand strategy, then, 

involves “evaluating results and outcomes in an effort 

to deduce goals and intentions. . . . From this viewpoint it becomes clear that, far from being a diversionary theater . . . Washington’s intervention [in the 

Mediterranean] was an indispensable element in the 

overall process by which America’s postwar hegemony 

in Europe and beyond was established” (p. 10–11).

Buchanan identifies two foundational ideas that 

framed and shaped Roosevelt’s efforts to form American national strategy in fighting World War II. First 

was the nagging fear of popular insurrection, and the 

corresponding disorder and bloodshed (as was seen 

during and after the 1917 Russian Revolution). This 

deep concern often drove Roosevelt, who publicly espoused freedom and democracy, to pragmatically embrace collaboration of convenience with ex-Vichy and 

Fascist officials as a way of avoiding a power vacuum 

in recently liberated territories. The second aspect of 

Roosevelt’s approach was the desire to take advantage 

of the perceived weakness of the Old World powers to 

establish a new Pax Americana in the Mediterranean, 

but on a peaceful economic and political basis beginning with the presence of a victorious American army. 

Buchanan’s thorough research reveals that Roosevelt’s strategy did not spring forth fully developed 

but evolved over time, shaped as positive circumstances and opportunities arose with the weakening 

of the formerly dominant European powers. Buchanan advances the idea that Roosevelt’s grand strategy 

approach arose from his study of Alfred Thayer Mah-
SUMMER 2018 137

an’s theories and experiences as undersecretary of the 

Navy during the First World War. Consequently, Roosevelt “drew grand strategic conclusions that were at 

odds with their [George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower’s] cherished, if simplistic, notions of mass and 

concentration” (p. 269). 

In the first chapter, Buchanan delves deeply into 

the question of Roosevelt’s personal influence on Winston Churchill in fashioning Mediterranean grand 

strategy. Instead of being a naïve dupe, Roosevelt 

exercised an increasingly dominant role in the making of strategy as he realized the waning power of the 

British Empire. Overmatched by the Axis powers and 

facing the loss of much of their overseas holdings, the 

British were in a quandary: “London desperately needed U.S. assistance in the struggle with Germany and 

the Churchill government’s entire strategic outlook 

was premised in securing it. . . . In essence, this dilemma highlighted the fact that London both needed 

and feared U.S. involvement in the war, and it encapsulated the contradiction at the heart of the ‘special 

relationship’ ” (p. 23).

In the subsequent chapters, Buchanan traces the 

deepening involvement of the United States in the 

Mediterranean, all done over the strenuous attempts 

of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to divert Roosevelt’s attention away from proposals to introduce American 

combat forces into North Africa. Instead, Roosevelt 

became deeply enmeshed in covert political action, 

contacts with sympathetic French and Spanish officials in North Africa in an opening bid to establish 

an American influence in the postwar Mediterranean. 

Roosevelt employed a carrot-and-stick approach, 

combining economic, political, and diplomatic initiatives in a way to reduce Axis influence in the region. 

As Buchanan points out, Roosevelt’s pragmatic approach in the political and economic aspects of the 

Mediterranean theater, often criticized at the time, 

paid great dividends in the relatively smooth pacification of North Africa. After the ground combat phase 

of Operation Gymnast (November 1942), short-lived 

deals with the collaborationist Vichy French regime 

paved the way for cooperation with the Free French, 

and the eventual establishment of a functioning government in exile under Charles de Gaulle: “But with 

its path smoothed by the provision of trade and military aid, Washington shifted its relation from [HenriPhilippe] Pétain, to [François] Darlan . . . and finally 

to de Gaulle without crippling breakdowns and disjunctures. . . . The provision of U.S. civil and military 

supplies thus helped establish a connection between 

Washington and the new French regime taking shape 

in the physical and political space cleared by Allied 

arms” (p. 87).

Later chapters trace the maturation of American grand strategy through the course of the Mediterranean campaign. In particular, Buchanan describes 

how the shift of power in the Mediterranean to the 

Americans increased the broader strategy of the European war, as Roosevelt’s newly acquired influence 

was used in the settling of postwar spheres of influence with Joseph Stalin. Of particular interest to civil 

affairs specialists is a concise history of the establishment of the Army’s Civil Affairs branch and School of 

Military Government in May 1942. 

