Post by peterd on Jun 6, 2013 4:43:22 GMT -8
Story by Lance Cpl. Erin Tansey
Marines made their mark during the Second World War with their acts of bravery throughout the Pacific front against the Japanese empire.
With the 69th anniversary of D-Day today, the misconception that Marines did not participate in the Atlantic during the war should be laid to rest.
The Navy and Army Air Corps brought over thousands of infantrymen to the shores of the Bay of Seine. Out of those men, 175,000 took part in rigorous training routines designed to teach the soldiers how to properly move from ship to shore during an amphibious attack.
Marines, who had become known for their beach landings and overall fighting ability, took an active role in teaching the Army infantry how to perform like their aquatic brother service, according to W. Thomas Smith, a former infantryman and freelance writer who wrote a number of historical articles, including “Rivalry at Normandy.”
These landing courses had been taught to soldiers from Marines since the first landings in North Africa in 1942 and throughout the Sicilian-Italian assaults in 1943.
While paratroopers from the 82nd and 101st Airborne and 6th British Airborne divisions dropped into occupied France, Marine detachments like the one on the USS Texas were on standby to assist the Ranger units in any way starting June 7 (D-Day plus one).
A majority of the troops were experiencing battle for the first time—regardless of what service they had joined.
“Most of the Marines had no combat experience and had only been in the Corps for a few months. The same could be said of many of the soldiers who just landed,” Jonathan Gawne wrote in his nonfiction history novel, “Spearheading D-Day.” “One of [the Marines] said, ‘This is going to be the biggest slaughter since Custer got his at Little Big Horn.’”
At the last minute, the Marines were told to stand down, either due to a shortage of men in the Corps or the chance of seeing a headline that read, “Marines save Rangers at Normandy,” according to Smith.
Their lasting impression on the invasion was not only made behind the lines with Pathfinders or in front of the classroom instructing the men, but as the Marines on each of the naval vessels returned to their roots and stood high in the superstructures of the ship firing at and detonating live mines as the ships crossed the English Channel, Smith wrote.
Long before the sand tables of Utah and Omaha Beaches were ever drawn up, Marines were fighting the battle against Nazi Germany and the axis of “evil.”
A unit of 4,000 men were stationed at Reykjavik, Iceland, and occupied the neutral ground until Jan. 31, 1942, in response to the attacks on Pearl Harbor.
Later that year, Marines led Operation Torch through North Africa. The landings took the detachments to the ports at Arzeu and Algeria, according to Lt. Col. Harry Edwards, a retired Marine and author of “A Different War: Marines in Europe and North Africa.” The Marines then moved over land to clear the port of Oran for more landings.
Also on Nov. 10, 1942, the Marines aboard the USS Philadelphia landed at Safi, French Morocco, and secured the airport until the Army troops showed up the next day in support.
Their fight did not end when the Navy carried the men over to Marseilles, where detachments from USS Augusta and USS Philadelphia accepted the surrender of 700 German soldiers, Edwards wrote.
Until the end of the war, the men and women in the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency, worked closely with Marines appointed to the agency.
The OSS worked to form and develop rebellions with underground resistance fighters in many of the Nazi-occupied countries including France, Germany, Yugoslavia, Italy, Austria, Albania, Greece, Morocco and Egypt, according to Edwards.
Despite the Pacific battles and iconic images that surfaced throughout the Pacific theater, Marines and the country as a whole should not forget the time, effort and assistance that the Corps put into freeing the world from Nazi regime in a battle that is known as an Army victory.
