VOLUME 3, NUMBER 2 WINTER 2017
CAMP PENDLETON

The Historic Rancho Santa Margarita 

y Las Flores and the U.S. Marine Corps 

in Southern California: A Shared History

Approximately 50 miles north of San Diego stands 

the historic Rancho Santa Margarita y Las Flores. 

Since its founding in the early nineteenth century, this sprawling estate has sat in silent witness 

to notable events in Southern California history, 

including the birth of Marine Corps Base Camp 

Pendleton and the modern Marine Corps on the 

West Coast. The Corps would go on to transform 

the expansive ranch lands into a permanent training installation at Camp Pendleton, and 

the Santa Margarita Ranch House would serve as a primary residence for Marine Corps 

commanders for the next 60 years. Today, the Marine Corps proudly protects these cultural resources, preserving the rich history of the base and assuring their continuing place 

in military history for years to come.

9 x 9 | 104 pp | 2017

Email history.division@usmcu.edu for a print copy or visiti www.usmcu.edu/historydivision for a digital file.

STORY TO TELL

Marine Corps History is accepting article and book review submissions for 2018.

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 senior editor at angela.anderson@usmcu.edu.
WINTER 2017 1

PRESIDENT

Marine Corps University

Brigadier General William J. Bowers

...

DIRECTOR

History Division

Dr. Charles P. Neimeyer

DEPUTY DIRECTOR

Paul J. Weber

ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT

Cassandra Bennett

...

HISTORIES BRANCH

Douglas Nash, Paul W. Westermeyer, 

Dr. Breanne Robertson 

...

HISTORICAL REFERENCE BRANCH

Annette D. Amerman (Branch Head)

Kara R. Newcomer, Ryan Musselman, 

Mike Westermeier

...

ARCHIVES BRANCH

Dr. James Ginther Jr. (Branch Head)

Steve Coode, John Lyles, Shelley McIntosh, Sheila Phillips, Nancy Whitfield, 

Alisa Whitley

...

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

Charles P. Neimeyer, PhD

From the Editors 6

ARTICLES

The Convolution of History: The Argument for The Pacific 8

Cord A. Scott, PhD

“How Lucky I Am”: 20

The Words and Photography of Corporal William T. Perkins Jr.

Frank Blazich Jr., PhD

Shattered Amphibious Dreams: 34

The Decision Not to Make an Amphibious Landing 

during Operation Desert Storm

Paul Westermeyer

HISTORY IN ACTION

Marine Corps Art Spotlight: Combat Art Gallery 48

Breanne Robertson, PhD

The Historical Reference Branch: Year in Review, 2017 54

Annette D. Amerman

Historical Reference Branch: Photograph Files 59

Kara R. Newcomer

Oral History Program 66

Fred H. Allison, PhD

HISTORY IN THE CLASSROOM

Expeditionary Warfare School: Marine Corps University 74

Robert J. Fawcett

School of Advanced Warfighting: Marine Corps University 77

Wray R. Johnson, PhD

Engaging Students of History 81

J. N. Campbell and William C. Mayborn, PhD

CORE OF THE CORPS

The MAGTF Marine: Colonel Michael Wodarczyk 86

IN MEMORIAM

Colonel Edward L. Bale Jr., USMC (Ret) 88

Kenneth W. Estes, Oscar E. Gilbert, and Romain Cansiere

Colonel Wesley L. Fox, USMC (Ret) 93

 Volume 3, Number 2 Winter 2017

Cover art: Last Tank Battle, by Col H. Avery Chenoweth, oil on masonite, ca. 1991.

One of the last Marine tank battles at Kuwait International Airport, which was Task 

Force Ripper's final objective.

Art Collection, National Museum of the 

Marine Corps
Did you know . . .

All History Division publications—books and this journal—can 

be sent to you free of charge. Shop our full catalog of titles at 

www.usmcu.edu/historydivision and click on the publications 

link. Email your requests to history.division@usmcu.edu.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Air Power Doctrine 97

Reviewed by Viktoriya Fedorchak, PhD

BOOK REVIEWS

This Brave New World: India, China, and the United States 112

Reviewed by Diana Clark Gill, PhD

Dollar Diplomacy by Force: Nation-Building and Resistance 114

in the Dominican Republic

Reviewed by Breanne Robertson, PhD

Paying With Their Bodies: American War and the Problem 116

of the Disabled Veteran

Reviewed by Major Kenneth M. Koyle, USA (Ret)

Pershing’s Crusaders: The American Soldier in World War I 118

Reviewed by Lawrence Provost

Tarnished: Toxic Leadership in the U.S. Military 120

Reviewed by Major Gary J. Sampson, USMC

Tattooed on My Soul: Texas Veterans Remember World War II 124

Reviewed by Colonel Walter G. Ford, USMC (Ret)

 Volume 3, Number 2 Winter 2017

2

COMING SOON

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
Dr. Charles P. Neimeyer

Director, History Division

Marine Corps University

Dr. Charles P. Neimeyer is responsible for the collection, production, 

publication, and dissemination of Marine Corps history and manages 

the functioning of a wide variety of Marine Corps historical programs. 

FOREWORD

DIRECTOR’S

These comments for Marine Corps History will 

mark my last as the director and chief historian of Marine Corps History Division and the 

Gray Research Center as I retire from federal service 

at the start of the new year (2018). I was hired by thenpresident of Marine Corps University, Major General 

Donald R. Gardner, in 2006 and have served since as 

the division’s director. Beginning in late 2012, I also 

was made responsible for the Gray Research Center 

(GRC). During this time, History Division has experienced significant changes and improvements that are 

worth noting. 

History Division was finally able to move into the 

new, state-of-the-art Brigadier General Edwin H. Simmons Marine Corps History Center in the fall of 2016. 

Delayed because of an unfortunate flood in early January 2016, the new facility is the division’s home after a 

decade of physical moves that saw the organization relocate in 2005 from the Washington Navy Yard to temporary trailers established at Marine Corps University. 

In 2009, the division moved yet again into Building 

3078, an ancient facility that had extensive physical 

plant issues but was nevertheless an improvement over 

old and drafty trailers. One major improvement with 

our final move is that, after 11 years of separation, the 

Archives Branch of the Marine Corps has been reunited with History Division. All the branches of the 

History Division formerly located in Building 3078 

now occupy the entire third floor of the new center. 

The other two floors are dedicated to the archives and 

audiovisual section. Another significant improvement 

to the division since 2005 came with the creation of 

the Editing and Design Branch and the establishment 

of the award-winning Marine Corps University Press 

(MCUP) and MCU Journal within this branch of the 

division. Thanks to the hiring of Senior Editor Angela 

Anderson and a number of new and energetic editors 

and designers, History Division and MCUP publications have skyrocketed in production since the days 

when the division first moved to Quantico and was 

staffed by only an editor and a designer. The new military history journal is a quantum-leap improvement 

from the old Fortitudine newsletter. Thanks to Ms. Anderson’s skill and professionalism, History Division 

and MCUP publications represent the division and 

the university on level with publication branches from 

our sister Services. 

Since 2005, the Histories Branch also has come a 

long way. Now led by Senior Historian Doug Nash, 

3
4 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

USA (Ret), the branch has hired a number of new and 

dynamic scholars such as Dr. Breanne Robertson and 

McClellan Research Fellow Edward Nevgloski, USMC 

(Ret). Nevgloski is on the verge of earning his PhD from 

King’s College-London. He and Nash are at work on a 

historical case study on Guadalcanal that will be used 

by the Lejeune Leadership Institute for the commander’s Cornerstone Course, to be held at Marine Corps 

University in spring 2018. Dr. Robertson played a key 

role in the two “Huly Board” investigations into the 

identity of the Iwo Jima flag-raising participants. She 

is now the division’s expert on the Battle of Iwo Jima 

and will publish a collection of papers from a conference on the Iwo Jima flag-raisings that was held at the 

National Museum of the Marine Corps on the 72d anniversary of the battle in February 2017. Dr. Robertson 

also wrote a notable architectural history of key buildings at Camp Pendleton, California. Veteran historian 

Paul Westermeyer has taken the lead as the editor of 

a potentially pathbreaking anthology to be published 

in late spring 2018 titled The Legacy of Belleau Wood: 

100 Years of Making Marines and Winning Battles. This anthology will be provided to Marine Corps University 

graduates at the 2018 ceremonies. The Commandant 

of the Marine Corps is writing the anthology’s foreword. It is anticipated that this division publication 

will achieve our widest Corps readership ever. 

A subset of the Histories Branch is that of the 

Oral History Section, ably led by Dr. Fred Allison. Allison’s professional interview skills have been noted by 

every Commandant of the Marine Corps since General James L. Jones and other senior Marine Corps 

leaders for the past 15 years. Allison recently interviewed the former senator from the state of Virginia, 

former secretary of the Navy, and Navy Cross recipient, James H. Webb. Webb was a highly decorated 

Marine from the Vietnam War era. Thanks to Dr. Allison and the willingness of the senator to do these 

interviews, we were able to capture valuable lessons 

learned for our junior officers and will keep his recollections on file for generations to come. Dr. Allison 

is also a gifted writer of history and has established 

a reputation as the Corps’ expert on aviation history. 

One of the most consistently successful branches 

of the division is the Historical Reference Branch. 

Now led by Annette Amerman, the Historical Reference Branch not only answers thousands of requests 

for information, but they are the go-to source for historical accuracy on all things related to the history 

of the Corps. During my tenure as director, the Historical Reference Branch—which manages more than 

190,000 historical working files on notable Marine 

Corps personalities, battles, posts, and geographic 

locations—has initiated an effort to digitize the most 

important components of our collection. Moreover, 

the Historical Reference Branch has digitized nearly 

all of the History Division publications produced 

since its inception in 1919. All of these books are now 

available for download by scholars around the world. 

They also have digitized the casualty lists for WWI, 

and the actual casualty cards for Marines killed or 

wounded in action in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. 

All of the biographical files on significant Marines 

have been digitized as well. Finally, Amerman and 

her staff are the first people most senior leadership 

in the Marine Corps go to for historical information. The Historical Reference Branch is one of the 

most valued resources in the entire Marine Corps.

The Archives Branch is led by Dr. James Ginther. 

Archives has accepted a number of notable document 

collections provided by significant Marines over the 

years. One recent acquisition was provided by Mrs. 

Janet Wilson Taylor, the daughter of Commandant 

General Louis H. Wilson. This collection of exceptional material will go far in filling in what we know 

about the difficult post–Vietnam War era of Marine 

Corps history. Another outstanding set of material 

was recently donated by Lieutenant General Bernard 

E. Trainor (Ret). General Trainor was a prolific author 

and scholar, and the materials covering his time as a 

Marine in war and peace are simply extraordinary. 

The Archives Branch receives similar materials from 

retired Marines and senior officials on a regular basis. 

Thanks to the archives staff, we will have this material 

available for researchers in perpetuity. 

The GRC and the Marine Corps University Library continue to draw top honors from the faculty, 

staff, and students of Marine Corps University. Ably 
WINTER 2017 5

led by Ms. Faith Kanno, the GRC’s reference librarians, database management, and book collections 

provide outstanding service and support to the university’s academic efforts every year. The GRC also is 

the location of choice for senior leadership conferences and seminars. 

As with previous issues, this edition of Marine 

Corps History contains a number of excellent scholarly 

pieces on the history of the Corps and a focus on the 

actions of History Division and the schoolhouses, but 

it also includes some outstanding book reviews. Since 

its inception a few years ago, replacing the venerable 

Fortitudine newsletter, our intention was to raise the 

academic standards for this historical publication so 

that it was competitive with what was being produced 

by the Army and the Navy. Not only do I believe that 

we have achieved parity with these organizations in 

just two years, but the publication is well on its way to 

becoming a truly noteworthy peer-reviewed journal of 

the highest quality. 

As I finish my last few days as director, I am very 

happy to report on what we accomplished during my 

tenure. The division’s success is owed to those dedicated public servants who called the History Division 

home since moving to Quantico in 2005. With little 

to no increased support in funding or staffing, the 

division’s facility, productivity, and professionalism 

has been truly a sight to behold. Much of the division’s administrative burden falls upon the shoulders 

of the deputy director, Mr. Paul Weber. Reliable and 

dedicated to duty, he has been my go-to person for 

actions that impact every facet of the division, from 

hiring to finances. Weber will serve as acting director 

as my tenure ends and into the spring, when Brigadier General William J. Bowers selects a new director. 

Rest assured, the division remains in good hands. 

Special thanks, as always, goes to the Marine Corps 

Heritage Foundation and Lieutenant General Robert 

R. Blackman Jr. (Ret) for his long-standing support of 

historical research and scholarship of all things related 

to the Marine Corps. General Blackman’s leadership 

at the foundation, along with that of his predecessor, 

Lieutenant General Ron Christmas, and his love of 

the history of our Corps has substantially aided the 

division’s efforts these past 11 years. My final wish for 

the division is to see it continue to build upon what we 

have started here at Quantico. I have been honored to 

be the temporary “keeper of the flame” for the history 

of our beloved Corps. Fair winds and following seas 

to all. 

Semper Fidelis, 

Dr. C. P. Neimeyer

Director

USMC History Division/Gray Research Center 

• 1775 •
6

FROM THE

With the departure of History Division’s 

director, and as the division approaches 

its centennial, it seems natural to look to 

our past to see what the future may bring. As early 

as September 1919, the Marine Corps recognized the 

need for a historical program to record and protect 

the history of the Service. Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels directed both the Navy and Marine 

Corps to document the experience from the conflict 

taking place in Europe. As a result, on 8 September 

1919, the Historical Section, Adjutant and Inspector’s 

Department, Headquarters Marine Corps, was created by Major General Commandant George Barnett. 

Marine Corps Order (MCO) 53 states that the newly created Historical Section would be required to set up 

and maintain an archives section to serve as a repository for historical documents; to prepare an official 

history of the Corps during the First World War; to 

revise and update the Corps’ history of record; and to 

collaborate with current enlisted and officers to record the Service’s history and events of interest. This 

guidance would bring to fruition one of the first official histories written by the division, supporting the 

defining moment of the Marine Corps’ participation 

in the First World War.1

While today’s MCO 5750.1H, Manual for the 

Marine Corps Historical Program has been expanded 

significantly to cover the full scope of the History 

Division’s mission, the basic guiding principles remain consistent: to preserve, to promote, and to pub1

 Maj Edwin N. McClellan, The United States Marine Corps in the 

World War (Washington, DC: Historical Branch, G-3 Division, 

Headquarters Marine Corps, 1920).

lish the history of the Corps. Or, more specifically, 

to provide knowledge of the Marine Corps’ 

past to ensure an understanding of its present and future for the Marine Corps and 

the American people by making its hardearned experience and official history available for practical study and use; preserving 

a written, spoken, and visual record of its 

activities and traditions by collecting papers, articles, images, and interviews of lasting historical interest; and assisting in the 

Marine Corps’ use of military history to aid 

in professional military education, training, 

and to provide background and precedents 

for decision making.2

In the broader scheme, military history is the 

study of armed forces and the conduct of war. For 

our purposes, military history encompasses both the 

descriptive and interpretive account of Marine Corps 

participation in war and peacetime events with a concerted effort toward objectivity and accuracy. How 

then do we as a division achieve that goal in the face 

of a society focused on social media, immediacy, and 

the distraction caused by calls of “fake news” and “alternative facts?”

There are those who believe that the current political situation in the nation’s capital validates the 

work of historians, who are increasingly called upon 

to make sense of altered and vague perspectives. It 

2 MCO 5750.1H, Manual for the Marine Corps Historical Program

(Washington, DC: Headquarters Marine Corps, 13 February 

2009).

EDITORS
WINTER 2017 7

then seems critical that, as professional and scholarly 

historians, we do not simply draw analogies between 

current events and those of the past; our mission must 

be one in which the lessons learned from our history as a Service becomes the basis of our professional 

military education so that our leaders have the information required for competent decision making, free 

from personal bias.

To accomplish that goal, History Division must 

continue to:

• research and publish fact-based, unbiased, 

skillfully written official histories of Marine Corps events;

• be the source for accurate and official information relative to the history of the Corps;

• professionally preserve historically significant documents and images documenting 

the history of the Corps; and

• preserve the spoken word of key Marine 

leaders, including those who have risen to 

high enlisted rank, general officer, or demonstrated gallant leadership in battle.

These goals are no different than the original 

mission of the organization. However, in an era of instant information, the division must remain vigilant 

against producing materials or products that will not 

stand the test of time for the sake of immediate gratification. This does not mean that the division should 

not embrace various trends in the field of military 

history, such as documentary, biographical, or social 

histories, as well. 

The division must be at the forefront of every 

Marine’s mind when thinking of the Corps’ history. 

To do so, the division must provide relevant and 

timely materials and products to the entire Marine 

Corps via the internet, personal lectures or speaking 

engagements, and publications. The division must go 

to where the Marines are located and provide them 

with presentations on topics of Marine Corps history 

and inform them of the division’s roles and responsibilities. As the old adage goes, “If the mountain will 

not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go 

to the mountain.” 

The division also must remain firmly rooted in 

the sound scholarly arena of history by publishing 

articles and works through peer-reviewed academic 

journals as well as attending and participating in 

scholarly conferences around the globe. Attendance at 

conferences should not be limited to sitting through 

presentations; it includes discussions on the history of 

the Corps, but also active promotion of the division’s 

resources that allow researchers to hone their knowledge of the Corps.

We invite you to join the division on this journey, 

not just as a reader of Marine Corps History but also as 

a scholar and historian who actively participates in 

our history by submitting an article, writing a book 

review, or serving on our editorial board. Learn more 

on the History Division website at https://usmcu.edu

/historydivision or on Facebook at Marine Corps History Division.

• 1775 •
The Convolution of History

THE ARGUMENT FOR THE PACIFIC

by Cord A. Scott, PhD1

“Classes will be conducted not at the school 

blackboard, but right in the family parlor.” 

~Henry Salomon, screenwriter2

Movies, like their television counterparts, 

serve not only to educate but also to inform 

the populace of the historical events of the 

past. As was noted in Robert A. Rosenstone’s book 

History on Film, Film on History, historically based films 

can serve as a way to preserve the past; however, if the 

images and story are compelling enough, the history 

takes on its own life.3 Often, events can be more “real” 

in a visual form than a history book can portray. Cable 

television company Home Box Office (HBO) delved 

into this field early on and has created several miniseries that attempt to honor the actions of World War 

II combatants from specific units. What started with 

the miniseries Band of Brothers, about Easy Company of 

the U.S. Army’s 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 

1

 Cord Scott holds a PhD in American history from Loyola University, Chicago. He has taught on a variety of aspects concerning American culture. He is currently a history instructor for 

University of Maryland, University College-Asia in the greater 

Tokyo area. His previous assignments for UMUC have been on 

Okinawa and in South Korea.

2

 A reporter concludes that this is how a teacher of history would 

teach a student body, based on Salomon’s comments on his series 

Victory at Sea, which served as a model for the later television 

miniseries The Pacific. Gary R. Edgerton and Peter C. Rollins, 

eds., Television Histories: Shaping Collective Memory in the Media Age

(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001), 107.

3

 Robert A. Rosenstone, History on Film, Film on History (London: 

Longman, 2006).

101st Airborne Division, was continued with the series 

that told of the struggles endured by the U.S. Marines 

of the 1st Division in the Pacific theatre, entitled The 

Pacific.

4

 The stories of the men in the miniseries were 

woven through the history of fighting in the Pacific 

theatre from Guadalcanal to Okinawa and finally acclimatization into the civilian world.

This second series was an attempt from executive producers Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks not 

merely to show the conflict that has been a part of 

many other programs, but also to break the myth of 

the war in terms often depicted in such films as Sands 

of Iwo Jima (1949).5 The Pacific showed the violence 

and anguish that the Marines faced while on islands 

no one had ever heard of, fighting not only a fanatical enemy but the very terrain and elements as well. 

While the series attempted to break the stereotypes 

of an honorable and sterile war—especially in an era 

of drone strikes, urban enemy combatants, and two of 

the longest wars in American history where few understood the goals to be achieved—The Pacific resonated with some viewers as a way to describe the parallels 

to combat in the twenty-first century. 

One of the biggest issues with this depiction is 

4 Band of Brothers, produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, 

various directors (New York: HBO, Time Warner, 2001), cable 

miniseries; and The Pacific, produced by Steven Spielberg, Tom 

Hanks, and Gary Goetzman (New York: HBO, Time Warner, 

2010), cable miniseries.

5 Sands of Iwo Jima, produced by Edmund Grainger, directed by 

Allan Dwan, starring John Wayne (Los Angeles: Republic Pictures, 1949), feature film, 100 minutes.

8
WINTER 2017 9

how the public has come to form its popular image of 

the Marines, the conditions in which they fought, and 

the fighting itself during World War II. While many 

historians note that visual media, such as television 

shows or movies, can never truly capture the brutal 

realities of combat, the consensus is that some movies 

have clearly come closer than others in terms of the 

historical accuracy of equipment, tactics, and events. 

This concept is not without controversy however. This 

article addresses the public perceptions versus the documented conditions portrayed in the HBO miniseries 

The Pacific, particularly regarding how the academic 

community tries to rectify the public’s conception of 

the Marine Corps’ heroic persona in WWII against 

the historical record. For some viewers, and possibly 

the military Services as well, perception has often taken a form that cannot be reconciled with the record. 

Timeframe of The Pacific

When The Pacific series was in development, the United States was in the middle of both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. At the time of production, the “surge” 

was ebbing in Iraq, and II Marine Expeditionary Force 

(II MEF) was in Iraq, while 2d Marine Expeditionary Brigade was in Afghanistan. As if holding a mirror to the American conscience, the television series 

was meant to show the sacrifices of U.S. servicemen 

in the Pacific as well as give people a better sense of 

the overall brutality of the Second World War, specifically, and of war, in general. The series also made it 

easy to draw comparisons between events depicted by 

the cast and those being reported on during the time 

the series aired; for example, many Americans saw the 

Taliban or the Iraqi combatants carrying out acts of 

terror against U.S. servicemembers and civilians.

The budget and production values for The Pacific

were substantial by Hollywood standards. The production companies included DreamWorks SKG Television (Spielberg’s company), Playtone (Hanks and 

Goetzman’s company), and HBO. The estimated cost 

of the miniseries came in at $120 million, which rivals 

any mainstream movie currently produced.6

 As with 

Band of Brothers, several directors were tasked with 

specific episodes. The directors for The Pacific included 

a mix of American and Canadian perspectives: Tim 

Van Patten, David Nutter, Jeremy Podeswa, Graham 

Yost, Carl Franklin, and Tony To.7

Unlike the original book written by Stephen E. 

Ambrose for the miniseries Band of Brothers, The Pacific miniseries was based on several sources as well 

as the companion book, The Pacific: Hell Was an Ocean 

Away, by Hugh Ambrose.8 These books were quite divergent in their attitudes toward the war. Marine Private Robert Leckie’s Helmet for My Pillow covered the 

early part of the war; Private Eugene B. Sledge’s memoir, With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa, covered 

the later part of the fighting between 1944 and 1945; 

and Private First Class Charles W. “Chuck” Tatum’s

Red Blood, Black Sand focused on the fighting of the 

6

 Alex Ben Block, “How HBO Spent $200 Million on ‘The Pacific’,” Hollywood Reporter, 26 August 2010. 7 The Pacific; Van Patten directed episodes 3, 8, and 10; Nutter 

directed episodes 2 and 8; Podeswa directed episodes 3, 8, and 

10; Yost directed episode 4; Franklin directed episode 5; and To 

directed episode 6.

8

 Stephen E. Ambrose, Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest (New 

York: Simon & Schuster, 1992).

Adapted by History Division

U.S. Marine Corps activities in the Pacific.
10 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

Marines on Iwo Jima where John Basilone was killed.9

Another manuscript that became linked to the series 

was Sidney Phillip’s memoirs, You’ll Be Sor-ree!: A Guadalcanal Marine Remembers the Pacific War. Phillips was 

recognized as the connecting character that linked the 

main characters in the television miniseries during the 

three years the show encompasses.10 To coincide with 

the miniseries, Sergeant Romus V. Burgin, who was 

featured in the later episodes of the series, published 

his memoirs, Islands of the Damned, to build further 

off of first-person accounts of the battles on Peleliu 

and Okinawa. Burgin served as the squad leader for 

Sledge’s mortar team.11

The companion piece—The Pacific—was written 

by Hugh Ambrose, Stephen’s son. While the last book 

was meant to be an additional work to supplement 

the television show, it was often compared to, and 

misinterpreted as, the book upon which the series 

was based.12 As opposed to the companion book, the 

former titles by Marines were all memoirs of combat 

rather than a strategic overview of the Pacific theatre 

of war. While showing the reality of combat on the 

Marines, the series also looked at the racism prevalent 

at the time of the war and how demonizing the enemy 

was commonplace. 

Given that the series was produced by HBO, the 

producers were able to budget effects and writers to 

make a high-budget series in a short, primetime format, and given the fact that HBO relies on subscriptions, increasing interest in the series meant they had 

to craft a final product that would retain audiences. To 

attain even more interest for residuals, the producers 

relied on what Jonathan Grey referred to as overflow; 

or in this case, the additional materials such as maps, 

9

 Robert Leckie, Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the 

Pacific (New York: Bantam, 1957); E. B. Sledge, With the Old Breed 

at Peleliu and Okinawa (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1981); and 

Chuck Tatum, Red Blood, Black Sand: Fighting Alongside John Basilone from Boot Camp to Iwo Jima (New York: Berkley, 2012). 10 Sid Phillips, You’ll Be Sor-ree!: A Guadalcanal Marine Remembers 

the Pacific War (New York: Berkley, 2010), ii. 11 R. V. Burgin with Bill Marvel, Islands of the Damned: A Marine at 

War in the Pacific (New York: NAL Caliber, 2010). 12 Hugh Ambrose, The Pacific: Hell Was an Ocean Away (New York: 

NAL Caliber, 2010).

statistics, personal stories, and stock footage needed 

to keep viewers interested in the story. However, excess information, be it in books or other media, can 

be vexing to story continuity, as well as viewer comprehension. This confusion seemed to occur at least 

occasionally for viewers of the show.13 The creation of 

the series also renewed criticisms that Hollywood dramatizes the actions of the stereotypical hero—white, 

middle class, male—while ignoring the actions of anyone not of that type.14 The Marines did experience 

breakdowns, suffer debilitating maladies, and broke 

the Hollywood ideal of the soldier, appearing more 

like combatants with a lack of basic supplies.15

The series also was criticized for the brutal acts 

of desecration to enemy troops by Marines. While 

viewers see this as shocking and un-American, saying 

as much on various comment boards on HBO, the reality was noted in several sources, particularly Sledge’s 

memoir. Racism permeated many aspects of the war 

in the Pacific, as John W. Dower noted in War without 

13 Jonathan Gray, Television Entertainment (New York: Routledge, 

2008), 89–92.

14 Larry May, “Making the American Consensus: The Narrative of 

Conversion and Subversion in World War II Films,” in The War 

in American Culture: Society and Consciousness during World War II, 

ed. Lewis A. Erenberg and Susan E. Hirsch (Chicago: University 

of Chicago Press, 1996), 76.

15 Susan Jeffords, Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan 

Era (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1994), 176. 

Official U.S. Marine Corps photos

Pvt Eugene B. Sledge (left) and Pvt Robert Leckie (right) wrote of their 

time in the Marine Corps, contributing to the public perception of 

the war.
WINTER 2017 11

Mercy, and the producers reiterated this aspect of the 

conflict in the extra features found on disc 6 of the 

box set.16 This aspect of warfare made the series difficult for some Americans to watch, while others considered it an appropriate homage to those who fought. 

American Attitudes 

toward the Pacific War

One of the most significant aspects of memory and 

remembrance of World War II is the difference between the two main theaters of war. While the Nazi 

menace was considered more dangerous and was given 

top priority by the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, the war with the Japanese Empire was far more 

brutal; its brutality could not always be understood 

by Americans who had not served in the military, let 

alone in combat. Race, among other factors, played a 

significant role in that confusion. The Germans had 

an appearance that made them “like us,” or at least 

like white Americans. Some Americans came from a 

generation or two removed from Germany, so there 

was a connection to the old country. While the Nazis 

might be despicable, the Germans conducted warfare 

with a semblance of rules as they fought the Western 

Allies, while conducting a brutal war without limits 

against the Soviets.17

The Japanese, however, were depicted by the 

U.S. government and the popular American media as 

barbarians from the outset of the war.18 During the 

1937 Nanjing Massacre, the Japanese Imperial Army 

brutalized the population of Nanjing, China, and behaved brutally toward anyone who did not fight in 

the ways of a warrior, or Bushido, believing them not 

worthy of honorable treatment. The Allied troops 

who surrendered to the Japanese during the war were 

not offered any honor. Because the war in the Pacific 

was so markedly different from that of Europe, viewers who watched The Pacific were shocked to see U.S. 

Marines committing acts of violence that might now 

16 The Pacific, disc 6, “Anatomy of the Pacific War,” 2011. 17 John Keegan, The Second World War (New York: Viking Penguin, 

1990), 175.

18 John W. Dower, War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific 

War (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986), 8.

be seen as ghoulish or uncivilized, such as taking gold 

teeth from dead Japanese soldiers or the use of skulls 

to decorate American camps.19 Taking war souvenirs, 

and to a lesser extent the desecration of bodies, occurred on both sides during the war, as was mentioned 

in books from the fighting in the Pacific during World 

War II. 

This behavior was not easily accepted by the average American viewer, who looked—and still looks—

upon American servicemen as always doing the right 

thing. WWII veterans seem to be held to a higher standard than current troops by many in the media or in 

society, as they are part of the “good war” as described 

by author Studs Terkel, in which the enemies of Amer19 See, for example, the Japanese skull and the sign reminding 

U.S. Marines to take their Atribine to counter malaria in the 

series, which was based on actual pictures. Another showed an 

image of a Japanese skull as decoration. Ben Cosgrove, “Portrait 

from the Brutal Pacific: ‘Skull on a Tank,’ Guadalcanal, 1942,” 

Time, 19 February 2014; and Kaite Serena, “Skulls, Ears, Noses, 

and Other Morbid ‘Trophies’ Americans Took from Dead Japanese in WWII,” All that Is Interesting (blog), 13 November 2017.

National Archives 

Frontline warning sign using a Japanese soldier's skull.
12 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

ica were readily identified.20 Neither of these opinions 

is necessarily right or wrong. However, it must be acknowledged that combat is brutal and atrocities are 

common, but not always presented realistically in film 

or television. Racism occurred throughout the United 

States during the war, and combined with the perceptions about Japanese-Americans interned for their 

perceived loyalties to Japan, attitudes toward the enemy were strong, stereotypical, and often wrong.

Viewers who watched The Pacific expected the 

series to be a counterpart to Band of Brothers, which 

in some ways it was. However, the series had some 

distinct differences. The extremes of jungle fighting 

made attrition common and many Marines left the 

theater of combat after a time, so there was no unit 

cohesion. The 1st Marine Division was the focal point 

of The Pacific, which eliminated a considerable number 

of the battles in the Pacific, such as Tarawa, Saipan, 

Tinian, and New Guinea. More importantly, the series 

did not show the contributions of the U.S. Army, Air 

Corps, Navy, or Coast Guard to any extent. 

Creation of The Pacific Miniseries 

from Historical Documentaries

The origins of The Pacific miniseries go back to two 

specific television series from the 1950s. Crusade in the 

Pacific, a 24-part series, was done in the typical documentary fashion of the era, and covered all U.S. Services in the theater. Using newsreel footage, as well 

as maps, the narrator explains the specific battle or 

timeframe for the episode and how it influenced 

the overall war. Crusade in the Pacific focuses on strategic issues: troop movement, battle plans, fighting 

conditions, and the strategic outcome of the battle. 

The use of the maps in this original series influenced 

and inspired the producers of The Pacific, even to the 

point of using an Imperial Japanese battle flag to illustrate the areas of control. The other direct aspect 

was the diagram that showed the tunnel system on 

Peleliu from the episode titled “Palau,” and how that 

was used by the producers of The Pacific to guide a di20 Studs Terkel, “The Good War”: An Oral History of World War Two

(New York: Pantheon Books, 1984).

rect scene-by-scene shot in the historical section for 

episode 6 on the Peleliu hills titled “Peleliu Airfield.”21

The other influence for the series came from 

Victory at Sea, a 26-part documentary series meant to 

show how extensively the U.S. armed forces worked to 

confront enemies during World War II and how that 

collaboration allowed the Allied forces to defeat the 

Axis nations. However, Victory at Sea was produced 

more like propaganda, similar to Frank Capra’s Why 

We Fight. Its top-down history did not deal with the 

memories of the average foot soldier or the minutiae 

of the battles.22

Even more telling was that the viewers expected 

The Pacific miniseries to be historically accurate, more 

akin to a documentary than an entertainment or information-based video series. The factual basis was 

important, but many viewers expected the stories to 

follow history exactly, which they did not for a variety of reasons. For example, in episode 9, “Okinawa,” 

the action begins in May 1945, when the 1st Marine 

Division had already cleared the northern part of the 

island, but with minimal contact with the enemy as 

opposed to the vicious fighting farther south. The episode opens with the division shifting to the south to 

replace the U.S. Army units who were being taken offline, and the 1st Marine Division being put into evermore-brutal fighting near the Shuri line.23 At times 

in the episode, it seems clear that certain events were 

merged to create a better flow for the story line, and 

several actions were attributed to the different characters in the show. The most apparent issue in regard 

to compressing time came in the last episode, “Home,” 

when Private Sledge has seemingly gone from Okina21 Crusade in the Pacific, episode 7, “Guadalcanal: America’s First 

Offensive”; episode 17, “Palau: The Fight for Bloody Nose Ridge”; 

and episode 25, “At Japan’s Doorstep: Okinawa,” directed by Arthur B. Tourtellot, written by Fred Feldkamp (New York: Time, 

1951). See also the historical notes to The Pacific, episode 6, “Peleliu Airfield.”

22 Victory at Sea, directed by M. Clay Adams (New York: NBC, 

1952–53); and Why We Fight: A Prelude to War, directed by Frank 

Capra (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of War, 1942). 

23 The Shuri line was the main line of Japanese resistance running from coast to coast across Okinawa and roughly in line with 

Shuri castle.
WINTER 2017 13

wa to the United States. In fact, he and his unit were 

sent to China for a year. This pertinent fact was overlooked for the miniseries. 

The last disc of the series offers additional historical background and insight into what the directors 

and producers were trying to achieve. Director Tim 

Van Patten notes that they did a significant amount 

of historical research to find the proper look for the 

actors and the shots of the battles. The directors were 

quite aware that there would be some historical comparisons taking place, especially by those who were 

there. As with any television series, even documentaries, viewers will constantly critique what is included, excluded, and how it is edited. No matter what 

is presented, there will still be some human predilection toward events and historical presentation, be it 

their own biases, previous understanding of material, or personal recollections from friends or family.24

The Pacific: The Series, the “Fixes,” and Its Reception

At the time of the release of the miniseries, Hugh 

Ambrose published the official companion piece, The 

Pacific. Ambrose wrote in the introduction that this 

book had been initially meant as a joint project between him and his father, historian Stephen Ambrose, 

who died in 2002. Later, the book was continued, but 

the pressure to finish the project, its massive scope, 

and the deadlines for additional marketing made any 

mistakes that much more noticeable. Ambrose made 

two key points in the book: first, it was not meant 

to be a complete overview, since there were so many 

stories that could not be told in the book; second, it 

was not meant to serve as a follow-along book, such as 

Band of Brothers or Generation Kill, another HBO combat miniseries based on the experiences of Marines 

24 The author served as a historical consultant for Inside World 

War II, produced by Jonathan Towers, aired 12 August 2012, National Geographic. One of the complaints made by viewers was 

that the colors were wrong for the Nazi aircraft, and that the 

series did not delve deep enough into the events. The producers 

explained to the author during review that the series was intended for younger audiences that may not be aware of the human 

element of the war, and that it was a starting point for further 

discussion.

during the first 40 days of the war in Iraq.25 While 

both series followed their respective books well, The 

Pacific book was meant to tell augmented stories to tie 

it all together. The book focused on some of the characters from the series—Sid Phillips represents the key 

link, and his You’ll Be Sor-ree! had not yet been widely 

distributed—but primarily focused on two officers: 

Navy pilot Captain Vernon L. Micheel and Marine 

Lieutenant Austin C. Shofner. 

The speculation from many viewers was that, if 

the officers had been more significantly noted in the 

series, the show might have had greater impact with 

them. Understandably, the story of Shofner was compelling: stationed in the Philippines at the start of the 

war, a prisoner of war for a year, and then a guerrilla 

fighter for six months more. Shofner was in charge 

of 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, in which Eugene Sledge 

fought during Peleliu. Shofner then went back to the 

Philippines, and later on to Okinawa. Shofner’s combat record might have complemented the series well. 

The concept of the series, however, was to focus the 

story lines on the fighting man instead of the operational history that is more common in military histories.

In all, the book remains a considerable attempt 

to concentrate the myriad stories into one cohesive 

format, as well as fill in what seemed to be gaps left by 

the miniseries. This idea of telling individual stories 

rather than the big picture of the overall timeline of 

the war, or of the generals and admirals who make the 

strategic decisions, has become more prominent in recent years. Unlike Victory at Sea, the voices of the individual Marine, soldier, and sailor were heard in The 

Pacific, but in a more condensed role. Ambrose’s book 

left a considerable void to fill. Many felt that Hugh 

Ambrose was not the historian or storyteller that his 

father was, while others believed the book was done 

25 Generation Kill, directed by Susanna White and Simon Cellan 

Jones (New York: HBO, 2008). The series covers the activities 

of a Rolling Stone reporter who is embedded with 1st Reconnaissance Marines during the first wave of the American-led assault 

on Baghdad in 2003. It is based on the book by Evan Wright, 

Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New 

Face of American War (New York: Penguin, 2005).
14 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

slapdash and edited poorly, such as the mislabeling of 

the Battle of Midway, which led to problems of credibility. However, the book, when taken in context of 

the series, did what it was supposed to do: tie in the 

stories presented in the miniseries to those of both 

Navy and Marine Corps officers who saw a different 

part of the war, and leave the strategic role to other 

more academic tomes. 

The show’s predecessor, Band of Brothers, was 

similarly refuted by some historians who felt that the 

senior Ambrose had been sloppy in his work. Some of 

the characters in that series who died were later noted 

as alive (e.g., Army Private Albert Blithe). Again, the 

line between documentary versus historical drama 

was blurred.26 In this age of instant access and sweeping television offerings, the two concepts are often 

fuzzy and occasionally to the detriment of both the 

producer and the viewer.

Sex, Violence, and 

Audience Reception

Complaints about the series were often vented on 

HBO message boards as well as other sites. The mixed 

reactions stem from several issues. First, The Pacific

was compiled from three different memoirs, as noted 

earlier. Second, the series was told from the point of 

view of a larger body of Marine combatants. For Band 

of Brothers, the series focused on a company of paratroopers from the 101st Airborne of approximately 

230 soldiers, depending on units, and their replacements. The viewer watched how they trained, fought, 

and depended on each other throughout the war in 

Europe. Again, this was an entirely different aspect 

of the perception of the theaters of war. For the European theater, men were kept in the same unit for the 

duration unless wounded. Americans at home following the war in the newspapers could easily find locations in Europe noted in the articles. 

For The Pacific, as with the actual campaign of 

WWII, the islands were often unknown, hard to lo26 In this regard, a documentary is as factual as possible, while the 

historical drama, though based on the facts of the event, often 

includes fictionalized characters or merged events. This is done 

more for the purpose of storytelling rather than accuracy.

cate on maps, and the maps did not show the terrain 

and weather conditions American combatants fought 

against. The Pacific series dealt with enlisted men—not 

readily identified officers such as Band of Brothers’ Major Richard Winters, Captain Lewis Nixon, or Captain 

Ronald Spears—from the 1st Marine Division, which 

had a nominal strength of 16,000 Marines. Because the 

three main characters in The Pacific came from different regiments (4,000 servicemen in average regiment), 

there is far less continuity. Considering the physically 

and geographically diverse areas, intense battles, and 

lack of unit cohesion, the writers worked admirably 

to find commonalities; and the writers and producers 

did try to give an overview as well as an intimate look 

at small unit warfare in the Pacific theater. The link 

must be then-Private Sidney Phillips from Company 

H, 2d Battalion, 1st Marines, who served with Private 

Robert Leckie at Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester 

and was friends with Private Eugene Sledge from 

Company K, 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, who fought 

later in the same division but at Peleliu and Okinawa.

Complaints on the message boards came from 

different perspectives as well. In addition to the 

criticisms about not understanding characters, other 

viewers complained about the pacing, expecting the 

constant action found in Band of Brothers, or the difficulty of watching the night battle sequences. Given the 

terrain and conditions, it would have been less likely 

to see a lot of “typical war movie” battle sequences in 

urban or farm areas, where the enemy could be easily 

seen (or filmed for that matter) and engaged.

A more specific complaint generated by the 

series involved gratuitous sex, and to a lesser extent, gratuitously brutal violence. If one reads any 

Marine memoir, the desire for sex when not in 

combat is noted extensively. Leckie made considerable mention of this in his biography Helmet for 

My Pillow, when the Marines were in Australia, as 

did Phillips in his memoirs. The idea of Americans 

being squeamish about sex, while violence is perfectly acceptable, has also been discussed at length 
WINTER 2017 15

in psychology books as a variation of sublimation.27

The Marines considered the issue of sex to be 

of such significance that a segment on the necessity 

of condom usage was part of a restricted comic book 

published by the Marines Corps entitled Tokyo Straight 

Ahead. The desire for sex, especially young men who 

were virile and in harm’s way, drove many.28 The idea 

that a revered generation would consider thoughts attributed to a more modern generation is sometimes 

difficult for viewers to accept. 

The series was derided for these depictions of sex, 

especially in episodes “Melbourne” and “Basilone.”29

The reality of the time was that Western women were 

not accessible to troops in the Pacific theater. There 

was the possibility of fraternization with local women 

in Europe, but any female U.S. personnel stationed 

in Europe during the war were under constant guard 

against the threat of sexual assault from male personnel. Historian Peter Schrijvers described the conditions on one particular island, where the women’s 

quarters were surrounded by concertina wire; and 

further, even when out on dates, their male escorts 

carried a sidearm.30 In the series, Gene Sledge made 

two comments on women in this regard: they did not 

need to be nor should they be in a combat zone. Note 

that one of these comments ostensibly occurred after 

alighting from a ship back to Pavuvu, Solomon Islands, 

in October 1944, and the other occurred when he was 

chatting with his brother about the lack of women 

and sex in the Pacific in which he concurred with 

27 Leckie, Helmet for My Pillow, 116; Phillips, You’ll Be Sor-ree!, 120; 

and Steven Mintz, Randy W. Roberts, and David Welky, eds., 

Hollywood’s America: Understanding History through Film (Oxford: 

Wiley, 2016), 83. 

28 “Don’t Take a Fling, if You Ain’t Got that Thing,” in Tokyo 

Straight Ahead: Guam, Peleliu, Saipan, Tarawa, and Guadalcanal 

(Camp Pendleton, CA: Reproduction Section, Camp Pendleton, 

1945). 

29 The Pacific, episode 3, “Melbourne,” directed by Jeremy Podeswa, 

aired 28 March 2010, HBO; and The Pacific, episode 2, “Basilone,” 

directed by David Nutter, aired 21 March 2010, HBO.