Buchanan’s research is thorough, and he does a 

superb job of clarifying Roosevelt’s goals and intentions through details culled from primary sources including public and private papers and correspondence 

of both Roosevelt and Churchill, published official 

documents, and press conference summaries. Buchanan further clarifies the “notoriously opaque” decisionmaking process with details drawn from 47 different 

diaries and personal memoirs and a robust selection of 

journal articles and other secondary works. Moreover, 

Buchanan supports his narrative with detailed endnotes and maps and a good selection of contemporary 

photographs. In closing, Buchanan and the editors at 

Cambridge University Press are to be commended for 

their production of a high-quality scholarly book that 

compellingly reinterprets the history of the Mediterranean campaign during World War II.

• 1775 •
138 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

Thomas Faith, PhD10

Toxic Exposures: Mustard Gas and the Health Consequences of World War II in the United States. By Susan L. Smith. 

(New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2017. Pp. 200. $29.95 cloth and e-book.) 

Toxic Exposures: Mustard Gas and the Health Consequences of World War II in the United States is a sweeping 

study of the unintended outcomes of mustard gas 

testing and disposal from World War II through the 

present day. While the story of mustard gas and its 

health effects is told here from the perspective of the 

United States, Susan Smith makes clear that it is best 

understood as a global story, and appropriate attention is given to other contextual events happening 

around the world, particularly in Canada and the 

United Kingdom. The wartime allies conducted the 

largest-scale research and development project related 

to mustard gas in history, causing aftereffects that can 

still be felt today. 

World War II was not the first time that the U.S. 

Army tested the effects of mustard gas on human subjects, of course; researchers tested mustard gas during 

World War I as well. Additionally, physicians could 

make observations about mustard gas’s effects as it 

was used on the battlefield and by examining the injuries it caused the personnel assigned to manufacture 

it. But the mustard gas testing that occurred during 

the Second World War was conducted on a grander 

scale, and—ironically, as it turned out—with little 

benefit to the war effort, since mustard gas was not 

used as a weapon by or against the United States during the conflict. None should be tempted to dismiss 

World War II mustard gas research as trivial because, 

as Smith writes, “the mustard gas experiments were 

part of the history of ‘big science,’ which is often asso10 Thomas Faith is a historian at the U.S. Department of State, 

and he earned his PhD from George Washington University in 

2008.

ciated with the wartime Manhattan Project and later 

Cold War scientific research projects that involved 

government funding of large research teams” (p. 22). 

Part one of Toxic Exposures deals with wartime 

mustard gas testing and the role of race in these medical experiments. Smith’s previous books, Sick and Tired 

of Being Sick and Tired: Black Women’s Health Activism in 

America, 1890–1950 (1995) and Japanese American Midwives: Culture, Community, and Health Politics, 1880–

1950 (2005), both dealt with the subject of race in early 

twentieth-century medicine, and the analysis in Toxic 

Exposures benefits from her expertise. Performed on 

military recruits who were insufficiently aware of the 

risks, some mustard gas experiments were designed to 

investigate whether assumed biological differences between members of different racial groups would make 

some more vulnerable to mustard gas than others. 

In part two, Toxic Exposures moves forward on 

two tracks: investigating the postwar consequences 

of mustard gas disposal at sea and the long-term effects of the mustard gas experiments on the veterans 

who served as test subjects. Smith provides a comprehensive overview of recent media attention focused 

on World War II veterans affected by mustard gas 

testing, as well as a discussion of how the administration of mustard gas came to be regarded as an effective treatment for some types of cancer. Veterans who 

were subjected to these tests continued to experience 

a range of health complications for decades after the 

war. There is much material here for anyone interested in the history of medical ethics to digest.

