Nicaragua, China, and Hawaii (1922-1932)
Nicaragua, China, and Hawaii (1922-1932)
Battalion: An Organizational Study of United States Infantry
The estate of the late John Sayen has graciously given the Tactical Notebook permission to serialize his study of the organizational evolution of American infantry battalions. The author’s preface and other previously posted parts of this book may be found via the following links:
While the Marine Corps reorganized its regiments, it conducted a series of amphibious exercises were held wherein many new ideas could be tested. A reinforced battalion landed in Culebra and at Guantanamo in 1922. Another battalion landed at Cape Cod in the following year and a smaller force went ashore in Panama. In 1924, there was a much larger joint operation with the Army that simulated an attack on the Panama Canal. Yet another joint operation in 1925 involved a simulated attack on the Hawaiian Islands by a Marine expeditionary force of two divisions totaling 42,000 men. Only about 2,500 Marines were actually available to represent this force. A larger detail from the Army represented the defenders.
For the Marines, the practical value of the exercise lay mainly in its command post functions but the organization of their expeditionary force is of interest. Pete Ellis’ idea of basing most of his combat organizations on a standard 125-man company was followed here, at least insofar as the infantry was concerned except that they actually used a standard company of three officers and 100 men, organized as a headquarters and two platoons. A standard infantry battalion would have four rifle companies (apparently with 10 BAR each), a machinegun company (eight guns), and a headquarters company (11 officers and 165 men) that included headquarters and intelligence sections and communication, pioneer, service, and howitzer platoons. The latter (with three officers and 64 men) had two 37mm guns and two mortars. Three of these battalions plus another but smaller headquarters and headquarters company (12 officers and 100 men) and a Navy medical unit (nine officers and 50 men) comprised a regiment. Two regiments, a headquarters company, and a machinegun battalion (two companies) made a brigade. Two infantry brigades, an artillery brigade (48 75mm guns), a pioneer battalion, a machinegun battalion, and service troops made a division. A brigade of 155mm howitzers and regiments of pioneers and anti-aircraft guns supported the entire Force.[1] These exercises had to be halted after 1925 because of commitments elsewhere.
In May of 1926, the Fifth Marines landed in Nicaragua to halt the ongoing civil war there and enable a more acceptable regime (to the United States) to emerge. All went well until one Nicaraguan general named Augusto Sandino decided not to cooperate and started a guerrilla war that would embroil most of the Marine Corps’ available expeditionary forces for the next seven years.
Sandino soon realized that his untrained and ill-equipped peasants were badly outclassed in pitched battles against the Marines and the Marine-trained and led Nicaraguan National Guard. Therefore, he changed his tactics. He learned to avoid the larger contingents of his enemies, to ambush the smaller ones, and to kill or intimidate any supporter of the Americans he could find. He also seized or destroyed American property (the protection of which was the official reason for the Marines’ presence in the country) wherever possible. All the while, Sandino maintained a successful propaganda campaign that raised sympathy for his cause not only in Nicaragua but also in the United States, Europe, and the rest of Latin America.
In response, the Marines brought in another infantry regiment, the Eleventh Marines, used aircraft extensively to ferry supplies and attack Sandino’s men, strengthened the Nicaraguan National Guard, and launched a series of offensive operations to bring Sandino to book. Though Sandino’s casualties remained high, they never affected his ability to strike at almost any part of the country he chose. Neither did they prevent him from inflicting enough Marine casualties to erode American political resolve to continue the war. Even the policy of conserving Marines by using Nicaraguan National Guardsmen to hunt Sandino while Marines occupied the principal towns could not halt Marine losses.
On December 31, 1930 Sandino’s men successfully ambushed a ten-man Marine patrol, killing eight. This was “the last straw” and it persuaded the Hoover administration to order a phased withdrawal of Marine forces from Nicaragua that would be complete as soon as the 1932 elections were over. Protests that the Nicaraguan National Guard was not yet strong enough to stand on its own were brushed aside as the last Marines pulled out on 1 January 1933. As it happened, however, Sandino had little opportunity to savor his victory. The new commander of the National Guard, Anastasio Somoza, managed to lure Sandino into visiting the Nicaraguan capital at Managua, where Somoza was able to assassinate him.[2]
Nicaragua was the last of the “Banana Wars.” The Marines had pulled out of the Dominican Republic in 1924 and would be leaving Haiti in 1934. Nicaragua had a profound effect on Marine Corps organization, doctrine and attitude. It was the first combat experience of a generation of officers who would lead the Marine Corps through the Second World War and Korea. The lurking suspicion that only Somoza’s treachery prevented the war from becoming an American defeat was not publicly expressed but probably was sobering for many. It was the first of the protracted mostly Communist-led (Sandino himself was not actually a Communist, though he was lionized by the international left) guerrilla “wars of liberation” that would characterize much of the Cold War era.
