Even before World War I, the Marines took part in putting down Filipino rebels and quelling the Boxer Rebellion in China, both in 1899. During the Taft and Wilson Administrations, Marines carried out interventions in Nicaragua (1912 to 1913), Haiti (1915 to 1934), and the Dominican Republic (1916 to 1924), pacifying the Panama Canal Zone (1901 to 1914) and Cuba (1912 to 1924), and at Vera Cruz, Mexico (1914). Through these actions, the Marines became experts in what is now called "counterinsurgency" warfare. They even wrote a book, The Small Wars Manual (1939), which is considered a military classic, much admired but little read outside the Corps.
The small wars established the Marines as leaders in unconventional warfare — thus continuing a tradition of special missions and operations that date back to the war with the Barbary States in the early 19th century. This tradition gave the Corps a base of experience that allowed it to conduct similar missions in World War II, as well as into the postwar era and today. In fact, ignorance of the lessons in The Small Wars Manual contributed to the failure of U.S. policy in Vietnam and various Third World insurgencies over the years. These lessons included the importance of providing security to native populations ("civic action"), and the need to target the enemy's weakness (in finance and logistics) rather than his strength (small-unit combat in difficult terrain). Despite that failure, Marines still have the corporate knowledge of such operations, and are using it today in the training and operations of the MEU (SOC)s around the world. And they still read and use The Small Wars Manual. I know. They gave me a freshly printed copy.
1942: First to Fight
The years leading up to World War II saw Marines at the edge of the developing conflict. Marines were caught between warring Chinese and Japanese forces in 1932 Shanghai when fighting broke out there. Other incidents involving Marines in China followed. When World War II finally engulfed the United States in 1941, the Corps was in the heat of the fighting from the start. Over a hundred Marines died in the attack on Pearl Harbor, and thousands more would fall in the weeks and months ahead. Marine units initially served as base garrisons defending remote outposts. The tiny Marine force on Guam surrendered on December 10th, and the Midway garrison was bombarded by a pair of Japanese destroyers. All around East Asia, small forces of Marines fought for their lives in the early days of the Great Pacific War, usually without enough men or equipment to be more than speed bumps for the onrushing Japanese forces.
One exception was the tiny atoll of Wake, where a Marine island defense battalion with a handful of fighter planes held off repeated Japanese assaults before they were overwhelmed on December 23rd, 1941. For over two weeks, the defenders of Wake Island held off a vastly superior force of Japanese ships and troops, inspiring the whole nation with their plucky spirit and sacrifice. Unfortunately, Navy leaders at Pearl Harbor, struggling to protect what was left of the shattered Pacific Fleet, canceled a relief mission, allowing the island and its defenders to fall without support. Wake damaged the long-standing trust between the Corps and the Navy, a memory that still rankles Marines and shames sailors.
The Navy would soon have a chance to square things with their Marine brethren. The spring of 1942 saw the Navy and Marines reversing the Japanese tide of expansion at the Battle of Midway. Navy carrier aviators wiped out their Japanese opponents, and this time stayed to support the Marines. As a result, Midway held out against determined air attacks, but Marine aviators defending the island were decimated while flying obsolete Navy "hand-me-down" aircraft. The leaders of the Corps vowed that the next time Marines had to fight, they would have proper equipment, aircraft, and Navy support. They would not have long to wait.
Down in the Solomon Islands, Allied intelligence found the Japanese constructing an airfield on the island of Guadalcanal which threatened Allied supply lines to Australia and had to be neutralized. Luckily, the prewar expansion of the Corps had begun to pay off, and there now was a division-sized force in the Pacific to do the job. In August of 1942, the 1st Marine Division splashed ashore onto the beaches of Guadalcanal and nearby Tulagi and seized the airfield, beginning one of the most vicious campaigns of World War II. For the next six months, Allied and Japanese ground, naval, and air forces fought a battle of annihilation in the jungles, skies, and seas around Guadalcanal. When it was over, the Marines had played a key role in winning a decisive but costly victory, with 2,799 Marines wounded and 1,152 killed. Marine aviation helped drive the Japanese from the skies over Guadalcanal. This also took its toll, with some 127 Marine aviators wounded, 55 killed, and 85 missing in action. But when it was done, the Marines and their Navy partners had turned the tide of battle in less than a year following Pearl Harbor. For the Marines, it validated their claim of "first to fight." They were the first Allied ground force to take the offensive against Axis forces in World War II, a point they still take pride in today.
The Central Pacific: Winning the Bases with Vision
As early as the early 1900s, following their victory over Czarist Russia, the Japanese had dreamed of expanding their empire into China, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific islands. This dream did not go unnoticed. Even before World War I, the U.S. and Great Britain had prepared contingency war plans against Japan, the American version being the famous War Plan Orange. The U.S. plan was based upon a long march across the Central Pacific, with the navies of the two nations eventually slugging it out in one huge decisive battle. Capturing and holding the island bases that would be needed was the task of the Marine Corps, which had been studying problems of amphibious warfare for decades.
Among the many Marines busy thinking about amphibious operations was Commandant Lejeune, who declared in 1922 that it was vital to have "a Marine Corps force adequate to conduct offensive land operations against hostile naval bases." By the 1930s the Corps had made great strides, including the publication of a Tentative Landing Operations Manual, which became the bible for early amphibious exercises. Marines worked to master new technologies that would allow them to carry out new missions. Landing craft, naval gunfire control equipment, and command radio equipment were key to the new job. Marines appear to have been the first aviators in the world to perfect precision delivery for aircraft bombs when they developed dive bombing. German officers observed Marine bombing demonstrations in the 1930s, which led to the adoption of the technique by Stuka dive bombers of the Luftwaffe.
It was in the Central Pacific, though, that the Marine Corps forged the amphibious assault doctrine that became its enduring tradition. In an "island hopping" campaign, the Marines and Navy conducted a series of landings to take the bases originally designated in War Plan Orange. The drive across the Central Pacific began in the fall of 1943 at Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands. Although almost everything possible went wrong (incorrect tidal projections, poor communications and naval gunfire support, etc.), the main island of Betio was taken in seventy-six bloody hours. Despite the heavy cost in Marine and Navy casualties (1,113 killed and 2,290 wounded), much was learned, and the lessons paid for in blood at Betio saved lives later on other islands. Following Tarawa, the Marine/Navy team took the atolls of the Marshall Islands in a swift campaign in early 1944. Capturing Kwajalein and Eniwetok Atolls, they bypassed other Japanese-held islands in the chain.