Smith titles a chapter “Mustard Gas in the Sea 

Around Us” but spends comparatively little time on 

the impacts of land-based mustard gas disposal. The 
SUMMER 2018 139

health consequences and threat to public safety posed 

by mustard gas ordnance that remained in storage in 

the United States or buried in pits after World War II 

are arguably more significant than those represented 

by mustard gas at the bottom of the ocean. Smith’s 

perspective on controversies surrounding land-based 

mustard gas disposal methods in communities near 

disposal sites would be valuable. The uneasy balance 

maintained by the Department of Defense between 

disposing of mustard gas stockpiles quickly and cheaply while minimizing the risks to personnel, nearby 

communities, and the environment, would dovetail 

well with Smith’s analysis in her book’s second part. 

The narrative in Toxic Exposures is painted with 

broad strokes, and at times more quantitative information and direct quotations would have been 

useful to give the reader a better sense of the scope, 

purpose, and progress of U.S. mustard gas experimentation. Recognizing the difficulty of locating source 

material on this subject, this book offers the reader 

an overview of the consequences resulting from what 

researchers and physicians were trying to accomplish, 

and a comprehensive account of these experiments 

unfortunately may never be possible. Overall, this is 

a valuable work on a significant and understudied aspect of military, medical, and scientific history. Smith 

concludes Toxic Exposures writing, “Surely, the history 

of the mustard gas experiments during World War II 

provides a powerful lesson in why such medical experimentation necessitates public scrutiny and public 

debate” (p. 130). Readers of her work will no doubt 

agree.

• 1775 •
140 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

Vance Skarstedt11

Spider Web: The Birth of American Anticommunism. By Nick Fischer. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2016. Pp. 

368. $95.00 cloth; $32.00 paperback; $28.80 e-book.)

The popular website HistoryIsAWeapon.com declares 

that history is not a record of what happened but an 

interpretation of what happened and therefore open 

to multiple opinions to be pitted against each other 

in debate. Traditional historians are often uncomfortable with that definition because instead of serving as 

a telling of the past with objectivity, history becomes 

an argument. Of course, airing and publishing different interpretations is critical to awareness and makes 

history a dynamic and exciting field. That said, differing interpretations can become vituperative. Since 

the 1960s, it has become intellectually chic to adopt 

a deconstructive interpretation of history. Instead 

of constructing an objective approach by proving a 

thesis with support and showing how that thesis is 

stronger than its alternative, deconstruction presents 

criticism. 

Hence, authors like Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn have built careers writing books that criticize U.S. history. Contrary to the more commonly 

held thesis that, with all of its faults and inconsistencies, the United States is predominantly a land of opportunity and freedom, the deconstructive approach 

puts forth the antithesis that America and its history 

represent a story of exploitation and oppression. Anyone who has read Zinn’s A People’s History of the United 

States (1980) experiences its skillful writing and clever 

argumentation but comes away shaken regarding the 

brutality and hypocrisy that seems to characterize 

the narrative of U.S. history. That being said, closer 

11 Vance Skarstedt serves as Marine Corps University’s Defense 

Intelligence Agency chair.

scrutiny of most deconstruction—and this is especially 

true of Zinn’s work—shows unscholarly bias and convenient omissions of facts and events (counterargument) that make the author’s position less tenable. 

Add to this deconstructive literature Nick Fischer’s Spider Web: The Birth of American Anticommunism. 

An adjunct research associate at Monash University in 

Australia, Fischer criticizes the thesis that the United 

States sought to combat the spread of Communism at 

home and abroad while seeking to maintain its commitment to liberty and civil rights. Instead, Fischer 

argues that American anticommunism was conjured 

up by ruthless politicians and businessmen as a device 

to divide societal elements through fear and thus protect the power elites’ ability to control all political, 

social, cultural, and economic activities at the expense 

of what he calls throughout the work the “great majority.” Extremely well written and full of historical 

events cleverly aligned to support the author’s assertions, Spider Web is mostly a denunciation of the United States and its history. 

Fischer contends that the threat of Communism 

itself was more a product of paranoia, propaganda, 

and manipulation and had nothing to do with Communist seizures of power in “the USSR or anywhere 

else” (p. 9). Much of Fischer’s research comes from secondary sources written by the deconstructionist academics who share his apparently low opinion of the 

United States, including Corey Robin, Jack Beatty, 

H. W. Brands, and of course Howard Zinn. Instead of 

any new or groundbreaking primary research, however, Fischer reinterprets historical events to redefine 

American political and economic history and charac-
SUMMER 2018 141

terize the concept of economic mobility in American 

society as a myth. 