30 Peter Schrijvers, GI War against Japan: American Soldiers in Asia 

and the Pacific during World War II (New York: New York University Press, 2002), 150.

the U.S. Army on their synopsis of the Pacific War.31

The concept of sex and romance is further clouded when one considers the idea of sex and military personnel. In Band of Brothers, a sex scene was included, 

but it was not necessary for character development. In 

The Pacific, the sex was part of a wider pattern showing emotional connection, both with the characters 

and their fears and desires as citizen soldiers, as well 

as combatants who wished to feel some sort of emotional connection to something other than killing and 

violence. While the inclusion made the episodes seem 

slow, the need for sex has been duly noted in several 

of the primary sources. For example, Leckie became 

more interested in what he referred to as “the chase” 

for willing female partners, rather than romance as 

was depicted in the series.32

Concerns about the desecration of enemy bodies 

and the shooting of civilians also came across in the 

message boards. Viewers were disturbed by a scene 

in which a Marine idly dropped rocks into the skull 

pan of a Japanese soldier, while another noted that it 

was gratuitous and unrealistic for Marines to pry out 

gold teeth from Japanese soldiers.33 The events in question were taken directly from Sledge’s book and have 

been noted in several other sources, including Schrijvers, Leckie, Dower, and Stephen Ambrose.34 Even in 

Band of Brothers, a certain amount of souvenir taking 

among American soldiers took place. The idea of a 

31 The Pacific, episode 10, “Home,” directed by Jeremy Podeswa, 

aired 16 May 2010, HBO; Emily Yellin, Our Mothers’ War: American 

Women at Home and at the Front during World War II (New York: 

Free Press, 2004), 128; and Mattie E. Treadwell, The Women’s Army 

Corps, U.S. Army in World War II, Special Studies (Washington, 

DC: Center of Military History, 1991), 425–26, 450. Note that, in a 

1939 Army staff study addressing the probability of women serving in the Army, a male officer stated: “Women’s probable jobs 

would include those of hostess, librarians, canteen clerks, cooks 

and waitresses, chauffeurs, messengers, and strolling minstrels.” 

The report failed to discuss the highly skilled office jobs that 

most of the women held, because many doubted women were 

capable of handling jobs of any significant responsibility.

32 Leckie, Helmet for my Pillow, 149. 33 The Pacific, episode 7, “Peleliu Airfield.” 34 Schrijvers, GI War against Japan, 209–10; Leckie, Helmet for My 

Pillow, 116–17; Dower, War without Mercy, 61–66; and Ambrose, 

Band of Brothers, 260–61.
16 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

morality in war, from Thermopylae to now, is a myth. 

For today’s servicemembers, the episodes contained elements that seemed familiar to modern combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In one scene 

in the episode during the Okinawa campaign, the 

Japanese use civilians as human shields and draw on 

American compassion. A woman tries to hand off her 

child to a Marine. When her jacket opens, the viewer 

sees she has explosives strapped to her chest, which 

detonates, killing or wounding all around her. The 

Marines later commented on the barbaric nature of 

their enemy to use such horrific tactics.35 This type of 

combat tactic was common in Iraq and Afghanistan, 

where jihadists disguised as civilians walked into U.S. 

lines and detonated explosives. Whether they were 

lured, coerced, or did so voluntarily is a matter of 

opinion, but the results were the same. The scenario of 

civilians and combatants dying on the battlefield took 

viewers away from the Hollywood version of a “clean 

war” and gave people the uncomfortable perspective 

of seeing civilians die as they either were in the way or 

served a purpose against a determined enemy.

Combat, Racism, 

and Time Compression

Viewers of The Pacific also complained that the battles 

were often difficult to follow by the lay audience. During the first two episodes, which dealt with the battle 

on Guadalcanal, viewers were not given proper cues 

to determine what major battle they were watching. 

Some depictions, such as the location of Alligator 

Creek, were noted but not consistent; when combined 

with an incoherent battle sequence or the lack of location, the significance of the battle was often undercut. The book offered the viewers a way to connect 

the events but did not succeed, as the battles were not 

necessarily noted for their significance. 

When one hears of veterans and the treatment 

of enemy soldiers in what might be considered war 

crimes, WWII is not invoked but Vietnam typically 

is. Racism was a powerful force during WWII, and 

35 The Pacific, episode 9, “Okinawa,” directed by Timothy Van Patten, aired 9 May 2010, HBO. 

when combined with the stereotypes of the Japanese 

(and the Japanese stereotypes of Americans), the 

war in the Pacific introduced depictions of the Japanese as having buckteeth, Coke-bottle glasses, and 

a cartoonish demeanor. The series, however, would 

often counter this reality. For example, one episode 

depicts Tatum and members of Company C, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, commenting on their desire 

to “slap a Jap.” Gunny Sergeant Basilone confronts 

them, saying that whatever the men’s opinion based 

on Hollywood or pop culture depictions of Japanese 

soldiers, the real Japanese soldier deserved respect as 

a crafty, battle-tested soldier who was willing to die 

for his emperor. The Marines were told to never underestimate the enemy, nor should they be given a 

break; but it was also not going to be an easy battle 

against a caricature enemy. Tatum notes in his book 

that Basilone, in fact, did not utter this speech, but 

another sergeant did.36

Another criticism made by viewers, as well as 

those who served in support units from World War II, 

is that many units or groups are ignored in the story 

lines or that the cast is not diverse enough. Both issues are important to note, given that the U.S. Armed 

Services were segregated at the time. While there were 

important contributions by servicemen of color, the 

stories most often told are of the units that saw extensive combat; and the majority of those units in the 

segregated U.S. military of World War II were in fact 

white. Spike Lee further argued this point when Flags 

of Our Fathers came out, noting the fact that 900 African Americans fought during the conflict but were 

not depicted in the movie.37 Since the film centered 

on the men who raised the flag, including everyone 

was not realistic, but then neither would the inclusion 

of specific ships, aircraft, or Army units. Hollywood 

still needs to sell the most appealing story, and this is 

why even Spielberg would be hard-pressed to make a 

movie that centered on his father’s service in the military, flying “the Hump” with the China-India-Burma 

36 Tatum, Red Blood, Black Sand, 86–87. 37 Alex Altman, “Were African-Americans at Iwo Jima?,” Time, 9 

June 2008.
WINTER 2017 17

units of the U.S. Air Corps. They did serve a vital part 

of the war, but it was not glamorous. 

This preconceived notion that all who served 

in World War II were combat veterans has also been 

reevaluated. Many Service personnel did not serve in 

combat units, but were instead in some form of support. They did not see combat, but were just as responsible for the war effort by making the machinery 

run, arming and repairing weaponry, and keeping 

combatants fed. These stories, while important, often 

do not excite Hollywood moviemakers, nor do they 

resonate with viewers. So, in this regard, the films still 

convey what both the creators and viewers want—

action. The reality is often different, and the criticisms 

perhaps unwarranted. 

The Concept of PTSD

One of the most mistaken aspects of World War II in 

commemoration is that of post-traumatic stress and 

how it affected the combatants. Movies and documentaries from the World War II era or early Cold War 

often avoided such issues or illustrated them in limited form. Both Band of Brothers and The Pacific took 

the concept of post-traumatic stress and visually demonstrated events that may have contributed to the 

malady. 

In Band of Brothers, there were issues of combat 

stress or some sort of mental break, especially during 

episode 6, “Bastogne,” but on the whole there were far 

more cases of combat fatigue in the Pacific theatre, 

specifically the southwest Pacific where most of the 

Dell Comics publication War Heroes issue no. 6, October–December 1943 

Comic strips at the time featured the story of GySgt John Basilone that also was used in the series The Pacific.
18 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

island fighting took place.38 Whether it was Sergeant 

Basilone’s lamentation for his friend Sergeant Manny 

Rodriguez who was killed or the guilt of not returning to fight, his emotional distress has similarly been 

echoed by current recipients of the Medal of Honor. 

Leckie suffered combat fatigue, which led to his 

hospitalization on Banika, near Pavuvu. In episode 4 

of The Pacific, Leckie notes his breakdown in detail. 

He also mentions in the book and the series a fellow 

Marine who strangled a Japanese soldier with his bare 

hands and later broke down.39 Some viewers commented that Leckie was a coward for his constant disobedience to the chain of command and orders (something 

he readily admitted in the book), but again this was 

part of a wider perception of WWII veterans—that 

they did not suffer from mental issues—more typically 

seen as a Vietnam War malady. Ironically, both wars 

had similar situations and combat conditions, and 

so it is just as likely to have happened. The image of 

the “good war” where enemies are clearly defined and 

goals marked (e.g., the unconditional surrender of an 

enemy) is that such incidents are more of a modern 

creation, and not as simple as first conceived. Despite 

what some may see as modern weakness, other historians such as Lawrence Tritle, have noted that aspects 

of PTSD go back as far as ancient Greece.40

The stress of Marines seeing civilian casualties 

also was explored in episode 9, “Okinawa,” where the 

native Okinawans were used as human shields by the 

Japanese against U.S. movements. Civilian losses often 

made coping even more difficult. Seeing a female Okinawan with a bomb strapped to her must have had 

some sort of impact on veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, where suicide bombers are common.

The impact of nightmares and post-traumatic 

stress was also noted by Sledge. And while the last 

episode dealt with his reacclimatization to the United 

States, the reality was that he did not come back to 

38 Schrijvers, The GI War against Japan, 197. 39 The Pacific, episode 4, “Gloucester/Pavuvu/Banika,” directed by 

Graham Yost, aired 4 April 2010, HBO; and Leckie, Helmet for 

My Pillow, 266. 40 Lawrence A. Tritle, From Melos to My Lai: War and Survival

(London: Routledge, 2000).

the states until almost 1947, after an additional tour in 

China. He still had recurring nightmares of the war, 

which he mentions in the book. One viewer of the series said that he “hated Sledge’s emo character,” as if 

this were an effect created by the actor or the director. 

Again, the events that caused him trauma in the film 

were noted in detail in his book.41

What is also prevalent in the series, as in many 

wartime memoirs, is gallows humor. The need for 

lightheartedness to break the tension was a key part 

of the series. For example, the scene where a Marine 

is chased from a cave after trying to defecate led to 

his near demise. The Japanese soldier is killed, but the 

others make fun of the Marine (who did in fact soil his 

pants) by saying he looked like he had won a sack race.42

Supplemental Information

One of the modern aspects of The Pacific, as compared 

to Victory at Sea or Crusade in the Pacific, is that the 

modern series offers supplemental online information through HBO’s website. One section displays the 

battle map, which offers interactive views of the major battles shown by specific episode. The maps are 

detailed and show specific battles and layouts of units 

during the fight, where certain characters were located during the attacks, as well as animated aspects of 

aerial attacks and ship movements.

The second section, “Interact with History,” allows the viewer to read more about the facts that no 

series, regardless of how extensively done, could ever 

cover. For example, in the first episode, a Marine lieutenant is shown with an M50 Riesling submachine 

gun. Many of these weapons proved to be inadequate 

in the jungle, but the producers made it a point of 

historical accuracy to show these weapons along with 

the M1903 Springfield rifles instead of the M1 Garand 

rifles, which were used by the U.S. Army by that time. 

The Victory at Sea episode on Guadalcanal did not use 

accurate footage of the battle and often Marines are 

shown with the Garand rifles.

41 “A Review of HBO’s ‘The Pacific’,” On Violence (blog), accessed 

1 December 2017. 

42 The Pacific, episode 9, “Okinawa.”
WINTER 2017 19

The final section, “Witness the Conflict,” gives 

access to subscribers to watch the episodes. The interactive features of the website, combined with the 

comment boards, the historical markers and maps, 

and the various stories of tribute to those who fought 

in the Pacific theater made, and continue to make, for 

a collaborative process that allows the series to morph 

and change with time. In testament to the efforts 

made, The Pacific was awarded two Emmys for the 

series, whereas Band of Brothers won seven, and comments on the internet, as well as the sales of the series, 

continue to this day.

Conclusions

While the series The Pacific had its detractors, it did 

garner considerable viewership for HBO, as well as 

greater recognition for the Marines who later wrote of 

the exploits of their units. And as with any series, especially one done primarily for entertainment purposes, 

and one based on memoirs as source material, the flow 

of scenery and historical alteration often made fodder 

for critique. For many viewers, Band of Brothers serves 

as a benchmark for this type of miniseries on several levels. One reason for this is the familiarity of the 

battles and the idea of the “good war”: one in which 

the combatants know what they are fighting for and 

are fighting within the seeming grounds of respect for 

their enemy as fellow humans. For Marine Corps veterans of the Pacific campaigns, the war could not have 

been any more different from that taking place in Europe. In a scene from the last episode, “Home,” Sledge 

discusses his war versus that of his older brother Ed, 

who fought with the U.S. Army in Europe. When it 

was revealed in the film that Eugene Sledge did not 

have the opportunity to fraternize with women or enjoy any of the other aspects of life in the European 

theater, his brother responded with a look of both 

shock and sadness.43 The idea of the war in the Pacific 

not being familiar—geographically, climatologically, 

culturally, or militarily—with any preconceived expectations, or for that matter too many expectations, as 

Eugene had mentioned prior to his first battle, came 

as a surprise.44

For viewers of The Pacific, the disappointment of 

expectations was varied, understandable to an extent, 

but their complaints were not entirely accurate. Commenters on the board noted that one should watch the 

series a couple of times; and it becomes much stronger 

when the books, the supplemental information, and 

the series all coincide. At the same time, whenever 

HBO or some other large production company authorizes a series to visually tell the story of a unit from 

World War II, the other Services want their due, be 

they the Navy, the Seabees, or the Army paratroopers 

in the Philippines.

Preservation of history is critical, and documentaries and even historical dramas serve a role, but it 

must be augmented by other sources to take in the 

events so that one can determine what is real and 

what appears contrived by Hollywood. The combat 

memoirs from Leckie, Sledge, Phillips, and Tatum 

serve that purpose and were transferred, at least superficially, to the visual medium. However, in today’s 

instant world, we focus more on the here and now and 

what fits in our collective ideas of what history should 

be. Anything else is a disappointment. 

• 1775 •

43 E. B. Sledge, China Marine (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama 

Press, 2002), 124–29.

44 Sledge, With the Old Breed, 55–59.
“How Lucky I Am”

THE WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHY 

OF CORPORAL WILLIAM T. PERKINS JR.

by Frank Blazich Jr., PhD1

Politics aside, the Vietnam War differed from 

other American conflicts through the juxtaposition and immediacy of television and communication satellites. As young men fought and died 

half a world away, U.S. civilians could experience 

scenes of this conflict within hours from the serenity 

of their living rooms. Through the eye of the combat 

photographer, the ugly visage of battle could be tempered with the beauty of nature, cultural exchange, 

and innocence of youth. Sharing many of the same 

hardships as the fighters, the combat photographer’s 

battle is to understand the situation and their subject 

matter, all to better capture in still or moving images 

a moment of clarity, compassion, valor, or humanity. 

One young American in uniform, Corporal William T. Perkins Jr., represented a typical 20-year-old 

Marine in Vietnam. However, whereas most carried 

a rifle into battle, Perkins deployed to Vietnam as a 

combat photographer armed with a Bell and Howell 

16mm Filmo motion picture camera and his personal 

35mm camera to record his fellow Marines’ efforts 

to support and defend the South Vietnamese people 

against the Communist Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces. His photography, though, is perhaps 

less notable compared with Perkins’s heroic actions, 

which made him a posthumous recipient of the Medal 

1

 Frank A. Blazich Jr. is currently a curator of modern military 

history in the Division of Armed Forces History at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. He earned a doctorate in modern American history from the Ohio State University 

in 2013 and worked for Naval History and Heritage Command 

prior to joining the Smithsonian. 

of Honor; he is the only combat photographer ever so 

honored. Even less well known is the man himself, and 

the transformation he made from a spirited Southern 

California youth into a committed photographer and 

loyal Marine. Through his letters and personal photographs from the war, this article gives voice to a young 

Official U.S. Marine Corps photo

Official portrait of Cpl William T. Perkins Jr., ca. 1966.

20
WINTER 2017 21

Marine’s actions on the 50th anniversary of his death. 

Perkins’s own writings provide a critical opportunity to observe his transformation into a Marine and 

a photographer, but also to perhaps understand the 

reasoning behind his images and frame his ultimate 

act of selflessness. 

Early Life and Impact of Family

The driving force behind Perkins’s military service 

and pursuit of photography stems from the men in 

his life. Born in Rochester, New York, on 10 August 

1947 to William and Marilane (née O’Leary) Perkins, young William, or “Butch” to his family, grew 

up with his younger brother Robert (19 May 1953–27 

November 1978) hearing richly detailed stories of 

their great grandfather, grandfather, and father’s military service in the Civil War and in Europe and the 

Pacific during World War II.2

 Their maternal great 

grandfather, Private John O’Leary, served with Battery L of the 1st New York Light Artillery from 31 

December 1861 to 31 December 1864, participating in 

the battles of Antietam and Gettysburg.3 The boys’ 

grandfather, Captain Henry T. Perkins, commanded 

a U.S. Army special projects group of the Chemical 

Warfare Service in Guadalcanal, while their father, 

then-First Lieutenant William T. Perkins, flew 33 missions as a Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber pilot 

with the Fifteenth Air Force stationed in Italy. During his fourth mission over Vienna, Austria, his aircraft lost two of four engines to flak and was forced 

down in German-occupied Yugoslavia. The young 

lieutenant and his crew spent the ensuing three weeks 

2

 “Born to Mr. and Mrs.,” Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, NY), 

24 May 1953, 22.

3

 “Battery L (Reynolds), 1st New York Light Artillery, Oration of 

Gen. John A. Reynolds,” 17 September 1889, Marilane Jacobson 

Collection, Division of Armed Forces History, National Museum 

of American History (NMAH), Smithsonian Institution, hereafter Jacobson Collection.

evading capture and managing to return to base.4

In 1960, the Perkins family crossed the country 

and moved to the suburb of Sepulveda (present-day 

North Hills) in Los Angeles, California. Although 

born in upstate New York, the teenage Perkins quickly acclimated to the temperate environs of Southern California. While attending James Monroe High 

School, he enthusiastically embraced new hobbies, 

such as snow skiing, swimming, skin and scuba diving, acting, and photography. He drew acclaim from 

fellow students for his performances in The Mouse that 

Roared and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the 

Forum. Undoubtedly, his comedic chops grew through 

countless moments shared with his good friend, James 

R. Priddy, mimicking the routines of Groucho Marx, 

Jonathan Winters, Lenny Bruce, and Bob Newhart in 

and out of class. After expressing an interest in photography, the senior Perkins bought his son a Kodak 

camera that he used to learn everything about the 

hobby while a member of the high school photography club.5

Boot Camp to Film School

After graduation in June 1965, Perkins enrolled at Los 

Angeles Pierce College to study photography. He continued refining his acting skills, apprenticing with the 

Valley Music Theatre and performing at the Century 

City Playhouse.6 Perhaps seeking to blend his love of 

acting and photography, Perkins applied to the University of California, Los Angeles, and received acceptance into its cinematography program, although, he 

4

 Doyle D. Glass, Lions of Medina (Louisville, KY: Coleche Press, 

2007), 3; “Biographical Data for Corporal William T. Perkins, Jr., 

USMC (Deceased),” Historical Reference Branch, Marine Corps 

History Division, Quantico, VA, hereafter Perkins Biographical 

Data; and “Flyer, Captain Father Meet at Home on Army Leave,” 

Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, NY), 28 June 1945, 12. 5

 Glass, Lions of Medina, 3, 60; “President Awards Medal of Honor to Valley Marine,” Van Nuys (CA) News, 22 June 1969, 18; and 

“Local Marine Wins Medal of Honor,” news clipping, file labeled “Published Material, Perkins, William T., Jr., Cpl, USMC, 

MOH,” hereafter Perkins published materials, Historical Reference Branch, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA. 

6

 “Local Marine Wins Medal of Honor”; and “President Awards 

Medal of Honor to Valley Marine,” 18. 
22 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

was waitlisted for a year.7 For Perkins, a year seemed 

like an eternity. Shortly thereafter, on 27 April 1966, 

Perkins and Priddy—also enrolled at Pierce College—

skipped class to drive to the beach. While on their 

drive, they spied a recruiting billboard featuring a 

copy of James Montgomery Flagg’s famous Uncle Sam 

painting pointing a finger at the men from a recruitment ad. Priddy broke the silence and said, “Let’s go 

join the Marine Corps!” That afternoon, both Perkins 

and Priddy enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve, 

entering under the Marine Corps’ “Buddy Program,” 

whereby a recruit could enlist with a friend and attend boot camp in the same training platoon. In short 

order, Perkins and Priddy joined other young men 

from the San Fernando Valley in the Devil Dog Platoon on their way to basic recruit training with the 

2d Recruit Training Battalion, Marine Corps Recruit 

Depot San Diego. On 6 July, the men were sworn into 

the Regular Marine Corps.8

The following day, 7 July, Perkins wrote home to 

his parents and younger brother. With youthful vigor 

and military innocence, he remarked, 

Everything’s ok and we think we’re all going 

to make it ok. We’re waiting to be issued 

the rest of our utility uniforms. Jim and I 

are in separate huts right across from each 

other. . . . The food’s fine—always too much 

to eat, never not enough. You ought to see 

my haircut! Haven’t really done much except get bedding and learn how to make our 

racks (beds). They taught us how to salute 

and march a bit.9

Additional letters during the course of boot 

camp touched on the drill instructors’ mannerisms 

and Perkins and Priddy’s disposition to crack jokes:

Well, I guess the hardest thing yet is stand7

 Glass, Lions of Medina, 10. 8

 Glass, Lions of Medina, 10–11; Perkins Biographical Data; “President Awards Medal of Honor to Valley Marine,” 18; and “Marine 

Buddy Program,” Cardunal Free Press (Carpentersville, IL), 23 December 1968, 30.

9

 William T. Perkins Jr. to William Sr., Marilane, and Robert Perkins, 7 July 1966, Jacobson Collection.

ing at attention for long periods of time 

which seem like eons sometimes—but we 

all get a chance to stretch our legs—march 

here—there—to mess etc.—runs to get in formation, to the head and back—also a lot of 

yelling—“aye aye, Sir,” Yes Sir, No Sir, and 

all that good stuff. We always have to repeat 

all orders and then say “aye aye, Sir.” We just 

had to stand and salute the flag. We just sat 

down and had to jump up and snap to for 

a lieutenant who roves around all the time 

with his .45 [pistol]—think he’d like to shoot 

or something—as Jim calls it “gunplay.” We 

were issued rifles the other day and Jim 

said, “When are we going to have a little 

gun play.” HA! We got out a chuckle or two 

and had to all shut up.10

Note that what was obviously missing from his letters 

home are any repercussions for joking around; but fun 

aside, Perkins remained upbeat amid the mundane details of basic training.

Photography remained on Perkins’s mind as he 

continued training. On 13 July, Perkins and his platoon 

took a series of tests for intelligence and various areas 

10 William T. Perkins Jr. to William Sr., Marilane, and Robert 

Perkins, 10 July 1966, Jacobson Collection.

Jacobson Collection, photo courtesy of William T. Perkins Sr.

Perkins boards the bus that will take him to Marine Corps Recruit 

Depot San Diego, CA, and basic training, ca. July 1966. 
WINTER 2017 23

of aptitude to screen the abilities of each recruit, a 

process changed after introduction of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) in 1968. 

Perkins and Priddy scored well on their tests and each 

received an interview by a noncommissioned officer 

to help determine the potential career path of each 

recruit within the needs of the Corps. Perkins wrote 

of the experience to his family:

Then they took us for an interview, then 

some of us went for another interview (me). 

I told them I wanted to be a photographer 

and told them I had experience in school 

and on my own. A sergeant interviewed me 

and asked me a bunch of questions and then 

got specific and asked about photographic 

developing and printing—I answered 7 out 

of 8 right. 

Well I guess he thought that was OK. 

He said he doesn’t guarantee anything but I 

“probably will get assigned as a photographer.” 

Well, that sure made me happy. But, 

I’m trying not to get my hopes up about 

it because it’s only one guy’s say so and he 

said probably and didn’t guarantee anything. 

Well, I hope I’ve got some good luck with 

me so I can get that job.11

Based on his other letters home during basic, 

Perkins apparently never heard any more about his 

desired career in the Service, but photography remained foremost on his mind. He mailed home several postcards from the post exchange to provide his 

family with a figurative snapshot of his training experience. In a letter on 3 August, he asked his mother if 

she ever developed some of his film and requested the 

prints “to find out if the time exposure of the moon 

came out, since I guessed at the exposure settings.”12

After additional training at Camp Pendleton, 

Perkins and his platoon graduated in early Septem11 William T. Perkins Jr. to William Sr., Marilane, and Robert 

Perkins, 13 July 1966, Jacobson Collection. Emphasis in original 

is underlined.

12 William T. Perkins Jr. to William Sr., Marilane, and Robert 

Perkins, 3 August 1966, Jacobson Collection.

ber. After 20 days leave, he shipped out for individual combat training with the 3d Battalion, 2d 

Infantry Training Regiment, Camp Pendleton, and 

received follow-on orders as a photographer with the 

Headquarters Battalion, Marine Corps Supply Center, Barstow, California.13 As a still photographer, Perkins found the work dull and unfulfilling. “All I do 

is take photos of the general in parades,” he told his 

family. At some point in the fall of 1966, Perkins requested assignment to the U.S. Army Signal Center 

and School at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, to receive 

training in motion picture photography. His headquarters responded favorably to his request, but with 

a caveat: Perkins could attend the school, however, his 

follow-on assignment would likely include service in 

the Republic of Vietnam.14

Undeterred, newly promoted Lance Corporal 

Perkins crossed the country and found himself immersed in the finer points of motion picture photography. Writing home on 26 January 1967, Perkins 

described the program’s first weeks:

Well, school is really pretty good. We’ve 

been awful busy. For the last 3 days, we 

started filming at 9:30 AM and wound it 

up at 3:00 PM. We shoot 300’ [of film]. We 

just had a phase test—there are 6 phases. It’s 

in two parts: the written and the practical. 

The written is self-explanatory—but I don’t 

like the way they try to trick you and are 

so petty on things which really don’t matter 

to any extent at all. This is the only thing 

I have against the school. The practical is 

where you get 100’ of 16 MM B&W [black 

and white] and go film specific things and 

sequences on a script. 

We have whole movie scripts of acting 

out situations—just like a play or drama. We 

all have become actors. We screen the finished product—sometimes I watch my acting and forget I’m supposed to be watching 

the camera technique. HAH!

13 Perkins Biographical Data.

14 Glass, Lions of Medina, 37.
24 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

Although the course is very interesting and a lot of fun—It’s no snap. There’s 

so much to know about optics, camera 

technique, exposure, filters, framing, composition, and all the special effects, which 

make a motion picture look even half way 

realistic. 

It’s really great to know all these 

techniques I’ve seen and now I’m using 

them—and on an almost, or I guess you 

could say professional level. I can’t believe 

how lucky I am to be doing exactly what [I 

want] to be doing—well that’s enough of my 

enthrallment!15

Coupled with his film education, Perkins found 

time to enjoy his hobby of scuba diving. In February, 

he joined a scuba club at the base and became an instructor, though a bit amused by the fact that he was 

a lance corporal issuing commands to several officers; 

by March, Perkins finished instruction of a scuba 

course for 50 Marines.16

“I’m in Vietnam Now”

Upon graduation from the motion picture photography school in April, Perkins returned to Barstow before shipping out to Vietnam. Arriving in Da Nang on 

17 July 1967, he finally broke the news to his family of 

his whereabouts:

Dear Mom, Dad, and Bob—

I know this is going to probably be 

quite a shock to you, and I probably should 

have told you sooner, but I’m in Vietnam 

now. I could have told you sooner, but I 

just couldn’t stand all the tears and everyone moping around like it was the end of 

15 William T. Perkins Jr. to William Sr., Marilane, and Robert Perkins, 26 January 1967, Jacobson Collection. Emphasis in original 

is underlined.

16 William T. Perkins Jr. to William Sr., Marilane, and Robert 

Perkins, 7 February 1967; William T. Perkins Jr. to William 

Sr., Marilane, and Robert Perkins, 29 March 1967, Jacobson Collection; and “President Awards Medal of Honor to Valley Marine,” 18.

the world. Everyone thinks it’s such a big 

deal over here—like you’re supposed to get 

shot at getting off the plane—humbug. That 

just shows how the papers play it up big and 

how ignorant the public is. 

I’m going to be in the 3rd Marine Division Photo Lab in Phu Bai. We’ll stay here 

in Da Nang for the night and move out 

Jacobson Collection

Perkins on 26 January 1967: “Although the course is very interesting and 

a lot of fun—it’s no snap. There’s so much to know about optics, camera 

technique, exposure, filters, framing, composition, and all the special 

effects which make a motion picture look even half way realistic.” As a 

student in the motion picture photography school, U.S. Army Signal 

Center and School, Fort Monmouth, NJ, Perkins works with a Mitchell 

35mm motion picture camera as he and fellow students practice making a reenlistment film. 
WINTER 2017 25

tomorrow by [Lockheed] C-130 [Hercules 

transport] or helicopter. 

You probably heard the Da Nang Air 

Strip got mortared Friday. We heard the 

same thing in Okinawa and expected to 

see the place demolished—humbug—you 

can’t even see any evidence of it except for 

an Air Force ammo dump, which was hit 

on the perimeter. I don’t want to make it 

sound all rosy over here because it isn’t. It’s 

just that you don’t have to worry in a large 

compound like Chu Lai, Da Nang, Phu Bai, 

Hue, or Saigon because it’s so well protected. Hardly anyone carries weapons around 

the base except for guys who are just coming off missions—so it’s pretty secure. The 

worst thing about this place isn’t the V. C. 

[Viet Cong] but the heat!—Wow. You sweat 

24 hrs. a day—just like Okinawa. In fact, 

Okinawa seems more humid than here.

Speaking of Okinawa, I found Jim 

[Priddy] and we went out to town Friday 

night and had the greatest time I think I 

ever had. Jim really has it nice over there as 

far as liberty goes. 

Since I haven’t gotten to my unit yet, 

I can’t tell you my address. I’ll still mail this 

right away so you aren’t wondering where 

I am. I guess me being here is going to take 

some getting used to for all of us—but don’t 

worry about me—as long as it doesn’t get 

over 130° I’ll be fine—ha! (Well, maybe not 

130°).

Well, I’d better go to chow now. I put 

an address on the envelope, but don’t send 

me a letter till you get my complete address. 

I’m sure you all have a million questions, so 

write ’em down and I’ll answer them.

Love,

Butch

P.S. Again, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, 

but I really thought I’d be in Okinawa at 

least 2 or 3 wks.17

Perkins arrived in Phu Bai the following day, 

17 William T. Perkins Jr. to William Sr., Marilane, and Robert 

Perkins, 16 July 1967, Jacobson Collection; “News Release No. 

KTW-101-69,” 20 June 1969, Perkins published materials, Historical Reference Branch, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, 

VA. The letter is dated 16 July, as Perkins had crossed the International Date Line, ergo he arrived in Vietnam on what would be 

17 July in the United States. Emphasis in original is underlined.

Jacobson Collection

Perkins on 3 September 1967: “I caught a flight up here to Dong Ha 

today and wasn’t here more than an hour and we caught incoming mortars and rockets. I guess you probably heard about it on the news because they blew up the ammo dump. I had my new Canon out there and 

got quite a few color photos, and let my buddy take a couple of me with 

explosions in the background and the whole bit.”
26 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

assigned as a photographer with Service Company, 

Headquarters Battalion, 3d Marine Division (Reinforced). Meeting up with fellow Marines from Barstow and Pendleton, he familiarized himself with the 

base and the surrounding areas in I Corps, documenting Marine activities.18 Initial assignments took Perkins to Dong Ha, Cam Lo, and Hue, but also required 

additional duties, including working in the photography lab developing still prints. In a letter from 27 July, 

Perkins explained his job:

We get a lot of work in because we have 9 

still photographers whose film we develop and only 5 motion picture (including 

me) people. All our motion picture [film] 

is 16MM Ektachrome color and is sent to 

Washington [DC] to be developed. They 

send a print back so you can see your footage. All still stuff is developed here (B&W 

and color slides). B&W cameras are mostly 35MM and then some 21⁄4 x 21⁄4 and 4 x 

5 (speed graphic). Our biggest developing 

and printing is aerial photography, which 

we rarely shoot, but is always sent to us for 

processing. I’m the one who prints most of 

it. One good thing—our print room is in a 

portable van and is air conditioned!

19

Headquarters issued Perkins a Bell and Howell 16mm Filmo motion picture camera along with a 

.45-caliber automatic pistol. While the latter frequently remained holstered, the Bell and Howell proved 

Perkins’s primary weapon in the field.

In addition to his Bell and Howell motion picture camera, Perkins also carried his own personal 

35mm still camera. He came to Vietnam with the Kodak his father had given him many years before. After 

receiving a promotion to corporal on 1 August, Perkins bought a new Canon single lens reflex camera. 

18 Perkins Biographical Data; and William T. Perkins Jr. to William Sr., Marilane, and Robert Perkins, 17 July 1967, Jacobson 

Collection.

19 William T. Perkins Jr. to William Sr., Marilane, and Robert 

Perkins, 27 July 1967, Jacobson Collection. Emphasis in original 

is underlined.

Jacobson Collection

Perkins on 23 August 1967: “I’m going from Phu Bai to Dong Ha to pick 

up a camera and then come back. I’ve almost finished a roll of color 

slides, which I will send home to be developed. I think the slides are of 

the people and the countryside. A few I shot from a helicopter.”
WINTER 2017 27

He later purchased a second Canon, which he gave to 

his father as a thank you present, aided, in part, by 

the low prices at the post exchange.20 With his Canon, 

Perkins began taking photographs of the Vietnamese 

people, the countryside, and his fellow Marines. He 

mailed his exposed film back to California, “because 

I don’t have enough time to do my own [developing] 

and they frown on you using government material.”21

In his successive letters home, Perkins mailed rolls of 

black-and-white and color film with specific instructions on where to develop the film and to protect his 

slides from dust and moisture.22

These still photos increasingly became a focus 

for Perkins’s letters home. These letters clearly demonstrate the growing pride in his budding identity as 

a professional photographer:

12 September 1967: P. S. I’m expecting my 

prints and slides in the mail (Hint! Hint!)23

15 September 1967: Excuse me, but I’d like 

to correct you on something. You call my 

photos “snaps” or “snapshots.” I cringe every 

time I hear that. It’s like calling a rifle a gun, 

if you know what I mean. Snapshots are 

taken with a little brownie box camera.24

20 Perkins Biographical Data; William T. Perkins Jr. to William 

Sr., Marilane, and Robert Perkins, 30 September 1967, Jacobson 

Collection, hereafter Perkins 30 September letter; William T. 

Perkins Jr. to William Sr., Marilane, and Robert Perkins, 9 September 1967, Jacobson Collection; and Glass, Lions in Medina, 60. 

In his letter on 19 August 1967, Perkins mentions that he saw his 

Canon “at Hopper Camera Shop for $286 and [it] cost me $94 [at 

the Post Exchange]—it’s a real gem. Ha!” See William T. Perkins 

Jr. to William Sr., Marilane, and Robert Perkins, 19 August 1967, 

Jacobson Collection, hereafter Perkins 19 August letter.

21 William T. Perkins Jr. to William Sr., Marilane, and Robert 

Perkins, 9 August 1967; Perkins 19 August letter; and Perkins 

Biographical Data.

22 William T. Perkins Jr. to William Sr., Marilane, and Robert 

Perkins, 23 August 1967, Jacobson Collection; William T. Perkins 

Jr. to William Sr., Marilane, and Robert Perkins, 24 August 1967, 

Jacobson Collection; and Perkins 30 September letter.

23 William T. Perkins Jr. to William Sr., Marilane, and Robert 

Perkins, 12 September 1967, Jacobson Collection.

24 William T. Perkins Jr. to William Sr., Marilane, and Robert 

Perkins, 15 September 1967, Jacobson Collection, hereafter Perkins 15 September letter.

21 September 1967: I’ve just been shooting 

still photography around the base here at 

Dong Ha. I’m going nuts waiting for you to 

send me my photos and slides! Please send 

them to me. I don’t plan to keep them here 

because of the moisture, etc., and I will send 

them right back. I just want to see if they’re 

any good. I’ve been waiting for weeks now—

PLEASE SEND THEM!

25

2 October 1967: Make sure you’re keeping 

my negatives in a dust free place and not 

getting handled. When I get home, I plan 

to have enlargements made of some—that’s 

why I sound so particular.26

7 October 1967: Hate to keep talking about 

my photos all the time, it probably bores 

you all. But—I did like some of my slides and 

think they ought to give you a good idea of 

the country side [sic] and people. Just keep 

all slides and negatives dust free and out of 

the dampness. I don’t care too much about 

the B&W prints because I can always print 

more from the negatives.27

Perhaps truly understanding Perkins’s concern 

for his photography revolves around the Marine 

subjects within his films and still photographs. His 

mother, Marilane, volunteered in California as a charter member of the San Fernando Valley Chapter of 

the Mothers of Marines (MOMS) that mailed care 

packages to the Marines in Vietnam.28 Perkins recommended that his mother’s group send packages to “a 

group of grunts—infantrymen. You can’t imagine how 

lousy they have it. They live and eat as well as pigs but 

25 William T. Perkins Jr. to William Sr., Marilane, and Robert Perkins, 21 September 1967, Jacobson Collection, hereafter Perkins 

21 September letter. Emphasis in original is actually underlined.

26 William T. Perkins Jr. to William Sr., Marilane, and Robert 

Perkins, 2 October 1967, Jacobson Collection.

27 William T. Perkins Jr. to William Sr., Marilane, and Robert 

Perkins, 7 October 1967, Jacobson Collection.

28 “President Awards Medal of Honor to Valley Marine,” 18.
28 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

are the greatest bunch of guys over here.”29 One particularly moving assignment on 20–21 September 1967 

evoked a greater request for aid:

I was out at Con Thien yesterday and today. All it is is a slight hill about 2,500 yards 

from the DMZ [demilitarized zone] and all

mud. I have never been in such a terrible 

place in my life. It was really a hell hole [sic]. 

We took in over 200 artillery rounds in the 

compound inside of 15 minutes. About every 25’ there is a bomb crater. They didn’t 

know what it was going to be like when they 

sent us there. It was impossible to take pictures because of the artillery and the rain, 

so the other photographer and I stayed in a 

bunker most of the time and left as soon as 

possible by chopper. Luckily the mud prevented the rounds from exploding as much 

as they should and threw more mud than 

anything. The artillery wasn’t the bad thing 

though. The worst thing was the way these 

guys lived, covered from head to toe with 

mud without washing for weeks at a time. 

They had no tents, only holes with ammo 

boxes filled with mud around the holes. The 

lucky people had a top or roof. They had water flown in everyday, but not much. They 

lived only on C rations. Now, if your organization, MOMS, is going to send anything 

to anyone—it should be these guys. Believe 

me that place was unbelievable. Dong Ha is 

like the City Park compared to Con Thien. 

After that experience, they decided not to 

send anyone up there for a good while.30

How Con Thien changed or reinforced Perkins’s thinking of his own mortality is unknown, but the experience undoubtedly reinforced his commitment to support his fellow Marines.

29 Perkins 15 September letter.

30 Perkins 21 September letter.

Operation Medina

Three weeks after visiting Con Thien, Perkins received 

an assignment to film Marine forces in the field. For 

months, the 3d Marine Division lacked sufficient 

forces to find, fix, and destroy enemy base areas that 

threatened positions at Con Thien, Khe Sanh, Dong 

Hai, and Phu Bai. The area of concern the enemy knew 

as Base Area 101, supporting the 5th and 6th North Vietnamese Army (NVA) Regiments, located in the Hai Lang 

National Forest south of Quang Tri. In early October 

1967, the 1st Marine Regiment’s 1st and 2d Battalions 

came under the 3d Marine Division’s operational control. These forces, reinforced with the 1st Battalion 

of the 3d Marine Regiment and two battalions of the 

1st Division of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam 

(ARVN), would destroy any and all enemy forces in the 

forest. The operation would involve the 1st and 2d Battalions of the 1st Marine Regiment sweeping through 

the forest, pushing the enemy into a blocking force 

from the 1st Battalion of the 3d Marine Regiment.31

31 Gary L. Telfer, Lane Rogers, and V. Keith Fleming Jr., U.S. 

Marines in Vietnam: Fighting the North Vietnamese, 1967 (Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters Marine 

Corps, 1984), 139; and Glass, Lions of Medina, 123–25.

Jacobson Collection

Perkins on 12 September 1967: “I’m up at the mouth of the Cua Viet 

River with the Swift Boat patrol to shoot another story. We plan to 

shove off at 7:30 AM tomorrow and patrol south of the Cua Viet [river] 

on the South China Sea inspecting sampans, junks, etc. that may be 

carrying Communist weapons.”
WINTER 2017 29

On 11 October, the men of the 1st Battalion, 1st 

Marine Regiment, commenced the operation. Perkins, Leatherneck magazine correspondent Staff Sergeant Bruce Martin, and Marine correspondent Staff 

Sergeant Philip F. Hartranft Jr. accompanied the men 

of Charlie Company of the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines. 

Perkins and Hartranft paired up, the former filming 

operations with the latter providing print coverage. 

While waiting for a Marine Sikorsky UH-34 Choctaw 

helicopter to airlift the men into the forest, Perkins 

asked Hartranft about life back in the United States, 

while in turn sharing information with the older correspondent about things to look out for in the field.32

Early in the afternoon, the company landed at Landing Zone (LZ) Dove, secured the perimeter, regrouped, 

and moved out toward its first objective. Loaded 

with extra weapons and supplies, the men marched 

slowly and methodically, using machetes to hack 

trails through thick, razor-sharp elephant grass, tangled vines, and vegetation before entering the triplecanopy forest. After several hours, the column came to 

a small river and, after one Marine swam across and 

32 Glass, Lions of Medina, 127–28.

secured a rope, the remainder of the men moved hand 

over hand to complete the crossing. All during the 

trail and river crossings, Perkins moved around the 

Marine column, filming their movements from various angles.33

On the afternoon of 12 October, NVA forces ambushed the lead element of 3d Platoon on a jungle trail 

in a shower of grenades, machine-gun, and sniper fire. 

Enemy fire dropped several of the Marines at the front 

of the column. As the ambush intensified, 1st Platoon 

established a defensive perimeter behind 2d and 3d 

Platoons on the higher ground of a knoll adjacent to 

a trail, where they cleared fields of fire. Marines used 

explosives and chain saws to clear an opening in the 

jungle for an LZ to medevac the wounded. Perkins 

meanwhile took up position by a log on the edge of 

the new LZ perimeter with three men of 3d Platoon: 

Corporal Frederick A. Boxill and Lance Corporals 

Michael P. Cole and Dennis J. Antal. As the four Marines peered into the foreboding forest for signs of the 

enemy, Antal struck up a conversation with Perkins 

about California life, perhaps to break the tension of 

the moment.34

The UH-34 medevac helicopters arrived to fly 

out the 11 wounded and one killed from the initial 

ambush.35 Perkins filmed the entire operation as those 

able loaded the wounded on stretchers and placed 

them aboard the helicopters. Just as the last medevac chopper departed the clearing in the dusk’s fading light, all hell broke loose. Charlie Company found 

itself under assault by three NVA companies on two 

sides. Enemy concussion and fragmentation grenades 

rained down on the Marines from NVA soldiers who 

were tied high up in the trees on the perimeter’s edge. 

Green tracers of the enemy weapons slashed across 

the American lines as friendly red tracers answered 

back, the roar of battle punctuated by screams of the 

wounded. Enveloped by darkness, Antal, Boxill, Cole, 

and Perkins returned enemy fire into the forest from 

their position by the log at the south side of the pe33 Glass, Lions of Medina, 133–35. 34 Glass, Lions of Medina, 152–58. 35 Bruce Martin, “ ‘Let’s Go Charlie!’,” Leatherneck 51, no. 2, February 1968, 31–32.

Defense Department photo (Marine Corps), courtesy of Leatherneck

Perkins on 7 October 1967: “I’ve done a lot of medevac photography—

sometime they may tell me not to shoot so much.” Perkins (second from 

left) films a medevac on the afternoon of 12 October 1967 during Operation Medina, two hours before he is killed in battle.
30 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

rimeter. Incoming enemy fire flew over their heads as 

3d Platoon continued to sustain casualties, holding off 

the brunt of the enemy attack.36

As the NVA pressed the attack, increasing Marine casualties opened gaps in the defensive perimeter, particularly between 2d and 3d Platoons. Captain 

William D. Major, Charlie Company commander, ordered First Lieutenant Jack A. Ruffer, commanding 

1st Platoon, to plug the gap. Under fire from three 

sides, Charlie Company faced a dire situation. Ruffer, 

order in hand, cried out above the roar of battle, “Let’s 

go get some!,” then unleashed the Marine Hymn at the 

top of his lungs. Other Marines joined with Ruffer 

and, brandishing his pistol, the lieutenant hollered, 

“Let’s go Charlie!,” and charged down a trail separating the platoons. Marines rose up from their fighting 

positions and followed suit, including Perkins with 

his pistol. Staggered and perhaps shocked at the Marines’ élan, the enemy forces pulled back as Ruffer’s 

men regrouped and charged a second time, pushing 

the NVA out of the Marine lines at the LZ perimeter. 

