Evening star., 1941-07-27

The men in this force spend all their
time training for action. The remainder
of the corps are on board SO battle
ships, heavy cruisers and other ships
in detachments ranging from 40 to ITO,
and there, in addition to maintaining
discipline, they usually man the sec
ondary batteries; they are at 79 differ
ent stations in the United States, guard
ing navy yards. naval air stations. naval
ammunition depots, naval gun factories,
and so forth; they are at Newfoundland,
the Caribbean islands Hawaii, Guam,
. Samoa and many other remote places.
They guard the Embassies at London
and Peiping.
The Marines raise the flag at o'clock
each morning, and so far flung are their
posts that they are hoisting Old Glory
somewhere in the world 10 hours of the
day. It's am. in Washington when
the flag is raised in Iceland; IL pm.
when it swings aloft in Peiping.
Corps Increased.
There are nearly $4,000 officers and
men in the corps. fourfold jump from
its strength of 1900 in 1899, and it will
increase steadily as the Navy expands
to tWo-ocean size. For its strength is
maintained at 20 per cent of the author
lied strength of the Navy.
AS 1t has no academy of its own to
train officers, they come from the ranks,
from colleges where military training is
given, and little more than 25 per cent
of them from the Naval Academy. Navy
officers may choose career in the Marine
Corps and many do because of the
variety of service and adventure it offers.
Unique components of the Fleet Marine
Force are the new defense battalionS. In
the Marine Gazette last November it was
stated that there were four of these bat
talions of 750 men each and two more
being formed.
Designed to defend an advance base
which already has come into possession
of the forces, these carry heavier equip
ment than the landing forces, since they
need not be so mobile. They are equipped
with automatic anti-boat, anti-Ship and
anti-aircraft weapons. They have port
able distillation plants to convert salt
water into fresh water, and portable re-
frigerators of large capacity so that they
will be self-sustaining in the most iso-
lated places for a considerable period Of
time.
The Fleet Marine Force has all the sup
porting arms which the Army possesses.
Engineers, tanks, artillery, chemical war
fare, aviation, quartermaster and infan-
try are represented. The job of the
landing force is to seize hostile shores
under fire, getting into small boats from
ships in all kinds of weather, bucking
surf tides, rocks, underwater entangle-
ments, fighting on unfamiliar terrain.
Uses Special Boats.
The force uses specially built landing
boats, loads into them tanks, artillery
and other heavy equipment, lands them
on soft, treacherous beaches without
piers or docks. The marines have on
order 200 amphibian tanks, especially
designed for their landing operations,
and units now are being instructed in
their use. The corps is armed with 5000
of the new semi-automatic Garand rifles,
and it is receiving more of them at the
rate of 5000 month.
In the course Of modernization, the
marines have abandoned the square Or
ganizations of divisions, composed Of four
regiments eacn, and have adopted the
triangular division, comprising three
regiments, which is preferred by most
present-day tacticians. In these, the
engineer and tank units have been par
ticularly strengthened.