The blame for the capitalists’ ruthless behavior 

falls specifically on conservatives and reactionaries, 

though Fischer fails to adequately define these parameters. His supporting examples wander back and forth 

across the U.S. political spectrum. In his discussion 

of the post–World War I Red Scare, Fischer accuses 

President Woodrow Wilson’s administration of ignorance and solipsism, and charges that Wilson tried to 

exterminate Bolshevik doctrine and the Bolsheviks 

themselves through the support of the Allied invasion 

of Russia just three weeks after the Bolsheviks seized 

power. Fischer later denounces the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)—an organization whose leaders have 

been recognized by the American Communist Party 

for their work—for Cold War activities against progressive socialist governments in Latin America. He 

also berates Ronald Reagan for working with J. Edgar Hoover to “derail the careers of several noted actors whose political views and associations he found 

objectionable” (p. 263). Unfortunately, Fischer does 

not provide a single example of such an unfortunate 

“noted actor.” 

Wilson, Reagan, the AFL-CIO, and other examples Fischer discusses represent the range of American 

politics from left to right. This dismissal of the American political spectrum would not be an issue were it 

not for Fischer’s contention that anticommunism is 

still a tool used by Republicans against Democrats, 

even though that red herring died with the implosion 

of the Soviet Union more than a quarter-century ago. 

Historically inconsistent, he fails to mention that the 

antisedition legislation of World War I was signed 

by a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate, 

and the House Un-American Activities Committee 

(HUAC) was created during the Roosevelt administration with a legislative branch completely controlled 

by the Democrats. 

Apparently, if anyone, regardless of their views 

in American politics, criticizes Socialism, or for that 

matter Communism, they are reactionary and oppressive. And any steps taken to expose and deconstruct 

Socialism or Communism constitutes oppression, even 

though the actors in the examples he cites were far 

less drastic in their actions than those taken by Socialists and Communists against their detractors. Many 

of Fischer’s demons are vague references—“the government” and “business interests”—when he describes 

the agents of anticommunist oppression. Spider Web

is full of nameless villains and nameless victims, for 

that matter. When he delves into specifics, he focuses 

mostly on midlevel actors, such as John Bond Trevor 

and Jacob Spolansky, whose impact on the national 

debate was minimal and whose “oppression” does not 

hold a candle to that of enforcers of Communism such 

as Lavrentiy Beria and Che Guevara. He puts forth the 

Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate Seditious 

Activities (also known as the Lusk Committee after 

its head, Senator Clayton R. Lusk) as a key indicator 

of tyranny but barely mentions that it was a New York 

State committee called for by citizens’ groups, and not 

a comprehensive top-down persecution like that seen 

in Socialist governments of the twentieth century. 

He also fails to mention that nobody lost their civil 

rights or went to prison as a result of Lusk Committee activities. In fact, its recommendations, including 

the teaching of patriotism in New York schools, were 

vetoed by the New York governor. It seems that as far 

as Fischer is concerned, local groups joined by citizens on a volunteer basis, such as the Better America 

Foundation (and yes, in this country, businessmen are 

citizens), are immediately transformed into nefarious 

exploiters of the poor once they make their distaste of 

radical Socialism or Communism known. 

Still, all of this fits neatly into Fischer’s storyline that American anticommunism is like a complex spider web. The various nodes by themselves do 

not impact a large group of dissidents. Collectively, 

though, these nodes and their hard-to-see connecting 

strands oppress working-class citizens, progressives, 

and like-minded politicians across the nation. This is 

also a literary ruse that excuses the author from having to reveal any specific organized suppression of 

his protagonists and allows him to draw any group 
142 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

he suspects as “reactionary” into his spider web of 

rightist conspiracy. Fischer is also short on exposing 

the victimization he infers. Yes, there are the predictable examples of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg as well 

as Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, who were 

tried by juries and convicted of actual crimes, but he 

does not produce an American version of the gulags, 

work camps, forced collectivization, and show trials 

that characterized the Socialist and Communist governments of the period he covers. He briefly alludes to 

the Molly Maguires and that some were executed but 

fails to mention that these were individuals who had 

been tried and convicted of civil crimes. Whether or 

not they were “framed” is a great point for debate but 

has yet to be confirmed by any widely accepted findings. In fact, the very existence of the Molly Maguires 

within the mining industry is still not uniformly accepted.