With the Marine position strengthened, enemy fire 

dissipated, allowing a medevac helicopter to bring out 

several of the wounded.37

After Ruffer’s charge, Perkins made his way back 

to the log on the LZ perimeter, accompanied by Boxill and Antal. Cole was located about 10 feet behind 

the three men, higher up the knoll’s slope. Nearby in 

the darkness, Ruffer could clearly see the glow from 

the face of Perkins’s Zodiac Sea Wolf dive watch. Enemy grenades began to roll from the top of the knoll 

down toward Cole’s position. A blast from one concussion grenade threw him down the hill. Suddenly, 

an enemy grenade appeared in the air, silhouetted 

against the flash of another explosion. Antal saw the 

grenade falling, as did Perkins. Propping himself up 

on his arms, Perkins cried out, “Incoming grenade!,” 

as the explosive landed behind the log, three feet from 

Antal, Boxill, and Private First Class Horace M. Rob36 Glass, Lions of Medina, 164–76; and Martin, “ ‘Let’s Go Charlie!’,” 

32–34.

37 Glass, Lions of Medina, 178–79, 185–95; and Martin, “ ‘Let’s Go 

Charlie!’,” 34.

erts. Perkins dove at the grenade, kicking Antal in 

the process, and tucked it securely beneath his chest. 

In an instant, the grenade exploded, lifting Antal in 

the air as shrapnel wounded both him and Boxill. 

As a fellow Marine treated the two wounded men, a 

corpsman arrived to check on Perkins. When Antal 

asked, “Is he all right?,” the corpsman shook his head.38

Charlie Company continued to hold out against 

fierce enemy fire for the remainder of the night. Between 2100 and 2200 hours, Delta Company pushed 

forward to reinforce Charlie Company, and together 

38 Glass, Lions of Medina, 198–200; and Statements of Cpl Larry J. 

Dalrymple, Sgt Harry W. Poole, LCpl Fredrick A. Boxill, LCpl D. 

J. Antal, PFC H. M. Roberts, attachments to memo from Capt 

W. D. Major to Commanding Officer, Service Company, Headquarters Battalion, 3d Marine Division (Rein), FMF, on “Navy 

Cross Medal; recommendation for; case of Corporal William T. 

Perkins, USMC,” 27 November 1967, file labeled “Perkins, William T., Jr., Cpl USMC MOH Award Recommendation,” hereafter Perkins MOH file, Historical Reference Branch, Marine 

Corps History Division, Quantico, VA, hereafter Major memo. 

Jacobson Collection

This Bell and Howell 16mm Filmo motion picture camera was carried 

by Cpl Perkins when he smothered a grenade during Operation Medina on 12 October 1967. The damage from the grenade shrapnel to the 

camera is evident in the photo. The camera is now in the collection of 

the National Museum of the Marine Corps. 
WINTER 2017 31

the companies pushed back the NVA assault after four 

uninterrupted hours of combat. Under the protective 

glow of a quarter moon, the enemy and incoming 

fire faded away as the Marines secured the perimeter 

and the corpsmen ministered to the wounded and 

the dying. When dawn broke on 13 October 1967, 8 

Marines—including Perkins—lay dead, 39 men were 

wounded, and 40 of the enemy lay dead scattered in 

and around the LZ perimeter. That morning, a Marine helicopter flew Perkins’s body from the battlefield. A Marine also located Perkins’s Bell and Howell 

camera, riddled with shrapnel, and handed it to Hartranft with news that the combat photographer had 

died. The following day, the Marines policed up the 

LZ and prepared to destroy any unusable equipment, 

piling everything into a heap and wiring it with C-4 

explosives. Just prior to detonation, combat artist 

Major A. Michael Leahy, who arrived at the battlefield the day before, spied a green corpsman’s bag 

on the pile that seemed out of place. Upon inspection, he found that the bag belonged to Perkins and 

it held his undeveloped film. Leahy returned the film 

to Marine headquarters back in Phu Bai, ensuring 

the preservation of Perkins’s footage of Charlie Company’s actions prior to the battle on 11–12 October.39

Medal of Honor

Charlie Company did not forget the selfless sacrifice made by Perkins, but having only just joined the 

company as a photographer, not a regular member, 

39 Glass, Lions of Medina, 223–33; Martin, “ ‘Let’s Go Charlie!’,” 

34–35; and Telfer, Rogers, and Fleming, U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 

141. Glass’s description of the cameras appears to be in error. He 

mentions that someone handed Perkins’s still camera (most likely 

his Canon) to Hartranft and that Leahy found a movie camera 

in the bag. The Bell and Howell camera Perkins had on his person, riddled with shrapnel, is on display at the National Museum 

of the Marine Corps (NMMC) in Quantico, VA. Given the nature of the event, it is doubtful that someone would have known 

to pick up this camera and place it back inside the camera bag, 

while handing Hartranft Perkins’s presumably undamaged still 

camera. Leahy kept it and Perkins’s camera bag, before returning 

it to Perkins’s father, who in turn donated it to the museum. See 

Michael Leahy letter to Judy and William Perkins, 19 May 2005, 

accession file for camera bag, Cpl William T. Perkins Jr., NMMC. 

his identity initially remained unknown. His actions 

saved the lives of Antal, Boxill, Roberts, and possibly 

Ruffer; however, none of the men knew Perkins since 

he was officially assigned to Service Company, Headquarters Battalion, 3d Marine Division. As news of his 

death reached Perkins’s hometown of Rochester, New 

York, Charlie Company’s commander, Captain Major, was gathering evidence of Perkins’s actions from 

survivors of the battle. Several eyewitness accounts 

provided convincing circumstantial evidence that 

Perkins was the Marine who smothered the grenade 

with his own body. Perhaps the key detail for a positive identification was his dive watch, whose highly 

illuminated face had stood out in the darkness of the 

LZ perimeter.40

On 27 November 1967, Major submitted an 

award recommendation for the Navy Cross on Perkins’s behalf. Without eyewitness statements definitively identifying the Marine, Major could not submit 

Perkins for the Medal of Honor. After a review of his 

case at 3d Marine Division headquarters, the Navy 

Cross recommendation moved up the chain of command until reaching the desk of Lieutenant General 

Frank C. Tharin, acting commanding general, Fleet 

Marine Forces, Pacific. General Tharin, after reviewing the recommendation, noted that “Corporal Perkins’ actions may meet the eligibility requirement for 

the Medal of Honor.”41 He therefore requested an additional investigation into Perkins’s actions. Two weeks 

later, Headquarters, 3d Marine Division photographic 

officer, First Lieutenant James E. Tyler, provided key 

corroborating evidence to the 3d Marine Division’s 

awards officer, specifically that Perkins had been assigned a pistol and typically wore a Zodiac watch, 

40 Statements of Cpl Larry J. Dalrymple, LCpl D. J. Antal, PFC 

H. M. Roberts, attachments to Major memo; and “Marine Dies 

in Vietnam of Wounds,” Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, NY), 

24 October 1967, 18.

41 Memo from Commanding General, Fleet Marine Forces, Pacific to Commanding General, III Marine Amphibious Force (III 

MAF), “Navy Cross; posthumous recommendation for, case of 

Cpl William T. Perkins, USMC,” 5 February 1968, Perkins MOH 

file, Historical Reference Branch, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA, hereafter CG MOH memo.
32 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

which was recovered from his body and returned to 

his family.42 In light of the new information, General 

Robert E. Cushman Jr., commanding general, III Marine Amphibious Force, recommended to Secretary of 

the Navy Paul R. Ignatius that Perkins be awarded the 

Medal of Honor.43

In a private ceremony at the White House on 

20 June 1969, President Richard M. Nixon presented 

Corporal Perkins’s posthumous Medal of Honor to 

William and Marilane Perkins. The citation accompanying the decoration proclaimed:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity 

at the risk of his life above and beyond the 

call of duty while serving as a combat photographer attached to Company C. During 

Operation Medina, a major reconnaissancein-force southwest of Quang Tri, Company 

C made heavy combat contact with a numerically superior North Vietnamese Army 

force estimated at from two to three companies. The focal point of the intense fighting was a helicopter landing zone which 

was also serving as the Command Post of 

Company C. In the course of a strong hostile attack, an enemy grenade landed in the 

immediate area occupied by Corporal Perkins and three other marines. Realizing the 

inherent danger, he shouted the warning, 

“Incoming Grenade” to his fellow marines, 

and in a valiant act of heroism, hurled himself upon the grenade absorbing the impact 

of the explosion with his own body, thereby saving the lives of his comrades at the 

cost of his own. Through his exceptional 

courage and inspiring valor in the face of 

certain death, Corporal Perkins reflected 

great credit upon himself and the Marine 

Corps and upheld the highest traditions of 

42 Major memo; CG MOH memo; and memo from J. E. Tyler to 

Awards Officer, III MAF, “Information concerning Cpl William 

T. Perkins, USMC,” 19 February 1968, Perkins MOH file, Historical Reference Branch, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, 

VA. 

43 CG MOH memo. 

Jacobson Collection

The Medal of Honor presentation for Cpl William T. Perkins Jr. at the 

White House on 20 June 1969. From left: William T. Perkins Sr., Marilane Perkins, Senator George Murphy (R-CA), President Richard M. 

Nixon, and Representative Barry Goldwater Jr. (R-CA). Mrs. Perkins 

holds her son’s Medal of Honor. 
WINTER 2017 33

the  United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.44

As part of the ceremonies, Major Leahy also presented 

the family with a painting, Medina Photographer, depicting Perkins fording the small stream on the way to 

the eventual landing zone and the actions that would 

mean his death.45

Fifty years after his heroic sacrifice, Perkins’s actions continue to inspire Marine Corps combat photographers. On 11 April 1972, the Marine Corps again 

44 Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs), 

“Medal of Honor Citation for William T. Perkins, Jr., Corporal, 

USMC, Posthumously,” press release, 20 June 1969, Perkins published material, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA. 

45 “President Awards Medal of Honor to Valley Marine,” 1. Special thanks to Erik Koglin of Murfreesboro, TN, for his digital 

restoration of the watercolor. Exposure to ultraviolet light caused 

the blacks to fade. This image merges the current color artwork 

with a 1967 black-and-white photo of the original.

honored Perkins by dedicating the 2d Marine Division 

Photographic Laboratory at Camp Lejeune, North 

Carolina, in his honor.46 In 1970, the U.S. Marine 

Corps Combat Correspondents Association created 

the Corporal William T. Perkins Jr. Memorial Chapter, and in 2005, established the Corporal William T. 

Perkins Award for Combat Cameraman of the Year, 

featuring a statuette of Perkins kneeling with his Bell 

and Howell camera.47

Perkins’s camera, bearing the scars of an enemy 

grenade and dirt from the Hai Lang forest, is preserved in the collection of the National Museum of 

the Marine Corps. In the Medal of Honor section of 

the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History exhibition The Price of Freedom: Americans at War, 

visitors can view Perkins’s Medal of Honor and Purple 

Heart. These decorations accompany Perkins’s Bell 

and Howell camera on loan, the first time Perkins’s 

camera and Medal of Honor have ever been presented 

together. Perkins’s films from his time in Vietnam remain available for viewing at the National Archives 

in College Park, Maryland. His footage captures the 

faces and actions of the Marines of I Corps; images 

preserved by a selfless young man whose love of country and photography made him a national hero. 

• 1775 •

46 Joint Public Affairs Office, Camp Lejeune, NC, “Dedication, 

Perkins’ Memorial,” press release, 21 April 1972, Perkins published material, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA. 

47 “Charter certificate for United States Marine Corps Combat 

Correspondents Association Corporal William T. Perkins, Jr. 

Memorial Chapter,” 26 July 1970, Jacobson Collection; “Perkins 

Award Presented,” USMCCCA.org, 7 February 2015; Thomas 

Brennan, “Lejeune Videographer to Receive Coveted Award,” 

Daily News (Jacksonville, NC), 23 July 2013; and Jack T. Paxton, 

telephone intvw with author, 4 August 2017. The award is presented annually to the best combat cameraman in the Marine 

Corps as judged by their peers.

Art Collection, National Museum of the Marine Corps

Medina Photographer by Maj A. Micheal Leahy.
Shattered Amphibious 

Dreams

THE DECISION NOT TO MAKE AN AMPHIBIOUS 

LANDING DURING OPERATION DESERT STORM

by Paul Westermeyer1

I

n August 1990, Iraqi military forces invaded the 

neighboring nation of Kuwait; the large Iraqi 

Army quickly overwhelmed the small Kuwaiti 

1

 Paul Westermeyer is a historian who joined the History Division in 2005. He earned his bachelor’s in history and master’s in 

military history from The Ohio State University. He was the 2015 

recipient of Marine Corps Heritage Foundation’s BGen Edwin 

Simmons-Henry I. Shaw Award for U.S. Marines in the Gulf War, 

1990–1991: Liberating Kuwait. He is the author of U.S. Marines in 

Battle: Al-Khafji, 28 January–1 February 1991 and the editor of Desert 

Voices: Oral Histories of Marines in the Gulf War and U.S. Marines in 

Afghanistan, 2010–2014: Anthology and Annotated Bibliography. He 

is the series historian for the Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series. Earlier versions of this article were presented 

at the 83d Annual Meeting of the Society for Military History 

(2016) and at the 2017 McMullen Naval History Symposium. This 

article is based on the relevant Marine command chronologies archived at the Marine Corps History Division’s Archives Branch, 

Quantico, VA; oral histories conducted by the author and other 

History Division historians; Paul Westermeyer, U.S. Marines in 

the Gulf War, 1990–1991: Liberating Kuwait (Quantico, VA: Marine 

Corps History Division, 2014), hereafter Liberating Kuwait; LtCol 

Ronald J. Brown, U.S. Marines in the Persian Gulf, 1990–1991: With 

Marine Forces Afloat in Desert Shield and Desert Storm (Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters Marine

Corps, 1998), hereafter Marine Forces Afloat; Maj Charles D. Melson, Evelyn A. Englander, and Capt David A. Dawson, comps., 

U.S. Marines in the Persian Gulf, 1990–1991: Anthology and Annotated 

Bibliography (Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, 

Headquarters Marine Corps, 1992), hereafter Anthology and Annotated Bibliography; and Edward J. Marolda and Robert J. Schneller 

Jr., Shield and Sword: The United States Navy and the Persian Gulf 

War (Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1998).

armed forces. Under President George H. W. Bush, 

the United States assembled a global Coalition of concerned nations, first to defend Saudi Arabia against 

further Iraqi aggression, then to eject the Iraqi military from Kuwait. 

The Gulf War would represent the largest deployment of U.S. Marines since the Vietnam War. It 

challenged the entire warfighting establishment of the 

Marine Corps—aviation, ground, and logistics—and 

forced a generation of Marines to put two decades of 

planning and training to the test. The Corps would see 

many of its tactical and operational philosophies justified under combat conditions. But the Corps’ most 

cherished operational justification—amphibious warfare—was never put to the test. Powerful Marine airground task forces (MAGTFs) remained a threat at 

sea; however, aside from some small raids, feints, and 

minor postwar landings acted as a floating reserve, a 

major amphibious assault on Kuwait never materialized. Despite planning for a landing, the difficulties 

of landing in Kuwait and the lack of any clear benefits 

from such a landing kept it as a feint, albeit a powerful 

one, which diverted significant Iraqi forces from the 

main lines of attack. 

Gearing Up for War

The 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) (13th MEU[SOC]) was the first 

amphibious task force to reach the war zone, on 7 

34
WINTER 2017 35

September 1990. Prior to getting underway, the unit 

went through a training cycle designed to prepare it 

to conduct different types of special operations that 

might be encountered during its deployment.2

 These 

special operations included recovering lost aircraft, 

rescuing hostages, evacuating civilians from hostile 

environments, and training local forces.3 Originally, 

13th MEU(SOC) was deployed on a scheduled cruise 

of the western Pacific Ocean in June 1990. These 

“WestPac” cruises were an annual six-month deployment that rotated between West Coast Marine units; 

the deployed units served as the landing force of the 

U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet. The expeditionary unit 

was commanded by Colonel John E. Rhodes, which 

included Battalion Landing Team 1/4 (1st Battalion, 

4th Marines), Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 

(Composite) 164, and Marine Expeditionary Unit Service Support Group 13. These Marines were embarked 

on the ships of Amphibious Squadron 5, an amphibious ready group that included the USS Okinawa (LPH 

3), USS Ogden (LPD 5), USS Fort McHenry (LSD 43), 

2

 These predeployment training programs were the Marine Corps’ 

reaction in the 1980s to the creation of the joint U.S. Special 

Operations Command (USSOCOM) that included Army, Navy, 

and Air Force special operations forces. The Marine Corps did 

not join USSOCOM until 2006.

3

 Brown, Marine Forces Afloat, 12.

USS Cayuga (LST 1186), and USS Durham (LKA 114).4

The original cruise was planned for six months, but 

the deployment was extended as a result of the crisis in 

the Gulf by nearly four months. Due to the protracted 

timeframe, the Marines began calling themselves the 

“Raiders of the Lost ARG [amphibious ready group].”5

The 13th MEU(SOC) began its cruise of the western Pacific with a training exercise in the Philippines 

in July 1990. An earthquake on the island of Luzon 

on 16 July led to a disaster relief operation that lasted 

through the end of the month. A scheduled port visit 

to Hong Kong followed in August, but the Raiders of 

the Lost ARG were then ordered to the Persian Gulf, 

arriving in the region on 7 September.6

The next Marine force afloat sent to the Persian Gulf was assembled on the East Coast. In August 1990, the 4th Marine Expeditionary Brigade (4th 

MEB) was commanded by Major General Harry W. 

Jenkins Jr., and the brigade was preparing to train 

with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 

forces in two exercises—Teamwork and Bold Guard 

90—in northern Europe. Stationed primarily at Camp 

Lejeune, North Carolina, the brigade was traditionally oriented toward Europe and Africa. In addition 

to preparing for the upcoming exercises, the brigade 

kept an eye on civil war–torn Liberia, where the 22d 

Marine Expeditionary Unit (22d MEU) was conducting a noncombatant evacuation and defending the 

U.S. embassy throughout August 1990. The focus 

of the brigade abruptly shifted on 10 August, when 

it was ordered to the Persian Gulf, forcing units 

that had trained for operations in Norway to turn 

4

 Amphibious assault ships are classified as: LPH, landing platform, helicopter; LPD, landing platform, dock; LSD, landing 

ship, dock; LST, landing ship, tank; and LKA, cargo ship, amphibious.

5

 This moniker was a humorous play on the title of the popular 

1981 movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark. 13th MEU(SOC) Command 

Chronology (ComdC), July–December 1990 (Archives Branch, 

Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA); and Brown, Marine Forces Afloat, 12–16. 6

 13th MEU(SOC) ComdC, July–December 1990; and Brown, Marine Forces Afloat, 15–16.

Marine Corps History Division

This propaganda leaflet dramatically illustrates the threat of a Marine 

amphibious landing to Iraqi forces in Kuwait.
36 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

in their cold weather gear for desert warfare garb.7

To be adequately prepared for the deployment, 

the MEB would require additional elements for full 

support. The ground combat element of Jenkins’s brigade, Regimental Landing Team 2, was commanded 

by Colonel Thomas A. Hobbs. Major units of the 

regimental combat team included 1st Battalion, 2d 

Marines; 3d Battalion, 2d Marines; 1st Battalion, 10th 

Marines (Reinforced); Companies B and D, 2d Light 

Armored Infantry Battalion; Company A, 2d Assault 

Amphibian Battalion; and Company A, 2d Tank Battalion.

The logistics element came from Brigade Service Support Group 4, commanded by Colonel James 

J. Doyle Jr., and it included the 2d Military Police 

Company, 2d Medical Battalion, 2d Dental Battalion, 

2d Maintenance Battalion, 2d Supply Battalion, 8th 

Communications Battalion, 8th Motor Transport 

Battalion, 8th Engineer Support Battalion, and 2d 

Landing Support Battalion.

The 4th MEB aviation combat element was Marine Aircraft Group 40, commanded by Colonel Glenn 

F. Burgess. Because the group was deploying on board 

amphibious warfare vessels, the only fixed-wing aircraft in the group were the McDonnell-Douglas AV8B Harriers of Marine Attack Squadron 331. Marine 

Medium Helicopter Squadrons 263 and 365 brought 

Boeing Vertol CH-46 Sea Knights; Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 461 was equipped with Sikorsky 

CH-53E Super Stallions; and Marine Light Attack 

Helicopter Squadron 269 flew Bell AH-1 Sea Cobras 

and Bell UH-1 Hueys.8

The brigade was embarked on the ships of the 

U.S. Navy’s Amphibious Group 2, commanded by Rear 

Admiral John B. LaPlante. The ships were divided into 

three transit groups: Transit Group 1 consisted of the 

7

 4th MEB ComdC, August 1990 (Archives Branch, Marine Corps 

History Division, Quantico, VA); Brown, Marine Forces Afloat, 16–

22. Operation Sharp Edge, the Liberian evacuations conducted 

in 1990–91, is described fully in Maj James G. Antal and Maj R. 

John Vanden Berghe, On Mamba Station: U.S. Marines in West Africa, 1990–2003 (Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, 

Headquarters Marine Corps, 2004). 8

 4th MEB ComdC, August 1990.

USS Shreveport (LPD 12), USS Trenton (LPD 14), USS 

Portland (LSD 37), and USS Gunston Hall (LSD 44); 

Transit Group 2 comprised USS Nassau (LHA 4), USS 

Raleigh (LPD 1), USS Pensacola (LSD 38), and USS Saginaw (LST 1188); and Transit Group 3 included USS 

Iwo Jima (LPH 2), USS Guam (LPH 9), USS Manitowoc

(LST 1180), and USS LaMoure County (LST 1194).9 In 

addition, Military Sealift Command supported the 

brigade with a squadron that included USNS Wright

(T-AVB 3) and two vehicle cargo ships in the MV Cape 

Domingo (T-AKR 5053) and MV Strong Texan (T-AK 

9670). Because there was not enough cargo tonnage 

for the brigade’s needs, three additional vessels were 

leased for the duration of the deployment; these nonnaval vessels were the MV Bassro Polar, MV Pheasant, 

and MV Aurora T.

10

The lack of amphibious shipping impacted the 

amphibious forces in the Gulf War from the beginning. The 4th MEB was intended to deploy on two 

dozen amphibious warfare vessels, but only a dozen 

were available in time for the brigade’s deployment. 

As a result, some of the brigade’s assault equipment 

and supplies were loaded on board the Military Sealift 

Command vessels. The brigade loaded the available 

ships at Morehead City and Wilmington, North Carolina. The dispersed loading sites and rushed embarkation created confusion that required the brigade’s 

shipping to reorganize and reload in al-Jubayl, Saudi 

Arabia, in November 1990. Transit Group 1 departed 

on 17 August; Transit Group 2 departed on 20 August; and Transit Group 3 departed on 21 August, each 

crossing the Atlantic and Mediterranean and passing 

through the Suez Canal to the Persian Gulf.11

Amphibious Group 2 arrived in the Gulf in 

early September, with the transit groups arriving in 

the same order they had departed, on 3 September, 

6 September, and 9 September, respectively. The brigade’s Military Sealift Command vessels arrived from 

9

 Most of these ships were commissioned in the 1970s and nearly 

all would be decommissioned in the following year or two.

10 Brown, Marine Forces Afloat, 22–23, 230; and 4th MEB ComdC, 

August 1990.

11 Brown, Marine Forces Afloat, 21–25, 28; and 4th MEB ComdC, 

August 1990.
WINTER 2017 37

mid-September through mid-October. Because they 

were not present when these vessels were loaded, the 

brigade’s logistics officers had to physically board each 

vessel to find and record the location of all their cargo 

in person.12

Command Relationships

Following Navy–Marine Corps amphibious doctrine, 

the 4th MEB and 13th MEU(SOC) fell under the control of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, rather 

than under Lieutenant General Walter E. Boomer’s 

Marine Forces Central Command. Through December 

1990, Vice Admiral Henry H. Mauz Jr. commanded 

Central Command’s naval forces. Amphibious Group 

2 and Amphibious Squadron 5 formed the Amphibious Task Force (TG 150.6), commanded by Rear Admiral LaPlante, and the two Marine expeditionary forces 

formed the Landing Force (TG 150.8), commanded by 

Major General Jenkins.13

The Marine expeditionary forces in the Amphibious Task Force 150.6 were intended as a theater 

12 Brown, Marine Forces Afloat, 30–33; and 4th MEB ComdC, August 1990.

13 Brown, Marine Forces Afloat, 34–36, 42; and Marolda and 

Schneller, Shield and Sword, 84.

reserve, and their employment was controlled directly 

by General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of 

U.S. Central Command. During Operation Desert 

Shield, they were prepared to reinforce the troops 

defending Saudi Arabia if needed or to launch amphibious assaults or raids against the enemy’s rear if 

the Iraqis attacked Saudi Arabia. Their presence also 

was intended to divert Iraqi forces toward defending 

the coast, thus reducing the number of troops faced 

inland.14

Admiral Mauz saw the terminal end of the Persian Gulf as particularly inhospitable for naval forces, 

with Iran a constant danger on the flank of any naval 

force passing through the Strait of Hormuz and up the 

Gulf to Kuwait. Admiral Mauz later declared: “I wanted to see an amphibious landing as much as anybody. 

. . . The trouble was, there was no good place to do 

a landing.”15 Mauz believed that Desert Shield would 

shape inter-Service competition in the post-Soviet 

world and that the Army and Air Force were looking to replace their NATO missions with traditional 

Navy/Marine Corps expeditionary missions; therefore, he wanted the naval forces to have an impact on 

the conflict. Despite this, he made “insistent and repeated” requests to General Schwarzkopf to halve the 

number of amphibious ships in the area. Mauz’s belief 

that amphibious operations were not practical in the 

Gulf likely led General Jenkins to conclude that the 

commander of Naval Forces Central Command “displayed little interest in developing a naval campaign 

that went beyond the level of presence.”16

General Schwarzkopf repeatedly denied Admiral Mauz’s request to reduce the amount of amphibious shipping under his command because the Marines 

afloat were already being used as a reserve force 

as well as a threat and feint against the Iraqis, who 

could never rule out the possibility of an amphibious 

assault. General Jenkins and his staff prepared vari14 Brown, Marine Forces Afloat, 41–45. 15 Westermeyer, Liberating Kuwait, 43. 16 Brown, Marine Forces Afloat, 42–43; Marolda and Schneller, 

Shield and Sword, 117–18; and LtGen Bernard E. Trainor, “Amphibious Operations in the Gulf War,” Marine Corps Gazette 78, 

no. 8 (August 1994): 56.

Paul Westermeyer, U.S. Marines in the Gulf War, 1990–1991: Liberating 

Kuwait (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps History Division, 2014), 43
38 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

ous amphibious options for the 4th MEB and the 13th 

MEU(SOC), both separately and in tandem. These 

options included landings behind an Iraqi thrust into 

Saudi Arabia as well as reinforcement of the American and allied forces defending Saudi Arabia. Because 

the shoreline of the Gulf was relatively unsuited for 

amphibious operations, the reinforcement mission 

was considered most likely.17

The hasty departure of General Jenkins’s troops 

and their previous training for exercises in Norway 

left the brigade ill-prepared for amphibious opera17 Brown, Marine Forces Afloat, 42–43; and Marolda and Schneller, 

Shield and Sword, 117–18.

tions in a desert environment. To rectify these problems, a series of four amphibious exercises were 

planned in the friendly nation of Oman, each dubbed 

“Sea Soldier.” Sea Soldiers I and II took place in October and early November, respectively. In addition 

to practicing amphibious landings, the exercises gave 

the Marines a chance to conduct maintenance that 

could not be completed on ship and to rearrange 

the loading of the amphibious vessels to better suit 

the staff’s planning. The 13th MEU(SOC) worked 

with the brigade in these exercises as well, highDefense Imagery DN-ST-92-07370

During Exercise Sea Soldier III in the Persian Gulf, the bow ramp of a utility landing craft from the amphibious assault ship USS Nassau (LHA 4) 

descends as troops and vehicles prepare to hit the beach in support of Operation Desert Shield.
WINTER 2017 39

lighting the unity of the amphibious task force.18

Throughout October and November, the three 

leased vessels—the Bassro Polar, Pheasant, and Aurora 

T—were off-loaded in al-Jubayl, and their cargos were 

combat loaded onto the two roll-on/roll-off prepositioning ships.19 Major General Jenkins explained, 

“This was the first time that [Maritime Prepositioning] ships had ever been combat loaded to support 

a general landing plan for the amphibious force.”20

Three of the ships assigned to the brigade’s Military 

Sealift Command support squadron were leased vessels with foreign flags, and thus unable to be employed 

in a combat zone. With the prepositioning ships now 

emptied of gear, two vessels from Maritime Prepositioning Ship Squadron Two—the MV PFC William 

Baugh Jr. (T-AK 3001) and the MV 1stLt Alex Bonnyman 

Jr. (T-AK 3003)—were assigned to the brigade’s support squadron instead. 

The 13th MEU(SOC) had been deployed since 

June 1990, when it had departed on its scheduled 

cruise of the Pacific. On 4 November, the expeditionary unit departed the Persian Gulf region and sailed 

for Subic Bay in the Philippines, with orders to rearm 

and train, preparing to possibly return to the Gulf at 

a later date. The departure of Colonel John Rhodes’s 

Marines left the 4th MEB as the sole amphibious landing force available in the Persian Gulf region until December. 

Planning for War

Operation Imminent Thunder was conducted during 

15–21 November 1990 by Central Command at General Schwarzkopf’s orders. This training exercise was 

conducted to test the plan for defending Saudi Arabia and to determine what issues would arise from the 

18 Brown, Marine Forces Afloat, 46–50; 13th MEU(SOC) ComdC, 

October 1990 (Archives Branch, Marine Corps History Division, 

Quantico, VA); and 4th MEB ComdC, October 1990 (Archives 

Branch, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA).

19 Roll-on/roll-off ships are designed to carry wheeled cargo, such 

as trucks, automobiles, or railroad cars that are driven on and 

off the ship.

20 Brown, Marine Forces Afloat, 54–59; and MajGen Harry W. Jenkins, comments on draft of Westermeyer, Liberating Kuwait, 24 

February 2012 (Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA).

large joint/combined force working together in the 

desert kingdom.21 It was a five-phase operation that 

focused on air and amphibious exercises paired with 

tests of command, control, and communications. The 

exercise also served to strengthen General Boomer’s I 

Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF) staff. Although 

Marine expeditionary forces were an established part 

of Marine Corps doctrine, there was little expectation 

that they would be employed. The Marine expeditionary units deployed annually to the Mediterranean and 

the Pacific, and the Marine expeditionary brigades 

exercised regularly, but few expected the Corps to deploy an expeditionary force outside a major war. Operation Imminent Thunder provided an opportunity 

for the MEF staff to practice controlling the battle in 

a joint/combined environment.22

The exercise’s amphibious landings were originally planned for the port of Ras al-Mishab, but its 

proximity to the Kuwaiti border and the possibility of 

unintentional conflict with Iraqi forces led to General 

Schwarzkopf shifting the exercise south to the port of 

Ras al-Ghar. The new site was much more accessible 

to the media, which was eager for any new footage 

as the confrontation continued into its third month. 

Marine amphibious capabilities received a great deal 

of press attention as a result, and the Amphibious 

Task Force commander, Rear Admiral John LaPlante, 

later described it as “beating our chest for the press.” 

Ironically, most of the amphibious landings were canceled because of dangerous seas, but the extensive 

21 In American military parlance, joint operations are conducted 

by two or more Services (Navy-Army, Air Force–Marine Corps, 

etc.), while combined operations are conducted by American forces 

in conjunction with allied foreign military forces. Operation 

Desert Shield, conducted by forces from all U.S. Armed Services 

as well as the military forces of several other nations, including 

Saudi Arabia, Great Britain, France, etc., was therefore a joint/

combined operation.

22 I MEF ComdC, November 1990 (Archives Branch, Marine 

Corps History Division, Quantico, VA); BGen Paul K. Van Riper, “Observations During Operation Desert Storm,” Marine Corps 

Gazette 100, no. 3 (March 2016): 54–61; and Col Charles J. Quilter II, USMCR, U.S. Marines in the Persian Gulf, 1990–1991: With 

the I Marine Expeditionary Force in Desert Shield and Desert Storm 

(Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters 

Marine Corps, 1993), 24–27.
40 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

air and communication operations were a success.23

In late November 1990, with Saudi Arabia secured, the president ordered Central Command to 

shift its focus of planning from defending Saudi Arabia to liberating Kuwait. Additional forces were sent 

to the Persian Gulf region to prepare for the required 

offensive. The amphibious forces were reinforced by 

the 5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade (5th MEB), 

commanded by Brigadier General Peter J. Rowe. Brigadier General Rowe’s brigade was normally the designated sea-deployment brigade of the I MEF (just as 

the 7th MEB was designated as the Maritime Prepositioning Force brigade), but many of the units that 

would normally be called on to fill out the brigade had 

already been reassigned to fill out the forces deploying 

for Desert Shield. As a result, the brigade’s elements 

included large numbers of reservists operating alongside their active-duty Marines.24

On 1 December 1990, Vice Admiral Stanley R. 

Arthur took over from Admiral Mauz as commander 

of U.S. Naval Forces, Central Command, and commander of the U.S. Seventh Fleet.25 Admiral Arthur 

was described as a “fighter” by General Schwarzkopf 

and General Boomer, both of whom he got along with 

very well. However, he was not eager to conduct an 

amphibious operation, stating after the war, “I knew 

that neither he [Schwarzkopf] nor the Chairman [of 

the Joint Chiefs, Colin Powell] wanted to have an amphibious landing. That was the last thing they wanted 

to have happen. And there was never going to be an 

occasion where an amphibious landing was going to 

be necessary to conduct the war the way they wanted 

to.”26

23 Transcript of I MEF morning brief, 19–21 November 1990 (Archives Branch, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA); 

4th MEB ComdC, November 1990 (Archives Branch, Marine 

Corps History Division, Quantico, VA); Brown, Marine Forces 

Afloat, 64–69; and Marolda and Schneller, Shield and Sword, 150. 24 5th MEB ComdC, July–December 1990, Westermeyer Collection (Archives Branch, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA); and Brown, Marine Forces Afloat, 73–76. 25 This command change had been scheduled prior to the war 

and the Chief of Naval Operations decided to go ahead with it 

despite the crisis. 

26 Marolda and Schneller, Shield and Sword, 137–38, 150.

Although the air campaign had already begun, 

most of the Marines serving on board the amphibious task force spent the end of January participating 

in Sea Soldier IV, the last amphibious exercise conducted for the Gulf War. Both the 4th and 5th MEBs 

participated in this exercise, marking it as the largest 

Marine amphibious exercise since 1964.27

The exercises had served their purpose as the 

two-brigade amphibious landing was a success. Three 

battalions of the landing force were lifted ashore by 

the brigade’s helicopter squadrons, training to handle 

prisoners of war occurred, and the brigades underwent 

a week of desert training and equipment maintenance 

before conducting a tactical withdrawal exercise from 

the beach back to the ships. For most of the Marines 

in the 4th MEB, floating in the North Arabian Sea 

since early September, this would be the highlight of a 

monotonous Desert Shield and Desert Storm deployment.28

When the allied air attacks against Iraq began on 

17 January 1991, the seaborne feint needed reinforcement in order to remain credible. Amphibious raids 

were one method of reinforcing that threat.29 On 23 

January 1991, Navy Captain Thomas L. McClelland, 

commanding Amphibious Squadron 5, and Colonel 

John E. Rhodes, commander of the 13th MEU(SOC), 

were ordered to plan for an amphibious raid on several Iraqi-held Kuwaiti islands; this raid was code 

named Operation Desert Sting. Before the operation 

began, Iraqis on one of the targeted islands, Qaruh, 

surrendered on 25 January to the USS Curts (FFG 38). 

On 26 January, the Iraqi garrison on another of the 

targeted islands, Umm al-Maradim, created a sign for 

U.S. Navy reconnaissance aircraft photographing the 

island that indicated they wished to surrender. The 

plan for Operation Desert Sting was modified to account for the surrender.

Heavily supported by Navy aircraft, Company 

A, Battalion Landing Team 1/4 (Rein), landed on the 

27 Brown, Marine Forces Afloat, 107–9. 28 Brown, Marine Forces Afloat, 107–9. 29 Operation Desert Sting is described in greater detail in Brown, 

Marine Forces Afloat, 139–43.
WINTER 2017 41

north end of Umm al-Maradim Island at noon on 29 

January. They encountered no enemy fire or other resistance and found the island had been deserted by its 

garrison. The Marines captured or destroyed a large 

quantity of small arms, machine guns, and mortars as 

well as several Iraqi antiaircraft guns and missiles. After three hours on the island, the raid force departed, 

leaving a Kuwaiti flag raised over the island and the 

words “Free Kuwait” and “USMC” painted on several 

of the buildings.

By February, the Corps’ plan for liberating Kuwait was not popular among the Marine commanders who would have to execute it. The plan called for 

both Marine divisions to pass in column through one 

breach in the Iraqi fortifications, a difficult and timeconsuming operation. After the war was underway, 

the Marines in the amphibious task force would land 

at Ash Shu‘aybah and seize the port to establish a logistics base for the I Marine Expeditionary Force’s advance.30

General Boomer later said:

As we began to plan everything was on 

the table. In the beginning, it seemed to 

make sense to use our amphibious capability to come from the Gulf, attack Kuwait 

on the flank while forces from Saudi Arabia drove up, ultimately conducting a link 

30 Gen Walter E. Boomer, intvw with author, 27 July 2006, hereafter Boomer intvw.

Map courtesy of U.S. Army
42 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

up. We explored that option carefully. Extensive planning went into that concept. 

There were schemes to attack up North of 

Kuwait City, into the Basra area. That line 

of thinking seemed to be favored by those 

at Headquarters Marine Corps. When the 

Navy and Stan Arthur and I really began to 

explore that concept, it became clear that 

part of the Gulf did not lend itself to an 

amphibious operation for a lot of reasons. 

Going back, there was all this criticism of 

Army planners working in a vacuum and 

devising plans and here we had planners at 

Headquarters Marine Corps/Quantico devising plans for us from half way around the 

world, none of which ultimately made any 

sense. Admiral Arthur and I gave them as 

much credence as they deserved, which was 

not much.31

An amphibious landing into Kuwait involved 

surmounting all of the standard difficulties of an amphibious assault, such as weather, tides, beach quality, 

shipping, and enemy forces, as well as the unique challenges presented by the oil industry’s heavy presence 

in the Persian Gulf.

In addition, relatively few beaches were acceptable for a landing in Kuwait. One was available approximately 12 miles from the Saudi border—a landing 

so close to the front lines that it would provide no operational benefits. Farther north along the coast, the 

Mina al-Ahmadi oil terminal offered a more appropriate option; beyond that was a heavily urbanized beach 

area with many civilians and myriad buildings ideal 

for beach defense. Finally, the north coast of Kuwait 

and Bubiyan Island was surrounded by mud flats and 

significant tidal variations.32

Landing in northern Kuwait exposed the majority of the Kuwaiti civilian population to the dangers 

of an amphibious assault, which would have required 

31 Boomer intvw.

32 RAdm Sam Cox, USN (Ret), “Storm Season: War Clouds Form 

Over the Sands of Mina al-Ahmadi,” Sextant (blog), Naval History and Heritage Command, 18 February 2016.

heavy air strikes and naval shelling, combining the 

difficulties of an amphibious assault with those of an 

urban battle. If the Iraqis put up any sort of fight at 

all, the collateral damage and civilian death toll would 

have been significant.33

The refinery and oil terminal of Mina al-Ahmadi 

was the better choice, but it was one of Kuwait’s 

prime economic resources. Moreover, the web of 

storage tanks, pipelines, terminals, and wellheads 

presented a unique tactical environment with few if 

any precedents. The Iraqis opened pipelines and wellheads, creating massive amounts of smoke and large 

oil spills. The smoke turned day into night; however, 

since American equipment was better suited to poor 

observation conditions, the smoke generally aided 

the liberators. The oil spills caused issues but did not 

hinder military activity. The result of such environmental warfare was an unknown prior to the war, as 

was the damage that might arise from storage tanks 

detonating in the refinery. Some estimates concluded 

that, if the natural gas facility in the Mina al-Ahmadi 

complex detonated, the resulting explosion could be 

nuclear in scale.34

In addition to terrain and collateral damage 

considerations, an amphibious assault required U.S. 

forces to take Iraqi military capabilities into account. 

The Iraqi military’s greatest strengths included massed 

infantry, large artillery forces, and plentiful armored 

vehicles. Dug in behind beach defenses, even the demoralized Iraqi Army units then in Kuwait might put 

up a respectable resistance, though this threat applied 

equally to a land invasion. The Iraqi Air Force and 

Navy presented threats to an amphibious landing that 

a land offensive could safely ignore. 

The threats to an amphibious assault included Exocet antiship missile-armed Dassault Mirage 

F1 aircraft. During the “Tanker War” portion of the 

Iran-Iraq conflict, an Iraqi aircraft fired two Exocet 

missiles into the USS Stark (FFG 31), severely dam33 Cox, “Storm Season.” 

34 Cox, “Storm Season”; and RAdm Sam Cox, USN (Ret), “Gathering Storm: Mina al-Ahmadi in the Crosshairs–Part Two,” Sextant (blog), Naval History and Heritage Command, 24 February 

2016.
WINTER 2017 43

aging the frigate and killing 37 of her crew. This history left the U.S. Navy very sensitive to the dangers 

of the Exocet missile. On 24 January, two Mirages further illustrated this threat, when they followed Coalition strike aircraft on a course along the Saudi coast. 

Whether through design or good luck, these Iraqi 

aircraft proceeded along a “seam” in Coalition air defenses between the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force. 

The Iraqi aircraft got far closer to Coalition shipping 

and port targets than they should have before a pair 

of Saudi McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagles successfully 

intercepted them.35

In addition to aircraft-borne Exocet missiles, 

the Iraqis fielded Chinese-made, shore-based HY-2 

“Silkworm” antiship missiles; they had seven launchers and approximately 50 missiles. The Silkworm missile threat turned out to be somewhat hollow; only 

one attack occurred. Two missiles were launched on 

25 February at the USS Missouri (BB 63); one crashed 

harmlessly into the sea, and the second was downed 

by a British Sea Dart surface-to-air missile fired by 

HMS Gloucester (D 96). The USS Missouri located the 

launcher with its drone reconnaissance craft and destroyed it with a salvo of its 16-inch, .50-caliber Mark 

7 guns.36

The Iraqi Navy presented two threats to Coalition naval and amphibious forces with missile boats 

armed with surface-to-surface antiship missiles and 

mines. The missile boat threat was eliminated on 29 

and 30 January in a series of engagements dubbed the 

“Bubiyan Turkey Shoot” by U.S. Navy personnel. The 

Iraqi Navy attempted to send the majority if its vessels to Iran, hoping they could be preserved there for 

postwar use. Many Iraqi vessels were destroyed by 

Coalition aircraft flying repeated strikes against them 

before they reached Iranian waters. The few Iraqi vessels that made their destination in Iranian ports were 

seized by Iran.37

The threat from naval mines was more significant to Coalition naval forces, and the U.S. Navy was 

35 Marolda and Schneller, Shield and Sword, 36, 206–7.

36 Marolda and Schneller, Shield and Sword, 67. 37 Marolda and Schneller, Shield and Sword, 229–32.

ill-equipped to deal with it, despite the prevalence 

of mine warfare during the Tanker War, as when the 

USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG 58) was nearly sunk by 

an Iranian mine on 14 April 1988. The United States 

deployed Sikorsky MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopters 

for countermine operations, sweeping narrow lanes at 

more than twice the speed of mine countermeasure 

vessels. After preliminary searches, the mine sweepers 

would follow. The USS Avenger (MCM 1), USS Impervious (MSO 449), USS Leader (MSO 490), and USS 

Adroit (MSO 509) comprised the U.S. mine countermeasures force, while the Royal Navy deployed the 

ocean survey ship HMS Herald (H 138) and five Huntclass minesweepers: HMS Atherstone (M 38), HMS Cattistock (M 31), HMS Dulverton (M 35), HMS Hurworth

(M 39), and HMS Ledbury (M 30). American mine 

sweeping got off to a slow start; Admiral Mauz considered antimine warfare a low priority, so American 

minesweepers were sent to the Persian Gulf against 

his objections. Crewed by temporarily assigned sailors and activated reservists, the ships had not trained 

together prior to the crisis, and as a result the mine 

countermeasures forces were not ready for operations 

until November. British vessels and other NATO nations’ mine countermeasures vessels were technologically superior to those of the United States. Admiral 

Arthur later remarked that “everybody in the world 

had better minesweepers out there than I did.”38

As the air war moved forward, Navy and Marine 

planners on Admiral Arthur’s staff continued evaluating amphibious landing options, especially a landing 

on the coast of Kuwait in support of the Marine Corps 

offensive across the Saudi-Kuwaiti border. Rear Admiral Samuel J. Cox, who was then an assistant intelligence officer on Arthur’s staff, recalled the various 

Iraqi antiship capabilities listed above and how they 

had not yet been targeted during the air campaign: 

“Attrition of the primary threat systems is less than 

5 percent. At the present rate of attrition, it will be 

sometime next year before we reach 50 percent.” As 

long as these threats remained essentially unaddressed, 

minesweeping operations in the northern Gulf could 

38 Marolda and Schneller, Shield and Sword, 74–77, 261–63.
44 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

not begin and amphibious operations would not be 

conducted.39

The postwar Gulf War Airpower Survey, commissioned by the Air Force, claimed that 46 percent of all 

carrier strike sorties were launched at maritime targets in the first two weeks of the air campaign. It also 

found that the Iraqi surface fleet was neutralized by 

2 February, but that the shore-based Silkworm sites 

remained a threat until the ground campaign began. 

