The United States Marine Corps--First Military Branch Of The National
Service To Be Sanctioned By Congress--Leaving For The War--Service Of
The Marines in Various Parts of the Globe--Details of Expansion of
Corps--Their Present Service All Over The World
When orders came for some 2,700 United States marines to go to France
there was little circumstance, or general fuss and feathers, at the
League Island Navy Yard, in Philadelphia. The Marine Corps, which is
under control of the Navy Department, was quite used to such things.
Through all the years when trouble had occurred in our island
possessions, in the West Indies, Central America, or where not, it was
the marines who received orders to start out and settle things. As a
consequence, orders to go to France were merely in the line of the
customary day's work.
Thus the only ceremony characterizing the departure of Colonel Charles
A. Doyen and his men from the navy-yard at Philadelphia, was a brief
speech by Major-General George Barnett, commandant of the corps, to the
officers of the field and staff of the overseas outfit, and to the
company officers. No colors were unfurled. No reporters or press
photographers were present. The regimental bandsmen went to war with
their instruments cased and rifles over their shoulders. On the
navy-yard parade-ground a sailor baseball nine from one of the
battleships was at practice. The marines slipped away so quietly that
the ball-players did not know until afterward that they had missed
seeing the departure of 2,700 men bound for the battle-front.
At 2.30 o'clock that afternoon the baseball-players had the
parade-ground to themselves, and no one was in sight on the street in
front of the home of the post commander of marines but a small boy in
rompers, playing with a fox-terrier. A few seconds later the head of a
column of soldiers of the sea, clad in khaki, and in heavy marching
order, swung into that brick-paved street. The major-general commandant
and a group of officers from headquarters took up posts on the turf of
the parkway beside the curb. A sergeant of marines, in khaki, came
running across the parade-ground, set up a motion-picture camera, and
began to crank. Another sergeant was snapping "stills" as the column
came to a halt and faced about toward the group of officers.
The company officers of the battalion stepped out in front of
Major-General Barnett and saluted. Then the general spoke for a few
minutes in an every-day, conversational tone. He told the men that he
trusted them, that he knew they would uphold the honor and high
traditions of the corps when fighting in France under General Pershing.
The officers saluted and stepped back to their places. The battalion
stood at rigid attention for a moment. Then with a snap, rifles jumped
to shoulders, squads swung into column formation, and the line passed
swiftly down the street to the gate of the navy-yard.
No cheering crowd greeted the marines as they emerged from the gateway,
and only a few persons saw them board a train of day-coaches for a
near-by port. The sun-browned fighting men, all veterans of campaigning
in Hayti and Santo Domingo, waved their campaign hats from the windows
and the train moved away.
Half an hour later another battalion marched briskly down the same
street from the end of a tree-lined vista, and formed on the
parade-ground. The bluejacket nine was still at baseball practice, but
the marines were at the far end of the field, too distant to attract
particular attention. A third battalion formed and stacked arms in front
of the barracks. Presently, without so much as a bugle-note for warning,
the two battalions formed, picked up their arms, and defiled out of
sight, back of a screen of shade-trees.
A quarter of an hour later a rumor came to the bluejacket ball-players
that the marines were boarding ship. The jacky beside the home plate
dropped his bat and ran toward the street, his team-mates close behind
him. They were too late to catch even a glimpse of the rear-guard. The
marines, just as swiftly and quietly as if they were on their way to
Hayti, Santo Domingo, Vera Cruz, or Nicaragua, had departed.
We all know what they did and what subsequent regiments of marines sent
to the front has done. Their fighting in the region of Torcy in the
German drive of last June, when the Teutonic shock troops got a reverse
shock from the marines, has already become a part of our brightest
fighting tradition. The marines are fighters, have always been so--but
it took their participation in this war to bring them prominently before
the public.
"Who and what are the marines?" was the question frequently asked when
the communiques began to retail their exploits. Ideas were very hazy
concerning them, and indeed, while we all are by this time quite
familiar with what they can do, there are many of us even now who do not
quite know what they are.
[Illustration: _From a photograph copyright by International Film
Service._ AMERICAN MARINES WHO TOOK PART IN THE MARNE OFFENSIVE ON
PARADE IN PARIS, JULY 4, 1918.]
Be it said, then, that the United States Marine Corps was authorized by
the Continental Congress on November 10, 1775, and therefore has the
distinction of being the oldest military branch in the United States
service. The corps served valiantly throughout the Revolutionary War,
and was disbanded at the close of the war, April 11, 1782. But the corps
was reorganized and permanently established July 11, 1798. From that day
to this, its officers have been zealous participants in every expedition
and action in which the navy has engaged, and in many trying campaigns
they have won distinction with their brethren of the army. Their motto
is _Semper Fidelis_, and ever have they lived up to it in war and in
peace.
The marines serve both on land and sea. They are trained, clothed, and
equipped very much as are soldiers of the land forces. In their
preliminary instruction on shore, at navy-yards and naval-stations, they
are instructed and drilled in the duties of infantry soldiers,
field-artillery men, and as machine-gun companies. In preparation for
their duties as landing-parties from ships of the navy, for
expeditionary duty, and as defenders of naval advance bases, they are
further trained in the use of portable search-lights, the wireless
telegraph, the heliograph, and the various other methods of signalling.