The Marines had found no easy answers for how to deal with it, but they had gained much combat experience on the level of the squad/platoon and the individual soldier. This had convinced them of the importance of automatic weapons like the BAR and the Thompson sub-machinegun at the small unit level. The small unit focus tended to divert attention away from larger unit operations. However, Nicaragua gave the Marine Corps its own views about tactical organizations that addressed more than the requirements of amphibious warfare (the well-known Small Wars Manual was one result). Henceforth, Marine and Army tactical organizations would begin to evolve in different directions.[3]
Meanwhile in 1926, yet another crisis arose. A little-known Chinese warlord named Chiang Kai Shek, having routed his enemies was well on the way towards making himself the president of a united Chinese Republic. His troops, however, were threatening the foreign community in Shanghai whose members appealed to their home governments for protection. The United States agreed to send a brigade of Marines.
The only one available was the Third at Quantico, and it had already sent its Fifth Regiment to Nicaragua and had recently disbanded its Sixth Regiment. The Sixth Regiment had to be hastily reassembled. To replace the Fifth, the Fourth Regiment, recently returned from the Dominican Republic and now on the West Coast, had to be brought up to strength. Since it had only two of its three battalions, Headquarters Marine Corps grabbed most of the Marines stationed on Guam and in the Philippines to create another battalion for it.
Besides its two infantry regiments, the revived Third Brigade would have a battalion of 75mm guns, an air group (with observation, fighting, and utility squadrons); headquarters, service, engineer, and military police companies, a tank platoon, a base hospital, and a brigade train. At full strength, it amounted to just over 4,800 officers and men. For a Marine Corps of less than 20,000, which already had 2,000 men in Nicaragua and nearly 2,000 more serving on ships in the Fleet, this was a prodigious effort.[4]
The infantry regiments of the new brigade showed the numerous changes in their organizations that had been made over the past five years. Preliminary tables were issued in 1927. The final ones appeared in 1929. The most important change was the elimination of the howitzer companies and the permanent attachment of howitzer platoons to the machinegun companies (see diagram below). This had been a routine practice in the past and became the standard by early 1926. At that time, each howitzer platoon had an officer, a warrant officer, and 22 men but by 1929 the platoon would get additional men to better enable it to move its guns and ammunition. The former howitzer company commander went to the regimental staff as the machinegun and howitzer officer. As such, he was charged with supervising machinegun and howitzer training, advising the regimental commander on the employment of these weapons, and served as de facto regimental munitions officer. By the beginning of the China expedition, official machinegun and howitzer company strength had been increased as shown in Appendix 2.20. In addition, the machinegun and howitzer company would maintain 142 rifles (for all sergeants and below) so that its personnel could augment those of the rifle companies in performing peacetime guard duties.[5]
The rifle company remained unchanged but the battalion headquarters received a full staff (using up some excess officers) as shown in Appendix 3.20. Like the machinegun and howitzer company the battalion headquarters company had no organic transportation beyond its Cole carts. It had to depend on service units for motor vehicles. In its communication platoon the SCR-130 radio (used at brigade level by the Army and enjoying a nominal range of 60 miles and an effective range of 40 miles) replaced the inadequate SCR-77. Marines in Nicaragua preferred the SCR-127 over the SCR-130 because it could run off a hand generator rather than unreliable batteries. Both radio sets could communicate with aircraft at 20 to 50 miles. The need for long-range communication across hostile country increased the importance of radio in Nicaragua. However, wire and visual methods were used whenever possible.[6]
Navy medical personnel, instead of being attached to the regiment in a single group were now permanently divided among the regiment’s companies. Those with the battalion and regimental headquarters companies would establish aid stations to which wounded from the rifle and machinegun and howitzer companies could be evacuated.[7]
Headquarters Marine Corps had dramatically reorganized and rethought the service company (see Appendix 3.22). It eliminated its platoons, since other than the transportation platoon, they had served no real purpose and subdivided the company into functional sections for personnel administration, pay, supply administration and the regimental band. This considerably reduced and simplified the whole company. Instead of a transportation platoon, the service company would have only a small transportation section. The regiment (see Appendix 3.23) would have to rely on its parent brigade for nearly all its motor transportation requirements. To meet these, the brigade included a “train” of four motor transport companies of which one would normally support each infantry regiment. Each company could operate either 12 two-ton trucks or 12 Holt tractors towing three-ton trailers, depending on circumstances. Either trucks or tractors would haul ammunition and supplies or serve as prime movers for the regiment’s 17 field kitchens (each with a rolling kitchen plus ration and water trailers). This level of motor transport was certainly minimal but this was in keeping with low equipment budgets, the need to conserve shipping space, and the expectation that the brigade would seldom have to operate very far from a beachhead or a port.[8]