These sites were difficult to confirm destroyed, and 

many decoy sites were suspected. Of the 45 strikes 

launched against Silkworm strikes, 80 percent occurred after 7 February.40

On 2 February, General Boomer flew out to the 

USS Blue Ridge (LCC 19) for a conference with General Norman Schwarzkopf and Vice Admiral Stanley 

Arthur concerning amphibious operations, especially 

the planned landing at Ash Shu‘aybah. At the meeting, 

it became clear the Navy was not ready to conduct any 

large amphibious operations, primarily because of the 

large number of mines the Iraqis had deployed in Kuwaiti waters. General Schwarzkopf was not enthusiastic either, since he was informed during the meeting 

that the amphibious operation and subsequent coastal 

fighting would likely involve massive destruction to 

Kuwait’s most densely populated areas. He remarked 

that he was “not going to destroy Kuwait in order to 

save it.” When asked if the landing was required for 

success, General Boomer replied no, with the caveat 

that the amphibious deception and mine-clearing operations move forward and that the amphibious forces 

continue planning so the option would remain available if needed.41

Although General Schwarzkopf had vetoed a 

major amphibious invasion, an amphibious feint remained an important part of the Coalition’s plan to 

39 RAdm Sam Cox, USN (Ret), “Storm Front: The Threat of Mina 

al-Ahmadi–Part Four,” Sextant (blog), Naval History and Heritage Command, 1 March 2016.

40 Eliot A. Cohen, “Effects and Effectiveness,” in The Gulf War Air 

Power Survey, vol. II, Operations and Effects and Effectiveness (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1993), 226–29.

41 Brown, Marine Forces Afloat, 130–33; and Marolda and Schneller, 

Shield and Sword, 254.

draw attention away from both the Marine thrust into 

central Kuwait and the Army’s wide, sweeping flanking movement to the west. The American battleships 

conducted naval gunfire support missions along the 

coast throughout February, and Coalition minelayers 

cleared lanes through the Iraqi minefields on 16 February.42

The U.S. Navy’s fear of Iraqi mines and lack of 

confidence in its ability to fully clear the minefields 

proved well founded. On 17 February, the USS Tripoli (LPH 10) was disabled after it hit a mine. Tripoli

had been pressed into service as the platform for the 

Sikorsky MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopters of the Na42 Marolda and Schneller, Shield and Sword, 247–68; and Brown, 

Marine Forces Afloat, 149–54.

Edward J. Marolda and Robert J. Schneller Jr., Shield and Sword: 

The United States Navy and the Persian Gulf War (Washington, DC: 

Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 1998), 248
WINTER 2017 45

vy’s Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadron 14 

during minesweeping operations and was, ironically, 

engaged in this task when it struck a mine. Later the 

same day, the USS Princeton (CG 59) also was struck 

by a mine. Fortunately, and surprisingly, neither vessel 

suffered fatalities from the mine attacks.43

The Amphibious Feint

In the days leading up to the liberation of Kuwait, and 

during the ground assault itself, the U.S. battleships 

fired effectively on Iraqi forces along the coast. Admiral Arthur used the battleships to continue the amphibious feint because they were strongly tied to an 

amphibious assault. After the war, he remarked, “All 

43 Brown, Marine Forces Afloat, 149–54.

I had to do was start moving the battleships . . . and 

then line General Jenkins and his fine Marines and 

our amphibs [amphibious ships] up behind them, and 

there was no doubt in anybody’s mind that we were 

coming.”44

Most of the battleships’ 16-inch naval gunfire 

was directed at preplanned targets, but some spectacular direct support was also provided. On 24 February 1991, this came to the aid of the Joint Forces 

Command–East troops and Captain Douglas R. Kleinsmith of the 1st Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company 

(1st ANGLICO): 

The Saudi battalion commander, a colonel, 

looked at him [Kleinsmith] incredulously. 

44 Marolda and Schneller, Shield and Sword, 279, 288–89.

Defense Imagery DN-SC-92-08659

The battleship USS Wisconsin (BB 64) fires a round from one of its 16-inch guns at Iraqi targets in Kuwait. In the first days of the ground war, the 

battleships—directed by Marine ANGLICO teams—often fired in support of the Saudi troops advancing along the coastal highway.
46 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

“You can call in the battleships?” he asked. 

“Yea[h],” answered Captain Kleinsmith, 

“That’s why we’re here.” Kleinsmith contacted [the USS] Wisconsin [BB 64] and 

the battleship opened fire. The captain 

heard the muted roar of her 16-inch guns 

through his radio. The 43 seconds required 

for the first shell to reach its target seemed 

an eternity. Kleinsmith was beginning to 

wonder if he had transmitted the wrong 

coordinates when projectiles began to fall 

precisely where he wanted them. The Saudi 

marines stared in amazement as the 2,700 

pound shells lifted whole houses into the 

air. “You can do this anytime?” asked the 

Saudi battalion commander. Kleinsmith replied in the affirmative. “Ah,” exclaimed the 

colonel, “We can win now.”45

The battleship support was somewhat irrelevant, however, because the Saudi advance encountered almost 

no resistance on the first day as it advanced into Kuwait and captured thousands of Iraqi prisoners. 

In the predawn hours of 25 February, 13th 

MEU(SOC) conducted a helicopter feint into the 

Ash Shu‘aybah area, attempting to convince the Iraqis 

that an amphibious landing was pending. The flight 

included six CH-46E Sea Knights, two Bell AH-1W 

Super Cobras, one CH-53E Super Stallion, and one 

Bell UH-1N Twin Huey. The helicopters flew in low 

and deliberately popped up to be detected by Iraqi 

radar at 0449 before returning safely to USS Okinawa. 

Combined with the battleships’ naval gunfire, the operation appeared to be a success.46

Conclusion

Two relatively large landings by the Marines of the 

landing force deployed in support of Operation Desert Storm, although neither involved an amphibious 

assault. On 24 February, the 5th MEB’s 3d Battalion, 

1st Marines, landed by helicopter south of the al45 Marolda and Schneller, Shield and Sword, 288.

46 Brown, Marine Forces Afloat, 155–56.

Wafrah oil field on the Saudi-Kuwaiti border, where 

it established a blocking position and filled the gap 

between the I MEF and the Saudi-led Joint Forces 

Command–East along the coast. After the Iraqi surrender on 28 February 1991, the battalion cleared the 

forest of Iraqi stragglers.47

On 3 March, the 13th MEU(SOC) landed on 

the island of Jazirat Faylaka, which was held by the 

Iraqi 440th Naval Infantry Brigade. Aerial reconnaissance observed white flags as the Iraqis gathered in a 

communications compound. The Marines conducted 

a helicopter assault on the island, accepted the Iraqi 

troops’ surrender, and supervised their evacuation to 

the USS Ogden.

48

The amphibious threat remained a constant concern for the Iraqis throughout the conflict, given the 

extensive defenses built along the coast manned by 

five infantry divisions. The Iraqi Navy devoted itself to 

extensively mining the Kuwait coast and the northern 

waters of the Persian Gulf. Although some Iraqi offi47 Brown, Marine Forces Afloat, 173–80. 48 13th MEU(SOC) ComdC, March 1991 (Archives Branch, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA); MEU Service Support Group 13 ComdC, February–March 1991 (Archives Branch, 

Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, VA); and Brown, Marine Forces Afloat, 157–62.

Marine Corps History Division

This sketch depicts the extensive beach defenses the Iraqis placed along 

the Kuwaiti coastline in anticipation of an amphibious landing.
WINTER 2017 47

cers expressed doubts about an American amphibious 

assault, it appears to have dominated Saddam Hussein’s thinking as late as 24 February 1991, hours after 

the Coalition’s offensive was well underway. Postwar 

examination of Iraqi coastal defenses and a captured 

sand table depicting Iraqi shore defenses in a Kuwaiti 

school amply illustrated how seriously the Iraqis took 

the amphibious threat.49

After the war, the commander of the Iraqi Navy 

declared that “these [Iraqi] mines proved [their] lethality and effectiveness. . . . They caused havoc within the 

enemy force.” He continued, “During the epic Mother 

of All Battles, this weapon [mines] was utilized effectively and successfully to disrupt the allies’ plans 

in launching any operation from the sea.” His view 

was shared by the U.S. Navy Central Command commander, Vice Admiral Arthur, who later stated that 

“Iraq successfully delayed and might have prevented 

an amphibious assault on Kuwait’s assailable flank, 

protected a large part of its force from the effects of 

naval gunfire, and severely hampered surface opera49 Kevin M. Woods, The Mother of All Battles: Saddam Hussein’s 

Strategic Plan for the Persian Gulf War (Annapolis: Naval Institute 

Press, 2008), 199, 223.

Defense Imagery DM-SC-93-05230, 

courtesy of SSgt J. R. Ruark

This Iraqi sand table was found in a school gymnasium in Kuwait City. 

The marked Iraqi positions corresponded to their defense plans and 

indicated how successful the Marines’ amphibious deception was at 

distracting Iraqi attention from the Saudi-Kuwaiti frontier.

tions in the northern Arabian Gulf, all through the 

use of naval mines.”50

Looking back at the conflict, the Marine commanders felt the role of the amphibious deception 

needed to be emphasized. Major General James M. Myatt, commander of the 1st Marine Division, recalled: 

“I think what we can’t dismiss is the level of effort 

put into the defenses along the beaches by the Iraqis. 

. . . probably 40% to 50% of the Iraqi artillery pieces 

were pointed to the east in defense of this perceived 

real threat—an attack from the Gulf. There were literally hundreds of antiaircraft weapon systems laid in a 

direct-fire mode from Saudi Arabia all the way up way 

above Kuwait City to defend against the amphibious 

threat. . . . I think it [the amphibious feint] saved a lot 

of Marine lives.”51

• 1775 •

50 Woods, The Mother of All Battles, 134; Marolda and Schneller, 

Shield and Sword, 247–68; and Brown, Marine Forces Afloat, 149–54. 51 “The 1st Marine Division in the Attack: Interview with Major 

General J. M. Myatt, USMC,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings

117, no. 11 (November 1991), as quoted in Maj Charles D. Melson 

(Ret), Evelyn A. Englander, and Capt David A. Dawson, comps., 

U.S. Marines in the Persian Gulf, 1990–1991: Anthology and Annotated 

Bibliography (Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, 

Headquarters Marine Corps, 1992), 145. 

Defense Imagery DN-ST-91-08410

Barbed wire, mines, and other obstacles were erected along the shoreline during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait to prevent or slow attacks 

by sea.
HISTORY IN ACTION

Marine Corps Art Spotlight

COMBAT ART GALLERY

by Breanne Robertson, PhD1

Marine Corps art is having a moment. Even 

if the average Marine has not noticed, recruiters have. The current advertising campaign from J. Walter Thompson, the Service’s longtime 

agency for recruitment, depicts the illustrious history 

of the U.S. Marine Corps in the form of an extended 

sculptural tableau. Rendered entirely in CGI, miniature diecast figurines populate an immense, battlestrewn diorama. The camera pans from scene to scene, 

highlighting significant junctures in Marine history 

from Tripoli to Belleau Wood to Baghdad and beyond. In the background, metallic sounds of swordfight, rapid machine-gun fire, and periodic whistling 

of mortar shells provide an acoustic backdrop that 

animates the posed action figures and evokes the cacophony of battle. The diminutive scale, green-hued 

patina, and dynamic posture of the Marines call to 

mind the myriad toy soldiers and military miniatures 

that ignited childhood imaginations and inspired 

hobbyist wargames. At the same time, the commercial 

makes explicit reference to public monuments erected 

in honor of American heroism and military triumph, 

a theme underscored in the voiceover announcement 

that “in the heart of every Marine, you’ll find a prom1

 Breanne Robertson joined Marine Corps History Division in 

2015. She is the author of Camp Pendleton: The Historic Rancho Santa Margarita y Las Flores and the Marine Corps in Southern California, A Shared History, which commemorated the 75th anniversary 

of that military base. She is currently preparing a monograph on 

Marine Corps activities in the Dominican Republic between 1916 

and 1924 and an edited volume examining the history and cultural meaning of the Iwo Jima flag-raisings, entitled Investigating 

Iwo: The Flag-Raisings in Myth, Memory and Esprit de Corps (2018).

ise . . . of battles won.” While the deliberate conflation 

of diecast figurines with modern military monuments 

first emerges in the advertisement’s recreation of the 

Iwo Jima flag-raising, famously commemorated in 

bronze at the Marine Corps War Memorial, the prospect of cultural reverence becomes fully apparent in a 

slow reveal at the end; the camera zooms out to disclose a larger-than-life statue, a modern Marine cast 

in the tradition of “common soldier” monuments, yet 

derived from a mosaic of historical vignettes and enshrined in a museum setting.2

What recruiters have long recognized, and what 

this commercial makes clear, is that art plays an essential role in shaping cultural memory and understanding of war.3

 Historically, Marine Corps leadership has 

appreciated the ability of artists and photographers 

to document military action for educational and promotional purposes. Prompted by the success of the 

combat correspondents program, the U.S. Marine 

Corps initiated a corollary mission for combat artists 

to keep Americans informed about Marine activities 

2

 The museum unveiled three of the bronzes donated by Marine 

Corps Recruiting Command to the National Museum of the Marine Corps on 13 December 2017, where they will be on display 

for the foreseeable future. See LCpl Naomi Marcom, “MCRC 

Unveils Three Iconic Battles Won Sculptures,” Marine Corps Recruiting Command, 13 December 2017.

3

 This is particularly true in the advertisement’s inclusion of the 

U.S. military’s toppling of the statue honoring Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

48
WINTER 2017 49

on the home front and overseas during World War II.4

Their mission was twofold: to reconstruct accounts of 

the battlefront that had not been photographed and 

to convey the essence of warfare using the emotive 

4

 The combat art program originally operated as a branch of the 

combat correspondents program, through which artists served 

alongside writers and photographers to bring the impact of war 

to the American public.

capabilities of fine art. Under the direction of Brigadier General Robert L. Denig, Marine combat art attained national exposure and critical acclaim through 

magazines, newspapers, and exhibitions at prestigious 

museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in 

New York City and the National Gallery of Art in 

Washington, DC. Despite its apparent utility to Marine Corps public relations, the combat art program 

ceased operations at the end of the war. It was resurrected briefly during the Korean War, but did not 

become a fixed element again until the United States 

entered the Vietnam War. General Wallace M. Greene 

Jr., 23d Commandant of the Marine Corps, mandated 

the reestablishment of the combat art program as a 

permanent component of daily Marine operations 

and training in the fall of 1966. Since that time, Marine artists have performed an array of standard military occupational specialties, while also embracing 

the additional duties of crafting a visual record of U.S. 

military action and experience. 

Honor, Courage, Commitment

While a sculpture-themed recruitment campaign 

would generally have broad appeal, its current distribution is well timed to coincide with the opening of 

the Combat Art Gallery at the National Museum of 

the Marine Corps (NMMC) in Triangle, Virginia. In 

July 2017, the museum invited the public into its new 

second-floor gallery space, constructed as part of the 

ongoing building expansion, with the inaugural exhibition Honor, Courage, Commitment: Marine Corps Art, 

1975–2015.

5

 As custodian of art produced under the 

Marine Corps combat art program, as well as works 

created before and since, the museum’s collection consists of more than 9,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints by 350 artists.6

 Curator Joan Thomas 

5

 Construction on the museum building concluded in March 

2017. The installation of galleries and exhibits in the new space is 

scheduled for completion in 2021, with new pieces being added 

each year from now until then.

6

 In addition to officially sanctioned combat art, the NMMC 

maintains in its holdings art that capture significant moments 

in the history of the Corps, field sketches, early twentiethcentury recruiting poster designs, and portraits of notable Marines, such as Medal of Honor recipients and the Commandants.

Official U.S. Marine Corps video, courtesy of J. Walter Thompson

“Battles Won: Anthem,” advertisement created by J. Walter Thompson 

Atlanta for the U.S. Marine Corps, 2017.
50 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

envisioned the exhibition as “a reflection of what 

Marines would have seen and experienced.” Selecting works that were honest interpretations of combat zones and that would potentially evoke memories 

in museum visitors, Thomas strove to present “visual 

touchstones of the past 40+ years of Marine Corps history and our Nation’s history.”7

 It showcases 100 works 

of art produced by 22 military artists, many of whom 

7

 Joan Thomas, personal correspondence with the author, October 2017. Thomas and her colleagues at the NMMC chose to focus 

on the post–Vietnam history of combat art because it foreshadows the exhibition themes that will be covered in the forthcoming galleries created during the building expansion. They also 

felt it was appropriate that the first-ever combat art exhibition 

should highlight Marine artists, with special attention given to 

the influential role Maj Jack Dyer and Col Charles Waterhouse 

each played in the development of the program. Charles Grow, 

personal correspondence with the author, October 2017.

served as official combat artists during their service 

with the Marine Corps. Ranging in rank from lance 

corporals to colonels, these men and women devoted 

their artistic talents to recording the story of their fellow Marines in visual form. 

The title of the exhibition—Honor, Courage, Commitment—evokes the triad principles embraced by Marines and supplies the organizational impetus behind 

the gallery space. The first section, “Every Clime and 

Place,” illustrates Marines as they conduct training 

exercises and as they engage the enemy around the 

globe. Return from UNITAS, for example, depicts the 

2d Assault Amphibian Battalion returning to Onslow 

Beach at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, after particiPhoto courtesy of the author

Installation view of Honor, Courage, Commitment: Marine Corps Art, 1975–2015, combat art exhibition at the NMMC, 2017. 
WINTER 2017 51

pating in the Unitas exercises on 8 December 1988.8

Completed by then-Captain Charles Grow as part of a 

series on military vehicles, the painting shows tracked 

vehicles gleaming in the predawn light. Golden-violet 

clouds and a tangerine horizon melt into a lavender 

sea, while tufts of orange-tinged sea grass dapple the 

sandy slopes. The Marine infantry and equipment, 

recently returned from South American deployment 

and silhouetted against the sky, exude a quiet stillness 

that suggests a successful training mission and highlights the natural drama unfolding around them. 

“No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy,” a phrase 

8

 Previously known as Partnership of the Americas, the U.S. Marine Corps’ Unitas amphibious exercise is a multinational maritime exercise conducted to enhance security cooperation and 

improve Coalition operations in the Western Hemisphere.

taken from then-Major General James N. Mattis’s 2003 

command to the 1st Marine Division, exemplifies the 

dual nature of the Marine Corps mission; whereas 

each Marine is a skilled combatant, professionally 

trained in the art of warfare, they must also display 

compassion and commitment to assist those in need. 

Veteran combat artist P. Michael Gish exemplified 

this tenet when deployed to Somalia in support of 

Operation Restore Hope. Having served as a Marine 

Corps aviator against the backdrop of World War II 

and the Korean War, Gish voluntarily embarked for 

the frontlines as a combat artist during the Vietnam 

conflict and in several aid missions thereafter. Grain 

Queue, Somalia documents the 1992–93 relief efforts of 

Marines and nongovernmental organizations to protect and feed a starving population. Since 1975, the 

Marine Corps has provided humanitarian aid to ciArt Collection, National Museum of the Marine Corps

Capt Charles Grow, Return from UNITAS, oil on canvas. 
52 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

vilians in Somalia, Haiti, the Philippines, Bangladesh, 

and other locales around the globe.9

During this same period, the Service has been 

called upon to defend U.S. interests and so engaged the 

enemy with unparalleled ferocity on the battlefield. In 

January 2003, Sergeant John M. Carrillo deployed to 

Iraq to serve as a combat artist for the Marine Corps 

History Division. As the first enlisted Marine assigned 

to the region with the explicit mission of creating 

combat art, he used a sketch pad, pencils, and charcoal to tell the Marine Corps story during Operation 

Iraqi Freedom.10 Carrillo’s mixed media piece, 155 Artillery South of Baghdad, foregrounds the activities of 

Coalition forces through a vivid nocturne of British 

artillery in Iraq. The rhythmic composition and swirling plumes of smoke evoke Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry 

Night. Yet, the inscription below the artist’s signature 

belies the beauty of the scene by calling attention to 

the realities of war; in a fluid white script, Carrillo 

notes that the artillery barrage “softened Baghdad all 

night long.”

The final segment within the exhibition, aptly titled “The Price,” acknowledges the physical and emotional toll of military service. In their depictions of 

memorial services, wounded warriors, and loved ones 

supporting Marines from afar, the works in this section remind viewers that Marines willingly accept the 

risks associated with their missions and that families 

carry the weight of uncertainty, loss, and grief. Sergeant Sarah Rothschild bears her personal struggle 

with post-traumatic stress in a heartrending selfportrait whose title, What Happens There Doesn’t Stay 

There, conjures the carefree tourism slogan of Las Vegas to underscore the psychological toll of warfight9

 Annette D. Amerman, The Marines Have Landed: Eighty Years of 

Marine Corps Landings, 1935–2015 (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps 

History Division, 2015).

10 Sgt John M. “Jack” Carrillo began his military career at the age 

of 19, when he became a Navy hospital corpsman. He served in 

that capacity until 1996. Upon learning that the Marine Corps 

had a combat illustrator program, he immediately enlisted and 

trained in this occupational specialty. In 2002, Carrillo became 

the first enlisted artist to be selected as a uniform plate artist. He 

deployed to Iraq in 2003 as an official combat artist. 

ing and the challenges of returning to civilian life. The 

combat art collection thus exhibits Corps values, albeit occasionally with a dose of gritty realism. 

The exhibition encompasses an impressive range 

of military involvement and, in doing so, honors Marines who have served in the Corps during the past 

40 years. Active-duty Marines, reservists, and civilian 

artists capture all aspects of Marine Corps experience: 

training for battle, daily life on the battlefront and 

during humanitarian missions, and personal reflections on home and family. As Marine Chief Warrant 

Officer 2 Michael D. Fay (Ret) explains: 

Through our eyes, we want to get as close 

as possible to the realness of what is happening—the sweat, suffering, boredom and 

adrenaline. In an era of digital imagery, our 

art is slowed vision. There is depth to it. The 

Art Collection, National Museum of the Marine Corps

Col Peter Michael Gish, Grain Queue, Somalia, oil on canvas. 
WINTER 2017 53

viewer can see that the artist was there and 

get an idea of how the subjects were feeling.11

Rendered with sensitivity and clear-eyed vision, the 

collection imparts the tremendous courage and selflessness Marines display in service to their country, 

even under the most trying of circumstances. 

Today, the National Museum of the Marine 

Corps is working to revitalize an official Marine 

Corps Combat Art Program. With a newly designated 

studio and exhibition space, the museum promises to 

be a locus of opportunity for aspiring artists as well as 

a site for civilian and military audiences to forge deeper understandings of what it means to serve. Thomas 

has already commenced planning the next exhibition, 

which will introduce visitors to combat art from the 

First World War, while Grow continues to contribute knowledge and insights from his experience as a 

Marine Corps combat artist in his current position as 

deputy director at the museum, where he oversees and 

11 Capt Paul L. Greenberg, “Combat Artists Sketch 2/25 Reservists in Action,” Leatherneck, November 2008, 66.

Art Collection, National Museum of the Marine Corps

Sgt John Carrillo, 155 Artillery South of Baghdad, mixed media on paper. 

encourages younger talent through the modern combat art program, among other duties.12 Through their 

efforts, current servicemembers and aspiring recruits 

may yet recognize themselves in the hallowed halls of 

the National Museum of the Marine Corps—not in the 

glorified guise of the recruiter’s statue, but rather in 

the sensitive painting or rough pencil sketch of the 

combat artist.

• 1775 •

12 Capt Charles Grow (Ret), “The National Museum of the Marine Corps Is Looking for a Few Good Artists,” Leatherneck, 

March 2017, 46.

Gift of the artist, Art Collection, National Museum of the Marine Corps

Sgt Sarah Rothschild, What Happens There Doesn’t Stay There, mixed media on watercolor paper. 
HISTORY IN ACTION

The Historical 

Reference Branch

YEAR IN REVIEW, 2017

by Annette D. Amerman1

Under the banner of Marine Corps Order 

5750.1H, History Division is mission driven 

to provide knowledge of the Corps to ensure an understanding of its history, to provide an 

explanation of the present, and to offer guidance for 

the future of the Service and the American people. 

The Historical Reference Branch provides historical 

research and reference services for Headquarters Marine Corps, Marine Corps University, Marine Corps 

units, other military organizations and government 

agencies, active duty Marines, and the general public. 

The branch is also responsible for several key programs 

and projects, including the Unit Lineage and Honors 

1

 Annette D. Amerman is the branch head of the Historical Reference Branch, Marine Corps History Division. She also serves as 

the series historian for the U.S. Marines in World War I Centennial Series, for which she has published an updated and revised 

2015 reprint of McClellan’s The United States Marine Corps in the 

World War and authored the United States Marine Corps in the First 

World War: Anthology, Selected Bibliography, and Annotated Order of 

Battle in 2016. Also in 2016, Amerman compiled new data to publish The Marines Have Landed: Eighty Years of Marine Corps Landings, 

1935–2015. She joined the division in 1995 as a student intern from 

Shenandoah University; in 1996, she was hired as a civilian clerk, 

and served as the branch research assistant for a year and a half. 

Amerman returned to the branch in 2003, where she managed 

the Lineage and Honors Program for the next 10 years, before 

being reassigned to duties dealing with requests from Headquarters Marine Corps, Congress, and other prominent government 

offices. She became acting branch head in October 2015 and was 

promoted to permanent branch head in November 2017. Ms. 

Amerman earned her master’s from George Mason University.

Program and the Commemorative Naming Program.2

In September 2017, the Historical Reference 

Branch celebrated its first year in the new Brigadier 

General Edwin H. Simmons Marine Corps History Center. The past year has been one fraught with 

many challenges, but the core mission of the branch 

never wavered: answer all the questions posed by everyone and anyone. With the first year in the books, 

it seemed appropriate to recount the work accomplished by the members of the branch and provide a 

little background on this unique office within the History Division.

While the exact date of the establishment of the 

Historical Reference Branch is unknown, it has long 

been accepted that the father of the branch is Joel 

Davis Thacker, a World War I veteran and researcher 

extraordinaire, who joined the Marine Corps civilian 

workforce in 1931. Thacker was hired in the Muster 

Roll Section of Headquarters Marine Corps to review, 

proof, and sometimes recreate World War I muster 

rolls. It was this work that brought him into contact 

with the History Division (HD).3

 Thacker aided the 

2 MCO 5750.1H, Manual for the Marine Corps Historical Program

(Washington, DC: Headquarters Marine Corps, 13 February 

2009).

3

 Over the years, the History Division has been a section, division, branch, and more. For our purposes, it will be referred to 

as History Division in this article and not what would have been 

accurate for the particular period under discussion.

54
WINTER 2017 55

few historians and staff of the division during the 

1930s; in 1942, he joined HD as assistant historian and 

special research assistant. It was during his tenure that 

the foundations of the Historical Reference Branch 

were laid. Thacker collected copies of documents—

articles, reports, manuals, and more—to create a filing 

system that would allow him to answer a multitude 

of questions. While Thacker was prolific in writing about the Corps, his primary responsibility was 

to answer the requests for information posed by the 

general public, academics, veterans, and Marines of all 

ranks. While Thacker focused on answering the questions, he also helped evolve the War Diary and Special Action Report. When HD took custody of World 

War II operational records in 1944, Thacker devised 

an intricate filing system used for the several million 

records received in the following years. Joel Thacker 

retired in 1957 due to ill health, but his legacy remains.

Today, the Historical Reference Branch’s working files are the direct result of Thacker’s collection 

efforts; more than 1,200 linear feet of paper and photographic prints are maintained by the staff and historians of the branch. Unlike an archive, the materials 

are not originals. The collection is mostly copies of articles, reports, and other documents that the branch 

historians think will aid in future requests or research. 

Like an archive, however, the materials do not leave 

the office—at any moment they may be needed to answer an important request. 

The relocation of HD to the Simmons Center 

in September 2016 posed a challenge for the branch: 

how to make the move without losing anything while 

still answering questions. Thankfully, two members of 

the branch had already made moves with HD in 2005 

and 2009, so all went smoothly and not one folder was 

lost when the division crossed the road from Building 

3078. Despite the relocation efforts, branch historians 

continued serving patrons even while the files were in 

transit from the old building. 

While the branch’s main function is to answer 

requests for information, it has taken on several other 

responsibilities during the passing decades. In 1968, 

HD started the Lineage and Honors Program to track 

the history and cumulative battle honors of eligible 

Marine Corps units.4

 To date, more than 430 units are 

eligible for lineage and honors certificates that have 

been signed by the Commandant. The certificates, 

which are suitable for framing, are thoroughly researched (using command chronologies submitted by 

the units), drafted, edited, and printed by the Historical Reference Branch. In conjunction with the Lineage and Honors Program, the branch also certifies 

all requisitions for streamers submitted by units—a 

check/balance to ensure units are displaying the proper streamers. In 1976, the branch took over responsibility for the Commemorative Naming Program to 

4

 “Lineage and Honors,” Unit Information, Marine Corps History Division, May 2017.

Marine Corps History Division

Joel D. Thacker, ca. 1944, during his tenure as a historian with History 

Division. 
streamline the vetting of candidates and ensure only 

appropriate candidates are honored. To ensure named 

candidates are suitable, vetting includes a thorough 

review of the individual’s military service record, 

which in some cases can be tens of thousands of pages. 

As HD made the move from Washington, DC, 

to Quantico, Virginia, in 2005, maintaining the HD 

website became the latest addition to the Historical 

Reference Branch’s duties. To date, there have been at 

least three major website migrations to different web 

platforms and major redesigns. These added responsibilities did not diminish the branch’s primary mission 

of answering questions.

Shortly after the relocation in 2016, the branch 

lost its third historian, leaving just two historians 

and an administrative assistant to continue the work. 

While the shortage of staff limited the branch’s ability 

to issue lineage and honors certificates to units and to 

respond as quickly to requests, the branch was able to 

achieve a significant amount of work. For the period 

of September 2016–September 2017, the branch answered more than 2,700 requests for information. Additionally, thanks to supplemental help from fellows 

and interns, 23 sets of lineage and honors certificates 

were updated and issued, with another 70 researched 

and readied for drafting. Several commemorative 

naming actions were initiated and more than 70 requisitions for streamers were approved. The branch saw 

an uptick in requests from units, indicating that our 

efforts to remind the operating forces that we are a 

resource has been successful. 

Further, 2017 and 2018 represent significant anniversaries for several units, including 5th and 6th 

Marines, Marine Corps Base Quantico, and 3d Marine 

Expeditionary Brigade (3d MEB), just to name a few. 

In July, the entirety of 2d Battalion, 6th Marines, was 

on site to recreate their 1917 battalion photograph. 

The branch provided 600 Marines of the battalion 

with a presentation on the history of Quantico and 

the battalion in World War I, before they formed 

up outside to have their photograph taken 100 years 

after their first. In addition, we helped identify the 

location where the original battalion photograph was 

taken here at Quantico—ironically, the Simmons HisU.S. Marine Corps

Lineage and Honors 

Certificate Schedule

To better communicate with the units and to encourage better understanding of the process for updating 

lineage and honors certificates, the Historical Reference Branch will issue periodic updated schedules 

with accompanying notes. This schedule is subject to 

change due to deployments, lack of command chronologies, or other unforeseeable technological issues. 

For the most up-to-date information on the schedule, 

email the branch at history.division@usmcu.edu. If 

you wish to submit command chronologies or inquire 

as to the gaps reported herein, please email the Archives Branch at mcu_archives@usmcu.edu.

Certificates are issued in “batches” or groups of 

20–30 units at a time. Historical Reference Branch 

tries to issue at least three groups of certificates in a 

calendar year, but also is at the mercy of branch staffing levels and workload, workflow of Headquarters 

Marine Corps, responsiveness of units, and availability of command chronologies. 

The Sin Bin represents the list of units with significant gaps in command chronologies or those we 

have not heard from when requesting additional support while working on their lineage and honors.

BATCH ALPHA

(mailed out December 2017)

Marine Air Support Squadron 2

Marine Wing Headquarters Squadron 3

Marine Air Control Squadron 4

Marine Aircraft Group 24

Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 24

Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 31

Marine Aircraft Group 36

Marine Air Control Group 48

Marine Medium Tiltrotor Training Squadron 204

Marine Wing Support Squadron 272

Marine Wing Support Squadron 371

Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 466

56 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2
tory Center and Warner Hall now occupy that exact 

location. Both 3d MEB and III Marine Expeditionary 

Force sent Marines to conduct extensive research with 

the division to capture the history of their respective 

units in Okinawa. 

With the new fiscal year, the branch remains 

focused on filling the three historian vacancies, reinvigorating the Lineage and Honors Program, adding 

materials to the website, and continuing first-rate service to our patrons. To that end, we frequently add 

materials to the website to assist patrons with their 

historical needs. Visit the History Division website 

for more on our programs, but also for a comprehensive list of HD’s publications, including official histories, occasional papers, and military history journal.

• 1775 •

Marine Corps History Division

Top: files from the Historical Reference Branch packed on carts and 

wrapped in shrink-wrap in order to be moved to the new office space. 

Bottom: unpacking boxes in the new office in the Simmons History 

Center. The shelving unit is 11 feet tall and 19 feet long; certainly an 

increase from the old system.

U.S. Marine Corps

Lineage and Honors 

Certificate Schedule

BATCH ALPHA (continued)

2d Reconnaissance Battalion

10th Marines

Combat Logistics Battalion 5 

Combat Logistics Battalion 11

Combat Logistics Battalion 13 

Combat Logistics Battalion 22

7th Communication Battalion 

9th Communication Battalion 

3d Marine Expeditionary Brigade

II Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group 

11th Marine Expeditionary Unit

13th Marine Expeditionary Unit 

22d Marine Expeditionary Unit 

Marine Corps Security Cooperation Group

BATCH BRAVO

1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade

I Marine Expeditionary Force

I Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group

III Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group

1st Marine Aircraft Wing

Marine Wing Headquarters Squadron 1

Marine Air Control Squadron 2

3d Marine Aircraft Wing

Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 167

Marine Attack Training Squadron 203

Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 266

Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 363

Marine Wing Support Squadron 374

1st Intelligence Battalion

2d Medical Battalion

Combat Logistics Regiment 3

6th Communication Battalion

Marine Corps Tactical Systems Support Activity

Marine Corps Logistics Command

Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, NC

Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow, CA

(continued next page)

WINTER 2017 57
U.S. Marine Corps

Lineage and Honors Certificate Schedule

Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 251

Marine Light Attack Helicopter Training Squadron 303

Marine Attack Squadron 311

Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 467

2d Battalion, 1st Marines

4th Marine Division 

4th Assault Amphibian Battalion

3d Dental Battalion

Marine Corps Installations Command

BATCH ECHO

4th Force Reconnaissance Company

Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 165

Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 312

Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 323

Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 369

Combat Logistics Battalion 23

Combat Logistics Regiment 45

Combat Logistics Battalion 453

Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, CA

Marine Corps Intelligence Activity

Marine Corps Training and Advisory Group

Deployment Processing Command East

Deployment Processing Command West

3d Battalion, 6th Marines

SIN BIN

2d Marine Expeditionary Brigade

2d Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion

Marine Transport Squadron

Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 764 

No command chronologies received since September 2015

Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 4

1st Battalion, 4th Marines 

No command chronologies received for July–December 2002, 

January–June 2003, July–December 2003, July–December 2005, 

July–November 2007, April–September 2016, October 2016–

March 2017

3d Marine Division 

No command chronologies received after March 2015 

58 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

BATCH BRAVO (continued)

2d Battalion, 3d Marines

3d Force Reconnaissance Company

2d Battalion, 7th Marines

BATCH CHARLIE

Marine Air Control Squadron 1

Marine Aircraft Group 12

Marine Aviation Logistics Group 12

Marine Aircraft Group 13

Marine Air Control Group 28

Marine Wing Communications Squadron 28

Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 165

Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 366

1st Battalion, 8th Marines

4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion

7th Marines

31st Marine Expeditionary Unit

Combat Logistics Battalion 31

Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team Company Central 

(Bahrain)

Marine Corps Security Force Regiment

Marine Corps Security Force Battalion Kings Bay, GA

Marine Corps Security Force Company Guantánamo, Cuba

Recruit Training Regiment Parris Island, SC

Marine Corps Systems Command

Marine Corps Combat Development Command

BATCH DELTA

Marine Air Support Squadron 1

2d Marine Aircraft Wing

Marine Wing Headquarters Squadron 2

Marine Air Support Squadron 6

Marine Air Control Group 18

Marine Wing Communications Squadron 18

Marine Air Control Squadron 24

Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 26

Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 112

Marine All-Weather Fighter Attack Squadron 225

Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron 234
HISTORY IN ACTION

Historical Reference 

Branch

PHOTOGRAPH FILES

by Kara R. Newcomer1

Under the banner of Marine Corps Order 

5750.1H, History Division is mission driven 

to provide knowledge of the Corps to ensure an understanding of its history, to provide an explanation of the present, and to offer guidance for the 

future of the Service and the American people. 

The Marine Corps History Division’s Historical Reference Branch maintains working files in four 

main categories: biographical, subject, unit, and photographs. While the official repositories for U.S. Marine Corps photographs taken prior to about 1980 are 

with the National Archives and Records Administration’s Still Picture Branch in College Park, Maryland, 

and for photographs taken after that time with Defense Visual Information Directorate, the Reference 

Branch has collected select, duplicate official images 

for various in-house projects. Not all topics are represented equally, however, as what was collected depended on who recalled the images and what projects 

the photographs were intended for initially. 

Just as with the other working files, the images 

are divided into categories, mainly people, subjects, 

and posts and stations. Approximately 75 to 85 percent of the collection is currently in print form only, 

and, due to website restrictions, only about 4,500 of 

1

 Kara R. Newcomer received her BA in history from the University of Evansville, IN, and her MA in museum studies from 

George Washington University in Washington, DC, before being 

hired as a historian with the Historical Reference Branch in 2003.

the images that are digitized are publicly accessible on 

History Division’s website at www.history.usmc.mil. 

A few samples follow of the photos held by the 

Historical Reference Branch.

• 1775 •

Official U.S. Marine Corps photo

Marines at Portsmouth, NH, ca. 1898.

59
60 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

Official U.S. Marine Corps photo 516308

President-elect William H. Taft went to Panama on the USS North Carolina (ACR 12) in January 1909 with a party of engineers to inspect the 

Panama Canal. The ship landed at Colón, and from there, the group 

went by train to Camp Elliott, Isthmian Canal Zone, where they were 

greeted by Maj Smedley D. Butler and the Marines of the 1st Regiment.

Official U.S. Marine Corps photo 

The largest gun mounted, manned, and operated by Marines during the First World War was a 7-inch gun on the island of São Miguel, near Ponta 

Delgada, Azores. Capt Maurice G. Holmes commanded 1st Aeronautic Company of Marines, the first company to land overseas fully equipped. Another 7-inch gun was installed by this company at Feteiras on the same island.

Official U.S. Marine Corps photo

A Lewis light machine gun captured by the 52d Company, 11th Regiment, on 19 October 1928 in Nicaragua. The Marine holding the weapon 

is Cpl Martin F. O’Donnell, who found it at El Chufon.
WINTER 2017 61

Official U.S. Marine Corps photo PB7321

U.S. Marines, Mounted Detachment, in Peiping (now Beijing), China.

Marine Corps History Division is actively searching for contributors to Marine Corps History

(MCH). MCH is a scholarly, military history journal 

published twice a year (summer and winter). Our focus is on all aspects of the Corps’ history, culture, and 

doctrine. Articles should be between 4,000 and 10,000 

words and footnoted according to Chicago Manual of 

Style. 

For more information about submitting an article or writing a book review, please email history.division@usmcu.edu 

with the subject line of “Marine Corps History Submission.”
62 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

Official U.S. Marine Corps photo 112921

On 28 February 1945, women Marines who recently reported for duty in the Hawaiian Islands are shown here as they marched down the gangplank of 

their transport, wearing winter uniforms and carrying field packs. From left: Sgt Ada Schuelke from Fort Wayne, IN, and Sgt Martha M. H. Schmidt 

from Wheeling, WV.

Official U.S. Marine Corps photo 122274

On Okinawa, Japan, May 1945, Marine Col Francis I. Fenton prays at the 

foot of his son’s grave. PFC Michael J. Fenton was killed in a Japanese 

counterattack on the road to Shuri.
WINTER 2017 63

Official U.S. Marine Corps photo A134978

In Pohang, Korea, orphans received clothing, shoes, and chinaware donated by Marines of the 1st Marine Division. At extreme left is Chaplain Joseph 

F. Parker of Portsmouth, VA, who used Marine donations to make the orphanage largely self-sustaining. Also pictured: MSgt Charles A. Orr, of Norwalk, CA, and Kwong Sun An, manager of the orphanage, examine chinaware; TSgt Oscar W. Nelson Jr., combat correspondent, holds a belt for the 

scrutiny of the smallest orphan; and far right, Kim Kong Sun, assistant manager and interpreter.

Official U.S. Marine Corps photo 

The teamsters transporting sections depicting the Iwo Jima flag-raising 

converse with U.S. Park Police on the southern end of the BaltimoreWashington Parkway. They are discussing the change of route through 

Washington, DC, on the way to the Marine Corps War Memorial site in 

Arlington, VA.
64 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

Official U.S. Marine Corps photo A188606

On 9 April 1967, PFC Edward R. Stanley searches a Vietnamese hut 

during an operation near Dong Ha. Stanley’s unit, Company A, 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, combed each village in their route during Operation Big Horn.

Official U.S. Marine Corps photo A454019

2dLt Gayle W. Hanley prepares to reload a magazine with ammunition 

during a lull in action while participating in The Basic School Exercise 

on 20 April 1977.
WINTER 2017 65

Official U.S. Navy photo DN-ST-92-03124

Left: in Zakhu, Iraq, ca. 1992, a Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter hovers above a Marine command post as a Boeing Vertol CH-46 Sea 

Knight is parked in the background. Marines were in the region as part 

of Operation Provide Comfort, an allied effort to aid Kurdish refugees 

who fled Saddam Hussein’s forces in northern Iraq.