Fischer glosses over the historic reality that Socialism and Communism, as practiced in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Cambodia, etc., 

did utilize real oppression and collectively slaughtered 

many millions more innocent victims than Adolf 

Hitler’s Nazi (National Socialist) death camps. From 

the turn-of-the-century anarchy movement that in a 

period of 10 years assassinated seven heads of state, 

including an American president, to the mass starvation of Vladimir Lenin’s War Communism to Joseph 

Stalin’s Gulag to Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward, 

to Pol Pot’s Killing Fields, millions of innocents have 

been starved, executed, imprisoned, and brutalized in 

the name of Socialism, Communism, and economic 

justice. In the United States and other nations, politicians, community leaders, ordinary citizens, and 

businessmen saw these examples of radicalism, and 

despite the wistful musings of some academics about 

economic fairness, did not want that type of political 

violence here. Many of the organizations and actors 

that formed and led the numerous anticommunist 

efforts were, again, spontaneous grassroot and state 

organizations, and were not created by a pervasively 

ruthless central government. Yes, some of these were 

outspoken and aggressive, but the U.S. Constitution 

and its change of power every two years helped American society leaven the extremes and avoid the bloodshed seen in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. This 

antithesis is not effectively deconstructed in Spider 

Web. 

Reading through Spider Web, this reviewer looked 

for any sign of objectivity or counterargument that 

would lend credence to Fischer’s denunciations of 

American history with little success. Fischer grudgingly mentioned that the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) counterintelligence program “weakened” 

the Ku Klux Klan, and he referred in brief passing 

to the excesses of Soviet Communists including the 

“deportation of Kulaks” (this qualifies as an understatement of the year, given that millions of Kulaks 

were uprooted, starved, and worked to death in labor 

camps). However, he does not present the historical 

record of what actually concerned those Americans in 

government and business who looked upon collectivist movements and the governments that supported 

them as threats to freedom. Fischer ignores post–Cold 

War findings by historians that many of the actors 

who were suspected of being Communist sympathizers actually turned out to be Communist sympathizers. He does not mention the Venona Project and its 

counterintelligence bent or the slew of books written 

by former Soviet officials that openly admit to many 

of the strategies that caused concern in the United 

States before and during the Cold War. In KGB officer Victor Cherkashin’s memoir, Spy Handler (2004), 

he relates that the first time an American was recruited by Soviet intelligence to spy for them was 1923, a 

quarter-century and a world war before the United 

States even created its own permanent intelligence 

agency. Addressing this evidence would have gone a 

long way toward strengthening Fischer’s thesis, but he 

did not even try. In deconstruction, all that matters 

is the attack, and there is no regard for counterarguments.

This reviewer was distracted by inaccurate characterizations. For example, Fischer referred to Alger 

Hiss as a convicted spy. No, Hiss was convicted on two 

counts of lying under oath. He was never convicted of 
SUMMER 2018 143

being Communist, of spying, or of espionage. This is a 

minor point, but it is factually wrong and could lead a 

knowledgeable reader to suspect that despite Fischer’s 

claims of extended research, many of his conclusions 

are instead based on the narrative of his fellow deconstructionists than on any new findings. There were no 

smoking guns of proof uncovered by deep research in 

this book. This is unfortunate. Selective use of historic 

events while ignoring counterarguments takes an author away from scholarship and toward propaganda. 

While I would not go so far as to call Spider Web propaganda, I believe it would be more useful to an Oliver 

Stone movie script than to a useful historiography on 

Cold War or American history.