Although the brigade was designed to be able to operate without animal transportation, riding horses (and/or draft mules for the Cole carts) could be issued whenever circumstances favored their use. An infantry regiment could receive an augmentation of 142 riding horses. These were supplied to all the officers (including Navy chaplains and medical officers) and sergeants major in the regimental and battalion headquarters and headquarters companies, one messenger per battalion communication platoon, and two messengers in the regimental communication platoon. The remaining 97 horses mounted one complete rifle company (including its Navy Hospital Corpsman). Mounted units had been found to be especially valuable for pursuing bandits and insurgents in all of the Marines’ Caribbean interventions. A mounted company could also be used for scouting or as a mobile reserve.[9]
Experience in exercises and deployments also produced schemes for war strength organizations. Besides the notional 42,000-man force of 1925, a 22,000-man reinforced division had been proposed in 1924. The first detailed wartime organization, however, was published along with the 1929 peacetime tables. This called for expanding the peacetime brigade into a division of two infantry brigades (two regiments each), an artillery regiment (24 75mm guns), enlarged air group, engineer battalion; headquarters, signal, military police, and tank companies, and service units. The small size of the divisional artillery (an Army division would have had three regiments) reflected the Marines’ heavy reliance on naval gunfire support, in keeping with Pete Ellis’ recommendations.
The war strength Marine rifle company (see Appendix 3.34) differed from the peacetime company, mainly in that it had a third rifle platoon. It would also include assistant section leaders or “guides,” plus a company executive officer. Each rifle platoon would still have only four squads, in contrast to the Army’s six-squad wartime platoons. Earlier Marine organizations based on two platoon companies with five or six squads per platoon would not be revived. The war strength machinegun and howitzer company was identical to its peacetime counterpart except that it would no longer have its 142 spare rifles (the war strength rifle companies would be strong enough to undertake any guard duties required). Three Navy hospital corpsmen were allowed per rifle or machinegun and howitzer company.
The battalion headquarters company (see Appendix 3.25) was also strengthened though without much change to its basic organization. The communication officer (a first lieutenant) would command the company in lieu of the Bn-1. In the enlarged communication platoon the message center and messengers were put in separate sections. The transport platoon of the service company would hold the battalion’s sidecar motorcycle. A lighter and improved SCR-77B radio would replace the SCR-130. The wire section had enough equipment to support battalion headquarters but not to link it to its companies.
The regimental staff was slightly enlarged by splitting the duties of the machinegun and howitzer officer between a machinegun and howitzer officer (a major) and a munitions officer (first lieutenant). The headquarters company was also enlarged. The pioneers became an actual platoon with a sergeant and four eight-man squads under a warrant officer. The communication platoon was given an SCR-130 for communication with brigade and two SCR-77B, one of which could have been used as a spare or for direct communications with supporting aircraft or artillery.
The service company was strengthened enough to revive its old platoon organizations. The Headquarters platoon would have the staff section and the band. The Supply platoon would likewise get the quartermaster and depot section and the pay section. The transportation section would expand back to a platoon and would be given sufficient vehicles so that the regiment need no longer depend on its parent brigade or division for its internal motor transport requirements (see Appendix 3.26). The platoon could be reinforced from the division trains in the event of heavy fighting or an extended supply line. Planning, however, continued to assume that the regiment would operate close to a friendly seaport or beachhead and that its transportation requirements could be reduced accordingly.[10]
Although peace strength Marine battalions and regiments closely resembled their Army counterparts, Marine units at war strength were generally much smaller than comparable war strength Army formations. For example, a war-strength Marine battalion would be smaller than a war strength Army battalion by 200 men (though it would have about the same number of officers). There were two reasons for this.