Official U.S. Navy photo DN-SN-84-05181

In Beirut, Lebanon, on 10 December 1983, a Marine M60 machine gun crew stands guard in a bunker at Beirut International Airport.
HISTORY IN ACTION

Oral History Program

by Fred H. Allison, PhD1

Under the banner of Marine Corps Order 

5750.1H, History Division is mission driven 

to provide knowledge of the Corps to ensure an understanding of its history, to provide an explanation of the present, and to offer guidance for the 

future of the Service and the American people. The 

Oral History Section supports that endeavor in its efforts to document the Marine Corps’ current operations, historical events, and developments through the 

spoken word and to collect career-length interviews of 

ranking Marine leaders and other distinguished Marines.2

The 23d Commandant, General Wallace M. 

Greene Jr., defined oral history as living history, or the 

recorded voices of U.S. Marines in Vietnam. He believed that historical interviews would help fill the gap 

of historical information between the event and what 

was recorded in official documents, such as command 

chronologies and after action reports. His original 

order implored Marines to “acquire a consciousness 

about the significance of individual experiences.” The 

order continued, “Tape-recorded voices of Marines 

who had seen service in Vietnam could result in a vast 

collection of lessons learned to be employed in the de1

 Fred H. Allison has managed the Marine Corps’ Oral History 

Section since 2000. He is a retired Marine major, a native of Texas, and earned his PhD in history from Texas Tech University in 

2003.

2 MCO 5750.1H, Manual for the Marine Corps Historical Program

(Washington, DC: Headquarters Marine Corps, 13 February 

2009).

velopment of new doctrine, or the refinement of old.”3

This command came down in 1965, and the Marine Corps had just gone to war in Vietnam. It also 

marked the beginning of the Marine Corps’ oral history program. Under General Greene’s order, 11 interview stations were set up at bases in the continental 

United States. The interviewers at these stations were 

Marines from various office staffs. The following year, 

the commanding general at Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, Lieutenant General Victor H. Krulak, upped the 

ante by recommending that interviews be conducted 

in-country, close to the event in both time and place. 

Oral history was just coming into vogue at the 

time. The validity of oral history as a means to document events came as a result of Columbia University’s 

Oral History Research Office, which had been set up 

in 1948 by Professor Allan Nevins (1890–1971), considered a pioneer of oral history. Benis M. Frank established the Marine Corps’ program using Nevins’s 

program as a model. 

Another driving factor in the creation of an oral 

history program was the explosion of technology at 

the time, including the development of lighter-weight 

tape recorders using magnetic tape. In 1965, the machines used for the Vietnam interviews were reel-toreel recorders, weighing about 50 pounds. These were 

considered expeditionary for the time, certainly more 

mobile than what had been used before. 

The Vietnam interviews were sent to the Historical Branch’s archives for processing, which at the 

3 MCO 5750.3, Historical Interview Program (Washington, DC: 

Headquarters Marine Corps, 1965).

66
WINTER 2017 67

time was part of Headquarters Marine Corps and 

commanded by Colonel Frank C. Caldwell. The interview program continued throughout the war, with 

more than 10,000 historical interviews collected and 

accessioned into the archives. Initially, they were held 

classified as secret; however, in later years, they were 

declassified. These Vietnam interviews are now available in the History Division’s oral history collection at 

Marine Corps University, Quantico, Virginia. The vast 

majority is digitized, thanks to a collaborative effort 

between the Oral History Section and the Naval Historical Foundation. The foundation purchased highspeed digitization equipment in 2002–3 on which the 

original reel-to-reel tapes were copied. The Vietnam 

interviews cover the gamut of military occupational 

specialties, ranks, and time periods. They represent a 

solid collection of information and captured personal 

experiences. The Vietnam interviews in many cases, 

however, lack detailed descriptions of people, places, 

and events; so in a sense, they represent unexplored 

territory. Nevertheless, these interviews, as General 

Greene wished, fill the information gap between what 

happened and what was written or will be written in 

official reports. 

Defense Department photo (Marine Corps) A415506

Gen Wallace M. Greene Jr., Commandant of the Marine Corps, presents a commendation for meritorious civilian service to Richard A. Long, as Col 

John H. Magruder looks on.
68 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

Although the Oral History Section officially began its work in 1966, the collection contains combat 

recordings that preceded Vietnam. Approximately 

1,700 recordings were collected in World War II at 

prominent Pacific battlefields as a result of a collaborative project between Marine Corps public affairs 

and the Library of Congress. The library’s American 

Folklife Center saw the Marine presence in the South 

Pacific as an opportunity to record the indigenous 

songs, chants, and ceremonies of Pacific islanders. 

The Corps’ director of public information, Brigadier 

General Robert L. Denig, saw another use for the 

equipment. He believed that recording the voices of 

Marines from Pacific battlefields would be valuable 

for public information on Marine Corps activities. A 

large collection of interviews resulted. Marines were 

interviewed where they were in the field, often in combat, on Amertape filmstrip or Armour wire recorders.4

 These recorders were so heavy and bulky they had 

to be transported by jeep or in specially made carts 

and brought ashore in amphibious tractors. Later, the 

interviews were dubbed onto acetate discs, recorded 

at 33 1/3 revolutions per minute (rpm). The History 

Division’s Oral History Section discovered these interviews in 2003 and established a collaborative plan 

to digitize the recordings. History Division provided 

the labor to the Library of Congress in the form of 

an intern, Camille Lorei, who digitized each recording 

and organized the collection. 

The World War II combat recordings, even more 

so than the Vietnam interviews, lack good descriptions of their contents, although a brief description 

4

 Amertapes were a film-type format with sprocket holes and 

a series of sound grooves running down the center of the film. 

Karen Fishman, “Earwitness to History: The Marine Corps Combat Recordings,” Now See Hear (blog), Library of Congress, 13 

November 2014. Wire recording medium resulted when Armour 

Research Foundation received a contract from the U.S. Navy to 

develop a portable sound recorder. The original recorder was 

modified to make it more rugged. Between 1942 and the end of 

the war, Armour and a licensed manufacturer, General Electric, 

made perhaps a few thousand of these recorders. They were used 

for many purposes throughout the war, most notably as a portable field recorder for journalists. “Wire Recorders,” Museum of 

Magnetic Sound Recording.

of each was done by Marine personnel after the war 

while working with the library. Some of the interviews 

were recorded in real combat situations, where the action was described by a narrator. Other recordings 

contain short interviews of Marines, most of which 

then conclude with the Marine saying hello to their 

family back in the states. The recordings, therefore, 

have a radio-show quality and lack of depth regarding 

operations. Regardless, their historical value cannot 

be questioned, as they were conducted on the scene 

of iconic Pacific battles. An additional value of these 

interviews, and the Vietnam interviews for that matter, comes from the glimpse of the language and slang 

of the day. Without good descriptions, we are just not 

sure what are in the recordings. 

Another set of interviews that predate the Oral 

History Section’s official beginning came from the 

Korean War. Colonel Robert D. Heinl Jr., who led 

Official U.S. Marine Corps photo

Founder and chief oral historian, Benis M. Frank, ca. 1995.
WINTER 2017 69

the Historical Section in 1946–49, initiated efforts 

to organize a historical unit, modeled on the Army’s 

World War II example. The Army used professional 

historians to work in-theater to document operations, 

including collecting interviews. Heinl did not realize 

how timely his initiative would be. By the time the 

Korean War broke, professional historians among the 

Marine Corps Reserve had been identified and were 

indeed mobilized, forming the 1st Provisional History 

Platoon on 7 August 1950. 

Although the provisional history platoons (one 

each for the 1st Marine Division and 1st Marine Aircraft Wing) met with logistical difficulties, such as 

being labeled “spies” from Headquarters and even 

disbandment before the war ended, they did make a 

valuable contribution to the documentation of the 

Korean War. The 75 interviews acquired represent 

the first Marine Corps attempts at a systematic oral 

history project. They aptly captured what only a few 

other collection techniques can capture: the personal 

experience. Since the interviews were done in the field 

with combat Marines, both air and ground, they captured information while it was still fresh in the minds 

of interviewees. Again, the interviews helped fill the 

gap between the event itself and written reports. 

The Korean War historians did not have tape recorders; therefore, their interviews were recorded via 

handwritten notes. Often these were just summaries, 

but some are full transcripts and can provide important information. For instance, the following excerpt 

from a Marine with 7th Marines, who was in charge 

of grave registration or handling Marines killed, describes burying the dead at Koto-ri, North Korea, as 

the Marines began their withdrawal to the sea: 

We got into Koto-ri and we didn’t stop 

work, we just started burying and we buried all day. We had General [Edward M.] 

Almond [USA] up . . . and General [Frank 

E.] Lowe [USA]—and they was all there; and 

it was a sight. It was sad, I had never in my 

life seen Colonel [Homer L.] Litzenberg 

cry. I actually seen him crying because he 

had lost a bunch of good fellows—good men 

who was fit to bring back and probably he 

would have brought more of them back. 

But it was one of the saddest days in the 

Marine Corps history at Koto-ri. There was 

a wonderful turnout for the mass burials.5

Another transcript that gives a compelling account of combat comes from an interview with Captain Edward P. Stamford, a forward air controller with 

an air, naval gunfire, liaison company (ANGLICO) attached to the Army’s 1st Battalion, 32d Infantry Regiment. This battalion was eliminated as a fighting force 

when a couple of Chinese divisions overran the Army’s 

positions east of the Chosin Reservoir. Stamford was 

interviewed in March 1951 by one of the provisional 

history platoon’s historians. In this passage, Stamford 

describes the onset of the Chinese onslaught: 

About midnight or soon after, I heard some 

shots and Captain [Edward B.] Scullion 

5

 SSgt Robert B. Gault, intvw by field historian, 10 July 1951 (Oral 

History Collection, Marine Corps History Division, Quantico, 

VA).

Official U.S. Marine Corps photo

Combat correspondent Alvin M. Josephy, speaking into the microphone, narrates combat action at the battle of Guam in 1944. Josephy 

collected numerous oral history interviews in World War II in battle 

scenarios for the Library of Congress’s Marine Corps Combat Recordings project. He was awarded the Bronze Star for “heroic achievement in 

action” during the Battle of Guam.
70 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

yelling in our direction. Just after this and 

before we could get up to see what was happening, we heard some chattering outside 

of our bunker. The poncho was pulled aside; 

I saw a fur-rimmed face in the moonlight 

and fired at it from a sitting position, but he 

had already dropped a grenade inside which 

blew up between my feet on the sleeping 

bag. One man was wounded. We continued to fire back, and upon receiving rifle 

fire, moved back into the slit trench where 

we remained for about three minutes. Our 

own MG [machine gun] fire cleaned off the 

top of the bunker and we were able to get 

out. I immediately organized my men and 

others in the vicinity in defense of this position. The company CO [commanding officer] exposed himself initially and was killed 

during the first exchange of shots.6

As these two samples indicate, although limited 

in number, the Korean War interviews give valuable 

insight to the fighting and conditions in Korea. 

This idea that oral histories may supplement official reports is why operational interviews are still 

the primary function of today’s oral history program. 

Interviews have been collected from all major combat operations since Vietnam, including Grenada, 

Lebanon, Kosovo, Bosnia, Iraq (1990–present), and 

Afghanistan. Operational interviews also have been 

collected regarding humanitarian operations, training 

exercises, and other events of historical importance. 

What makes the operational interview especially 

valuable is the immediacy and candid perspectives 

captured before memory fades or is influenced by 

outside factors. These interviews offer up the human 

experience—the sensory perceptions of a time, place, 

sight, smell, sounds, thoughts, and emotions—all those 

things that pepper into a historical narrative and make 

it engaging. This points out the primary reason we col6

 Capt Edward P. Stamford, intvw by field historian, 16 March 

1951 (Oral History Collection, Marine Corps History Division, 

Quantico, VA).

lect oral history: to support History Division’s writing 

program. Today in the oral history collection, we have 

approximately 25,000 interviews or operational interviews with active duty Marines. 

The vast majority of operational interviews done 

since the early 1990s have been conducted by Marine 

reservists. Originally founded as a Mobile Training 

Unit (MTU) in 1978, its mission was to deploy trained 

field historians and combat artists with all Fleet Marine Forces commands. The MTU’s first full deployment as a unit was in 1983 to Operation Urgent Fury 

(Grenada). Subsequent deployments in the early 1990s 

included Operation Desert Storm (Kuwait), Operation Provide Comfort (Kurdistan), Operation Safe 

Harbor (Guantánamo Bay), Operation Able Manner 

(Haiti), and Operation Restore Hope (Somalia). In 

1994, the MTU transformed into an Individual Mobilization Augmentee (IMA) Detachment and deployed 

field historians to Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo. By the 

decade’s end, nearly 2,000 oral history interviews had 

been collected. With the advent of the Global War on 

Terrorism, IMA Marine reservists conducted more 

than 7,000 oral history interviews during Operations 

Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. Unlike the 

Official U.S. Marine Corps photo

LtGen Herman Nickerson (center), commanding general of III Marine 

Amphibious Force in Vietnam, prepares to be interviewed in support of 

the Vietnam Oral History Project, ca. 1969–70. 
WINTER 2017 71

staff appointees who collected interviews during Vietnam or the historians in the Korean War who were 

perceived as spies and had difficulty getting support 

from units they were visiting, the IMA field historians are successful Marines in their primary military 

occupational specialty (MOS) and most have extensive deployment histories, so they are able to gain the 

trust and confidence of unit commanders and their 

Marines. Many of the Marine reservists are history 

professors and authors in their civilian careers, and 

most possess a master’s degree or PhD. Presently, this 

small group of field historians (around 12 in total) 

visit forward deployed units in combat zones, during 

major field exercises and, at times, even catch rides 

aboard amphibious ships returning home to collect 

interviews. The field historians then draft insightful 

summaries for digitization and storage in the HisOfficial U.S. Marine Corps photo

By 1994, IMA Detachment field historians were deploying overseas to 

capture interviews and data with Marines in the field. LtCol Carroll N. 

Harris conducts an interview in the field.

tory Division’s oral history collection in Quantico. 

The other major thrust of the oral history program is career interviews with distinguished Marines. 

These include mostly general officers, especially former Commandants and Assistant Commandants, but 

also former Sergeants Major of the Marine Corps, 

Medal of Honor recipients, and Marines who have 

been involved in important historical events or developments. Former Marines who went on to have prominent careers after their service in the Corps are also 

interviewed, such as Senators John Glenn, John Warner, and James Webb. Career interviews are extensive 

and thorough. The value of this approach is that, by 

discussing their entire careers, we can learn about earlier times and then note the changes in the Corps during a span of 20–30 years. Also, because these officers 

were in significant billets, we capture information on 

momentous decisions, headquarters-level initiatives, 

and background information on critical events. We 

also learn of interpersonal relationships, leadership 

challenges, and successes. A prime example of the value of these type of interviews is the unification crisis.7

There is very little official documentation on 

what the Marine Corps did to protect itself during 

this time, because a large part of the actions were 

accomplished surreptitiously. The oral history interviews done by Ben Frank with Generals Victor Krulak, Merrill B. Twining, and many more, however, give 

us insight into what went on regarding this critical 

aspect of Marine Corps history. Similarly, the career 

interviews give excellent information on how important developments occurred, such as the writing of 

the Tentative Manual for Landing Operations (1935), and 

nuances in the development of important doctrine, 

for instance close air support or vertical envelopment. 

More recently, the 32d Commandant, General James 

7

 The unification crisis was a series of actions occurring in the 

Department of Defense and the executive branch shortly after 

World War II that aimed to unify the military Services under 

a single leader. The Marine Corps perceived this as a threat to 

its position in the national defense establishment, believing that 

unification would result in a greatly reduced force structure and 

loss of roles and missions, especially amphibious warfare and 

combined arms. 
L. Jones, shared his top priorities and accomplishments, including restarting ANGLICO, resurrecting 

Marine Expeditionary Brigades (MEB), commitment 

to the V-22 airframe, development of the Marine pattern (MARPAT) camouflage uniform, adoption of 

the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program (MCMAP), 

and—his proudest accomplishment—building new 

base housing for Marine families. 

Another value of the career interview transcripts 

is that the officer can provide firsthand information 

on events that predated the onset of the oral history 

program. The career interviews with general officers 

in the 1960s and 1970s provide an eyewitness account 

of actions in the Banana Wars, World War I, World 

War II, and the Korean War. The first career interview was conducted in 1965 with Major General Ford 

O. Rogers, a World War I aviator. The oldest Marine 

interviewed based on date of commissioning was 

Lieutenant General Julian C. Smith, commissioned in 

1909, who met with Benis Frank in 1967. 

Career interviews can be fairly long. For instance, 

the career interview with General Carl E. Mundy Jr. 

took 30 sessions of 60–90 minutes in length that, once 

transcribed, produced a transcript of 745 doublecolumn pages. The transcripts are edited by History 

Division personnel and then the interviewees. Pictures 

and an index are added and the final transcript is digitized. Paper copies are bound and distributed to various research libraries. As a result, the career interview 

is a highly useable, useful, and information-packed 

product. The oral history collection now contains approximately 400 career interviews. 

Veteran interviews, those commonly thought 

of as “oral history,” are not given the same priority as 

operational and career interviews because the Oral 

History Section is not resourced for this activity. We 

do, however, manage to acquire a good many veteran 

interviews as the opportunity arises. Many veteran interviews are donated by outside parties. We ask that 

they be quality interviews and adhere to established 

U.S. Marine Corps

Centennial Anniversaries 

With the United States’ entry into World War I on 6 April 1917, 

the Marine Corps saw rapid expansion to meet the demand for 

more manpower. In 2017 and 2018, several units are celebrating 

their centennials and are direct lineal descendants of those units 

created for the war expansion. Because of the force structure at 

the time, not all regiments had battalions formed. Often, a regiment was simply a collection of companies reporting directly to 

the regimental commanding officer, so not all battalions existed 

at the time of the regiment’s activation.

2017 Anniversaries

Original Date of Current

designation activation designation

5th Regiment 8 June 1917 5th Marines

1st Battalion 25 May 1917 1st Battalion

2d Battalion 1 June 1917 2d Battalion

3d Battalion 1 June 1917 3d Battalion

6th Regiment 11 July 1917 6th Marines

1st Battalion 11 July 1917 1st Battalion

2d Battalion 11 July 1917 2d Battalion

3d Battalion 14 August 1917 3d Battalion

7th Regiment 14 August 1917 7th Marines

8th Regiment 9 October 1917 8th Marines

9th Regiment 20 November 1917 9th Marines*

3d Provisional 14 December 1917 3d Marine 

Brigade Expeditionary 

 Brigade

Marine Barracks 14 May 1917 Marine Corps 

Quantico Combat 

 Development 

 Command

2018 Anniversaries

Original Date of Current

designation activation designation

11th Regiment 3 January 1918 11th Marines

2d Battalion 5 November 1918 2d Battalion

13th Regiment 3 July 1918 13th Marines*

14th Regiment 26 November 1918 14th Marines

15th Regiment 26 November 1918 15th Marines*

* Indicates units currently deactivated

72 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2
WINTER 2017 73

standards.8

 In some instances, organizations have 

undertaken oral history projects to interview their 

members that have resulted in the donation of several 

quality interviews. For example, the Women Marines 

Association donated more than 200 interviews of female Marines extending back to World War II. The 

Witness to War Foundation, which does high-quality 

video interviews describing combat, also has provided 

a number of interviews. California State UniversityFullerton conducted a social archaeology project on 

Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, California, because 

the base had been closed and was being converted to 

green space. Marines who had served at El Toro were 

interviewed, resulting in the donation of almost 400 

digitized interviews and bound transcripts to the History Division. 

In conclusion, the oral history collection today 

holds approximately 30,000 items, including recordings and transcripts. Approximately 85 percent of 

these are digitized. Unfortunately, the high cost of 

transcribing has delayed the balance from being transcribed. All interviews, however, have at least a database entry that provides basic information on the 

interview. The oral history collection sees considerable 

use, providing about 1,500 items per year to researchers. Most of these customers are conducting serious 

8

 For more on the specific requirements for oral histories, see “A 

‘Do-It-Yourself’ Oral History Primer,” Oral History Section, History Division; and Donald A. Ritchie, Doing Oral History (New 

York: Twayne Publishers, 1995).

academic research in their efforts to write articles, 

books, and papers, especially students in the various 

schools at Marine Corps Base Quantico. Because our 

clientele is conducting serious research, we rarely conduct video interviews; they seek information, not entertainment. 

Sometimes, we encounter resistance to a request 

for an interview because Marines humbly do not want 

to take credit for something that many others had a 

part in. However, the purpose of oral history interviews is not to elevate one Marine above another, but 

rather simply to capture the experience of that Marine for posterity. As Marine Corps historians, we emphasize that an oral history interview is dissimilar to 

an after action or lessons learned report. Our intent 

is to capture the subject’s personal experience—the 

sights, sounds, smells, feelings, and notable memories 

of time spent in combat or in the Corps. Such raw descriptions hold tremendous value to researchers and 

authors who write each new chapter of Marine Corps 

history. It has been said that every “generation of Marines leaves a heritage to the next.” The History Division and the Oral History Section accepts the charge 

to record that heritage and make it available to future 

generations of Marines. 

• 1775 •
HISTORY IN THE CLASSROOM

Expeditionary 

Warfare School

MARINE CORPS UNIVERSITY

by Robert J. Fawcett1

Read about history, and you become aware 

that nothing starts with us. It started long 

ago. If you read enough biography and history, you learn how people have dealt successfully or unsuccessfully with similar 

situations or patterns in the past. It doesn’t 

give you a template of answers, but it does 

help you refine the questions you have to 

ask yourself. Further, you recognize there is 

nothing so unique that you’ve got to go to 

extraordinary lengths to deal with it.2

~General James N. Mattis,

Secretary of Defense

We are the U.S. Marines, and we love our 

history. Perhaps more than any other military organization, we teach our history 

to recruits and reemphasize it to all our Marines at 

every opportunity. One reason to teach history is to 

inculcate Marines with our ethos and values and to 

instill pride in our heritage, but also—taking to heart 

the ideas of Secretary Mattis—to use the study of history as a means of learning from the past, attempting 

to find the lessons from those who have gone before 

1

 Robert J. Fawcett is chief academic officer of Marine Corps 

University’s Expeditionary Warfare School, Quantico, VA.

2

 David Lauterborn, “Secretary of Defense James Mattis,” HistoryNet, 1 December 2016.

us, and to apply them to the challenges we will face in 

the future. 

At the Expeditionary Warfare School (EWS), 

which is part of the Marine Corps University at Quantico, we teach a course for approximately 250 captains 

each year. Our mission is to “educate and train company grade officers in order to prepare them mentally, morally, and physically for billets of increased 

leadership responsibility across the Marine Corps and 

the Joint Force.”3 Part of how EWS does that is by including history in its curriculum. History permeates 

the entire curriculum at EWS, and it is presented in 

several different formats: readings, lectures, decisionforcing cases, tactical decision exercises, battle studies, and staff rides. 

EWS’s attention to history starts before the students arrive with a precourse requirement to read

and be prepared to discuss First to Fight by Lieutenant General Victor H. Krulak. His story details the 

unique relationship between the Marine Corps and 

the American people, which he describes as “almost 

spiritual.”4

 Krulak focuses on how historical events 

and innovations of his era and earlier have shaped the 

Corps and talks about Marines as thinkers, innova3

 “Mission Statement,” Expeditionary Warfare School, Marine 

Corps University. 

4

 LtGen Victor H. Krulak, First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. 

Marine Corps (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1999), xv.

74
WINTER 2017 75

tors, improvisers, penny pinchers, brothers, and fighters. For each characteristic of the Corps, he provides 

personal and historical examples. Upon arrival at 

EWS, students are assigned a diagnostic essay requirement to provide their impressions of First to Fight and 

how these impressions will inform their year of education at resident EWS. The survey of history provided 

by General Krulak’s book serves as a foundation for 

many other discussions throughout the course. It also 

reaffirms students’ commitment to the Marine Corps’ 

ethos and values that underpin this special relationship with the American people. 

To set the stage, the academic year opens with 

three lectures on Marine Corps history by the director 

of Marine Corps History Division. In Marine Corps 

History (1775 to Guantánamo Bay 1898), students 

learn about the evolution of the Corps from small 

ships’ detachments to the beginning of an era of expeditionary operations, which provided the foundation 

for the expeditionary mission of the Corps today. Marine Corps History (1914–1945) starts with World War 

I and Belleau Wood and how the heroism of the 4th 

Brigade created in the minds of the American people 

the image of Marines as ferocious warriors. This lesson 

also addresses the counterinsurgency legacy forged 

during the Banana Wars and covers the development 

of amphibious doctrine and its successful application 

in the island-hopping campaign of World War II—all 

lessons that carry through to modern times. Marine 

Corps History (1946–present) lays out the post-war 

fight for survival of the Corps, the success of the Marine Corps in Korea, and the birth of the Marine AirGround Task Force (MAGTF) concept. 

These lessons in history are not the typical History 101 survey course found on any American campus—

a simple rehash of the events; rather, they constitute 

a History 201 course, an advance-level course where 

the focus shifts from just a description of heroic 

events to how those events shaped the Corps. Extending beyond just the history of the Corps, Dr. 

James Lacey of Marine Corps War College presents 

a view of warfare across time in A Historical Look at 

the Future, which starts with Cain versus Abel and 

walks the students through the history of warfare 

to the current and future multidomain battlefield.

While EWS faculty usually do not think of it as 

history, the doctrine course includes several lessons on 

military theorists—Sun Tzu, Carl von Clausewitz, Antoine-Henri Jomini, and John R. Boyd. The theories 

of war espoused by these writers were based on their 

own personal experience and the historical study of 

wars, battles, and engagements.

EWS also uses various forms of case studies in its 

curriculum. In one example, described as a decisionforcing case, the students are provided background 

readings or a short presentation about a historical 

battle. The scenario is presented up to a certain decision point. The students are then directed to put 

themselves in the shoes of the commander, to make 

a decision, and then to describe their reasons for that 

decision. After students present their decisions, the 

case concludes with what we term the rest of the story, 

where they are informed of what the battle commander actually decided and how the battle turned out. Dr. 

Bruce Gudmundsson, formerly of the Case Method 

Project, presents a series of historical decision-forcing 

cases at EWS. While the Case Method Project has 

been discontinued, a similar program—The Decision 

Game Club—is offered on Thursday afternoons after 

class for MCU students and others who are interested. 

Within the EWS curriculum, the opening salvo 

to the Warfighting Course is a historical decision-forcing case on Operation Iraqi Freedom I, the march on 

Baghdad, presented by Dr. Gudmundsson and former 

members of the Case Method Project. We also use an 

Operation Desert Storm case study to introduce the 

MAGTF Operations Ashore Course and a case study 

of the 1982 United Kingdom amphibious assault on 

the Falklands to introduce the MAGTF Operations 

Afloat Course. For several years, EWS was privileged 

to have Royal Marines Major General Julian Thompson and Royal Navy Commodore Michael Clapp, the 

commander of the landing force and the commander of the amphibious task force, respectively, for the 

Falklands operation, visit EWS to present the rest of 

the story of the Falklands campaign in person. On 

their last visit to the United States in 2017, History 

Division conducted an oral history interview with 
76 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

Major General Thompson and Commodore Clapp to 

ensure their stories will be available to future amphibious warriors. 

The EWS course also makes liberal use of tactical 

decision exercises. These tactical problem scenarios 

are laid out on a map or sand table and the students 

are given a short period of time to analyze the situation, make a decision, and prepare a brief verbal 

order. Many officers will remember the “What now, 

Lieutenant?” tactical decision exercises from The Basic 

School. Some of the scenarios are fictional, but many 

are based on historical events. Like other historical 

case studies, these decision exercises have the benefit 

of being able to relate the orders and actions of the 

actual leader on scene and the final effect of their decisions.

Another form of history in the EWS curriculum 

is a series of eight student-led battle studies spread 

out across the course. In teams of two, the students 

develop and present to their 16-person conference 

group with a one-hour interactive presentation on an 

operation that has particular relevance to the curriculum. During the MAGTF Operations Ashore Course 

in the fall semester, the battle studies include the 

Russia-Ukraine conflict (2014–present), Task Force 

58 in Afghanistan (2001–2), Operation Iraqi Freedom, 

and the Battle of Chancellorsville during the Civil 

War. The battle studies in support of the MAGTF 

Operations Afloat Course in the spring semester include Operation Corporate (Falklands, 1982), Operation Watchtower (Guadalcanal, 1942–43), Operation 

Eastern Exit (Somalia, 1991), and Operation Chromite 

(Inchon Landing, 1950). 

The final history-related method used by EWS 

is the staff ride. We conduct two every year: one for 

the Battle of Antietam at Sharpsburg, Maryland, in 

the fall, and the other for the Battle of Gettysburg in 

Pennsylvania near the end of the academic year. The 

staff ride preparation begins well before the event 

with readings on the battle and the key participants. 

The staff ride usually begins at each national battlefield visitor center for an overview of the battle. Then 

conference groups travel the battlefield, making stops 

at key points along the way. At each stop, a student 

gives a short orientation to the terrain and the forces 

that fought there. Other students are assigned to play 

the role of the opposing commanders whose forces 

met at that point on the battlefield, describing the 

decisions and actions of each commander. These staff 

rides further the professional development of each 

student by illuminating key aspects and themes of the 

Warfighting and Profession of Arms curricula. These 

staff rides expose the students to the dynamics of the 

battle, offer them a historical look at the human dimension of the military profession, and showcase the 

enduring nature of war. They also provide valuable 

studies in leadership, reinforce the physical effects of 

terrain, and highlight the importance of military history in the development of the professional officer. 

While the EWS curriculum focuses on the study 

and application of Marine Corps doctrine to the current and future battlefield, that study is built on a 

strong historical foundation that highlights our ethos, 

values, innovation, and battlefield prowess and is reinforced by a variety of methods throughout the academic year. We are the Marine Corps, we love our 

history, and we will learn from it.

• 1775 •
HISTORY IN THE CLASSROOM

School of Advanced 

Warfighting

MARINE CORPS UNIVERSITY

by Wray R. Johnson, PhD1

Learning is first and foremost a process of 

discovering what it is we wrongly thought 

we knew, of first exposing ignorance, before 

going on to knowledge. Merely adding bits 

of wisdom to a mass of foolishness will not 

make people wiser. It will only increase the 

danger of their ignorance.

~Socrates

History is an assessment of something that 

happened long ago, retold in the present as 

a factual recounting of what has passed before. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, most historians were content to simply collect 

interesting vignettes they thought would appeal to a 

wide readership. For modern historians, however, and 

certainly for the faculty of the School of Advanced 

Warfighting (SAW), this is not enough. SAW employs 

the systematic study of history to help our graduates 

become first-rate planners and commanders, today 

and tomorrow. 

As Frederick the Great wrote, “Past facts are 

good to store away in the imagination and the memory: they furnish a repository of ideas whence a supply 

of materials may be obtained, but one which ought 

to be purified by passing through the strainer of the 

1

 Wray R. Johnson is professor of military history at Marine 

Corps University’s School of Advanced Warfighting.

judgment.”2 B. H. Liddell Hart later noted, “History 

can show us what to avoid, even if it does not teach us 

what to do, by showing the most common mistakes 

that mankind is apt to make and to repeat,” a sentiment anticipated by Thucydides.3

 And it was Winston S. Churchill who acknowledged that, although 

“we cannot undo the past, we are bound to pass it in 

review, in order to draw such lessons as may be applicable to the future.”4

 Thus, developing good judgment 

in our students to enable them to avoid repeating past 

mistakes is another goal facilitated by the systematic 

study of military history.

The idea that war can be studied systematically is an old one. During the classical era, writers 

mostly referred to the best-known extant models of 

warfare.5 Little changed until the Renaissance, when 

Niccolò Machiavelli attempted to synthesize the 

whole experience of war from antiquity to the late 

Middle Ages. His fundamental proposition was that, 

despite technological and other changes, human nature remains immutable, and the study of history can 

2

 Jay Luvaas, ed., Frederick the Great on the Art of War (New York: 

Da Capo Press, 1999), 49.

3

 B. H. Liddell Hart, Why Don’t We Learn from History? (London: 

George Allen & Unwin, 1972), 19, emphasis in original.

4

 Winston S. Churchill, Speeches on Foreign Affairs and National 

Defense (London: Estate of Winston S. Churchill, 1938). 5

 Flavius Vegetius, De Re Militari [Concerning Military Affairs]: 

The Classic Treatise on Warfare at the Pinnacle of the Roman Empire’s 

Power (Driffield, UK: Leonaur, 2012).

77
78 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

therefore teach lessons that are valid at any time. The 

late military historian John Keegan was of the same 

mind, writing that “continuities, particularly hidden 

continuities, form the principal subject of historical 

inquiry.”6 Indeed, it is the identification of links between the past and present that most readily helps us 

to put our own decisions and actions in context. Our 

aim at SAW, then, is primarily practical rather than 

theoretical or even historical. SAW is not now—and 

never has been—a historical survey course; although to 

the outsider and untrained eye, the curriculum might 

appear as such. Rather, we seek to encourage our students to interpret the past with an eye to the present 

and future in a manner that enables them to develop 

problem-solving skills and, as noted earlier, improve 

their judgment.

Thus, SAW uses an approach to leverage history 

that began with Machiavelli but accelerated in the late 

eighteenth century during the intellectual movement 

known as the Enlightenment. Starting in France and 

spreading across Europe, the Enlightenment emphasized scientific, rational, and logical methods as opposed to received wisdom. The animating spirit of the 

age, then as now, is that man, guided by reason, can 

understand any challenge. In that respect, Newtonian 

mechanics was the exemplar and remains an inspiration today for humanity’s ability to master reality. It 

was this scientific approach that became a generalized 

method to explore any subject on the basis of critical 

reflection, logic, and reason. And this approach is applied to the study of war at SAW.

Although in agreement with the basic thrust 

of the leading thinkers in France, for those in the 

German-speaking states, the Enlightenment (Aufklärung) took a different course in terms of military 

thinking. Whereas abstraction and mathematical certainty were at the heart of French military writing, as 

was the case with Jacques-Antoine Hippolyte (Comte 

de Guibert) and Antoine-Henri Jomini, Germanspeaking military intellectuals were motivated by a 

6

 John Keegan, “Introduction,” in Alan Wykes, Hitler’s Bodyguards: 

SS Leibstandarte (New York: Ballantine Books, 1974), 6. For more 

on his approach to history, see John Keegan, A History of Warfare

(New York: Vintage Books, 1993).

more humanistic vision with a strong educational emphasis. Indeed, German-speaking reformers advanced 

the idea that a proper education rooted in a variety 

of modes of inquiry should form the basis of a professional officer’s intellectual and practical development. 

At its core was the idea of bildung, a term that has 

multiple meanings but perhaps can best be translated 

as one’s developed character and intellectual acumen; 

this underwrites SAW’s motto, Sapere Aude, or “dare 

to know.” The military Aufklärers (philosophers of the 

Enlightenment) stressed that proper bildung is necessary to develop an officer’s critical thinking faculties. 

Technical expertise alone is not sufficient. In other 

words, “manning the equipment” is not enough; we 

must also “equip the man.” Nor is personal experience 

in the field sufficient. As Frederick the Great noted, 

“What good is experience if it is not directed by reflection. . . . A mule who has carried a pack for ten 

campaigns . . . will be no better a tactician for it.”7

SAW was founded on the precepts of the Aufklärers, and in particular the ideas of Gerhard von Scharnhorst and the Militärische Gesellshaft (Military Society). 

Scharnhorst emphasized that military theory provides 

richtige begriffe (correct concepts), grounded in historical inquiry and reenactment. He believed that an inherent interdependence exists between theory and 

reality, and the latter is revealed in a detailed treatment of the historical record. History, especially military history, provides “vicarious experience.” As Navy 

Admiral Alfred T. Mahan wrote, “history supplies the 

raw material from which they [military professionals] are to draw their lessons, and reach their working 

conclusions.”8 In a similar vein, Army General Douglas 

MacArthur wrote: “More than most professions, the 

military [depends] on intelligent interpretation of the 

past for signposts charting the future.” The soldier, he 

continued, “makes maximum use of historical record 

in assuring the readiness of himself and his command 

to function efficiently in emergency. The facts derived 

from historical analysis he applies to conditions of the 

7

 Luvaas, Frederick the Great on the Art of War, 47. 8

 As quoted in Joint Military Operations Historical Collection (Washington, DC: Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1997), v.
WINTER 2017 79

present and the proximate future, thus developing a 

synthesis of appropriate method, organization, and 

doctrine.”9

At SAW, the systematic study of history enables 

our students to get inside the mind of a commander 

from the past in terms of reenacting that commander’s 

decision making. As R. G. Collingwood has pointed 

out, “Reality is not only experience, it is immediate 

experience.”10 Reenactment provides a form of immediate experience. But knowing what happened at 

Jena or Normandy or Fallujah is only the first step. 

For the second and more important step, we encourage our students to make their way out of the past to 

synthesize the lessons learned and, as General MacArthur suggested, evaluate the value of those lessons 

with respect to the present and near future. At SAW, 

to reenact the past is to construct an accessible present and future. 

For SAW students, history reveals more than 

simply what happened. It sheds light on how Marines, 

soldiers, airmen, sailors, and others think and decide. 

Reading history enables our students to get at the 

factors that inform command decisions. While most 

readers of history analyze events ex post, we encourage 

our students to analyze events ex ante, to appreciate 

why commanders chose a particular course of action 

when multiple paths were available. History, unlike a 

court of law, can be retried many times, and this permits our students to reenact command decisions in 

the context of contingent complexity. And doing so 

develops our students’ innate critical thinking skills 

and encourages creative problem solving. 

It is often said that, to arrive at a new idea, one 

should read an old book. This is not a modern insight. 

During the Seven Years War between Great Britain 

and France, British Army Major General James Wolfe, 

chiefly remembered for his victory at Quebec in 1759, 

had won a battle at Louisburg the year prior. After 

that battle ended, he was asked how he had come up 

9

 Col Edward T. Imparato, USAF (Ret), comp., General MacArthur: Speeches and Reports, 1908–1964 (Nashville, TN: Turner Publishing, 2000), 107.

10 R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1946), 141.

with his novel employment of light infantry. He replied: “I had it from Xenophon, but [my] friends here 

are astonished at what I have done because they have 

read nothing.”11 Wolfe was a self-taught military intellectual, but like Wolfe, we seek pattern recognition 

with the goal of adaptation and innovation. And by 

analyzing the past but remaining in the present, we 

retain the initiative. The present is where the thought 

experiments take place. Thus, like Socrates, we urge 

our students to think differently about things they believe they already know. 

In its own way, thinking differently about things 

already known is a kind of remote sensing. Logic and 

imagination help. To borrow from Jane Azevedo, a 

prominent theorist of map making, we try to develop 

in our students a kind of “reiteration loop,” making 

use of both deductive and inductive reasoning, that 

is, an ability to deduce the process that led to a decision and subsequent action.12 As John Lewis Gaddis 

has pointed out, one “can hardly perform that task, 

though, without repeated acts of induction: you have 

to survey the evidence, sense what’s there, and find 

ways to represent it. Finding those ways, though, gets 

you back to the deductive level.” According to Gaddis, “What’s required . . . is to apply both techniques 

to the objects of your inquiry, fitting each to the other 

as seems appropriate to the task at hand.”13 At SAW, 

we use history to develop the skills of deduction and 

induction in each student in the manner of the reiteration loop described by Azevedo.

SAW asks its students to see like a historian. To 

do this, as Gaddis posited, is to “get inside the mind of 

another person, or another age, but then to find your 

way out again.”14 The SAW student’s pathway, guided 

by the faculty, is to make use of vicarious experience 

to enhance judgment, improve decision-making skills, 

11 Hugh Boscawen, The Capture of Louisbourg, 1758 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2011), 141.

12 Jane Azevedo, Mapping Reality: An Evolutionary Realist Methodology for the Natural and Social Sciences (Albany: State University of 

New York Press, 1997).

13 John Lewis Gaddis, The Landscape of History: How Historians Map 

the Past (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 47. 14 Gaddis, The Landscape of History, 129–30. 
80 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

and imagine alternative futures and courses of action 

to increase their wisdom as a planner and commander. The objective is ultimately the same as it was for 

French mathematician Henri Poincaré: “We should 

discover the simple under the complex; then the complex under the simple; then anew the simple under 

the complex; and so on without ever being able to 

foresee the last term.”15 Hence, we want our students 

to embrace the reality that war is a dynamic system 

wherein predictable and unpredictable phenomena 

occur within the same system. Poincaré’s great insight 

is that linear and nonliner relationships can coexist, 

that a system (such as war) can be simple and complex 

at the same time. When SAW students obtain this insight, they have achieved a measure of wisdom they 

probably did not have prior.

In conclusion, when SAW students embrace 

Poincaré’s insight, they are ready to graduate. They 

realize that history is not to be read as a desk calen15 Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 380.

dar, but it is to be understood as simultaneously a 

deductive and an inductive enterprise that enables 

planners and commanders to employ the higher-order 

cognitive skills of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. 

Thinking about what decision makers have done in 

the past—the unsuccessful as well as the successful—

provides our graduates with Frederick’s repository of 

ideas as well as a lens through which they may see multiple courses of action and then, by their enhanced 

judgment, choose the right one. Studying history, as 

we do at SAW, necessarily involves taking oneself out 

of the present to explore an alternative world, to become more aware of continuities as well as novelties 

and anomalies. Thus, to reenact the past presents an 

opportunity for SAW students to think about thinking; that is, why we think, decide, and act the way we 

do. In the end, to study history is to study ourselves 

and to be made aware of the possibility of doing things 

differently. 

• 1775 •
HISTORY IN THE CLASSROOM

Engaging 

Students of History

by J. N. Campbell and William C. Mayborn, PhD1

Campbell and Mayborn offer the following 

review and classroom exercise for the use of 

university faculty and staff in their efforts to 

bring history into the classroom. The review offers a 

comprehensive view of America’s strategic interactions in East Asia since the founding of the republic. 

It touches on Michael Green’s mastery of tracing the 

large movements and the many critical junctures of 

American grand strategy. One such critical juncture 

serves as the springboard for the classroom exercise—

an analysis of Japanese strategic intentions during the 

1930s. 

By More Than Providence: Grand Strategy and American 

Power in the Asia Pacific Since 1783. By Michael J. Green. 

(New York: Columbia University Press, 2017. Pp. 760. 

$45.00 cloth; $44.99 e-book.)

Do not let the subtitle and page count of this 

tome scare you away. Michael Green is superb at compressing 233 years of diplomatic history of the strategic foundations of the United States in East Asia 

into an understandable and thought-provoking read. 

1

 J. N. Campbell is an independent scholar living in Houston, TX. 

He is the coauthor with Steven M. Rooney of How Aspirin Entered 

Our Medicine Cabinet (2017). Currently, Campbell is working on 

another book, A Time-Release History of the Opioid Epidemic, due 

out summer 2018. William C. Mayborn, PhD, is an adjunct professor at Boston College, Woods College of Advancing Studies, 

in Chestnut Hill, MA. He teaches courses in Asian politics and 

international relations.

To accomplish this task, Green takes a disciplined approach to exclude all of the historical minutiae that 

would fill multiple volumes on diplomatic history. 

The book retains its strategic overview and does not 

include the tactical missteps or errors of American 

counterinsurgencies in the Philippines, Vietnam, and 

Afghanistan. Nonetheless, Green includes numerous 

primary sources that demonstrate how senior officials 

attempted for more than two centuries to engage the 

United States in the commercial and political affairs 

of East Asia. 

With his focus on grand strategy, the monograph 

largely focuses on U.S. policy toward the most powerful actors in East Asia—China and Japan. Thus, Green

provides limited details on India, Indonesia, North 

Korea, the Philippines, South Korea, and Taiwan. 

Moreover, he treats Southeast Asia as a region, rather 

than focusing on nation-specific American policies as 

he works through French decolonization, the Vietnam 

War, and the formation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). 

Green does well to show that the actual construction and implementation of grand strategy takes 

concerted efforts to achieve the long-term objective 

of blocking any other power from establishing hegemonic control over Asia or the Pacific Ocean. In this 

regard, he organizes U.S. grand strategy toward East 

Asia chronologically into three parts: confronting the 

rise of Imperial Japan, containing the Soviet Union 

during the Cold War, and the current-day challenge of 

a rising China. This chronology repeatedly illustrates 

81
82 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

how other vital priorities, such as the U.S. Civil War, 

the Great Depression, crises in the Middle East, and 

the 2008 recession, have distracted numerous U.S. 

administrations from dedicating resources toward 

American engagement in Asia. 