• 1775 •
144 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

Tal Tovy, PhD12

Veteran Narratives and the Collective Memory of the Vietnam War. By John A. Wood. (Athens: Ohio University Press, 

2016. Pp. 200. $69.95 cloth; $22.95 paperback.)

In 1987, the movie Hamburger Hill, directed by John 

Irvin, was released. It describes the story of a company from the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division that 

attempted and ultimately succeeded in the conquest 

of Hill 937 in the A-Shu Valley, as part of Operation 

Apache Snow in May 1969. The movie focuses on the 

military effort in conquering the post, which was held 

by the North Vietnamese Army. However, between 

the rounds of fighting, the viewer is exposed to the social dynamics taking place between the American soldiers: the homesickness; the soldiers’ attitudes toward 

the high command giving orders from far away; racial 

tensions between the soldiers; and their response to 

the growing protest against the war back home. This 

movie deals with ordinary foot soldiers rather than 

generals, in a battle that—although it received some 

public attention—was in essence no different than 

hundreds of similar battles during the Vietnam War. 

The issues brought up by viewing the movie have been 

reflected in hundreds of memoirs written by Vietnam 

veterans. This is the subject of John Wood’s important 

book, Veteran Narratives and the Collective Memory of 

the Vietnam War, which analyzes 58 Vietnam memoirs 

written by veterans about their experiences in the war. 

Each one of the seven chapters deals with a different aspect of this experience, such as issues of race 

and gender, homecoming, and naturally, the experience of fighting an elusive, lethal enemy. Additionally, 

Wood integrates the memoirs into a wider framework, placing them within a historical and political 

12 Dr. Tal Tovy is an associate professor at the history department 

of Bar Ilan University, Israel. 

context that provides a better understanding of the 

background for their writing.

The first chapter presents a view of the social 

background of the writers by providing demographic 

data about age, socioeconomic background, education 

levels, and duration of military service in general and 

in Vietnam in particular. Wood maintains, justifiably, 

that this chapter allows the reader to understand subjective and objective factors that influenced the memoir writers’ experiences during the war, thus directly 

influencing writings after the war. 

The second chapter gives a combined view of the 

fighting and the perception of the Vietnamese by the 

writers of memoirs. Wood’s analysis in this chapter 

clarifies the essential difference between memoirs and 

novels describing the war. War and fighting are described as a chaotic, frustrating, and unheroic activity. 

The chapter also reviews the perception of the noncombatant Vietnamese by the writers. Wood points 

out that this perception was mostly narrow, racist, 

and stereotypic, which, in his opinion, was motivated 

by a total lack of understanding of the Vietnamese 

culture by the American soldier.

Interracial tension within the American Army 

units was a prominent issue during the war. Surprisingly, this issue hardly appears in memoirs written by 

white soldiers. Therefore, in the third chapter, Wood 

chose to analyze memoirs written by African American soldiers, although they were not included in the 

initial memoir group. Clearly, racial issues form a significant part of these memoirs. These take two directions: the first line is a description of the writer’s part 

in the military activities of the unit and pride in his 
SUMMER 2018 145

military service and achievement; and the second emphasizes the racism to which the African American 

soldier has been exposed, his way of coping with the 

racist incidents, and the influence that the Black Power movement had over him. This is the time to review 

Wood’s selection of these 58 memoirs, although he is 

aware of additional hundreds of veterans who had also 

written about their war experiences. Wood provides 

a clear and persuasive explanation of his choice of 

books. These books, published between 1967 and 2005, 

became best sellers; their writers have been awarded 

various literary honors and enjoyed significant media 

and public exposure. Hence Wood’s claim that “only 

titles that achieved recognition could have had a significant impact on collective memory” (p. 5).

The fourth chapter deals with gender and sex 

issues, albeit from a male point of view. In spite of 

the significant contribution of female soldiers to the 

American war effort (Wood also reviews several books 

written by women), this chapter’s point of view looks 

through the eyes of those who have experienced battle 

directly. Although recent years have seen much research about women’s role in the war, Wood did not 

turn to that research, and it seems like his purpose is 

to focus on the fighters.

The issue of the soldiers’ homecoming and their 

attempt to return to normal life is discussed in the 

fifth and sixth chapters. These chapters emphasize the 

issue of post-traumatic stress disorder and the alienated attitude by those who did not serve in Vietnam. 

