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| British Landing at Gallipoli, August 1915 (How Not To Do It) |
The United States Marine Corps provided ground troops for the AEF in the Great War who were essentially used like conventional army infantry. However, in the interwar period the Corps, now led by the successful 2nd Division commander John Lejeune, realized that with the Pacific Theater in play, the next war would feature more amphibious operations. For them this meant operating in conjunction—primarily—with the Navy rather than the Army. Lejeune identified the new wartime mission of the Marines as seizing advance bases for the fleet as early as 1920,
Where to look for lessons on what can go wrong and what needs careful attention in amphibious operations? Well, the Great War had two interesting amphibious assaults, Germany's Operation Albion capture of some Baltic Islands in 1917 and the Allied assault on the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915. Since seeing what could go wrong is especially fruitful, the failed campaign at Gallipoli—which featured two failed landings—became the choice.
The agency that would form a link in the 1930s between the events and lessons learned at Gallipoli and Marine Corps amphibious doctrine, which as of yet was undeveloped, was the Marine Corps Schools (Now Marine Corps University), Quantico, Virginia. The impetus to develop, teach, and give form to Marine Corps amphibious doctrine was twofold: the newly formalized role of the Marine Corps and an awareness of the type of warfare that would arise in the Pacific if the U. S. went to war with Japan.
It is ironic that the Gallipoli Campaign, considered by so many to have been a costly political, strategic, and operational debacle, should serve as a case study for Marine officers at Quantico, yet the 20th century had little else to offer. In World War I, American troops, including Marines, had debarked at friendly ports and had traveled to the front by rail and road with relative ease. Marines serving on expeditionary duty had landed in Nicaragua, Mexico, and Haiti, but large-scale, opposed landings were, by American experience, in the realm of the unknown.
Colonel E. B. Miller, Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps Schools wrote in September of 1932 regarding the Marine Corps' need to get on with the process of preparing for amphibious operations, "WE MUST KNOW; THE NAVY MUST KNOW; and THE NAVY MUST KNOW THAT THE MARINE CORPS KNOWS."
By 1933 the Marine Corps had in hand the Joint Overseas Expedition Manual, 1933, a 43-page publication from the Joint Army-Navy Board. The manual's purpose was "to present a set of general principles for the planning and conduct of joint overseas expeditions in order to ensure the most effective cooperation and coordination between Army and Navy forces..." Although the pamphlet dealt with joint operations and was not oriented toward the offensive phase of amphibious operations, it did provide general guidelines for the division of responsibility between the navy and landing forces, it identified areas which required close coordination and the preparation of service and joint plans, and it provided a base of common terminology.
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| Interwar Training on the New Methods |
The pamphlet also illustrated the novelty of amphibious operations, and the inexperience of U. S. naval and ground forces in their conduct. The portion devoted to training would hardly have inspired confidence in the readiness of America's armed forces to face the threat of the Japanese, as it read:
Joint Training: The difficulties of landing on a hostile shore from small boats, heavily encumbered troops, most of whom have had little or no experience with the sea, and the unfamiliarity of the Navy with attack of land objectives, and with firing over friendly troops, make it necessary that as much preliminary joint training be carried out as time permits.
What followed was a wholehearted study effort by the Marine Corps schools. Work was divided among multiple committees covering such topics as, Naval Gun Fire, Intelligence, Supply, Navigation, Signals, and Support Bases for maintaining and loading ships and dealing with the wounded. Of course, central to all the research were the details of what actually happened at Cape Helles and Anzac on 25 April 1915 and Suvla Bay the following August.
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| Pre-Briefing for the Invasion of Tarawa, 1943 First Big Test of the New Doctrine |
Lieutenant Colonel E. W. Sturdevant, who had been tasked to prepare and conduct the Gallipoli Course, delivered lectures on the events leading up to the campaign, General Hamilton's plans of attack in April and August of 1915, the Turkish plan of defense, and a final lecture on command and leadership at Gallipoli. At the request of officers who had attended the previous year's Gallipoli Course, an additional presentation on air operations was added in 1933. Navy officers gave classes on naval activities and medical care.
Sturdevant was indeed strong in his criticism of the command and leadership problems found at Gallipoli, and he presented this somewhat dramatic expression of his views:
Did we still believe in magic and witchcraft, it would be easy to think that some evil genius had thrown a spell over Hamilton's force, so that whenever the enemy made a misstep, a British officer counter balanced it with a worse one; whenever the door to victory was open, a strange paralysis seized upon the wills of the British leaders and prevented them from marching through.
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| Marine Generals of the Pacific Theater Roy Geiger, Holland Smith, Julian Smith They Would Apply the Lessons from Quantico |
A Personal Postscript
Try as I might, I've not been able to discover which of the study committees addressed the matter of post-landing tactics once the Marines needed to secure their objective. I can, however, infer what might have been the results of such study from conversations with my late brother-in-law, Master Gunnery Sergeant Voyon Kachadorian of the 14th Marines (an artillery unit). Looking back at what he had observed at Saipan, Tinian, and Iwo Jima, Voyon described the strategy as "getting across the f@#$!& island as fast as possible, and then going back and cleaning up the f@#$!& mess."
Just a guess here, but I think the Marines might have paid special attention to the August 1915 landings at Suvla Bay, when the British commanders let their troops sit on the beaches, while Mustfa Kemal had his troops seized the previously unoccupied high ground.
An army officer who was also studying Gallipoli in the interwar period, named George Patton, described that operation, echoing Colonel Sturdevant:
Compared to Suvla Bay, the first battle of Bull Run was a masterpiece of effective leadership. The chapter of accidents, or better, of inexcusable failures, which marked the British landing and subsequent attack at Suvla Bay, is one of the most depressing and yet instructive in military history.
Sources: Our Over the Top issues of June 2009 and September 2011; particularly helpful was the article "Marine Corps Amphibious Doctrine—The Gallipoli Connection," by Major Karen L. Corbett, USMC, from which I've quoted extensively.
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