They study range-finding; erection, operation, and maintenance of
telegraph and telephone lines; planting of land and submarine mines;
handling of torpedoes; erection and demolition of bridges; building of
roads; knotting and splicing of ropes; handling of heavy weights;
fitting of gun-gear and the various methods of slinging and transporting
ordnance, and the mounting in suitable shore positions of guns of 3, 5,
and 6 inch caliber.
In their service on battleships and cruisers, the marines form a part of
the ship's complement for battle, manning the 6-inch, 5-inch, 3-inch,
and 6-pounder guns of the intermediate and secondary batteries. They are
trained and fully equipped for instant service as landing-parties for
duty on shore.
Great mobility and facilities for quick action are required of the
marines, and they must be kept in readiness to move at a moment's notice
and be prepared for service in any climate. They have seen service in
Egypt, Algiers, Tripoli, Mexico, China, Japan, Korea, Cuba, Porto Rico,
Panama, Nicaragua, Santo Domingo, Formosa, Sumatra, Hawaii, Samoa, Guam,
Alaska, and the Philippine Islands.
Lieutenant P. N. O'Bannon, of the Marine Corps, hoisted the first
American flag ever flown over a fortress of the Old World when Derne, a
Tripolitan stronghold, was taken by assault on April 27, 1805. The first
regulars who entered the fortress of Chapultepec, in Mexico City, when
it was taken by storm on September 13, 1847, were marines, under command
of Major Levi Twigg. Under command of Robert E. Lee, later commanding
the Confederate Army, marines captured John Brown at Harper's Ferry, in
1859. A battalion of marines under Captain John L. Broome, occupied New
Orleans upon its surrender, and hoisted the American flag on the custom
house, April 29, 1862. A battalion of marines, 646 officers and men,
commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel R. W. Huntington, was the first American
force that landed in Cuba in 1898, when it established a base for
Admiral Sampson's fleet at Guantanamo, holding their position against
Spanish regulars who were said to number 7,000.
The United States Marines of the battleship _Oregon_, Captain John T.
Myers commanding, were the first American troops to enter Peking just
before the Boxer insurrection broke out in 1900. Lieutenant-Colonel
Neville's marines were the first ashore at Vera Cruz in April, 1914.
It will thus be seen that the Marine Corps of the navy is a highly
useful organization, and that it has played a large part in carrying our
flag to the fore in all our wars. Until 1883 officers in the corps were
appointed from civil life. Beginning with that year, all vacancies were
filled from graduates of the Naval Academy at Annapolis. This practice
continued until 1898, when the increase in the corps was so rapid that
the Academy could not furnish a sufficient number of officers. Since
then, until 1915, appointments were made from civil life and by
promotion from the ranks. In 1915 vacancies again began to be filled
from Annapolis, but the entrance of our country into the war brought
about the award of commissions on a broader scale. To-day, serving with
the marines in France are a number of young officers who, a year or two
ago, were well-known college athletes, such men as Eddie Mahan, of
Harvard; Billy Moore, of Princeton; Harry LeGore, of Yale; Albert
Baston, of Minnesota, and many other gridiron and diamond heroes, who
were attracted to this branch of the service by the opportunities
offered for quick action.
There is a Marine Officers' School at Norfolk, to which young men
appointed second lieutenants from civil life are sent for two years'
intensive study before being assigned to regular duty. The course covers
general subjects, and also all military branches, such as engineering,
topography, gunnery, electricity, signalling, torpedo operation, and the
like. In the case of college men appointed lieutenants for war service,
the majority had just been graduated or were seniors in their respective
institutions; as a consequence, little time was lost in the study of
general subjects, the idea being to concentrate upon military subjects.
In short, the Plattsburg idea was put into effect, with what results may
be judged by the words of high praise which have been said concerning
the marine subalterns in France.
Since war began the corps has grown from a total of 13,266 enlisted men
and 426 officers to a present strength of 38,629 enlisted men and 1,389
officers. The increase in enlisted men has been through voluntary
enlistment; in one instance a college battalion enlisted as a whole. The
personnel represents all classes of the community; college and business
men, athletes, mechanics, laborers, and in one instance a former
Congressman, who, although slightly over the usual age, attained the
rank of second lieutenant through his devotion to duty and application.
The recruit depots at Port Royal, S.C., and Mare Island, Cal., have
proved equal to the demands made upon them, and here the preliminary
training of the mass of recruits has been accomplished. No detail of the
training of a soldier has been neglected, and on the transfer of these
new men to the concentration camp at Quantico, Va., the majority has
worn the insignia of expert rifleman, sharpshooter, or marksman. Here at
Quantico the men have completed their course of intensive training in
the new organizations formed at that post for service overseas. Five
regiments of infantry, with their attendant replacement units, have been
organized in addition to a brigade of artillery, since the creation of
this new post, in June, 1917.
Besides the brigade of marines in France, it is necessary to maintain
forces of marines in Santo Domingo, Hayti, the Virgin Islands, Guam,
Cuba, China, the Philippines, Porto Rico, and Honolulu, while there is a
small detachment in London. The fleet of battleships and cruisers
absorbs a goodly percentage of the present force, while at the same time
it has been necessary to supply men to augment the garrisons of the
navy-yards, naval ammunition depots, radio-stations, and other posts of
the country.