The attitude of the veterans toward the antiwar movement is also discussed; Wood indicates that while the 

veterans expressed negative attitudes toward the management of the war, they also had negative attitudes 

toward the antiwar movement. Veterans overwhelmingly consider themselves and their brothers in arms 

as patriots who responded to the call to arms and 

went out to defend the United States and the American way of life. Thus, in spite of the criticism against 

the war, the soldiers are proud of their military service 

and express severe criticism against the harsh reception they experienced upon returning to the United 

States, particularly to accusations of war crimes.

The first six chapters of the book deal directly 

with the military and combat experience of those who 

fought in Vietnam. Indubitably, many veterans who 

did not serve in Vietnam will also find a reflection of 

their personal experiences in this work. Wood demonstrates this in the seventh chapter, where he compares 

the Vietnam veterans’ narratives to those of American 

veterans who fought before and after Vietnam. His 

conclusion is that in spite of the essential differences 

between the wars in which the United States has been 

involved since World War II—up to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—and in spite of the different character of the soldiers, there is a significant resemblance 

between stories told by veterans of these various wars. 

This reviewer would like to take Wood’s conclusion 

even further and to maintain that the soldier’s experience is timeless and universal. Reading memoirs and 

stories written by soldiers who belonged to different 

armies and fought in different wars draws an almost 

identical picture.

For example, the (scarce) literature describing 

the stories of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers in 

the Security Zone that Israel maintained in southern 

Lebanon (1985–2000) draws a very similar picture. 

Recently, Matti Friedman, an Israeli-Canadian journalist and writer, published Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s 

Story of a Forgotten War (2016), a book describing the 

author’s experience as a combatant in DLAAT (pumpkin) military fire base in South Lebanon in the years 

1998–99. Friedman gives an excellent description 

of the stressful and exhausting operational routine 

of the fighters in the post, as well as in other posts 

deep in the south of Lebanon. He does this through 

his personal story and interviews with other soldiers 

who served in South Lebanon in the years before Israel’s withdrawal from the Security Zone (May 2000). 

Not surprisingly, we can find in his book many of the 

topics mentioned in Wood’s book. Although the IDF 

control of South Lebanon was the cause of strong public criticism, including protest movements (e.g., the 

Four Mothers Movement), all the criticism and protests were directed toward the political leadership, 

and none toward the soldiers, as was the case with the 

Vietnam War. I have found the last part of the book, 

in which Friedman describes his visit to the site of the 
146 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

post in 2002, especially fascinating. It would be very 

interesting to compare the description of his visit to 

that of other war veterans who visited the old battlefields where they fought.

Wood’s book is not a military history research 

in the classical sense. It focuses on social history but 

adds an important layer to the research of the Vietnam War. Veteran Narratives can also be classified as a 

work that examines the creation and formulation of a 

collective national memory. A third framework into 

which Wood’s book fits (the most important one, in 

this reviewer’s opinion) is a descriptive analysis of the 

war from the point of view of the foot soldier. Veteran 

Narratives joins a series of research works focusing on 

the story of the fighter rather than that of the general. 

This is a different point of view that, while lacking the 

wider view of the war, provides an invaluable insight 

about the everyday life of the fighter in the battlefield. 

This type of literature can also teach about everyday 

tactics used in the war versus the training the soldiers 

received, and it can examine whether this training was 

indeed relevant and effective.

One could argue about Wood’s selection of the 

specific 58 memoirs, but any different selection would 

have raised some criticism. As mentioned, Wood provides a persuasive explanation for his selections. This 

book should be treated as a qualitative rather than as 

a quantitative research. 

It would be interesting to examine other memoirs along the lines suggested by Wood. In addition, 

a comparative research of memoirs by soldiers from 

other armies written about other wars would also be 

of interest.

The book is well-written and is based on a large 

variety of relevant secondary sources that support 

the author’s lines of reasoning and his analyses of the 

memoirs, which in this case serve as primary sources. 

This is an important book, as it provides significant 

insights into the experiences of the foot soldier and 

the junior officer in a nonconsensual war, the goals 

of which have never been precisely defined by political leadership. Furthermore, Wood’s work adds an important layer to the research of the experience of the 

microtactical level not just in the Vietnam War but in 

military history in general.