Educators will appreciate Green’s short vignettes 

that highlight the strategic debates between previous 

presidents and their national security advisors, beginning with the essential question: Is East Asia a vital 

interest for the United States? A personal favorite 

came from Lyndon B. Johnson’s March 1968 meeting 

with his counselors to decide a successful Vietnam 

policy. His vivid descriptions could be useful for setting up classroom debates, presentations, or writing 

exercises. Green served as a national security advisor 

in the George W. Bush administration and offers insights into the formulation of strategy toward Asia. 

This proximity to the policy debates in the White 

House gives him a deeper understanding of the personalities and policy debates that took place during 

the William J. “Bill” Clinton and Barack H. Obama 

administrations. 

By More Than Providence does a superb job introducing the backgrounds and personal histories of the 

people who constructed American strategy toward 

the Asia-Pacific. The work introduces little-known 

academics, political visionaries, and strategists who 

greatly influenced historical outcomes. For example, 

Peter Parker was instrumental in the 1850s to expanding U.S. naval power toward China and Japan. Later, 

Green spends a considerable number of pages describing Thomas W. Lamont’s work in the early 1920s to 

bind Japan and the United States economically in 

hopes that economic interdependence would result 

in peace. These biographical descriptions are more 

prevalent at the beginning stages of the book, but trail 

off as the author switches the focus predominantly to 

presidential decision making after World War II. He 

does not fixate on this point, but we might consider 

that the role of the modern diplomatic corps has shifted in the current era of “shuttle diplomacy” performed 

by the modern president.

One criticism the reader should consider is that, 

as diplomatic history, the book inserts a number of political science terms that may leave the history student 

perplexed by what Green is emphasizing. For example, 

terms such as horizontal escalation, neorealist and structural realism, bipolarity, and external balancing remain 

undefined. At times, Green declares true statements 

without offering a full explanation. The most blatant 

example was calling Japanese Prime Minister Yukio 

Hatoyama “loopy” without listing all of the reasons 

he damaged the U.S.-Japan alliance. Indeed, Hatoyama’s short nine-month tenure gave President Obama 

headaches for revealing nuclear secrets dating back to 

the Richard M. Nixon-Eisako Sato summits, suspending the Marine Corps Air Station Futenma relocation 

plan, interrupting fresh water and oil supplies to the 

U.S. Navy in the Indian Ocean, and repeatedly calling 

for the construction of an “East Asian Community.”2

Green’s work highlights the contemporary challenges that the United States faces in managing the 

often-antagonistic relations between China and Japan. He does well to show how the alliance with Japan has shifted from Marine Corps General Henry C. 

Stackpole’s description of the alliance as “a cap in the 

bottle” containing Japanese militarism in 1990.3 While 

Japan aided American interests during the Cold War 

by tracking Russian submarines and enlarging its military expenditures throughout the 1980s, Tokyo and 

Washington’s actions after the Cold War pushed the 

alliance toward joint operability in the wake of the 

1995–96 Taiwan Crisis.4 Yet, a strengthened alliance 

heightens China’s sense of insecurity. Additionally, 

as a respected Japan scholar, Michael Green excels in 

highlighting modern U.S.-Japanese bilateral relations. 

He offers new insights into how Nixon damaged re2

 Tanaka Akihiko, “Japan-U.S. Summit Meetings,” World and Japan Database, 29 June 2017; Mina Pollmann, “Tokyo, Okinawa 

Avoid Court Battle over Futenma Base Issue,” Diplomat, 11 March 

2016; and Yeo Lay Hwee, “Japan, ASEAN, and Construction of 

an East Asian Community,” Contemporary Southeast Asia 28, no. 2 

(August 2006): 258–75. 

3

 Kenneth B. Pyle, “The U.S.-Japan Alliance in the 21st Century,” 

National Bureau of Asian Research, 13 November 2012, endnote 1. 4

 “The 1995–96 Taiwan Crisis,” Adelphi Papers 39, no. 331 (1999): 

43–51, https://doi.org/10.1080/05679329908449618. 
WINTER 2017 83

lations with the Japanese by his secret diplomacy to 

reach rapprochement with the Chinese in the early 

1970s and the current feud over the Diaoyu/Senkaku 

Islands in the East China Sea. 

Green repeatedly visits the policy prescription of 

Robert H. Dorff, from the Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute, that senior decision makers 

should adjust ways, ends, and means with the advent 

of new technologies in warfighting, communication, 

and commerce—the exercise of “contextual intelligence.” One possibility in revisiting Dorff’s policy prescription is to draw back the curtain on policy makers 

within previous administrations failing or succeeding 

in thinking critically about the current situation.5

 It is 

our hope that the classroom exercise below will illustrate the difficulties of constructing strategy toward 

Asia.

Classroom Exercise

Below is a role-play lesson that employs topics and 

considerations from Michael J. Green’s By More Than 

Providence. It can be adapted for both World and U.S. 

History secondary school classrooms or for collegelevel coursework. Instructors can request the book for 

their library or contact Columbia University Press for 

a desk copy. 

With a broad-sweeping narrative, Green provides readers with much interpretive food for 

thought. A lesson such as this is adaptable to comparing viewpoints during the Opium War from the 

mid-nineteenth century (p. 139), or the grand strategy 

of Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon during the 

Vietnam War (p. 324). Below is a single example of 

the important topic of Japanese expansion in the Pacific during the interwar years prior to 1941 and the 

American debate concerning response. Themes accentuated include how Asian specialists in the 1930s expressed their contextual intelligence and how the role 

of the historian, both then and now, might weigh evi5

 Volker C. Franke and Robert H. Dorff, eds., Conflict Management 

and Peacebuilding: Pillars of a New American Grand Strategy (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, Army War College, 2013).

dence and provide consultation in the political arena.

History Exercise

Reassessing Grand Strategy: The Problem of Japanese 

Aggression in the 1930s

Agenda

Part I: Prelecture/discussion (30–45 minutes 

to discuss grand strategy and to assign 

groups)

Part II: Class time (45–60 minutes total class 

time: 10 minutes for planning; 25–30 

minutes for 5–7-minute presentations; 5–7 minutes for the Roosevelt 

response)

Part III: Class time summary/reflection (10–

15-minute wrap-up)

Part IV: Essay assignment options (due in class 

2–3 days later)

Scenario

It is early 1937. The empire of Japan has prosecuted 

a series of strategic movements both diplomatically 

and militarily, including withdrawal from the League 

of Nations, blowing up a railroad at Mukden, China, 

and the subsequent invasion of Manchuria. Little did 

the Americans know that Japan had designs on expansion into the South Pacific, and were preparing for 

further invasion of China by midsummer. President 

Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) has gathered members 

of his closest East Asia advisors to prosecute a new 

grand strategy. 

The Players

Divide students into groups during the class prior; 

you could also delegate a leadership role to one of the 

students serving as FDR.

Group 1: President Franklin D. Roosevelt; Secretary of State Cordell Hull; Secretary 

of War Henry L. Stimson (individually assigned depending on class size)

Group 2: Director Stanley K. Hornbeck, Far 

East Division
84 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

Group 3: Joseph C. Grew, U.S. ambassador to 

Japan

Group 4: John Van Antwerp MacMurray, former director, Far East Division

Group 5: Professor Tyler Dennett, historian, 

Princeton University

Supplies

Make copies of relevant pages for student access from 

Green’s By More Than Providence, chapter 5. Each player needs to examine their section as well as the other 

groups so they may apprise themselves of all the arguments available. Also, for Joseph Grew, since his 

section is the shortest, you might add the following 

primary source: A More Forceful Response to Japan is 

Needed (1937).

PART I

Short Lecture: What Is Grand Strategy?

Prior to the role-play, help the students understand 

that Asia was a challenging place to affect a grand 

strategy well before the 1930s (pp. 2–4). Nations, especially the United States, were attempting to adapt 

flexibly to changing conditions and push any rising 

hegemonic power out. As both the Americans and 

Japanese strategies evolved, the governments were 

thinking about “inflection points” (p. 157), which included weighing ideas and factors, including those old 

but still relevant; old and no longer relevant; new and 

relevant; new but not relevant. The overarching point 

is that ideas must be malleable; if you throw out triedand-true methods, then you might be turning your 

back on what has worked for generations. However, 

stick to the same plans and you might be blind to innovations that could help secure power in the Pacific. 

As Green adeptly points out: “The emerging system 

of international relations in Asia had visibly begun to 

implode, yet there was no new system or concept to 

replace it other than Japan’s bid for domination” (pp. 

157–58).

PART II

Role-Play

On this day, allow 10 minutes for groups to formulate 

their own grand strategy recommendations to President Roosevelt. The president’s group should meet 

during this time as well, and you might ask the Hull 

and Stimson players to do their own research on their 

perspectives on Japan. Each group should then be prepared to discuss in a timed 5–7-minute presentation 

that can be given in writing or through PowerPoint. 

Questions

1. What is the main argument that your player believes is the best response to Japan?

2. Give multiple examples from the reading of what 

you think are factors and forces that make up this 

new strategy and what past thinking needs to be 

incorporated or jettisoned moving forward. 

3. Summarize what you believe the president 

should do moving forward in the Pacific. 

Once Groups 2–5 present, the president (and/or 

his advisors) can give their own appraisal of the situation (5–7-minute discussion). Roosevelt should make 

remarks to the groups concerning a grand strategy 

moving forward, and if time permits, questions can be 

directed to the president. 

PART III

Summary and Reflections

Make sure you leave enough time (10–15 minutes) at 

the end for a summary and an open discussion of ideas. 

Questions

1. How did old and new ideas influence the decision that the Roosevelt administration faced in 

1937? 

2. How different was the discussion without the 

knowledge of what the Japanese did from 1937 to 

1941? 

3. How do discussions of grand strategic decision 

making affect our own lives when it comes to 

choosing when to incorporate new ideas?

PART IV

Essay Writing Assignments

1. Based on evidence provided in the role-play, 
WINTER 2017 85

write a 2–3-page essay examining each of the perspectives of the players involved. Which did you 

find most convincing and why?

2. Play the role of one of the participants in the debate and write a 2–3-page memorandum to President Roosevelt on why he is making a strategic 

mistake by following a certain course of action.

Conclusions

History is replete with examples of strategists and senior decision makers missing opportunities to avert 

war, contain adversaries, or deter future aggression. 

Historians hold fast to the precept that every occurrence is unique and major events cannot be generalized by a parsimonious theory; however, they also 

contend that there are great lessons to be learned from 

the past. In that end, Michael J. Green’s book offers 

educators numerous moments in American history 

where the country’s strategic course was hampered by 

the wrong assumptions, blinded by ideological misgivings, and handicapped by a lack of empathy. Green 

also does well to show how previous policies can create a path of dependence toward future missteps and 

unintended successes. Thus, the lessons of history 

need to be acted out, literally, to challenge students to 

think retrospectively about not only the past but also 

their own futures.

• 1775 •
CORE OF THE CORPS

The MAGTF Marine

COLONEL MICHAEL WODARCZYK

Anative of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Michael Wodarczyk immigrated to the United States in 1910 and enlisted in the Marine 

Corps just two years later. His service in the Marine 

Corps spanned more than three decades, enlisted to 

officer and infantry to air. One of the most venerated 

aviators of the 1920s, Wodarczyk is the epitome of 

“Core of the Corps.”

From 1912 to 1914, Wodarczyk was busy with 

expeditionary duty in the Dominican Republic and 

Vera Cruz. While serving at Marine Barracks Norfolk, 

Virginia, in October 1915, he and Private W. S. Parker came upon a fire in Number 4 Filling House; they 

proceeded to extinguish the fire, despite the fact the 

building contained explosives. For their prompt action, both Marines received letters of commendation 

from Major General Commandant George Barnett. 

In 1916, Wodarczyk reenlisted and found himself again performing barracks duty, though this time 

at the New York Navy Yard, until he was transferred 

to the 43d Company, which was heading to Cuba for 

service. When the Marine Corps formed up the 5th 

Regiment for service in France, the 43d Company 

was recalled from Cuba. On 10 June 1918, while in the 

midst of the Battle for Belleau Wood, now-Gunnery 

Sergeant Wodarczyk was in command of a platoon 

when they spotted 200 Germans manning machine 

guns in a ravine. Outnumbered 4 to 1, Wodarczyk led 

his men in an attack against the Germans, driving 

them out of their positions and capturing 50. For this 

action, he was recommended for the Distinguished 

Service Cross; however, it was not approved by the 

U.S. Army. By the end of the war, Wodarczyk had 

an enviable record of achievement: two Silver Star 

citations (later converted to Silver Star medals), the 

Croix de Guerre with palm, the Croix de Guerre with 

gilt star, the French Médaille Militaire, and two wound 

Historical Reference Branch, History Division

Then-gunner Michael Wodarczyk saw service in World War I with the 

5th Regiment and in the air while in Nicaragua. 

86
WINTER 2017 87

stripes (later converted to Purple Heart medals).1

Due to his wounds, Wodarczyk left the Corps in 

May 1919; however, he reenlisted at Philadelphia in 

November 1920. Less than a year later, in August 1921, 

Wodarczyk was appointed a Marine gunner while 

serving at Marine Barracks Quantico. In November 

1

 Authorized on 6 July 1916 by Army Order 249, the stripe award 

allowed those who appeared on casualty lists to wear a two-inch 

gold braid on the left sleeve of their uniform jacket. Later, it 

would be converted to a brass version for ease of care. The servicemen could add additional stripes for each subsequent inclusion on a casualty list, though accidental or self-inflicted injuries 

did not qualify.

1922, he was transferred to the 2d Brigade in the Dominican Republic and began his career flying with 

Marine Aviation. He returned to the United States in 

the summer of 1924 and continued flying—sometimes 

ferrying aircraft from one coast to the other and back. 

In February 1927, Wodarczyk was transferred to 

Nicaragua as part of Marine Observation Squadron 1 

(VO-1M). During his tenure in Nicaragua, he accumulated another valiant record of achievement, this time 

in the air. During those 16 months, Wodarczyk was 

recommended for the Distinguished Flying Cross for 

three separate occasions; regrettably only one yielded 

the award. He was awarded the Nicaraguan Cross of 

Valor for his actions on 16 July 1927 in which his flight 

as one of five aircraft aided the garrison of Marines 

and Nicaraguans at Ocotal. His citation cited his 

“skillful and daring ground attack [that] accomplished 

the rescue of the besieged garrison of Marines and native troops at Ocotal, Nicaragua. He displayed great 

heroism in the face of hostile fire and repeatedly made 

brilliant attacks that dealt the enemy telling blows.” 

Upon his return to the United States in June 1928, 

Wodarczyk had earned a Secretary of Navy Letter of 

Commendation, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and 

the Nicaraguan Cross of Valor.

In February 1928, Wodarczyk was promoted to 

chief Marine gunner and continued his flying duties in San Diego, Quantico, Guantánamo Bay, and 

other locations through the 1930s and 1940s. In February 1942, he was promoted to captain (temporary), 

to major in February 1943, and to lieutenant colonel 

in January 1944. Due to several aircraft crashes and 

waning health, he retired in June 1946. He was later 

promoted to colonel on the retired list and died in 

1957. Wodarczyk remains one of the very few Marines 

to be decorated for actions while serving in both 

ground and aviation units, thus being a true MAGTF 

Marine.

• 1775 •

Historical Reference Branch, History Division

Wodarczyk standing in front of one of his airplanes. During his service 

in Nicaragua, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the 

Nicaraguan Cross of Valor.
IN MEMORIAM

Colonel Edward L. Bale Jr., 

USMC (Ret)

19 March 1920–21 December 2017

by Kenneth W. Estes, Oscar E. Gilbert, and Romain Cansiere

Edward Bale Jr. was born in Dallas, Texas, to Edward Bale Sr. and Margaret Loughlin Bale. His father was in the real estate business in Dallas; 

Bale once recalled collecting rent on his father’s properties during the last stages of the Great Depression, 

when tenants paid in cash. Bale Jr. became interested 

in Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) while in 

high school and enrolled at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (now Texas A&M University) in College Station in 1938. He entered the U.S. 

Marine Corps Reserve Platoon Leader’s Course on 14 

June 1940. Upon leaving the degree program that he 

finished later in 1947, Bale was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Reserve on 21 March 1942 and 

attended The Basic School at Philadelphia Navy Yard 

until 15 June 1942, with field training near the old Gettysburg battlefield. 

In June 1942, Bale reported to Marine Barracks 

New River, North Carolina (now Camp Lejeune), for 

assignment at its training center, and became the tank 

platoon leader of the new 51st Composite Defense 

Battalion, while also attending the U.S. Army Armor 

School at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Defense battalions received tank platoons in May 1942 as part of defense 

battalion reorganization after the Corps’ experiences 

at Wake Island. Bale would later recount that, in those 

days of racial segregation, officers from the southern 

United States were often assigned to lead black Marines, which he considered another form of discrimination. 

As a first lieutenant, Bale transferred in May 

1943 to command Company C, 1st Corps Tank Battalion (Medium), forming at Camp Pendleton, California. The Marine Corps had received sufficient tanks so 

Official U.S. Marine Corps photo

Then-Capt Bale after World War II.

88
WINTER 2017 89

that it could implement its untested tank doctrine for 

amphibious operations, calling for the light tanks of 

the divisions to land first and eliminate the beach defenses after which medium tanks would land to counter enemy tanks and spearhead movement inland.

Bale’s baptism of fire came at Tarawa, where he 

led his 14 M4A2 Sherman medium tanks ashore on Dday, 20 November 1943, which was the first use of these 

tanks by the Marine Corps. Bale and his crew were the 

first Marine tankers to engage an enemy tank, and he 

often complained about the fanciful reporting of that 

battle, particularly the account that his command 

tank destroyed a Japanese tank by ramming it. In 

actuality, “the gunner was excited and fired, missing 

the Japanese tank. Before the loader could reload, the 

Japanese tank fired.”1

 By a million-to-one shot, the enemy shell went into the gun barrel, spraying the turret 

interior with fragments through the open breech. Bale 

took over another tank and teamed up with Major 

Michael P. Ryan’s infantry to attack enemy positions 

along Green Beach from the rear, clearing the way for 

reinforcements to come ashore as organized units.

Although only two medium tanks remained fully 

operational at the end, the M4A2s had greatly assisted 

in turning the tide in that horrific battle. Bale later 

criticized the tank tactics taught at the Army tank 

school, particularly cruising on the objective: “That was 

the term that was used for running around on the objective. That was a tactic that the Army taught. I don’t 

know whether it came from the horse cavalry running 

over a hill and riding around on the hilltop, or what 

the hell it came from.”2 Bale contributed to the assessment that followed the battle, particularly whether 

the Tarawa experience would lead to more realistic 

tank doctrine and tank-infantry coordination.

His company remained with 2d Tank Battalion 

as its Company A. Now a captain, Bale led it through 

1

 Oscar E. Gilbert, Marine Tank Battles in the Pacific (Cambridge, 

MA: Da Capo Press, 2001), 90.

2

 Oscar E. Gilbert and Romain Cansière, Tanks: A Century of Tank 

Warfare (Oxford, UK: Casemate, 2017), 66.

Courtesy of the Bale estate

Then-1stLt Edward Bale at the training center at Jacques Farm, now part 

of Camp Pendleton, CA, ca. 1943.

Courtesy of the Bale estate

Bale (back to camera) takes over China Gal after his own tank, Cecilia, 

was damaged on Tarawa.
90 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

the Battles of Saipan, Tinian, and Okinawa. When his 

company was transferred to southern Okinawa in the 

final stages of the battle, “LtCol Jeb Stuart [commanding officer (CO), 1st Tank Battalion] was impressed 

with our movement and attack with the 8th Marines. 

Was truly nothing special given the fact that the troops 

were fresh, the equipment in good shape and we had 

trained together for months. Every platoon leader and 

platoon sergeant had trained hard with designated infantry battalions. People knew each other; right down 

to squad leaders and tank commanders. Infantry Bn 

[battalion] Commanders knew that I ran tank side of 

Gilbert and Cansière, Tanks in Hell, courtesy Casemate Publishing

Map of Tarawa on D+1: (1) Cecilia moves east to attack “The Pocket” from the water; (2) while firing with her machine guns, Cecilia falls into a submerged shell hole and is abandoned; (3) Bale takes over the repaired China Gal and moves west to find the infantry and push south along Green Beach; 

(4) with Maj Michael Ryan’s scratch force of surviving infantrymen, or “Ryan’s Orphans,” China Gal clears Green Beach, attacking enemy positions 

from behind; and (5) at nightfall, China Gal falls back to spend the night in a safer area.
WINTER 2017 91

operations and that Regimental CO would back me if 

dispute/problems arose. They also knew that if there 

were problems, I would take care of them. I proved 

this on Tinian when I fired a platoon leader and sent 

him back to LtCol [Charles Worth] McCoy because of 

his uncooperative attitude and being overly cautious 

as reported to me by a Bn Cmdr. Confirmed to my satisfaction before acting. There was tremendous rapport 

and confidence throughout.”3

On southern Okinawa, Army Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr. was hit by an antitank 

round while observing Bale’s tanks in action, becoming the highest-ranking American officer killed in the 

war. By 1945, Bale was clearly one of the most combat 

experienced tank company commanders in the Marine Corps. 

Postwar, Captain Bale was made a regular officer 

and became the first Marine Corps officer to attend 

the Armor Officer Advanced Course at Fort Knox, 

before returning to 2d Tank Battalion in July 1947 

as battalion operations officer and executive officer, 

where he was later promoted to major in April 1948. 

After three years commanding the recruiting station 

in Dallas, Texas, he attended Senior School (redesignated Marine Corps Command and Staff College) at 

Quantico from September 1952 to May 1953. That No3

 Edward Bale, email to Kenneth Estes, 2 June 1999.

vember, he married Sybil Gilliland and was promoted 

to lieutenant colonel. Reporting to the Recruit Training Depot San Diego, California, he became the depot 

inspector and later took command of its headquarters 

battalion.

Bale returned to the Pacific theater as commanding officer, 1st Tank Battalion, from 1 April 1954 to 

19 December 1954, then took command of the 1st Armored Amphibian Battalion, bringing it back to the 

United States in May 1955.

One last assignment at the Army Armor School 

at Fort Knox as the Marine Corps representative (June 

1955–July 1958) was followed by his assignment as 

inspector-instructor of the 1st Tank Battalion, Marine 

Corps Reserve (August 1958–July 1960). Attending the 

Naval War College the following year led to his assignment to the G-4 Staff, Headquarters Marine Corps, as 

the head of its Ordnance Branch (July 1961–May 1964). 

During this tour, he successfully shepherded the modernization and dieselization of the Marine Corps tank 

fleet among myriad other activities.4

Promoted to colonel on 3 July 1962, Bale took 

command of Marine Barracks Guam in July 1964, 20 

years after the tough fighting there and on nearby 

Saipan and Tinian islands. Once more war beckoned, 

however, and he reported to the 1st Marine Division 

in Vietnam for duty as the G-4 officer in September 

1966 and later served as deputy chief of staff. It was 

in this second assignment that his Legion of Merit 

citation noted he was “charged with many complex 

and sensitive projects as special representative of the 

Commanding General, he was responsible for collecting factual information regarding the combat performance of the new M-16 rifle. Personally supervising a 

team composed of ordnance experts, he ensured that 

special instructions regarding care, cleaning, safety 

and maintenance procedures for the M-16 were provided [to] all echelons, including small unit leaders 

who were charged with presenting classes to their own 

personnel. As a direct result of his efforts, significant 

4

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

the Armored Fighting Vehicle, 1916–2000 (Annapolis: Naval Institute 

Press, 2000), 160–61.

Courtesy of the Bale estate

Then-Capt Bale, commander of Company A, 2d Tank Battalion, on 

Saipan.
92 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

improvements in the effective use of the rifle were 

made within the division.”5

Colonel Bale returned to the United States and 

assumed his final duty assignment on 2 November 1967 

as deputy chief of staff and inspector for force troops, 

Fleet Marine Force, Atlantic. He retired on 1 August 

1969 after serving 30 years, 1 month, and 16 days in the 

Corps. Besides the Legion of Merit, he was awarded the 

Bronze Star Medal with “V,” the Navy Commendation 

Medal, two Presidential Unit Citations, the American Defense Service Medal, the American Campaign 

Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with four 

stars, the World War II Victory Medal, the Navy Occupation Service Medal, the National Defense Service 

Medal, the Korean Service Medal, and the United Nations Service Medal (Korea).

After retirement, Bale served as the vice president at First National Bank of Dallas for 10 years. 

While history often ignores the softer side of warriors, Bale also served the community through the Boy 

Scouts and Girl Scouts of America. Bale was known as 

a very compassionate person, though some of his community service was done anonymously. One Christmas in Dallas, his family packaged a tree, decorations, 

gifts, and food and delivered them in secret to the 

home of a struggling single mother. 

Following his second retirement, he became 

the administrator of the Episcopal Diocese of the 

Rio Grande for another five years. Well into his 70s, 

Bale remained involved in the sanctuary movement, 

providing supplies for Central American refugees in 

Mexico. Because of his extensive service in war and 

peace, he was a frequent contributor to historical research in both print and film media. His key roles in 

the evolution of Marine Corps armored fighting vehicles and other ordnance matters, plus his considerable 

knowledge of three decades of Marine Corps leaders, 

5

 Col Edward L. Bale, “Information Services Office” press release, 

Biographical Data Folder, Historical Reference Branch, Marine 

Corps History Division, Quantico, VA.

made him a highly valued contact and contributor for 

scholars and filmmakers. He will be sorely missed, but 

his records and reminiscences remain in books and archives, including the Library of Congress.

Edward Lewis Bale Jr. passed away on 21 December 2017 during a visit to family in Winnsboro, Texas. 

He was interred on 9 January 2018 at the Houston National Cemetery.

• 1775 •

Official U.S. Marine Corps photo, 

courtesy 2d Tank Battalion

Col Bale as commanding officer, Marine Barracks Guam.
IN MEMORIAM

Colonel Wesley L. Fox, 

USMC (Ret)

30 September 1931–24 November 2017

“Every now and then in my life, I have met 

someone who I think cannot be killed or 

who will never die for any reason. Wes Fox 

is one of them.”

~Lieutenant Colonel R. L. Cody, 

USMC (Ret)

Born 30 September 1931, in Herndon, Virginia, 

Wesley Lee Fox attended Warren County High 

School in Front Royal, Virginia, until 1948. Enlisting in the Marine Corps on 4 August 1950, he was 

ordered to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris 

Island, South Carolina, for recruit training, which he 

completed in October 1950.

After a brief tour as a rifleman with the 2d Marine Division at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, 

North Carolina, Fox served his initial tour during the 

Korean conflict as a rifleman with Company I, 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division. Wounded in 

action on 8 September 1951, he was evacuated to the 

U.S. Naval Hospital, Bethesda, Maryland. Upon his 

release from Bethesda in March 1952, he served as a patrolman with the Armed Forces Police in Washington, 

DC, until September 1953, when he was reassigned to 

Marine Aircraft Group 11 in Japan.

Returning to Korea for his second tour, nowSergeant Fox served as a platoon sergeant with Company G, 3d Battalion, 5th Marines. Upon returning to 

the United States, he served briefly at Marine Corps 

Base Camp Pendleton, California, prior to being assigned to Drill Instructors School at the Marine Corps 

Recruit Depot San Diego.

Completing the school in August 1955, he remained in San Diego, serving as a drill instructor 

Defense Department photo (Marine Corps)

Then-Capt Wesley L. Fox pictured here after being awarded the Medal 

of Honor.

93
94 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

until August 1957 before returning to the East Coast 

to attend Recruiter’s School at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island. After completing his tour as 

a recruiter in December 1960, he was ordered back to 

the West Coast and served as a platoon sergeant with 

the 1st Force Reconnaissance Company both at Camp 

Pendleton and on Okinawa through November 1962. 

In December that year, Fox was assigned as a troop 

handler at the Marine Air Detachment Jacksonville, 

Florida, and served in this capacity until September 

1965.

Gunnery Sergeant Fox next saw duty in the Office of the Provost Marshal, Supreme Headquarters 

Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Paris, France. In 

May 1966, he was promoted to first sergeant and also 

commissioned as a second lieutenant. Returning to 

the United States in August that year, he became a 

platoon commander with the 2d Force Reconnaissance Company at Camp Lejeune.

Lieutenant Fox was then ordered to the Republic 

of Vietnam, where he served as a battalion advisor to 

the Vietnamese Marine Corps for 13 months. In November 1968, he became the commanding officer of 

Company A, 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, 3d Marine Division, serving in this capacity until May 1969. It was 

during this assignment that he would be awarded the 

nation’s highest decoration for bravery. He was promoted to captain on 1 April 1969.

Upon his return to the United States, he completed the Amphibious Warfare School, Marine Corps 

Official U.S. Marine Corps photo, courtesy LCpl E. E. Hildreth

Then-1stLt Fox, commander of 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, takes a break 

to catch up on the news. Fox led his company during Operation Dewey 

Canyon against an enemy bunker complex.

Official U.S. Marine Corps photo

Then-1stLt Fox rests at Company A’s position overlooking the Ho Chi 

Minh Trail, a week after the action for which he would be awarded the 

Medal of Honor.
WINTER 2017 95

Base Quantico, Virginia, in January 1970, at which 

time he assumed his assignment as a tactics instructor at The Basic School, Quantico. After 43 years of 

Marine Corps service, Fox retired as a colonel in September 1993. He would then go on to serve eight years 

as the deputy commandant for Virginia Polytechnic 

Institute and State University’s Corps of Cadets. 

Colonel Wesley L. Fox was the 48th Marine to 

be awarded the Medal of Honor for outstanding heroism. The medal was presented to then-Captain Fox by 

President Richard M. Nixon during a Joint Service 

ceremony held at the White House on 2 March 1971. 

In addition to the Medal of Honor, his other medals 

and decorations include: the Bronze Star Medal with 

combat “V,” the Navy Commendation Medal with one 

gold star, the Purple Heart with three gold stars in 

lieu of second through fourth awards, the Combat 

Action Ribbon, the Presidential Unit Citation, the 

Good Conduct Medal with four gold stars in lieu 

of subsequent awards, the National Defense Service 

Medal with one bronze star, the Korean Service Medal 

Official U.S. Marine Corps photo, courtesy SSgt David Pafford

Medal of Honor recipients, ca. 1985. From left: Howard V. Lee, William Barber, Mitchell Paige, Joseph Foss, Gen Louis Wilson, Jacklyn Lucas, Col 

Harvey Barnum, and LtCol Fox pose after attending events at The Basic School.

with three bronze stars, the United Nations Service 

Medal, the Vietnam Service Medal with one silver 

star and one bronze star in lieu of subsequent awards, 

two Vietnamese Crosses of Gallantry, the Vietnamese 

Honor Medal First Class, the Vietnamese Unit Cross 

of Gallantry with palm, the Korean Presidential Unit 

Citation, and the Republic of Vietnam Campaign 

Medal.

Medal of Honor Citation

The President of the United States of 

America, in the name of Congress, takes 

pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor 

to Captain [then 1st Lieutenant] Wesley Lee 

Fox, United States Marine Corps, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the 

risk of his life above and beyond the call of 

duty on 22 February 1969, while serving as 

Commanding Officer of Company A, 1st 

Battalion, 9th Marines, 3d Marine Division 

(Reinforced), Fleet Marine Force, in action 
96 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

against the enemy in the northern A Shau 

Valley. Captain Fox’s company came under 

intense fire from a large well concealed enemy force. Captain Fox maneuvered to a 

position from which he could assess the situation and confer with his platoon leaders. 

As they departed to execute the plan he had 

devised, the enemy attacked and Captain 

Fox was wounded along with all of the other 

members of the command group, except the 

executive officer. Captain Fox continued to 

direct the activity of his company. Advancing through heavy enemy fire, he personally 

neutralized one enemy position and calmly 

ordered an assault against the hostile emplacements. He then moved through the 

hazardous area coordinating aircraft support with the activities of his men. When 

his executive officer was mortally wounded, 

Captain Fox reorganized the company and 

directed the fire of his men as they hurled 

grenades against the enemy and drove the 

hostile forces into retreat. Wounded again 

in the final assault, Captain Fox refused 

medical attention, established a defensive 

posture, and supervised the preparation of 

casualties for medical evacuation. His indomitable courage, inspiring initiative, and 

unwavering devotion to duty in the face of 

grave personal danger inspired his Marines 

to such aggressive action that they overcame all enemy resistance and destroyed 

a large bunker complex. Captain Fox’s heroic actions reflect great credit upon himself and the Marine Corps, and uphold the 

highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service. 

Colonel Fox passed away on 24 November 2017 at the 

age of 86 in Blacksburg, Virginia. 

• 1775 •

Official U.S. Marine Corps photo, courtesy of Cpl Nischalke

LtCol Fox on Marine Corps Base Quantico, VA, ca. 1993.
LITERATURE REVIEW

Air Power Doctrine

by Viktoriya Fedorchak, PhD1

Introduction

The contemporary field of air power studies is 

characterized by multifaceted exploration of 

operational, technological, and conceptual aspects of using air power. The logic of systematic analysis would dictate the necessity of covering all of these 

aspects in understanding air power and its development in each national strategic culture. However, the 

amount of research on air power doctrine as the primary vessel of a conceptual component remains scarce, 

particularly in the case of British air power doctrine for 

the Royal Air Force (RAF) as compared with those of 

the American Services.2

 The primary purpose of this article is to provide a literature review of the few existing 

works on RAF air power doctrine, intersecting fields 

that can provide some insights into operational considerations of air power conceptualization in its connection to other British military doctrines, but also to 

illustrate some trends in academic coverage of U.S. Air 

Force (USAF) and Marine Corps Aviation doctrine. 

1

 Viktoriya Fedorchak received her PhD from the University 

of Hull in Yorkshire, England, exploring the subject of “The 

Development of RAF Air Power Doctrine, 1999–2013.” She is 

a lecturer in military history at Maynooth University, Ireland. 

Previously, she has taught multiple courses at the University of 

Nottingham, the University of Hull, and Kyiv International University, Ukraine. Her research interests include defense studies, 

air power, and military doctrine.  Her upcoming monograph, 

British Air Power: The Doctrinal Path to Jointery (2018), explores the 

shift from single-Service to joint authorship of environmental 

doctrine.

2

 Due to the nature of this discussion and to reduce confusion, 

Service will be used interchangeably throughout to represent a 

country’s military, regardless of whether American or foreign.

The field of RAF air power doctrine is not widely covered in the academic literature. The majority of 

research is devoted to doctrine development in the 

twentieth century, with fewer works on its post–Cold 

War revival. Compared to the amount of research on 

the two other Services in the post–Cold War era, this 

article draws readers’ attention to the existing gap in 

the literature and the necessity to explore this question in greater depth. Regarding the structure, first, 

this article explores academic works that investigated 

RAF doctrine, per se, followed by intersecting fields 

of British air power and U.S. military doctrine that 

can be insightful for investigating certain features of 

RAF air power doctrine. However, these works do not 

explore in depth the processes of institutionalization 

of jointery and the most recent editions of air power 

doctrine from 2013, UK Air and Space Doctrine, Joint 

Doctrine Publication (JDP) 0-30, and the 2017 edition.3

History of RAF 

Doctrine Development

James Neil Pugh’s 2012 PhD thesis, followed by his 

most recent book, places the emphasis on the conceptual origins of the control of air in terms of divided 

British military and naval aviation of 1911–18.4 It also 

provides background on how the first doctrinal manual was created and which concepts were predomi3UK Air and Space Doctrine, JDP 0-30 (Swindon, UK: Development, 

Concepts and Doctrine Centre, Ministry of Defence, 2013, 2017).

4

 James Pugh, The Royal Flying Corps, the Western Front, and the 

Control of the Air, 1914–1918 (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2017).

97
98 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

nant. Although the research concentrates mainly on 

concepts, and doctrine is viewed as one of “various 

facets affecting the conceptual origins of the control 

of the air” in terms of the history of the studied question, it still provides some insights into the beginning 

of the process of doctrine writing within the RAF.5

The next stage of doctrine development is covered in the research of Air Commodore Neville Parton, who concentrates on air power doctrine and its 

development in the interwar period.6 Parton explains 

the influential factors in the preparation of doctrine, 

which affected its final form and classified status.7

These factors include the dominance of concepts of 

strategic bombing and air offensive, the inter-Service 

rivalry, and the desire of the RAF to preserve its independent status under the conditions of constant 

budgetary restraints.8

 He also examines both strategic 

and tactical doctrines. Parton conducted a comparative analysis of Operations Manual RAF from 1922 with 

the first two editions of the RAF War Manual. 

John Buckley also explores air power doctrine in 

the interwar period.9 Although, like Neville Parton, 

he looks into conceptual changes in air power doctrines of the time and examines inter-Service pressure 

on doctrinal development, he places emphasis on the 

subject from the perspective of maritime air power 

rather than the RAF.10 He also analyzes RAF performance in World War II, paying particular attention 

to RAF Coastal Command and Trade Defence.11 Al5

 James Neil Pugh, “The Conceptual Origins of the Control of 

Air: British Military and Naval Aviation, 1911–1918” (PhD thesis, 

University of Birmingham, 2012), abstract.

6

 Neville Parton, “The Evolution and Impact of Royal Air Force 

Doctrine, 1919–1939” (PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 

2009).

7

 Parton, “The Evolution and Impact of Royal Air Force Doctrine.”

8

 Neville Parton, “The Development of Early RAF Doctrine,” Journal of Military History 72, no. 4 (October 2008): 1155–78, https://

doi.org/10.1353/jmh.0.0104.

9

 John Buckley, Air Power in the Age of Total War (London: Routledge, 1998). 

10 Buckley, Air Power in the Age of Total War. 11 John Buckley, The RAF and Trade Defence, 1919–1945: Constant Endeavour (Keele, UK: Keele University Press, 1995).

though John Buckley examines the development of 

RAF doctrine in the interwar period, doctrine per se 

was not the subject of his research, but it serves as a 

tool for exploring air power performance in the chosen time. 

On the other hand, Scot Robertson devotes his 

book entirely to the establishment of RAF strategic 

bombing doctrine in the interwar years.12 He explores 

the complexity of the internal political environment, 

“debates on spending money on untried weapons,” 

and attempts to conceptualize airpower according 

to narrow needs of diplomacy and imperial interests 

of the time.13 Robertson argues that the theory and 

strategy of air power are in disjunction and the two 

interwar decades were driven by theory rather than 

the doctrine of strategic bombing. Thus, he concludes 

doctrine is virtually nonexistent. This book is an excellent source to explore the factors influencing doctrine writing and its place in inter-Service politics of 

the interwar years. 

Further chronological research was conducted by 

Andrew Vallance, covering the period 1957–87.14 The 

main emphasis of his work is described thus: “While 

seeking to identify the principal elements of the Royal Air Force’s air power doctrine in the past—and the 

factors that have shaped it—this study is aimed very 

much at the Service’s doctrinal development in the 

future.”15 Attention is paid to the reasons for the Service’s existence without a conceptual framework of 

its actions, its diverse functionality, and the potential 

ways of its shaping against growing inter-Service and 

international integrations. 

In an article published the same year in Air Clues, 

Vallance explains the results of his research in a discussion between senior officers and the practical ne12 Scot Robertson, The Development of RAF Strategic Bombing Doctrine, 1919–1939 (Westport: Praeger, 1995). 13 Robertson, The Development of RAF Strategic Bombing Doctrine, 

xi. 

14 Andrew Vallance, “The Evolution of Air Power Doctrine 

within the RAF, 1957–1987” (master’s thesis, University of Cambridge, 1988).

15 Vallance, “The Evolution of Air Power Doctrine within the 

RAF,” 5.
WINTER 2017 99

cessity of the doctrine for the RAF.16 He traces the 

history of doctrine development and functionality 

and comes to a conclusion that “in comparison with 

USAF’s well organized ‘Big Business’ approach to doctrinal development, that of RAF’s was more akin to 

a cottage industry.”

17 Vallance continues his professional activity, encouraging strategic thinking on air 

power and potential doctrinal publications. The next 

step is a collection of essays on air power, which is an 

attempt to systematize the existing concepts and create a certain unofficial framework of air power use.18

In his book, The Air Power Weapon, Vallance concentrates on the implications of new technological advancement for the role of air power in the post–Cold 

War and post–Gulf War strategic environments.19

The contemporary period of RAF doctrine development is covered in an article by Chris Finn. In 

his earlier works, he concentrates on operational lessons that could be adopted in the new practice, potential doctrinal implications of new operations, and 

technological changes.20 Later, he traces the development of air power doctrine from 1977 to 2009, when 

the fourth edition of British Air and Space Power Doctrine (AP 3000) was about to be published.21 Hence, 

Finn’s account does not include an analysis of the last 

16 Andrew Vallance, “Air Power Doctrine,” Air Clues 42, no 5 (May 

1988): 163–69. 

17 Vallance, “Air Power Doctrine,” 167.

18 Andrew Vallance, ed., Air Power: Collected Essays on Doctrine 

(London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office [HMSO], 1990).

19 Andrew G. B. Vallance, The Air Weapon: Doctrines of Air Power 

Strategy and Operational Art (London: Macmillan, 1996). 20 Chris Finn, “Air Aspects of Operation Iraqi Freedom,” Air 

Power Review 6, no. 4 (Winter 2003): 1–23; Chris Finn, “Air Power 

in Afghanistan,” Air Power Review 5, no. 4 (Winter 2002): 1–16; 

Chris Finn, “The Broader Implications of the Increasing Use of 

Precision Weapons,” Air Power Review 4, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 35–

59; Chris Finn, “Network Centric Warfare—Doctrinal Issues,” in 

Network Centric Warfare and the Future of Air Power: Proceedings of 

a Conference Held in Canberra by the Royal Australian Air Force, ed. 

WgCdr Keith Brent, RAAF (Tuggeranong, Australia: Air Power 

Development Centre, 2004); and Chris Finn, “Air Power Post 

Operation Iraqi Freedom: The Doctrinal Implications” (unpublished paper, RAF 2004 Air Power Conference, London).

21 Chris Finn, “British Thinking on Air Power—The Evolution of 

AP3000,” Air Power Review 12, no. 1, (Spring 2009): 56–67.

publication on air power doctrine, UK Air and Space 

Doctrine. The main argument he poses is that irrespective of temporal changes, the intellectual tendencies 

in air power thinking remain the same. He is quite 

critical about doctrinal functionality and the impact 

of diverse operational experience on the application 

of doctrine. He also explains certain unknown forces 

behind the writing of the fourth edition of British Air 

and Space Power Doctrine. The relevance of this article 

for the studied field is that it provides a roadmap to 

the evaluation of the processes of doctrine writing 

of the two studied editions of air power doctrine. 

However, this article neither covers more contemporary trends in doctrine development after 2009 nor 

concentrates on the systematic approach to doctrine 

writing. 

Intersecting Fields

Except for the previously mentioned works directly 

related to the studied research question, there are 

fields of literature on the studied period that intersect 

with this topic. The literature can be divided into two 

groups. The first group concentrates on the general 

topic of British air power and the RAF. The second 

group is devoted to the exploration of the British military doctrine in general.

British Air Power and the RAF

The field of air power studies is characterized by a 

very small number of specialists. Military specialists 

of air power often work on its practical aspect and 

disseminate their findings through conferences and 

workshops, while academics publish a few articles and 

books on the topic. However, they primarily concentrate on the theoretical aspect of research. Therefore, 

when there is an opportunity to bring together both 

military practitioners and academics, it results in a 

systematic evaluation of the topic and its dissemination to a wider audience. Thus, new ideas and concepts presented only at conferences and workshops to 

academics and practitioners become available to the 

public. Often, such symbiosis is achieved in the form 

of monographs and collections of essays on a target 

topic. This explanation is aimed to demonstrate the 
100 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

importance of monographs in the field of air power 

studies and their scarcity. 

Stuart Peach, as an author of the third edition 

of British Air and Space Power Doctrine, edited a couple 

of books on the new capabilities of air power conditioned by technological changes and how they fit into 

the post-Kosovo realities.22 Although the ideas embodied in these works reflect the concepts of the written 

doctrine, doctrinal issues per se are not discussed in 

these books.