First, smaller wartime units can reach their full strengths faster and be ready to fight sooner, especially if they begin from the same baseline strength in peacetime. Thus, other things being equal, a Marine unit could mobilize faster than an Army one. Since the naval phase of any future war would probably start very soon, if not immediately, after war was declared it was important that Marine landing forces be available in the shortest possible time.
Second, the Navy could not afford to maintain a fleet of standard purpose-built troopships in peacetime to carry Marine expeditionary forces in wartime. Large numbers of commercial vessels would have to be requisitioned instead. These ships would be of all sizes and shapes but for an amphibious landing, smaller and shallower draft ships that could maneuver easily in shallow or confined waters would be the most useful. However, each of these ships would still have to be big enough to carry at least one large unit.
It would be very undesirable, for example, to have to split a battalion between two or more different ships. There would certainly be confusion on the beach as elements from the same battalion came ashore from different ships in different places and tried to find each other. Therefore, an infantry battalion, including all its men and essential equipment had to be small enough to fit within as many commercial passenger or cargo ships as possible. A smaller battalion would also facilitate the most difficult part of any landing, namely the loading of the troops into boats and their movement to the beach. Since infantry units would constitute the initial landing waves, which are the most difficult of all, it was especially desirable that they be easy to carry in landing boats.[11]
While they were never actually used, these tables of organization reflected the experience gained in numerous Caribbean and Hawaiian maneuvers and they remained the basis for the Marines’ wartime planning until about 1936.
In 1932, the Marines began a period of disengagement during which they would shed most of their overseas commitments. This finally enabled the Corps to concentrate its slender resources on its chosen goal of creating an expeditionary force that could support the Fleet. It would begin with a radical reorganization.
Editor’s Note: The format of the many appendices to this work fit poorly with Substack. For that reason, I have placed them on a PDF file that can be found at Military Learning Library.
[1] Heinl pp. 258-260; and BGen Dion Williams, “Blue Marine Corps Expeditionary Force” Marine Corps Gazette (Quantico, Virginia, September 1925) pp. 76-88.
[2] For an excellent account of the Marine intervention in Nicaragua see Neil Macaulay, The Sandino Affair (Duke University Press 1985) passim; and Bernard C. Nalty, The United States Marines in Nicaragua (Washington DC HQMC 1968); see also Heinl pp. 260-287
[3] See Heinl pp. 287-290.
[4] Letter from the Director of Operations and Training to the Major General Commandant dated 25 August 1927 regarding the reorganization of the Provisional Regiment (with a battalion each of the Fourth and Sixth Marines) and the Provisional Battalion (formed in the Philippines to be the third battalion of the Fourth Regiment) into the Twelfth Regiment; the letter also includes a troop list of the Third Brigade Record Group 127, Ellsdran File 2385-30, US National Archives Washington DC; “Equipment and Tonnage Tables for Expeditionary Organization, United States Marine Corps, Peace and War Strength” approved 9 September 1929 Record Group 127 Entry No. 27 US National Archives Washington DC; and see Heinl pp. 290-292.
[5] Letter from the Commanding General at Quantico Virginia to the Major General Commandant dated 17 November 1925 about eliminating the howitzer companies, Record Group 127 Ellsdran Files 2385-25/7-344 and 2385-45, US National Archives Washington DC; Letter from Major General Commandant to the Commanding Officer of Marine Corps Base San Diego California dated 26 February 1926 about the howitzer company reorganization making official what had always been done in practice, Record Group 127 Ellsdran Files 2385-25/9-4 and 2385-45, US National Archives Washington DC; and “Equipment and Tonnage Tables for Expeditionary Organization, United States Marine Corps, Peace and War Strength” approved 9 September 1929 op cit.
[6] “Equipment and Tonnage Tables for Expeditionary Organization, United States Marine Corps, Peace and War Strength” approved 9 September 1929 op cit; “Professional Notes - Communications in Nicaragua” Marine Corps Gazette September 1927 p 191; and Captain Francis E. Pierce USMC “Infantry - Air Communications” Marine Corps Gazette December 1928 pp. 266-270.
[7] “Equipment and Tonnage Tables for Expeditionary Organization, United States Marine Corps, Peace and War Strength” approved 9 September 1929 op cit.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Colonel Walter N. Hill USMC, “The Employment of a Marine Corps Expeditionary Force in a Major Emergency” Marine Corps Gazette Vol. 16 No. 1 (Quantico, VA May 1931) pp. 16-20.