• 1775 •
SUMMER 2018 147

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Marines in World War II

25 works in series | paperback

This History Division series is devoted to U.S. Marines in World War II and was originally published 

for the education and training of Marines as a part 

of the U.S. Department of Defense’s observance of 

the 50th anniversary of victory in that war. These 

in-depth studies written by Marine Corps historians 

cover the conflict from the opening moves in 1939 to 

securing the surrender of Japan in 1945.

Digital editions of all titles are available on the History Division website at www.usmcu.edu/historydivision. Print copies 

can be requested at history.division@usmcu.edu as available.

The Journal of Military History 

A quarterly publication of the Society for Military History

The Society for Military History

George C. Marshall Library

Virginia Military Institute

Lexington, Virginia USA 24450

www.smh-hq.org jmhsmh@vmi.edu

Individual Subscription: $70

Institutional Subscription: $120

Add $10 for postage outside

the U.S. and Canada

Student online access: $25/year
148 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 4, NO. 1

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Marines in the Korean War

11 works in series | paperback

This History Division series is devoted to U.S. Marines in the Korean War and was originally published for the education and training of Marines as a 

part of the U.S. Department of Defense’s observance 

of the 50th anniversary of victory in that war. These 

in-depth studies written by Marine Corps historians cover the conflict from the recapture of Seoul in 

1950 to the signing of the Armistice in 1953.

Digital editions are available of all titles on the History Division website at www.usmcu.edu/historydivision. Print copies 

can be requested at history.division@usmcu.edu as available.

COMING SOON!

A New Conception of War

John Boyd, the U.S. Marines, and Maneuver Warfare

Ian T. Brown

6 x 9 | 368 pp | October 2018

A New Conception of War traces the origins and development of the combat 

theory the Marine Corps came to call “maneuver warfare” in the post-Vietnam 

years. The text follows two strands that ultimately merge into the codification of maneuver warfare doctrine in Fleet Marine Force Manual 1, Warfighting. 

The first strand focuses on the conflict theories of Colonel John Boyd, USAF, 

which were shaped by a career during the Cold War and his own passion for 

challenging conventional wisdom in the search for new and useful ideas. The 

second strand covers a period of institutional soul-searching within the Marine Corps after Vietnam, driven by the Corps’ historical desire to adapt itself 

to the exigencies of the day and thus remain a useful contributor to national 

defense. A New Conception of War uses new and previously unpublished material from the major players, including excerpts from the transcript of Boyd’s 

“Patterns of Conflict” briefing.

To preorder your copy, send request and mailing address to MCU_Press@usmcu.edu.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY,

HISTORY DIVISION

Join Marine Corps History Division in 2019 as we celebrate 100 years as the keepers of the 

Corps’ history by contributing articles to a special birthday edition of Marine Corps History. 

Summer 2019 submissions should focus on key elements of history and how those actions 

or the people involved helped to preserve and promote the history of the Marine Corps. 

Email the managing editor at stephani.miller@usmcu.edu for more information.
Death in the Imperial City

U.S. Marines in the Battle for Hue

31 January to 2 March 1968

Colonel Richard D. Camp

Death in the Imperial City begins 

with an overview of the city 

and its geographical, political, 

and cultural importance to the 

region. Hue was an important 

religious and intellectual center 

for the Vietnamese people. Its 

residents enjoyed a tradition of 

civic independence that dated 

back several hundred years. Nevertheless, regardless of the city’s 

cultural and intellectual importance to the Vietnamese people, it was only a matter of time before the Communists tried to make it their prize.

Reducing the Saint-Mihiel Salient

september 1918

Colonel Walter G. Ford 

When Marines of the 5th Regiment arrived in France in 

June 1917 as leading elements 

of what would become the 4th 

Brigade, they found the French 

and British faced off against 

the German Army in a gory 

line of trenches. After more 

than two years of furious fighting along a 468-mile strongly fortified line, the German 

armies still retained the initiative and Allied morale was 

low. Here sat a longstanding 

German-held “hernia” on the 

French side that French forces had repeatedly attempted to reduce—the Saint-Mihiel salient. In September 1918, the American 

Expeditionary Forces, with its one Marine brigade, would win 

the first large-scale American-led victory of World War I.

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