Peter Gray also has edited collections of essays 

on air power: Air Power 21 and British Air Power.

23 The 

main emphasis of both collections is on the transition 

of air power from the experience of the Cold War 

toward the new realities of the twenty-first century. 

Such topics as asymmetric warfare, counterinsurgency, the new technologies of unmanned aerial vehicles 

(UAVs), and the politico-strategic implication of the 

improved precision are included. The first monograph 

concentrates on the lessons of Kosovo and allied operations, while the second pays attention to Afghanistan and the Global War on Terrorism.

The series of books edited by Andreas Olsen concentrates on air power on the global scale, but also 

includes several chapters on British air power. In A 

History of Air Warfare, more attention is paid to the 

evaluation of the performance of air power in major 

operations through the history of the existence of the 

RAF.24 In terms of British air power of the period relevant to this thesis, Robert Owen analyzes the correlation between the decision-making apparatus and 

air power efficiency in Operation Deliberate Force 

(Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1995). The British contribution to the recent campaigns in Operations Allied 

Force (Kosovo, 1999), Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan, 2001–14), and Iraqi Freedom (Iraq, 2003–10) are 

22 Stuart Peach, ed., Perspectives on Air Power: Air Power in Its Wider 

Context (London: HMSO, 1998); and Stuart Peach and David 

Gates, eds., Air Power for the New Millennium (Lancaster: Centre 

for Defence and International Security Studies, 1999).

23 Peter Gray, ed., Air Power 21: Challenges for the New Century

(London: HMSO, 2000); and Peter W. Gray, ed., British Air Power 

(London: HMSO, 2003).

24 John Andreas Olsen, ed., A History of Air Warfare (Washington, 

DC: Potomac Books, 2010).

analyzed by Tony Mason, Benjamin S. Lambeth, and 

Williamson Murray. The potential of air and space 

powers’ use in effects-based operations and the place 

of both in contemporary warfare are explained in the 

case study by Richard P. Hallion.25

John Andreas Olsen’s book Global Air Power includes a chapter by Tony Mason in which he follows 

the history of the RAF and explains the complexity of 

its independence as a single Service under the constant 

threat of being absorbed by two other Services.26 In 

terms of the studied timeframe, the chapter provides 

analysis of the RAF’s performance in the last operations under substantial budgetary cuts. In this regard, 

it emphasizes that “sometimes air power could achieve 

the desired political or strategic effects on its own, but 

its primary focus was joint service operations.”

27

While the previous works concentrate on air 

power development and its incorporation into the 

changing strategic environment, other academics devote their works to the exploration of air power’s role 

in particular operations. David F. Haines argues that 

contemporary counterinsurgency (COIN) operations 

require a more profound COIN education, which 

should be based on a better analysis of the previous 

experience of COIN use of air power in Malaya and 

Aden.28

Benjamin Lambeth, an American specialist in 

air power, devotes his books to various operations and 

their results for air power. He analyzes the political 

and strategic implications of air power use and frictions in air war in Kosovo, the role of air power in 

the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), and other as25 Richard P. Hallion, “Air and Space Power: Climbing and Accelerating,” in A History of Air Warfare, 379–80. 26 John Andreas Olsen, ed., Global Air Power (Washington, DC: 

Potomac Books, 2011).

27 Tony Mason, “British Air Power,” in Global Air Power, 62. 28 David F. Haines, British Airpower and Counterinsurgency: Learning from the Past, Fighting Today and Preparing for Tomorrow (BiblioScholar, 2012). 
WINTER 2017 101

pects of the development of air power.29 The general 

relevance of his works to the topic is in the creation 

of background knowledge for the understanding of 

global tendencies in the roles of air power. He also 

refers to the RAF’s performance in recent operations. His last book, The Unseen War: Allied Air Power 

and the Takedown of Saddam Hussein, is of particular 

significance, because he devotes an entire chapter to 

the allied contribution to Operation Iraqi Freedom, 

where he compares the RAF and Royal Australian Air 

Force (RAAF) performance.30 Moreover, he addresses 

the issue of doctrine in terms of the harmonization of 

Coalition cooperation at the operational and tactical 

levels.31

Tim Ripley analyzes Coalition performance in 

each stage of the air war in Iraq and traces the evolution of U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization 

(NATO) operations after Afghanistan.32 His most recent book pays particular attention to British Army 

aviation in operations from Kosovo to Libya.33 The 

author looks into the technological equipment of the 

British Army Air Corps and Royal Artillery. Thus, he 

concentrates on British Army aviation rather than the 

RAF. On the other hand, Anthony Loveless adopts a 

29 Benjamin S. Lambeth, NATO’s Air War for Kosovo: A Strategic and 

Operational Assessment (Washington, DC: Rand, 2001); Benjamin 

S. Lambeth, Air Power Against Terror: America’s Conduct of Operation Enduring Freedom (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 2005); Benjamin 

S. Lambeth, The Transformation of American Air Power (Ithaca, NY: 

Cornell University Press, 2000); Benjamin S. Lambeth, Mastering 

the Ultimate High Ground: Next Steps in the Military Uses of Space

(Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 2003); Benjamin S. Lambeth, American 

Carrier Air Power at the Dawn of a New Century (Santa Monica, 

CA: Rand, 2005); Benjamin S. Lambeth, Combat Pair: The Evolution of Air Force-Navy Integration in Strike Warfare (Santa Monica, 

CA: Rand, 2007); and Benjamin S. Lambeth, Air Operations in Israel’s War Against Hezbollah: Learning from Lebanon and Getting It 

Right in Gaza (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 2011). 30 Benjamin S. Lambeth, The Unseen War: Allied Air Power and the 

Takedown of Saddam Hussein (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 

2013).

31 Lambeth, The Unseen War. 32 Tim Ripley, Air War Iraq (South Yorkshire, UK: Pen and Sword 

Aviation, 2004); and Tim Ripley, Air War Afghanistan: US and 

NATO Air Operations from 2001 (South Yorkshire, UK: Pen and 

Sword Aviation, 2011).

33 Tim Ripley, British Army Aviation in Action: Kosovo to Libya 

(South Yorkshire, UK: Pen and Sword Aviation, 2011). 

different perspective in Blue Sky Warriors: The RAF in 

Afghanistan in Their Own Words, focusing on the RAF 

experience in a particular operation. He collected interviews with RAF personnel serving in Afghanistan.34

Unlike the aforementioned literature, this work addresses his personal perception of the operation and 

the day-to-day challenges of its accomplishment. 

The relationship of Colin Gray’s research to the 

subject is dual. First, Gray writes about doctrine from 

a theoretical perspective as one of the dimensions of 

strategy.35 He also explores doctrinal functionality as 

an institutional means of creating commonality in 

thinking and the synchronization of actions.36 Second, 

in his book Air Power for Strategic Effect, Gray concentrates on the historical and contemporary reevaluation of air power in a strategic context, discussing air 

power per se, and not just the RAF or the USAF.37

Since the intent of the book is to link operational 

experience to the strategic reevaluation of air power 

for the contemporary strategic understanding and its 

effective use, it does not look into doctrinal issues. 

However, the book is an immense source for the historical development of air power examined from the 

point of view of strategic thinking. 

From the literature analyzed above, we can conclude that air power was evaluated mainly in terms 

of new operational experiences and requirements of 

a strategic environment. British air power is less emphasized than American. Conversely, the analysis of 

Coalition operations can be applied to both air forces, 

taking into account obvious differences in size, the 

division of roles, and the achievement of objectives. 

In terms of doctrine, the general air power discourse 

pays little attention to it since the main approach to 

air power research is aimed at outcome analysis instead of means such as doctrine. Therefore, with the 

34 Anthony Loveless, Blue Sky Warriors: The RAF in Afghanistan in 

Their Own Words (Somerset, UK: Haynes Publishing, 2011). 35 Colin S. Gray, Modern Strategy (Oxford: Oxford University 

Press, 1999). 

36 Colin S. Gray, The Strategy Bridge: Theory for Practice (Oxford: 

Oxford University Press, 2010).

37 Colin S. Gray, Air Power for Strategic Effect (Maxwell AFB, AL: 

Air University Press, 2012).
102 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

exception of a few works, the general air power literature does not pay sufficient attention to doctrine. 

The Field of British Military Doctrine

After the end of the Cold War, doctrine writers who 

had no previous experience of systematic doctrine 

writing had to face several challenges.38 First, it was 

essential to come to a common understanding of what 

was meant by the term doctrine and its role in the national strategic culture. Second, the place of doctrine 

in the timeline of events required emphasis. Although 

the first post–Cold War decade was meant to address 

these issues and provide a precise conclusion, the transitional nature of the period and the unstable role of 

doctrine resulted in a diversity of inquiries on doctrinal matters. Since the field of doctrinal studies is 

still evolving, most of the literature analyzed below 

consists of academic and professional articles on the 

subject. It can be divided into several groups: historical, conceptual, and Services’ perspectives. 

In terms of the historical approach, academics 

paid attention to the exploration of the historical development of doctrine and the meaning of historical 

experience in doctrine. The first aspect is reflected in 

Oliver Daddow’s historiographic toolkit. He argues 

that doctrine is a historical document reflecting the 

combination of four diverse factors influencing its 

preparation: international context, domestic politics, networks, and writers.39 The history in terms 

of the development of military skills is presented by 

Charles Grant, Eliot A. Cohen, and Douglas Porch. 

Grant argues that the lessons of history are crucial for 

understanding what can be achieved.40 Eliot Cohen 

argues for the necessity of “a historical mind,” suggesting that an individual is not supposed to rely heavily 

38 This is particularly the case of Charles Dobbie and Philip 

Wilkinson’s work on the British Army’s Field Manual, Wider 

Peacekeeping (London: HMSO, 1995). 39 Oliver J. Daddow, “Facing the Future: History in the Writing of 

British Military Doctrine,” Defence Studies 2, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 

163.

40 Charles Grant, “The Use of History in the Development of 

Contemporary Doctrine,” in The Origins of Contemporary Doctrine, 

ed. J. Gooch, Occasional Paper No. 30 (Camberley, UK: Strategic 

Combat Studies Institute, 1997): 7–17. 

on the meaning of lessons learned but to “appreciate 

the variability of people and places, conditions and 

problems.”41 Douglas Porch emphasizes the role of history in debates of the connection between strategy 

and policy making, with reference to the example of 

the GWOT.42

In terms of a conceptual approach, articles can 

be divided into the following categories of inquiry: 

the nature of doctrine and its meaning; the influence 

of doctrine on the military environment; and doctrinal development. An article by Andrew Methven is an 

example of the first category, examining the nature of 

doctrine, purposes, factors influencing the evolution 

of doctrine, and its problems.43 One of the focal points 

of the article is the continuation of the discourse introduced in I. B. Holly’s 1989 article, “Concepts, Doctrines and Principles.” Holly emphasizes that doctrine 

is about fighting wars today, while concepts are about 

fighting wars tomorrow.44

The best example of the doctrinal debate is represented in an article by Colin McInnes and the following response by Neville Parton.45 McInnes is skeptical 

about the very functionality and productivity of doctrine, suggesting that its retrospective nature does not 

prepare personnel for future wars. Parton justifies 

doctrine, considering it productive in the delivery of 

best practice as a formal teaching. Thus, it trains personnel for future wars.

41 Eliot A. Cohen, “The Historical Mind and Military Strategy,” 

Orbis 49, no. 4 (Fall 2005): 575. 42 Douglas Porch, “Writing History in the ‘End of History’ Era—

Reflections on Historians and the GWOT,” Journal of Military 

History 70, no. 4 (October 2006): 1065–79, https://doi.org/10.1353

/jmh.2006.0270. 

43 Maj Andrew Methven, “Is It Not High Time the Doctrine 

Industry Published Its Doctrine on the Limits of the Utility of 

Written Doctrine?,” Defence Studies 3, no. 3 (Autumn 2003): 133, 

https://doi.org/10.1080/14702430308405082.

44 MajGen I. B. Holly Jr., USAFR (Ret), “Concepts, Doctrines 

and Principles—Are You Sure You Understand These Terms?,” 

Air University Review 35, no. 5 (July/August 1984): 90–93. 45 Colin McInnes, “The British Army’s New Way in Warfare: A 

Doctrinal Misstep?,” Defense & Security Analysis 23, no. 2 (June 

2007): 127–41, https://doi.org/10.1080/14751790701424697; and 

GpCapt Neville Parton, “In Defence of Doctrine . . . But Not 

Dogma,” Defense & Security Analysis 24, no. 1 (March 2008): 81–89, 

https://doi.org/10.1080/14751790801903335.
WINTER 2017 103

In his works on strategy, Colin Gray pays attention to military doctrine as a tool of the military 

institution’s unification of personnel and the development of common principles. It might be both useful 

and harmful in terms of creativity and adaptability to 

changing circumstances. In this regard, he starts from 

the perception of doctrine as a dogma and a rather 

counterproductive phenomenon in terms of strategy.46

One of the most systematic examples of research 

done on British doctrine was conducted by Markus 

Mäder. The main emphasis of his PhD thesis and the 

subsequent book is the study of reasons for doctrine 

writing after 1989. In this context, he explores such 

questions as: “What caused this change of attitude towards doctrine? Which events and perceptions, which 

debates and schools of thought drove the evolution of 

Britain’s military-strategic doctrine?”47 Consequently, 

doctrine is studied in the framework of strategic, political, and societal changes in the period 1989–2001. 

The distinctive feature of the book is that it does not 

study doctrine as an abstract subject, but pays attention to its conceptual development and subsequent 

textual embodiment.

The empirical perspective on the topic includes 

an article based on an interview with Major General 

Tony Milton, the first director general of Joint Doctrine and Concepts for the Joint Doctrine and Concepts Centre, who suggests that doctrine is about 

using historical experience in training people for 

fighting current wars, while concepts are hypotheses 

on fighting wars of tomorrow. He states that the development of joint publications does not aim at the 

crucial modification of single-Service doctrines but 

at the harmonization of tri-Service cooperation under the conditions of different environments.48 Julian 

Lindley-French analyzes doctrine in the framework of 

the political struggle between France and the United 

46 Gray, Modern Strategy. 47 Markus Mäder, In Pursuit of Conceptual Excellence: The Evolution of British Military-Strategic Doctrine in the Post–Cold War Era, 

1989–2002 (Germany: Peter Lang Publishing, 2004), 23. 48 MajGen Tony Milton, OBE, RM, “My Job: Director General Joint Doctrine and Concepts,” RUSI Journal 145, no. 2 (April 

2000): 15–19, https://doi.org/10.1080/03071840008446502. 

Kingdom for the leadership in Europe. However, this 

time doctrine is addressed in the aftermath of 11 September 2001 and in terms of the European Common 

Security and Defence Policy.49 J. J. Widen devotes his 

research to tracing a connection between Corbett’s 

ideas and their actual implementation in the text of 

the British maritime doctrine.50

In terms of the verification of doctrine efficiency, an article by Claudia Harvey and Mark Wilkinson 

is of particular interest. It assesses the value of doctrine for British officers in the case study of Afghanistan.51 An entirely different perspective of doctrinal 

research is presented by British Army Colonel Alexander Alderson. In his article, Alderson aims to show 

a connection between the successful development of a 

single-Service Army doctrine and the structure of the 

British Army.52

The Perspectives of the Services

The relevance of the British Navy and Army works on 

doctrine for this thesis is due to the following considerations. First, the tendencies in doctrine development within the other two Services reflect the general 

doctrinal environment within the British armed forces of the time. Realization of doctrinal tendencies and 

the general attitude toward doctrine within the other 

two Services provides a systematic understanding of 

how jointery was further implemented both in terms 

of doctrinal and operational aspects. Second, even before the advancement of jointery, the three Services 

had to cooperate in the actual warfighting environment, reflecting certain lessons learned regarding such 

49 Julian Lindley-French, “Fighting Europe’s Wars the British 

Way: The European Politics of British Defence Doctrine,” 

RUSI Journal 147, no. 2 (April 2002): 74–76, https://doi.org

/10.1080/03071840208446759.

50 J. J. Widen, “Julian Corbett and the Current British Maritime 

Doctrine,” Comparative Strategy 28, no. 2 (April–June 2009): 170–

85, https://doi.org/10.1080/01495930902799764.

51 Claudia Harvey and Mark Wilkinson, “The Value of Doctrine: Assessing British Officers’ Perspectives,” RUSI Journal 154, no. 6 (December 2009): 26–31, https://doi.org/10.1080/03071840903532858. 52 Col Alexander Alderson, “The Army Brain: A Historical Perspective on Doctrine, Development and the Challenges of Future 

Conflict,” RUSI Journal 155, no. 3 (June 2010): 10–15, https://doi

.org/10.1080/03071847.2010.499618.
104 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

cooperation in doctrinal documents. Thus, looking 

into the analysis of doctrines by the other two Services 

provides this article with a more systematic overview 

of the operational performance of the British armed 

forces, tendencies in perceptions of doctrine within 

each Service, and a subsequent correlation between 

the three Services in the doctrine writing of each. In 

other words, it should be understood that just as the 

doctrines of the three Services are related, so is their 

analysis in professional and academic literature. 

The Royal Navy

The main source of professional discourse in the Royal Navy is The Naval Review.

53 Irrespective of the relevance of this journal for understanding professionals’ 

critical thought on the doctrinal subject, it is limited 

by the timeframe of 1990−2003. The first article of 1995 

was written by Simon Hollington, who concentrates 

on explaining what doctrine itself is and its meaning under the conditions of the changing post–Cold 

War military environment.54 James J. Tritten follows 

the general explanatory pattern of Hollington, but 

also places emphasis on the historical dimension of 

doctrinal development and the lessons relevant for 

today. The main lessons to consider include the need, 

irrespective of the joint approach, for each Service to 

keep its own way of accomplishing tasks; the development of different doctrines for various circumstances 

and the levels of warfare; attention to the role of individual commanders; and the involvement of nonmilitary participants in the reviewing stage.55 In the 

final article, an anonymous author addresses doctrinal 

53 The Naval Review originated as a quarterly journal for a naval society formed in 1912, which served for “correspondence on 

professional matters.” Today, it remains a forum for discussion 

of the recent professional matters by serving staff of the Royal 

Navy and Royal Marines. The main feature of the journal is that 

publication of articles and memos do not require preliminary 

approval from the Ministry of Defence (MOD). Due to this, The 

Naval Review is a valuable source of professional opinions on 

contemporary subjects, which might be different from an official 

position of MOD.

54 Simon Hollington, “The Royal Navy Needs Doctrine,” Naval 

Review 83, no. 1 (January 1995): 12–16. 55 James J. Tritten, “Navy Doctrine: Lessons for Today,” Naval Review 84, no. 1 (January 1996): 18. 

functionality in the environment of scarce funding of 

national defense.56

The RAF Perspective

In the case of the RAF, too, the availability of resources on doctrine is constrained by time. The only difference is that, while more data on the Royal Navy is 

available for the first post–Cold War decade, the RAF 

Air Power Review covers the second post–Cold War decade.

The first article was written by Professor Richard Overy in 2000. He analyzes the dogmatic context 

of doctrine through its historical nature. Although he 

does not suggest that doctrine is useless, he argues that 

“doctrine tends to solidify like a slowly moving lava 

flow.”57 Overy’s historical analysis of doctrine shows 

that the development and application of doctrine is 

influenced by five factors: wider politics, technological changes, lessons of experience, the requirement 

that doctrine be modified and reviewed when a need 

arises, and the “eccentricity factor.”58

The most remarkable researcher in the field of 

air power doctrine is Group Captain Peter W. Gray, 

RAF (Ret). In his first article, he aims to stimulate 

debate on how the future aerospace doctrine of 2010 

might look. He concludes that, although government 

might decide not to finance and develop certain 

technologies, future doctrine will be characterized 

by joint inter-Service and allied operations.59 In another article, Gray suggests that “we cannot expect 

to be able to apply doctrine to every military situation with the precision and utility of a Delia Smith 

recipe. But it should always be there as a guide to our 

actions.”60 In a third article, Gray pays particular attention to a correlation between air power and joint 

56 GoCo, “A New Doctrine For A New Century,” Naval Review 

88, no. 1 (January 2000): 23–26. Note that GoCo refers to staff, or 

government owned-contractor operated, authors.

57 Richard Overy, “Doctrine Not Dogma: Lessons from the Past,” 

Air Power Review 3, no. 1 (Spring 2000): 33. 

58 Overy, “Doctrine Not Dogma.”

59 GpCapt Peter Gray, RAF, “Air Power or Aerospace Doctrine 

2010?,” Air Power Review 3, no. 2 (Summer 2000): 7–21. 60 GpCapt Peter Gray, RAF, “Air Power in the Modern World,” 

Air Power Review 3, no. 3, (Autumn 2000): 11.
WINTER 2017 105

doctrine from the RAF’s point of view. His main conclusion is that, despite the benefits of relatively easy 

cooperation of air power doctrine with the other two 

Services, it is incapable of overcoming one crucial obstacle: the institutional baggage of their own Service. 

This obstacle can only be dealt with on the common/

joint level. 

Irrespective of the contributions the representatives of the various Services bring to the table of 

common decision making and operational planning, 

they also bring the baggage of their own Services, 

“whether this be differing interpretations of history 

or unhealthy doses of dogma.”61 The best way to develop “dogma-free thinking” is the establishment of “inherently joint and consistent” training and programs 

under the authority of the Joint Services Command 

and Staff College.62 Following Gray’s works, the Air 

Force emphasis in doctrinal study shifts toward specific and conceptual dimensions. While Wing Commander Alistair Monkman, RAF, concentrates on the 

maneuverist approach and coalition warfare, Richard 

Lock-Pullan pays attention to the concepts of strategic effect and centers of gravity.63

Overall, the RAF writing on the matter of doctrine can be characterized as evaluative rather than 

developmental, as is the case with the Royal Navy. In 

this regard, the relevance of doctrine is not doubted. 

Attention is paid to the problematic areas of its application, such as a need for constant revision and modification, differences in the interpretation of doctrine 

by various Services, and a subsequent need for a reevaluation of the conceptual framework of its application. In other words, RAF writers concentrate on the 

current requirements of the doctrine rather than phenomenological matters of its origin. Therefore, they 

explore doctrine as a tool, which might contribute 

61 GpCapt Peter Gray, RAF, “Air Power and Joint Doctrine: An 

RAF Perspective,” Air Power Review 3, no. 4, (Autumn 2000): 7. 62 Gray, “Air Power and Joint Doctrine,” 10.

63 WgCdr Alistair Monkman, RAF, “The Manoeuvrist Approach 

and Coalition Warfare: A Re-examination,” Air Power Review 5, 

no. 2, (Summer 2002): 12–42; and Richard Lock-Pullan, “Redefining ‘Strategic Effect’ in British Air Power Doctrine,” Air Power 

Review 5, no. 3, (Autumn 2002): 59–69.

to the resolution of existing problems in the singleService and joint environments. 

The Army Perspective

In terms of the British Army perspective, it can be argued that, unlike the two other Services, the doctrinal 

aspects of the previous operations are covered in more 

detail in academic and professional literature. The 

most popular topics refer to two types of doctrines: 

counterinsurgency (COIN) and peace support operations (PSO). 

COIN doctrine was a hot topic in the second post–

Cold War decade. The attention to it was triggered by 

events in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to Christopher Tuck, the historical perspective of analyzing 

the British approach to COIN can give a clear comprehension of the strengths and weaknesses of any 

counterinsurgency doctrine, including the current 

one.64 The problems of the theory/practice dichotomy and the case-oriented nature of COIN doctrine 

are discussed in an article by Thomas Mahnken.65 The 

previously mentioned Colonel Alderson devotes various aspects of his research to the relevance of British 

COIN doctrine to the requirements of Iraq and Afghanistan and future warfare.66 The position of Warren Chin is quite similar to Alderson’s. He does not 

consider that British COIN doctrine is initially wrong 

and failed in Iraq. He argues that the traditional British approach of 80 percent political means and 20 

percent military support of COIN simply did not correspond to the reality of either Afghanistan or Iraq.67

Another way to address COIN doctrine in the 

framework of recent conflicts is through its applica64 Christopher Tuck, “Northern Ireland and the British Approach 

to Counter-Insurgency,” Defense & Security Analysis 23, no. 2 (June 

2007): 165, https://doi.org/10.1080/14751790701424721.

65 Thomas G. Mahnken, “The British Approach to CounterInsurgency: An American View,” Defense & Security Analysis 23, no. 

2 (June 2007): 227–32, https://doi.org/10.1080/14751790701424770. 66 Col Alexander Alderson, “The Validity of British Army Counterinsurgency Doctrine after the War in Iraq, 2003–2009” (PhD 

thesis, Cranfield University, 2009).

67 Warren Chin, “British Counter-Insurgency in Afghanistan,” 

Defense & Security Analysis 23, no. 2 (June 2007): 212, https://doi

.org/10.1080/14751790701424762.
106 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

tion in the Long War on Terror (WOT) or, as it is 

often called, the Global Insurgency. Scholars who consider terrorism an example of the global insurgency include David J. Kilcullen, Thomas R. Mockaitis, David 

W. Barno, and John Mackinlay.68 On the other hand, 

Michael Howard, James Kiras, and Matthew Kowalski argue that terrorism is an abstract phenomenon 

and cannot be identified as an insurgency.69 Bard E. 

O’Neill discusses the development of insurgency and 

terrorism in terms of revolutionary warfare, while a 

vivid example of a comparative analysis of the two 

doctrines comes from an article by Karsten Friis.70 In 

contrast, he places the main emphasis upon a comparative analysis of UN peacekeeping “capstone” doctrine 

and COIN doctrine of the U.S. Army.

Concerning PSO doctrine, the main discussion 

of doctrine modification takes place before, during, 

and immediately after the publication of Wider Peacekeeping in 1994. Charles Dobbie argues that a new doctrine is needed to accommodate the Army and the 

new realities of the post–Cold War era. This could be 

achieved by drawing a broad line between the first 

two categories of peacekeeping operations and the 

third one: peacekeeping, wider peacekeeping, and 

68 For further information, see David J. Kilcullen, “Countering 

Global Insurgency,” Journal of Strategic Studies 28, no. 4 (August 

2005): 181–85, https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390500300956; Thomas R. Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency in the Post-imperial Era

(Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1995); David 

W. Barno, “Challenges in Fighting a Global Insurgency,” Parameters 36, no. 2 (Summer 2006): 15–29; and John Mackinlay, “Is UK 

Doctrine Relevant to Global Insurgency?,” RUSI Journal 152, no. 

2 (May 2007): 34–39, https://doi.org/10.1080/03071840701349950.

69 For further information, see Michael Howard, “A Long War,” 

Survival 48, no. 4 (Winter 2006): 7–8, https://doi.org/10.1080

/00396330601062675; James Kiras, “Terrorism and Globalisation,” 

in The Globalisation of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations, ed. John Baylis, Steve Smith, and Patricia Owens 

(New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 479–99; Matthew 

Kowalski, “Global Insurgency or Global Confrontation? Counter-Insurgency Doctrine and the ‘Long War’ on Terrorism,” Defence & Security Analysis 24, no. 1 (March 2008): 65–71, https://doi.

org/10.1080/14751790801903251.

70 Bard E. O’Neill, Insurgency and Terrorism: Inside Modern Revolutionary Warfare (Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, 2001); and Karsten Friis, 

“Peacekeeping and Counter-insurgency—Two of a Kind,” International Peacekeeping 17, no. 1 (February 2010): 51, https://doi

.org/10.1080/13533311003589199..

peace enforcement.71 On the other hand, peace enforcement cannot be simply equated to warfighting, 

and a distinction has to be made. The vague notion of 

consent can be interpreted in various ways depending 

on the interstate or intrastate context. As a protagonist of Wider Peacekeeping, Allan Mallinson suggests 

that expectations from this interim and tactical level 

doctrine are pushed to the level of an operational one. 

He argues that consent at the tactical and operational 

levels has a different meaning; while on the field consent might be lost for various reasons, it should not be 

dismissed at the operational level.72

An article by Rod Thornton outlines the development of a debate and the shift of attention from 

the need for PSO doctrine and clarification of the 

status of peace enforcement to the importance of cooperation with nongovernmental organizations in the 

framework of complex emergencies.73 The connection 

between two types of operations and the subsequent 

doctrines also is explored by Philip Wilkinson. This 

time, he analyzes the international dimension with 

reference to British PSO doctrine and traditional UN 

peacekeeping methods.74 John Mackinlay and Randolph Kent published several articles on the British 

complex emergencies doctrine in the context of the 

changing international and strategic environments.75

The discourse of Wilkinson, Mackinlay, and Kent was 

continued by a Danish scholar, Peter Viggo Jakobsen, 

who also refers to the doctrine of grey area operations. 

However, he emphasizes the abstract modification of 

military doctrine in respect to the national specif71 Charles Dobbie, “A Concept for Post–Cold War Peacekeeping,” Survival 36, no. 3 (Autumn 1994): 121–48, https://doi.org

/10.1080/00396339408442753.

72 Allan Mallinson, “Wider Peacekeeping: An Option of Difficulties,” British Army Review 112 (April 1996): 5. 73 Rod Thornton, “The Role of Peace Support Operations Doctrine in the British Army,” International Peacekeeping 7, no. 2 

(Summer 2000): 45, https://doi.org/10.1080/13533310008413834.

74 Philip Wilkinson, Sharpening the Weapons of Peace: The Development of a Common Military Doctrine for Peace Support Operations, 

International Security Information Service briefing paper (London: University of Essex Human Rights Centre, 1998), 18.

75 John Mackinlay and Randolph Kent, “Complex Emergencies 

Doctrine: The British Are Still the Best,” RUSI Journal 142, no. 2 

(April 1997): 39, https://doi.org/10.1080/03071849708446128.
WINTER 2017 107

ics of the Western tradition.76 Another way to view 

PSO is from the perspective of a single Service. In this 

context, Rob McLaughlin’s article on the meaning of 

the Navy in PSO is of particular relevance.77 The most 

prominent scholar who refers to relatively recent 

events is Stuart Griffin of King’s College, London. In 

terms of British PSO doctrine, he states that the 2004 

revision of PSO and the addition of COIN and counterterrorism to the common umbrella of PSO may be 

counterproductive.78 

USAF Air Power Doctrine

The partial coverage of RAF doctrine in the academic 

literature could suggest a similar situation for USAF 

doctrine. However, the situation is quite the opposite. 

The development of the USAF’s conceptual component and its doctrinal reflection is well explored by 

Robert Frank Futrell. His two volumes are devoted to 

the strategic thinking of USAF and the evolution of 

American air power doctrine. The first book explores 

the period from 1907 to the 1960s.79 In this regard, 

he looks into the preliminary ideas for applying air 

power, establishment of an independent Air Force, 

and inter-Service frictions in defining the role of air 

power in the national way of warfare. Moreover, he 

looks into the complexities of the establishment of 

Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, 

and the struggle between tactics-oriented and intellectual schools of thought within the USAF and the 

American armed forces, in general. 

His second volume covers 1961–84, in which he 

explores the nuclear potential of air power, the vol76 Peter Viggo Jakobsen, “The Emerging Consensus on Grey Area 

Peace Operations Doctrine: Will It Last and Enhance Operational Effectiveness?,” International Peacekeeping 7, no. 3 (Autumn 

2000): 36–56, https://doi.org/10.1080/13533310008413848. 

77 Rob McLaughlin, “Naval Force and the Conduct of Peace 

Support Operations,” International Peacekeeping 9, no. 4 (Winter 

2002): 114, https://doi.org/10.1080/714002783.

78 Stuart Griffin, “British Peace Support Doctrine and Iraq: Implications for the Future” (conference paper, International Studies Association Annual Meeting, 22 March 2006), 1.

79 Robert Frank Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine: Basic Thinking 

in the United States Air Force, 1907–1960, vol. 1 (Maxwell Air Force 

Base, AL: Air University Press, 1989).

atile political environment of the Cold War, and its 

impact on the conceptualization of air power and its 

strategic effect.80 Also, he further investigates the institutional evolution of Air University. The academic 

value of Futrell’s work is not only in covering a vast 

part of USAF history, but also in applying a systematic approach to its investigation. He explores the evolution of the conceptual component and also multiple 

situational factors that affect each concept and each 

edition of USAF doctrine. He illustrates in detail the 

time and rationale for various debates and political 

decision making influencing USAF thinking and consequent implementation of air power. These works 

are crucial in understanding the American strategic 

culture of conceptualization and implementation of 

air power.

On the other hand, the post–Cold War period 

of USAF conceptual development is not covered indepth within a single monograph or new research entirely devoted to a conceptual component. However, 

there is an abundance of books on operational analysis 

and evaluation of American air power in the new strategic environment. Often, these books briefly touch 

upon doctrines and concepts in an attempt to evaluate the efficiency of air power in various operational 

settings and to test the quality of training courses. 

There is also a substantial number of works by Phillip S. Meilinger, who is recognized as a specialist in 

American and global air power.81 His work on the 

theory of air power is crucial for understanding the 

main debates in the establishment of specific concepts 

and their application.82 Considering the most recent 

American overseas operation, there are also many 

80 Robert Frank Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine: Basic Thinking 

in the United States Air Force, 1961–1984, vol. 2 (Maxwell Air Force 

Base, AL: Air University Press, 1989).

81 Col Phillip S. Meilinger, USAF, 10 Propositions Regarding Air 

Power (London: Air Power Studies Centre, 1995); Phillip S. Meilinger, Airwar: Essays on Its Theory and Practice (Oxon: Frank Cass, 

2003); and Phillip S. Meilinger, Limiting Risk in America’s Wars: 

Airpower, Asymmetrics, and a New Strategic Paradigm (Annapolis: 

Naval Institute Press, 2017).

82 Col Phillip S. Meilinger, ed., The Paths of Heaven: The Evolution 

of Airpower Theory (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University 

Press, 1997).
108 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

works on the role of air power in counterinsurgencies.83

Overall, it can be argued that USAF air power 

doctrine is well covered both in its historical and 

contemporary accounts. However, the historical aspect offers more detail, and the contemporary conceptual component is primarily analyzed in terms of 

operational investigation and the predominant environment of COIN operations. On the other hand, a 

systematic exploration of USAF air power doctrine in 

the post-Cold War period will still be a relevant and 

original contribution to the field of air power studies. 

Marine Corps Aviation Doctrine

Another field of air power doctrine points us back to 

the history of Marine Corps Aviation. Just as the development of RAF doctrine was sporadically covered, 

some periods of Marine Corps Aviation doctrine 

are covered better than the others. One of the most 

prominent works on the history of Marine Corps 

Aviation includes Marine Corps Aviation: The Early 

Years, 1912–1940 by Marine Lieutenant Colonel Edward Johnson with editor Graham A. Cosmas.84 This 

work investigates the difficulties the Marine Corps 

faced to secure their own air arm and the daily technical, political, and training challenges of the Marine 

air-ground team. This is an exceptional source for an 

early history of this Service, especially since Johnson’s 

original research is based on analysis of official statements, reports, documents, personal correspondence, 

83 Alan Vick et al., Air Power in the New Counterinsurgency Era: 

The Strategic Importance of USAF Advisory and Assistance Missions

(Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 2006); Robert C. Owen and Karl P. 

Mueller, Airlift Capabilities for Future U.S. Counterinsurgency Operations (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 2007); LtCol Paul J. Kasuda, 

USAF, “United States Air Force Counterinsurgency Operations 

Capabilities, the Ground Dimension: Are We on the Right Glide 

Slope?” (unpublished paper, Air War College, Air University, 

2011); Maj Eric L. Westby, USAF, “Tactical Airlift and Direct 

Support: The Keys to USAF Relevance in Modern Counterinsurgency and Their Struggle Against Air Force Culture” (unpublished paper, Air Command and Staff College, Air University, 

2011); and Jeffrey J. Smith, Tomorrow’s Air Force: Tracing the Past, 

Shaping the Future (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013). 84 LtCol Edward C. Johnson, Marine Corps Aviation: The Early 

Years, 1912–1940, ed. Graham A. Cosmas (Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters Marine Corps, 1977).

and transcripts of aviators’ oral testimonies on operational and organizational trends. Besides providing 

an organizational history of Marine Corps Aviation, 

the book also addresses the development of early Marine Corps doctrine, outlining that the first concept 

of the air mission was established in the 1920s. There 

are three tactical roles Marine aircraft could fulfill: 

observation, which includes artillery spotting and 

aerial photography; light bombardment; and fighting 

aviation (air-to-air combat to control the skies over 

Marine areas of operation).85 Marine Corps Major 

John M. Elliott also explores the same timeframe. He 

complements Johnson’s work with more recent details 

and perspectives on Marine Corps Aviation.86 Wayne 

Heiser devotes his research to the history of U.S. Naval and Marine Corps Reserve Aviation, exploring 

its gradual establishment from 1912 until the Second 

World War.87 William Larkins, who investigates the 

evolution of U.S. Navy aircraft during 1921–41 and Marine Corps aircraft during 1914–59, takes a technological approach.88 The Service is also explored in terms of 

early COIN operations.89 However, Leo J. Daugherty 

III does not pay too much attention to aviation for 

that period. 

The Second World War 

Regarding the Second World War history of Marine 

Corps Aviation, Robert Sherrod delivers the most 

prominent account of the events and the roles of Marine Aviation.90 In his monograph, he outlines not 

only the course of events and maneuver but also detailed squadron history and their impact on accom85 Johnson, Marine Corps Aviation, 35. 86 Maj John M. Elliott (Ret), Marine Aviation at Quantico, 1918–1941

(Denver, CO: Outskirts Press, 2012).

87 Wayne H. Heiser, U.S. Naval and Marine Corps Reserve Aviation, 

vol. I, 1916–1942, Chronology, 2d ed. (McHenry, IL: Dihedral Press, 

2006). 

88 William T. Larkins, U.S. Navy Aircraft, 1921–1941/U.S. Marine 

Corps Aircraft, 1914–1959 (London: Crown, 1988).

89 Leo J. Daugherty III, Counterinsurgency and the United States 

Marine Corps, vol. 1, The First Counterinsurgency Era, 1899–1945 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015). 

90 Robert Sherrod, History of Marine Corps Aviation in World War II

(Washington, DC: Combat Forces Press, 1952).
WINTER 2017 109

plishing both operational and tactical tasks. Barrett 

Tillman adopts a similar approach to the exploration of this timeframe.91 Conversely, David Donald 

evaluates the operational performance of American 

warplanes across three Services, including Marine 

Corps.92 This book is particularly interesting as it provides a comparative perspective on air power within 

different organizational cultures and approaches to its 

application. All of these books offer mainly narratives 

of warfare, operational analysis, and factual squadron history. Since these academic works concentrate 

on warfare itself, little room is left for evaluating the 

conceptual component or distinguishing the role of 

air power in a particular operational setting. This account of the military history of Marine Corps Aviation is far from exhaustive. 

The Post–Cold War Period 

Ronald Brown’s work explores the role of U.S. Marines in the First Gulf War.93 Brown pays significant 

attention to the operational analysis of planning, execution, and practical considerations of tasks Marines 

performed in Iraq. Although this source is an excellent piece of academic work on the Marine Corps and 

its aviation role in the First Gulf War, it also briefly 

addresses the role of doctrine in this conflict. Brown 

explores the concept of “compositing, whereby the 

command elements of two or more units merged to 

create a single headquarters when more than one unit 

deployed into a single combat arena.”94 Unlike some 

other works, this one explores the First Gulf War 

alone with only a few references to similar operational 

settings from the previous years. 

One of the better post–Gulf War books on Marine Corps Aviation comes from Air Force Major 

91 Barrett Tillman, U.S. Marine Corps Fighter Squadrons of World 

War II (Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2014). 92 David Donald, American Warplanes of World War II: Combat Aircraft of the United States Army Air Force, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine 

Corps, 1941–1945 (London: Grange Books, 2001). 93 Ronald Brown, U.S. Marines in the Persian Gulf, 1990–1991: With 

Marine Forces Afloat in Desert Shield and Desert Storm (Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters Marine 

Corps, 1998). 

94 Brown, U.S. Marines in the Persian Gulf, 10. 

James Holmes.95 Although Holmes provides a short 

guide to air superiority for Joint Force commanders, 

he also addresses the role of a conceptual component 

in achieving air superiority. Thus, he compares doctrinal differences of various Services using air power in 

their tool kits, including the Marine Corps outlook 

on air power from the perspective of amphibious warfare.96 This is a useful source to base an evaluation of 

post–Cold War changes in thinking on the role of air 

power and the Service’s self-perception in the changing strategic environment. 

In the contemporary period, Marine Corps Aviation and its doctrinal reflection are discussed in the 

framework of air-land integration and transformation 

of a conceptual framework.97 The authors argue that 

Marine Corps Operations, Marine Corps Doctrine Publication (MCDP) 1-0, resolves an ongoing debate about 

the supportive or independent role of air power. It is 

suggested that the flexibility to adjust to situational 

requirements and the ability to switch between independent and supportive roles provides greater strategic outcomes. Moreover, the authors argue that this 

flexibility is one of the primary advantages of contemporary U.S. warfare: “It is precisely this flexibility and 

relative ease of shifting the supported/supporting relationship between air and ground forces that makes 

the concept of air as a maneuver for such a viable option in Twenty-first [sic] century U.S. warfare.”98 This 

book is a useful source to understand the history and 

contemporary narratives in the air-land integration 

debate. 

Analyzing the academic works on Marine Corps 

Aviation, it can be argued that just as in the case of 

RAF air power doctrine, the majority of works are 

devoted to the history of the Services and the factors 

95 Maj James M. Holmes, USAF, “The Counterair Companion: 

A Short Guide to Air Superiority for Joint Force Commanders” 

(masters thesis, School of Advanced Airpower Studies, Air University, 1995). 

96 Holmes, “The Counterair Companion,” 12–15. 97 Ellwood P. Hinman IV, Thomas E. Jahn, and James G. Jinnette, 

AirLandBattle21: Transformational Concepts for Integrating Twentyfirst Century Air and Ground Forces (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 

2009), 65–66.

98 Hinman, Jahn, and Jinnette, AirLandBattle21, 65. 
110 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

shaping their institutional features and organizational 

culture. However, very few works evaluate their doctrine. During 1912–90, the most attention is paid to institutional development and evaluation of operational 

experience. Doctrine is addressed on a few occasions 

in the context of those two trends. However, in the 

case of RAF doctrine, the early stages of doctrine development are covered in full. The same cannot be 

said for the doctrine of Marine Corps Aviation.

Although, as a rule, a conceptual component and 

its doctrinal embodiment are paid less attention than 

operational analysis, that does not mean that interest 

in its conceptual component has ceased completely. 

The revival of practical interest to a certain theme and 

confirmation of its originality are often evident in the 

topics chosen by military practitioners in their pursuit of advanced and terminal degrees. One such work 

by Marine Corps Major Joseph F. Freshour covers the 

role of air intelligence in the success of the Marine 

Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF).99 Although this 

might not be the most exhaustive analysis, the author 

applies a rather systematic approach to the task, addressing not only organization, training, materiel, 

leadership, personnel, facilities, and policies related 

to the performance of Marine Corps aviation intelligence, but also the question of doctrine and the conceptual component. Consequently, this subject offers 

multiple opportunities for additional research. 

U.S. Naval Aviation

An accounting of air power development would not 

be complete if at least some of the most prominent 

works on naval air power are not mentioned. Geoffrey Rossano conducts one of the first systematic and 

detailed studies on the operational role of U.S. naval 

aviation during World War I.100 The author explores 

the establishment of American naval aviation from its 

inception, paying close attention to the role of per99 Maj Joseph F. Freshour, “Marine Corps Aviation Intelligence: 

A DOTMLPF-P Analysis” (masters thesis, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, 2015). 

100 Geoffrey L. Rossano, Stalking the U-boat: U.S. Naval Aviation 

in Europe during World War I (Gainesville: University Press of 

Florida, 2010). 

sonnel and their vision of naval aviation. This book 

is an excellent source for exploring the way organizational culture was shaped and how naval aviation 

ethos evolved in a bottom-up way. This source is also 

relevant for identifying differences in organizational 

cultures and the consequent perception of air power 

within the U.S. Navy, Army, Air Force, and the Marine Corps. Another excellent source on the early 

history of naval aviation can be found in a book by 

Navy Captain Archibald D. Turnbull and Lieutenant 

Commander Clifford L. Lord.101 The authors explore 

the administrative and political complexity of establishing an aviation branch within the U.S. Navy. They 

also pay particular attention to the internal and external political environments that shaped naval aviation 

during World War I and the interwar period. This 

book and Rossano’s monograph are excellent sources 

for understanding the endurance of organizational 

ethos of naval aviation. 

