In October of 1947, the Marine Corps Gazette published an eight-page treatise on the duties of officers assigned to units formed in accordance with the J-Series tables of organization. While largely true to its title of ‘Staffing the Peacetime Marine Division’, this study also included a short section on the subject of ‘The Peacetime Marine Brigade’.
In nearly all respects, the formations depicted in this article resembled those described in the (much shorter) piece about the J-Series establishments published by the same journal in May of 1947. However, where the earlier description allocated a shore party battalion to the ideal division and a shore party company to the notional brigade, the latter assumed the assignment of larger organizations of that type. In particular, it provided each Marine division with a regiment of littoral logisticians and every Marine brigade with a battalion of ship-to-shore supply specialists.
At first glance, this expansion of the shore party components of Marine formations, a rare example of growth in a year when most units were suffering substantial reductions, struck me as an anomaly. I therefore went looking for an explanation.
A visit to the indispensable study, by Gordon L. Rottman, of the organization of the Marine Corps between 1939 and 1945 told me that, with the sole exception of the short-lived 5th Shore Party Regiment, the ‘shore party groups’ that loaded cargo onto (and off of) landing craft, managed traffic on landing beaches, and organized surf-side supply dumps during World War II had been ad hoc outfits assembled for particular operations.
As a rule, shore party groups included one or more the component companies of pioneer battalions. Not to be confused with the combat engineers (Pioniere) of the contemporary German Army or the pick-and-shovel men of the armies of the British Commonwealth, the pioneers of the Marine Corps of the Second World War served two definitive purposes. First, they supported the ‘ship-to-shore movement of supplies and matériel’. Second, they lent detachments of unskilled laborers to engineer units of other sorts, whether the engineer battalions of the Marine Corps or the construction battalions (‘Sea Bees’) of the Navy.
Within months of the surrender of Japan, the Marine Corps disbanded four of its six pioneer battalions. The two units of that sort that remained, the 1st and 2nd Pioneer Battalions, each found a home in one of the two Marine divisions that had survived demobilization.
The J-Series tables of organization called for the conversion of pioneer battalions into ‘shore party battalions’. This metamorphosis that included the provision of the sort of equipment that had previously been borrowed from other organizations, items such as cranes, tractors, and floodlights. It also involved the assignment of men - whether carpenters, sign painters, riggers, or demolitions experts - more specialized than the pioneers of the Second World War had been.
In keeping with these changes, the article that, in May of 1947, heralded the promulgation of the new establishments, made reference to the shore party battalion of a Marine division and the short party company of a Marine brigade. However, like the infantry battalions described in that set of establishments, these units served both as immediately deployable battalions for small-scale contingencies and a framework for the rapid assembly of complete regiments in the event of mass mobilization.
The same study that described the shore party groups of the Second World War also explained, that, in October of 1947, the revived short party units had been given the designation of the 16th and 17th Marines. In other words, they were battalions that, from the point of view of tradition and battle honors, were treated as fully fledged regiments.
This comment, made in passing, accorded with a three-page piece on the subject of the new shore party units published by the Marine Corps Gazette in July of 1947. This article explained that, like the peacetime battalions of the J-Series Marine division, the shore party battalion would normally be commanded by a full colonel. It also included a chart that provided both the ‘normal strength’ of a shore party battalion (611 officers and men) and the ‘augmented’ establishment of the shore party regiment it would become upon mobilization (2,226 Marines).
Sources
A Chronology of the US Marine Corps, Volume III (1947-1964) (Washington, DC: US Marine Corps, 1971) page 4 (USMC)
Act of July 26, 1947 (‘National Security Act’), Public Law 80-253, 61 STAT 495 (US National Archives) (US Statutes at Large)
Gordon L. Rottman US Marine Corps World War II Order of Battle (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2002) pages 114 and 222
‘The New FMF’ The Marine Corps Gazette (May 1947) pages 10-14
‘Staffing the New Marine Division’ The Marine Corps Gazette (October 1947) pages 37-45
‘New Developments: Shore Party’ The Marine Corps Gazette (July 1947) pages 65-67
(Back issues of the Marine Corps Gazette can be found on the Internet Archive, Hathi Trust, JSTOR, and the magazine archive of the Marine Corps Association.)
For Further Reading
What ended up happening IRL?