A more niche work worth exploring is Geoffrey Rossano’s and Thomas Wildenberg’s book on the 

Northern Bombing Group (NBG) during WWI.102

This book is particularly unique because it provides 

the first in-depth analysis of NBG, meaning the cooperation between U.S. naval aviation and the Marine 

Corps in the strategic bombing of German U-boat 

bases in Belgium. This book should be considered 

essential reading for Marine Corps personnel and 

anyone exploring the field of air power, because it 

provides insights into the practical implementation 

of air power by different Services. This distinctive operational experience results in the unique conceptualization of air power within each Service. However, 

it is essential to look into the initial operational experience that shaped that culture to understand the 

current distinctiveness of conceptual framework and 

organizational trends. Although these books do not 

explore air power doctrine per se, they provide anoth101 Capt Archibald D. Turnbull, USNR, and LtCdr Clifford L. 

Lord, USNR, History of United States Naval Aviation (New Haven, 

CT: Yale University Press, 1949).

102 Geoffrey L. Rossano and Thomas Wildenberg, Striking The 

Hornets’ Nest: Naval Aviation and the Origins of Strategic Bombing in 

World War I (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2015).
WINTER 2017 111

er layer to understanding its origins and diversity of 

perspectives to conceptualization of air power. 

Conclusion

Overall, this literature review illustrates that air power doctrine of the above Services is covered sporadically and with varying degrees of depth. The topic of 

air power doctrine exists on the interface of two fields 

of study: British and American air power, in its wider 

and more specific aspects, and military doctrine, in 

its inter-Service characteristics. Although there are 

many materials on various aspects of each field, the 

volume of literature referring particularly to the topic 

remains quite small. Though significant attention is 

paid to the reflection on operational experience of different British Services, the driving forces behind the 

development of air power doctrine during the past 

two decades are not reflected in detail and the material does not cover the most recent period. In the case 

of USAF doctrine, the majority of doctrinal history 

is well covered, while the contemporary conceptual 

framework and its doctrinal reflection can be found in 

various books on operational analysis. Conversely, no 

period of Marine Corps Aviation doctrine is covered 

systematically and in-depth. Such conclusions again 

suggest the necessity of more profound and systematic research to cover the existing gap in the literature.

• 1775 •
BOOK REVIEWS

Diana Clark Gill, PhD1

Transitions can be thought of as points of vulnerability. Those that Anja Manuel writes of in This Brave New 

World: India, China, and the United States are the rapid 

shifts currently underway moving world power from 

West to East. By 2030, India will top the population 

chart by a clear margin of at least 100 million people 

more than that of China’s population. This is impressive considering that China is already (by purchasing power alone) the world’s largest economy, with 

the number of its megacities dwarfing those of other 

countries and its pension obligations covering more 

retirees than the United States has citizens. By sheer 

size alone, both China and India already outrank the 

United States.

Anja Manuel, formerly an official with the U.S. 

Department of State, argues how these numbers are 

creating a pivotal point in history; that China and 

India are emerging as superpowers is undeniable. But 

what is questionable is how they will conduct themselves and whether the existing international political players will accommodate them at the diplomatic 

trough. In other words, will the transition be smooth? 

Or will it devolve into highly militarized chaos among 

the superpowers? 

Intensifying these questions is the fact that both 

China and India are uncertain of their allies. Military 

spending is up in both countries, mainly in response 

to real or imagined aggressions on the part of each 

other or by the United States. China, for example, is 

1 Diana Clark Gill is author of How We Are Changed by War: A 

Study of Letters and Diaries from Colonial Conflicts to Operation Iraqi 

Freedom (2010). She is an independent scholar with a PhD in English from the University of Mississippi in Oxford.

This Brave New World: India, China, and the United States. By Anja Manuel. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016. 

Pp. 368. $27.00 cloth; $17.00 paperback.)

tactically surrounding India by aggressively courting 

its neighbors. This has led India to suspect China of a 

“hidden agenda to use its influence . . . to gain a military foothold in the Indian Ocean” (p. 228). 

Meanwhile China’s own concerns have been triggered by American “shoring up [of] Asian military alliances and adding troops in Australia, Singapore, and 

the Philippines” (p. 248). This, combined with India’s 

sharp increase in military spending and deepening 

defense ties with the United States, Japan, and Australia, is sparking China’s own fears of “encirclement” 

(p. 248). Maritime freedom is paramount with China. 

Territorial encirclement endangers their “commercial 

sea-lanes of communication” by which “massive energy and raw materials” are moved in-country and then 

exported out of China in the form of manufactured 

goods (p. 254).

This jostling for power and the growing suspicions between the three countries is, according to 

Manuel, resulting in a “gradual, great power military escalation that no one really wants” (p. 248). She 

explains that, aside from trying to abate such escalation, there are practical reasons for the United States 

to help rather than hinder the emerging powers. Economically, a “prosperous China and India are good 

for the United States. Like it or not, their economies 

are the engines of world growth. . . . To keep our own 

economy strong, we will need to trade with and invest 

in them” (p. 277). She adds that “American companies’ 

exports to China and India support many jobs here 

at home. Boeing, for example . . . sells more than a 

quarter of its commercial planes to China and India. 

If those markets were closed to us, the result would 

likely be tens of thousands of layoffs here” (p. 286).

112
WINTER 2017 113

And while some American politicians push for 

restricting imports, Manuel points out pragmatically 

that, “even if American manufacturing jobs don’t go 

to China or India, they still won’t come back here. 

They will go to other inexpensive countries like Vietnam and Bangladesh, so we must help our workers adjust” (p. 275). The big picture, she points out, is that 

“China is America’s fastest-growing export market, 

so problems in China will hurt our companies, and 

cost us jobs. . . . A growing Indian economy also helps 

the United States. As India grows, its wealthier, fastgrowing population means that U.S. companies will 

be selling to hundreds of millions of additional consumers” (pp. 84–85). 

How, though, can the United States smooth 

the path of two Asian giants just now finding their 

footing on a new stage? The answer may be found in 

a shared past. The United Kingdom went from having political feet on the ground across a quarter of 

the planet before World War I to currently possessing only a few far-flung islands with its own landmass 

barely comparable to that of Michigan.  But what it 

taught by example is how to adapt to a new reality.

The United Kingdom retooled itself into a diplomatic powerhouse by adopting the kind of soft power 

tactics that Manuel is now proposing not only at a 

governmental level for the United States but also for 

American companies and nonprofits. Collaboration, 

she sees, is the key. Both India and China have internal problems that need to be addressed before they 

can be seen as true global leaders. These issues include 

everything from “income disparity and corruption to 

massive demographic upheavals, environmental degradation and the treatment of women . . . [to] how 

each copes with internal dissent” (p. 8). 

Collaborating on such issues benefits everyone 

involved. “If we want a growing world economy,” 

Manuel states, “[then] we need its two largest, most 

dynamic engines to prosper” (p. 84). Here, she stresses 

the need to engage both countries equally to reduce 

rivalry. In the late nineteenth century, the United 

Kingdom also was faced with two emerging powers: 

Germany and the United States. One power was nurtured by the United Kingdom, even as it stumbled 

with its new role upon the global stage, while the other power was treated as a rival of which to be wary. 

“If,” Manuel argues, “we treat China like the ‘other,’ 

including by allying more closely with India, China is 

more likely to feel insecure and friendless and to act 

like an opponent—just as Germany did” (p. 274).

Along with collaboration, Manuel suggests that 

the United States also lead a reform movement of 

such “outdated” world institutions as the World Bank 

and the United Nations, as “they have been terrible 

at accommodating ascending powers, especially the 

largest ones: China and India” (p. 244). She adds that 

both Asian countries “are rightfully pushing us to rethink the outdated, post-World War II global order. 

They will not agree with the United States on all issues. [But as] both show an increasing willingness to 

shoulder global burdens . . . we should welcome them 

as partners rather than obstinately refuse to acknowledge that the world is changing” (p. 245).

This Brave New World is an exhaustive sociohistorical overview of a critical part of the globe. Its author manages, though, to center it on our own internal 

security. A secure and prosperous United States is 

one, she stresses, that facilitates the security of other 

nations by promoting dialog, exemplifying transparent governance, and sharing with them the burden of 

global responsibilities. Succinctly, Manuel sums up 

her premise: “The rise of China and India does not 

spell our demise. In fact, many problems can only be 

solved if we work on them together” (p. 286).

• 1775 •
114 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

Dollar Diplomacy by Force: Nation-Building and Resistance in the Dominican Republic. By Ellen D. Tillman. (Chapel 

Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. Pp. 288. $29.95 paperback; $19.99 e-book.)

Breanne Robertson, PhD1

The expeditionary history of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps has long been steeped in the romance of 

foreign travel and adventure. From recruitment posters promising a chance to “See the World!” to nostalgic accounts relating the tropical exploits of the “Old 

Corps,” the U.S. government’s numerous military interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean have 

been understood primarily as admirable, if flawed, 

experiments in exporting social order and democracy 

to less stable countries. Historian Bruce J. Calder challenged such triumphalist interpretations in his seminal study of military governance in Santo Domingo 

as early as 1984, as did several revisionist publications 

by Dominican authors; nevertheless, the American 

occupation of the Dominican Republic has remained 

a relatively neglected area of historical study—until 

now.2

 A resurgence of scholarly interest, evident in a 

plethora of dissertations-in-progress and in such publications as Alan McPherson’s The Invaded: How Latin 

Americans and Their Allies Fought and Ended U.S. Occupations (2014), indicates that a critical reevaluation of 

the history of occupation and resistance is currently 

underway. 

Ellen D. Tillman’s Dollar Diplomacy by Force: 

Nation-Building and Resistance in the Dominican Republic 

is a welcome addition to this burgeoning literature. A 

professor of history at Texas State University in San 

1

 Dr. Breanne Robertson is a historian with the Marine Corps 

History Division at Marine Corps University, Quantico, VA. 

Her research interests focus on U.S.-Latin American foreign relations and cross-cultural exchange. Her current projects include 

an edited volume on the famous flag-raising on Iwo Jima and an 

official monograph on Marine activities in the Dominican Republic between 1916 and 1924.

2

 Bruce J. Calder, The Impact of Intervention: The Dominican Republic during the U.S. Occupation of 1916–1924 (Austin: University of 

Texas Press, 1984).

Marcos, Tillman examines U.S. involvement in the 

Dominican Republic between 1916 and 1924 to elucidate the motivations, limitations, and consequences 

of U.S. military intervention. Her primary argument 

posits that American occupation officials aspired to 

reform the Caribbean nation in the model of U.S. 

governmental and military structures, but also that 

Dominican resistance to foreign rule combined with 

military centralization and infrastructure improvements produced a political landscape that not only 

failed to restore social order under U.S. military rule 

but also primed the nation for Rafael L. Trujillo’s subsequent rise to dictatorship. 

Seven chapters chronicle the efforts and challenges U.S. occupation officials faced in trying to remake the Dominican Republic in their own image. 

The first part of the book provides a detailed overview of the history of U.S.-Dominican foreign relations and domestic regionalism to reveal how the U.S. 

government’s trial grounds for “dollar diplomacy” 

became a military experiment in the exportation of 

U.S. political and social institutions instead. Chapters 

1 and 2 present a historical synthesis of growing tensions between rural Dominicans desirous of maintaining regional traditions and U.S. investors seeking to 

“modernize” the sugar industry, which propelled frequent U.S. interventions and spurred anti-American 

sentiment in the years leading up to the occupation. 

Chapter 3 delves more deeply into the dualistic political and economic structure of Dominican regionalism, 

which flouted centralization and fostered widespread 

distrust of foreigners, to explain the frequency of Dominican civil war as a popular struggle against external control and military violence, whether imposed 

by American occupation forces or Dominican politicians.

After more than a decade of uncoordinated U.S. 
WINTER 2017 115

interventions and near-continuous civil war, U.S. 

Navy officials decreed a military government in the 

Dominican Republic on 29 November 1916. Steeped 

in Progressive ideology and early twentieth-century 

notions of scientific racism, U.S. occupation administrators intended for the country to become a 

showcase for the beneficial influence of U.S. society 

and military professionalization. In the second half 

of the book, Tillman traces the development of the 

Dominican constabulary, a U.S.-established native 

peacekeeping force, as a primary indicator of the U.S. 

government’s success in these reform efforts. Although 

such a force was considered crucial to a successful occupation, American officials scarcely invested in the 

military force, and Dominicans disparaged it as an 

armed legion of traitors and social outcasts. Chapter 

4 describes how this lack of resources, training, and 

respect—either from occupation forces or local populations—generated a constabulary that often resorted 

to theft and violence in its interactions with locals, 

further discrediting its esteem among the general population. 

The military government’s stubborn adherence 

to paternalistic goals of modernization and education 

is the subject of chapter 5. During the middle years 

of the occupation, U.S. officials responded to local 

opposition with increasingly oppressive tactics. Press 

censorship, provost courts, and physical abuse catalyzed Dominican insurgency and spawned international condemnation. Fortunately, not all occupation 

administrators resorted to oppression and violence; 

as Tillman’s nuanced study makes clear, regional solutions forged between local occupation officials and 

Dominican constituents bypassed centralized state 

authority during this period to remain operational. 

Such negotiated systems of governance were only a 

temporary fix, however. As chapter 6 reveals, developments in the 1920s—namely, the failing economy, 

international protest movements, and military centralization efforts—permitted the widespread unification of previously shared, but isolated, complaints 

against occupation and constabulary forces. 

The final chapter tracks the transformation of 

the Dominican constabulary from a weak, untrained, 

and despised force of the occupation to an entrenched 

fixture of Dominican society supported by a constitutionally elected government. With the U.S. State 

Department assuming a larger role in negotiating a 

withdrawal plan and the American public calling for 

an immediate end to the occupation, military officers 

abandoned plans of social reform and concentrated 

their efforts on empowering the constabulary to maintain order after their departure. The exigency of withdrawal spurred a refocus of resources and structure 

that improved military centralization and domestic 

infrastructure and provided a path of social advancement for the Dominican gente de segunda (second class) 

to the highest officer positions in the Dominican military. Moreover, the partnerships and alliances formed 

during these years ensured the constabulary’s continuing rise to dominance after U.S. military withdrawal 

and laid the groundwork for Rafael Trujillo’s political 

coup less than a decade later.

Tillman offers a clearly structured and balanced 

account of the American occupation that will be useful to nonspecialists and historians alike. Her insightful analysis elucidates a complex political landscape 

formed through regionalist economic and social concerns, U.S. imperial ambitions, and global competition spurred by World War I. She unpacks domestic 

factionalism between ardent nationalists, political 

party leaders, rural peasants, foreign investors, and 

guerrilla fighters, and she appropriately highlights the 

failure of U.S. administrators to revise their paternalistic belief that military control could reform another 

society. 

Impressively researched and incisively argued, 

Dollar Diplomacy by Force is a significant reappraisal 

of the Dominican Republic’s complicated history. It 

sheds light on the origins and processes of military and 

state power centralization, which emerged through 

U.S. occupation and which facilitated Trujillo’s political ascent and lengthy rule, and will hopefully inspire 

equally nuanced, archive-based studies that elaborate 

her insights and further explore the history of occupation and resistance.

• 1775 •
116 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

Paying With Their Bodies: American War and the Problem of the Disabled Veteran. By John M. Kinder. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015. Pp. 368. $30.00 cloth; $20 paperback; $18 e-book.)

Major Kenneth M. Koyle, USA (Ret)1

The best histories are those that make you consider a 

problem from a different perspective, to see a familiar 

issue differently than you did before. In Paying with 

Their Bodies, historian John M. Kinder takes a deep, 

analytical look at an issue that most Americans probably think they understand from what they have seen 

in the media; but as he demonstrates, that common 

understanding may be quite superficial. 

Kinder’s book, 10 years in the making according 

to his acknowledgments, began to take shape in 2004 

when he was doing research at the National Museum 

of Health and Medicine, which at that time was collocated with Walter Reed Army Medical Center (both 

institutions have since moved to new sites). Surrounded by wounded warriors returning from the wars in 

Iraq and Afghanistan, Kinder realized that he knew 

little about them or what lay ahead as they embarked 

on their lives as disabled veterans. Determined to learn 

more about the issue, he set out to answer three critical 

questions: “What are the nation’s obligations to those 

who fight in its name? Who is ultimately responsible 

for veterans’ disabilities—the enemy combatants they 

faced abroad or the public officials whose policies put 

them in harm’s way? And at what point does war’s 

legacy of disability outweigh the nation’s interests at 

home and abroad?” (p. 3). These are, of course, questions without definitive answers. Undaunted, Kinder 

ventures deep into his inquiry, examining these questions and many others from all sides.

Kinder’s analysis of the “problem of the disabled 

veteran” begins with the American Civil War—an 

obvious launching point for such an investigation. 

As Kinder points out, the Civil War produced “both 

1

 Maj Kenneth M. Koyle serves as the deputy chief for the History 

of Medicine Division at the U.S. National Library of Medicine, 

Bethesda, MD.

the largest cohort of disabled veterans in American 

history and the first ‘system of national public care’ 

for a single population of US citizens” (p. 17). From 

this introduction to the root of the problem, Kinder quickly moves on to the years surrounding World 

War I, the period at the heart of the book. Nearly a 

million American Great War veterans applied for disability benefits by 1923, prompting a crisis of care as 

the government lacked administrative, medical, and 

bureaucratic capacity to manage such an overwhelming volume of cases. Governmental shortfalls, in turn, 

fueled the creation of well-organized veteran advocacy groups like the American Legion and the Disabled 

American Veterans. These groups, though sometimes 

competing against each other for the resources and 

favor of their shared constituencies, quickly became 

powerful influencers in government affairs. 

The early twentieth century was a crucial time 

for warfare, medicine, and the sociological constructs 

of both. Historians point to World War I as the proving ground for “revolutions in military affairs” that 

included mechanized warfare, chemical weapons, and 

aviation; at the same time, revolutions in military 

medicine, such as aseptic surgical techniques and motorized battlefield evacuation, made it seem possible 

to medically counteract the destructive new forms of 

combat. Sociologically, many Americans “adopted an 

idealized view of disabled veterans” as chivalrous and 

noble heroes who had courageously sacrificed their 

own well-being for the good of the republic (p. 28). 

This view was not universal, and there was no shortage 

of critics complaining about the cost of government 

support to disabled veterans and the propensity for 

fraud in the system. But by and large, those veterans 

with visible signs of their sacrifice—empty sleeves, 

prosthetic legs, and other battle scars—were treated 

with deference and respect, in sharp contrast to the 
WINTER 2017 117

way those who were disabled by birth defects or accidents were often shunted aside and stigmatized.

Young men eager for martial adventure and anxious to prove their masculinity volunteered in droves 

when the United States entered the Great War. When 

many of them came back physically and psychologically broken, the problem of the disabled veteran began to take on new contours in American policies and 

attitudes. Kinder probes these concepts with laudable 

depth and reflection, giving readers a balanced view 

of the issues from the perspectives of the disabled veterans themselves, the government agencies struggling 

to provide appropriate care for them, the veterans’ 

organizations lobbying to improve that care, and the 

peace activists hoping to prevent such carnage in the 

future. Five of the book’s eight chapters are dedicated 

to building this framework around the issues affecting 

disabled veterans in the interwar period. Sometimes 

the veterans are characterized as pawns to the rival 

factions pushing their agendas, other times the veterans wield varying degrees of power in their own advocacy. Throughout it all, we see important dichotomies 

play out between groups who generally have the best 

interests of the veterans at heart, but who often have 

opposite views of how to help. For example, some 

groups touted rehabilitation as a logical way to help 

veterans return to normalcy and become productive 

members of society, while others viewed that effort 

as a way to erase the memory of the veterans’ sacrifice, “deveteranize” them, and shirk responsibility for 

their continued care (pp. 197, 267). Kinder tracks these 

polarizing arguments through the experiences of disabled veterans from World War I, World War II, Vietnam, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Kinder’s research and documentation in this 

book is exceptional, making it a valuable resource for 

historians of disability, government policy, and rehabilitation, but a critical reviewer can find minor faults 

in any work of this extent. There are occasional points 

raised that could benefit from further exploration, or 

at least a footnote, such as reference to “scandals at 

Walter Reed Medical Center and other medical facilities” in the aftermath of World War I (p. 6). Some of 

his notes cite only secondary sources when it seems 

that primary sources should be readily available, and 

occasional slips of hyperbole make their way into the 

text. But these are very minor criticisms of a generally 

excellent book.

While Kinder’s book might not change your overall view about the status and treatment of disabled 

veterans, recognizing that there is a multifaceted dichotomy to this problem will encourage you to give it 

a fuller measure of consideration. Though he built the 

scaffold of his inquiry around specific questions of obligations regarding disabled veterans, the real value of 

the book lies in its more abstract aims to “provide historical context for today’s Disabled Veteran Problem” 

and to demonstrate that the field of disability studies can yield valuable and unexpected insights about 

foreign and domestic policies, government bureaucracies, race disparities, and public activism (p. 11).

• 1775 •
118 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

Lawrence Provost1

Pershing’s Crusaders: The American Soldier in World War I

is a magnificent work that should be required reading 

for every commander of soldiers and Marines. Pershing’s Crusaders follows the American fighting men from 

the time of their enlistment to their demobilization 

or their demise. Very little is said at all about General 

John J. Pershing, the commander of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF); rather, Pershing’s Crusaders

primarily focuses on the accounts of the servicemen of 

the AEF, especially the enlisted soldiers.

America’s fighting men in World War I and their 

leaders faced monumental challenges, but they did 

the job. Nearly every chapter of Pershing’s Crusaders is 

a chronicle of the ingenuity and triumphs of the nation—an America that was not ready for the war it entered in 1917. The soldiers being trained in the United 

States often lacked weaponry, experienced noncommissioned officers, and even experienced Allied trainers from the warring nations of Britain and France. 

Yet, in a little more than a year, the United States 

went from having a small army to a large professional 

fighting force that was sending nearly 10,000 soldiers 

a day to France by late 1918.

Pershing’s Crusaders is written from the viewpoint 

of the lower-ranking fighting man, from the companylevel officers to, especially, the enlisted troops. This 

feels right and proper to this reviewer, as soldiers and 

Marines felt squad, platoon and, at most, company 

loyalty; very few would feel the loyalty that was seen, 

albeit rarely, in World War II to General George S. 

Patton’s Third Army.

Diaries, letters, and other documents attest 

to the hard life that the AEF faced in the trenches, 

1 Lawrence Provost is a master’s candidate in legislative affairs at 

George Washington University.

Pershing’s Crusaders: The American Soldier in World War I. By Richard S. Faulkner. (Lawrence: University Press of 

Kansas, 2017. Pp. 772. $39.95 cloth.)

though the trials and tribulations faced by the ordinary soldier are plainly evident from the hurry-upand-wait mentality to complaints about the food 

(though American soldiers had the best food in the 

war), the rear echelon, and the uselessness of certain 

training and leaders. Still, the text is one of triumph 

despite hardships.

A theme that is echoed throughout Pershing’s 

Crusaders, and is universal in every war, is the sheer 

disdain those on the front lines have toward those 

serving in the rear. Even at the front there were, and 

remain, different levels in the hierarchy of hardship 

between the infantry and the rest of the force, such 

as artillery. 

Another theme that stands out in Pershing’s Crusaders is a sense of American superiority that manifested itself in terms of hate for the Germans (at least 

until after the Armistice), as well as general disdain 

for the British and the French. Further, despite oftenpoor training, the American fighters demonstrated 

uncanny ability in the summer and latter days of 1918. 

The effects of the American contribution in World 

War I cannot be overstated.

The Spanish-American War is often considered 

America’s first international war and the one that set 

it on the stage as a world power. However, World War 

I was really the conflict that set the twentieth century 

in motion as the “American century.” Further, while 

the Spanish-American War did play a role in improving relations between the North and the South after 

the Civil War, World War I was the first large-scale 

conflict to bring together men from every part of the 

country in a common cause.

Aside from general themes, Pershing’s Crusaders

is meticulously detailed, from counting the number 

of calories troops consumed, measuring how many 
WINTER 2017 119

pounds they had on their backs in battle, and reporting how many miles they carried it to estimating how 

many hospital beds would be available if they were 

wounded.

Though the author states that the term soldiers is 

meant to encompass soldiers and Marines, very little 

of the book is devoted to the hardships and exploits 

faced by the U.S. Marine Corps. Still, where Marines 

are chronicled, their tenacity, steadfastness, and fighting spirit are plainly evident.

Pershing’s Crusaders, though written about events 

that took place 100 years ago, is a timely read. While 

the Civil War is often called the first modern American war, World War I was significantly different from 

all others that came before it in its political and logistical scope. Pershing’s Crusaders captures this concept 

through an account that is well researched and maintains an interesting read through almost 800 pages. 

Further, it is one of those books that will maintain 

relevance in successive generations.

World War I saw almost as many American 

deaths per day as did World War II; it simply lasted three fewer years. The war was so deadly in scope 

and so large in its impact that it is no surprise that it 

was called the Great War or, simply, the World War. 

The relevance of this conflict cannot be overstated, 

and books written about it should be held to a high 

standard. Pershing’s Crusaders meets that standard, and 

the serious historian, interested reader, and fighting 

trooper of all ranks would do well to read this essential volume.

• 1775 •
120 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

Tarnished: Toxic Leadership in the U.S. Military. By George E. Reed. (Lincoln, NE: Potomac Books, University of 

Nebraska Press, 2015. Pp. 216. $26.50 cloth.)

Major Gary J. Sampson, USMC1

Retired U.S. Army colonel George Reed, now dean 

of the School of Public Affairs at the University of 

Colorado, Colorado Springs, has penned an important book shedding light on a not-so-well-kept secret 

about the U.S. military. Despite the best efforts, it 

continues to promote and advance a not-insignificant 

percentage of leaders whose consideration for the 

well-being of their subordinates in their decisionmaking processes and leadership styles is lacking. 

Reed dubs these leaders toxic and spends a good part 

of the first chapter of the book getting at the definition of his subject. With a nod toward the difficulty in 

establishing even a commonly accepted definition of 

leadership, he boils toxic leaders down to those being 

interpersonally challenged and lacking self-awareness, 

and states that they treat others in ways that are not 

in the long-term best interest of organizations that 

aspire to enlightened core values, such as honor, courage, or commitment, just to name a few. Acknowledging that everyone has a bad day now and then, Reed 

indicates that problematic toxic leaders display such 

behaviors over a sustained period of time (pp. 14–15).

A major factor in Reed’s writing the book stems 

from the perception that, while many people understand that toxic leadership in uniform is a real thing, 

there is no clear understanding of what those who 

work with, and especially for, such a leader can do 

about their lot in life. Those serving in uniform cannot simply quit their jobs, after all. The power differential in uniform created by the chain of command 

has no direct analogue in the civilian world and is one 

1

 Maj Gary J. Sampson currently serves as the G-2 operations officer, III Marine Expeditionary Force, Okinawa, Japan. He was 

a 2009 Olmsted Scholar and has graduate degrees in China and 

Asia-Pacific studies and strategic intelligence.

of the primary factors that makes leadership toxicity 

in the military such an intractable issue. According 

to survey data cited by Reed, between 10 percent and 

30 percent of leaders in the military may be suffering 

from this leadership deficit (pp. 23–25).

To explore why there could be so much toxicity in the ranks, Tarnished delves into factors related 

to the phenomenon of toxic leadership that might 

be seen as additive or possibly even causal, including 

ethical factors. Reed notes that the post–11 September 

2001 wars and fixation on a common cause or enemy 

may have contributed to an “ends justify the means” 

mentality in the military. As long as the mission was 

being accomplished, superiors were more inclined to 

look the other way than to question the manner in 

which a subordinate leader was leading their organization to accomplish the desired results. Reed indicates that this mind-set might be seen as appropriate 

only for those with a dangerously shortsighted view of 

their role in the stewardship of an organization’s capabilities, one of the hallmarks of a toxic leader. Instead, 

he maintains, commanders and those in positions of 

authority should take a longer view, acknowledging 

that the tasks the unit accomplishes today must be 

done, while also taking into account the effect that 

doing so in a given fashion will have an impact on the 

organization’s ability to accomplish future missions.

Numerous organizations have attempted to provide a corrective action to this ethical deficit, revealed 

during more than a decade of conflict in the post–9/11 

wars. In one example taken from this reviewer’s profession, in 2012, the officers and staff noncommissioned officers (NCOs) of a North Carolina-based 

intelligence battalion developed and published an 

internally generated set of ethics for intelligence operations and analysis that would guide unit members 
WINTER 2017 121

as they conducted their organizational mission. This 

set of guidelines, later published for wider consumption in the Marine Corps Gazette, was created with an 

acknowledgment that the baseline ethics for Marine 

recruits drawn from across the American populace 

was not a common, shared set and that modern enemies intentionally choose their weapons and tactics 

to place our personnel in ethically challenging situations with a high probability of generating an incident exploitable for adversary information operations 

purposes.2 This code also was specifically designed to 

combat negative perceptions of the U.S. Intelligence 

Community, which is haunted by the fallout of the 

faulty intelligence case for the Iraq War, extraordinary 

rendition of suspected terrorists from third countries, 

CIA “black sites,” Guantánamo Bay, and more.3

 Reed’s 

discussion of a code of ethics for military professionals as combative against toxicity would have been bolstered by small-unit level examples, such as when the 

unit’s leadership took it upon themselves to address in 

advance a blind spot they forecasted that could have 

major, strategic-level ramifications if not handled appropriately. Certainly, this example is but one of many 

known to the reviewer from the post–9/11 period.

Sexual misconduct is another contributing factor or symptom of toxic leadership that rightly receives a separate chapter in the book. Reed notes that 

there seems to be a connection between the excessive 

narcissism that stands as one of the hallmarks of toxic leaders “and those with a propensity to engage in 

risky sexual relationships” (p. 101). Further, military 

officers and leaders often “have access to funds, perquisites, power to reward and punish, personnel who 

want to please them, information, and other resources 

that those of lesser status in the organization do not 

have” (p. 102). The inflated sense of self-worth and ego 

2

 Officers and SNCOs, 2d Radio Battalion, “Ethical Intelligence: 

Enabling the Application of Force,” Marine Corps Gazette 97, no. 

12 (December 2013): 69–71.

3

 The best single-volume work covering the macroview of the slippery moral slope tread by the United States after 9/11 remains 

Jane Mayer, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror 

Turned into a War on American Ideals (New York: Anchor Books, 

2008).

can lead flawed leaders to believe they are “entitled 

to sexual escapades, believe they are clever enough to 

get away with it, and [that they] have sufficient power 

to cover it up if discovered” (p. 103). The bottom line, 

according to Reed, is that the use of a subordinate for 

sexual gratification in this way is tremendously harmful to unit cohesion, esprit de corps, and unity of purpose, but also results in potentially lifelong physical 

and psychological consequences for the victim (pp. 

88–89). 

Part of the toxic leadership issue in the military 

comes from a promotion and advancement system 

that is not intended to screen out those leaders whose 

track record may indicate potential toxicity problems. 

Reed notes that “the promotion and command selection processes that exclusively rely on top-down assessments are as likely to promote a toxic leader as one 

who is not toxic” (p. 148). Only in rare instances does 

the system “work” in this respect if the reputation of 

a particular officer precedes them into the command 

screening or promotion selection board room and 

happens to be taken into account by the members. 

Reed calls for the development of a better system to 

screen and filter for advance warning signs of toxicity. 

While details of how this might work are scarce in 

the book, the discussion evokes a concept not unlike 

medical surveillance for infectious disease. Perhaps 

developing a list of key indicators would be a starting point to sensitize senior leaders to the presence of 

a potential future toxic servicemember from among 

their subordinates.

However, even if such a list existed and it was 

in the hands of the Services, such as regimental and 

brigade commanders or their equivalent and above, it 

is not clear that these commanders would use it. From 

the top looking down, oftentimes toxic leaders appear 

just like some of the most effective subordinates, so 

these commanders might not even realize that their 

top-ranked lieutenant colonel battalion commander 

was in fact toxic; in this instance, the leadership sees 

only that they are dedicated, demanding, and driven 

to accomplish the mission (much to the chagrin of 

subordinates who are trampled underfoot). The view 

from inside the battalion itself could be much differ-
122 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

ent from that of the regimental staff looking down. 

And because of the short tenure of most commanders 

(1–2 years plus time required for another officer to “get 

a look” in command), their focus necessarily shifts to 

relatively short-term goals and objectives. These units 

and their commanders need to accomplish the mission today, now, or their bosses will find someone else 

who can.

In Tarnished, Reed demonstrates that there may 

be value in pointing out to young officers and NCOs 

during initial training not just the glowing, aspirational examples of enlightened leadership to be emulated, but also some negative examples as cautionary 

lessons. “The emphasis on leadership in professional 

military schools and courses,” Reed writes, “provides 

a common understanding of what leadership should 

look like” (p. 22). He goes on to note that “early socialization [about toxic leaders] is important, and for that 

reason discussions of leadership style and destructive 

leadership should be incorporated into the early stages 

of professional military education” (p. 151). Books such 

as the Department of Defense’s The Armed Forces Officer (2007), the Marine Corps’ Leading Marines (2014), 

and literally hundreds of other manuals, memoirs, and 

biographies overflow with fundamental elements of 

good leadership and examples of how a given officer 

or NCO did the right thing or made the right choices 

and won the day; however, comparatively few titles 

offer warnings about or indicators of forks in the road 

that should not be taken. Tarnished offers many examples that are difficult to find in such coherence and 

volume in other places, and for this reason, it should 

be read by all junior officers in all Services. Pairing 

it with a lively account of the effects of toxic leadership in a deployed combat environment taken from 

post–9/11 wars, such as Jim Frederick’s Black Hearts: 

One Platoon’s Descent into Madness in Iraq’s Triangle of 

Death (2010), would be ideal and would give new officers clear examples of the perils and pitfalls attendant 

to toxic leadership. For those NCOs and enlisted soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who would serve 

under these officers in the future, Tarnished can serve 

as the basis for an early warning system for officers 

and leaders who might be exhibiting toxic tendencies.

Some of Reed’s recommendations for improving 

the system to combat toxic leaders in the ranks rang 

hollow to this reviewer. For instance, he writes that 

more surveys and command climate assessments are 

a key part of the way forward (p. 165). As an activeduty officer currently subject to innumerate climate 

surveys and safety assessments, it is clear that today’s 

force suffers from what could be termed survey fatigue. 

While ultimately well-meaning, these surveys are layered on top of all the myriad training and other requirements, and honestly, they get a bare minimum 

look despite whatever level of importance is assigned 

to them or pledges by senior officers that the feedback 

provided will be taken seriously. Follow-through is 

another issue with this process. Too often, the results 

are never shared with the troops; and as Reed says, 

“If [command] climate [survey] data are only provided 

to a commander who is a large part of the problem, 

little is accomplished” (p. 152). If the information is 

shared, oftentimes little action or remediation comes 

afterward (at least on a level apparent to the troops). 

Because of these dynamics, barring other changes resulting in greater visibility of follow-through on issues 

uncovered, it is not clear how additional surveys about 

toxic leadership in military organizations would be a 

significant improvement. This reviewer would like to 

have seen a more innovative approach offered on this 

matter that goes beyond the shopworn recommendation for more surveys.

Of all the book’s chapters, chapter 7, “Toxic Coworkers,” seems the one with the least to offer readers. 

Weighing in at only 10 pages (the shortest in the book), 

the reviewer would have liked to see more depth here, 

perhaps incorporating some of the ideas popularized 

in the Marine Corps by Matthew W. Tracy in a 2005 

article, “Co-Opting the Charismatic Malcontent.” Instead of trying to get away from and minimize interactions with problem colleagues as Reed advocates, 

Tracy argues that instead their influence should be 

skillfully repurposed and harnessed in support of organizational objectives by bringing them into the fold 

with collateral assignments that lend a patina of orga-
WINTER 2017 123

nizational legitimacy to their charisma.4 Instead, what 

we get is a series of unfulfilling platitudes urging us to 

put as much distance as possible between us and the 

toxic colleague. Unlike in the civilian world, military 

subordinates of toxic leaders often have a very circumscribed set of tools with which they can deal with 

the problem. With the centrally managed manpower 

assignment process each of the Services continues to 

use, individual soldiers, sailors, airmen, or Marines 

extracting themselves from the situation at the unit 

level is typically not an option, unless in the case of 

substantiated sexual assault or a similarly egregious 

transgression.

4

 Matthew W. Tracy, “Co-opting the Charismatic Malcontent,” 

Marine Corps Gazette 89, no. 10 (October 2005): 44–45.

In summary, while not flawless, Tarnished fills a 

gap in the current literature by tying together some of 

the loose ends associated with this subtopic of military 

leadership and personnel policy. Based on his time in 

uniform and extensive scholarship in this field since 

his transition to academia, Reed is the right person to 

offer this treatise. In addition to adding Tarnished to 

the required reading list for all new officers, this reviewer recommends the book to all analysts and scholars interested in military personnel policy and leadership development and hopes that Reed will continue 

to research and publish as a leader in this field. 

• 1775 •
124 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

Colonel Walter G. Ford, USMC (Ret)1

The Baylor University Institute for Oral History 

(BUIOH) in Waco, Texas, began interviewing and archiving World War II veterans’ oral histories in 1970, 

just 25 years after the end of the war. The center of attention was Texas veterans—veterans born in Texas or 

living in Texas after active duty. Now, with age rapidly 

dwindling the WWII veteran population, Stephen M. 

Sloan, director of the institute, and his team are focusing on expanding awareness of the extensive collection of oral histories; thus, Tattooed on My Soul was 

produced. The book debuts in print 17 carefully selected oral histories from more than 6,000 interviews 

that have been conducted, recorded, and archived at 

BUIOH. 

These are not stories that necessarily tell the history, the strategy, or the great victories of the war. 

They are personal tales of life, the hardship of war, 

and how these veterans moved on, imprinted by their 

experiences, but continuing to grow and contribute 

to society.

Sifting through the extensive interview collection to present 17 oral histories clearly was a monumental and unenviable task. The selected histories 

provide a representational sample of the state’s demographics and cover the field of military assignments. 

When reading the gripping stories in Tattooed on My 

Soul, it becomes clear why these oral histories made 

the cut for publication. The published interviews include those of eight men who served in the U.S. Army; 

four men who served in the Navy; two who flew with 

1

 Col Walter G. Ford is the former editor of Leatherneck magazine 

and publisher for the Marine Corps Association. He is the author 

of Marine Corps History articles on the Marine Corps Reserve in 

WWI and a pending commemorative on the Marine Corps in 

the WWI Battle of Saint-Mihiel, one of the History Division’s 

Marines in WWI Centennial Series.

Tattooed on My Soul: Texas Veterans Remember World War II. Edited by Stephen M. Sloan, Lois E. Myers, and Michelle Holland. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2015. Pp. 304. $29.95 cloth.)

the Army Air Corps; a U.S. Marine who fought in the 

Battle of Okinawa; a member of the Women’s Army 

Corps; and a woman who served with the Army Nurse 

Corps. The interviews are thoughtfully grouped into 

three sections: “There at the Start: 1941–1942”; “There 

in the Thick of It: 1943–1944”; and “There at the End: 

1944–1945.” 

The title leads one to anticipate the selected oral 

histories are stories of Texans, born and bred. While 

that is not the case, each WWII veteran whose history is included lived in Texas or resided there when 

the oral history interview was conducted. Two of the 

impressive histories, those of Herbert U. Stern and 

Hannibal Jaworski, recall the service of men born in 

Germany but going to war fighting for their adopted country. Richard E. Cole is another veteran who 

elected to become a Texan. He completed some of his 

pilot training in Texas and met the woman he would 

eventually marry, a member of the Women Airforce 

Service Pilots (WASP), in Texas during the war. His 

name may be familiar as one of the famous Doolittle 

Raiders who parachuted into China after bombing 

Tokyo in 1942. His revelations on training for the raid, 

the conduct of the raid, and his escape from capture 

by the Japanese is beyond gripping. Readers will understand why he was awarded the Medal of Honor in 

2014 at age 98. Cole retired to Comfort, Texas, where 

he was interviewed in 2009.

The oral history of Oscar Norbert DuCongé 

prompts more understanding of the attention to detail in the selection of oral histories for this book. 

DuCongé was born in Mississippi, one of 14 children. 

He grew up in New Orleans, attended college in New 

York, and earned a degree at Xavier University in New 

Orleans. While teaching in Louisiana, he became a Selective Service registrar, registered himself, and at age 
WINTER 2017 125

32, was drafted as a soldier in the U.S. Army. His story 

of training and going to war as an educated black man 

in a racially segregated Army provides exceptional 

insight. DuCongé returned from the war, continued 

his education, and settled in Waco, Texas, where he 

served three terms on the city council and became the 

first black mayor of Waco. His penetrating interview 

was recorded in 1975.

Ruth St. Claire Murphy moved to Texas in 1972 

after retiring. An Army brat, her father had a wide 

range of assignments across the United States and 

overseas, giving her a strong respect for America and 

American values. After graduating from college, she 

worked as a freelance artist until a desire to serve others drove her to enroll in nursing school. Her father, 

still on active duty, swore her into the Army Nurse 

Corps. A female in what was an all-male Army early 

in the war, her insights on uniforms, training, pay, and 

going to war in Europe speak to the unpreparedness of 

the U.S. military for females in war. Murphy landed 

on Omaha Beach and moved inland, treating casualties under tentage, in blown-out buildings, in a tuberculosis sanatorium, and in a local school. She shifted 

to service in evacuation hospitals, receiving and preparing wounded for movement back to a hospital. She 

was there for the Battle of the Bulge and as chief nurse 

for the 58th Field Hospital, where she treated Americans freed from POW camps, Russians, and other Allies. She was at Dachau, Germany, and tells of bodies 

hanging from hooks and piled high ready for the crematoriums, which smelled of burning flesh. Murphy’s 

interview was conducted in 1994 in Waco, Texas.

These three examples from those 17 superb oral 

histories selected for Tattooed on My Soul will whet 

your appetite for more—and there are more available. 

In addition to this book, through the vision, energy, 

and productive efforts of the BOIUH archivists and 

the support of Baylor University, there are more than 

4,000 first-person Texas WWII veteran interview transcripts and audio files available online at www.baylor

.edu/oralhistory. When many are calling into question 

what America is all about, and what service to one’s 

country can achieve, these stories provide the answers. 

• 1775 •
126 MARINE CORPS HISTORY VOL. 3, NO. 2

COMMEMORATIVE SERIES

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 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.

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: $60

Institutional Subscription: $100

Add $10 for postage outside

the U.S. and Canada

Student online access: $25/year
WINTER 2017 127

COMMEMORATIVE SERIES

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.

WORLD WAR I 

HISTORICAL SYMPOSIUM

18–20 July 2018

Marine Corps University Campus, Quantico, Virginia

Join Marine Corps History Division as we commemorate the people and events of the 

First World War. If you are a descendant of a WWI veteran or if you have a general or 

professional interest in the periods prior to, during, and after the war, please plan to attend this event. The discussions will especially apply to historians and members of organizations that study these 

periods and to those who are engaged in planning projects and programs for the war’s centennial. 

The program will include:

• Speakers

• Small arms displays

• Uniform displays

• Books and publications

For more information, please contact History Division at history.division@usmcu.edu. A variety of publications related to the 

commemorative period are available at https://www.usmcu.edu/historydivision/frequently-requested/publications.
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.

MORE IN THE

Marines in the Vietnam War

COMMEMORATIVE SERIES

MORE IN THE

U.S. Marines in World War I Centennial

COMMEMORATIVE SERIES

MARINE CORPS HISTORY DIVISION’S

New Releases

Email history.division@usmcu.edu for a print copy or visit www.usmcu.edu/historydivision for a digital file.
Marine Corps History

Issues of Marine Corps History can be found on the History Division 

website at www.usmcu.edu/historydivision under Publications.