States. As the Chief Executive's personal band, the Marine Band often played at the White House and other official functions. And by the time Sousa left to form his own private band in 1892, his music and service had forever bound the Presidency to the Marine Corps. You see this when the President flies in his Marine helicopter, when you walk up to an American embassy guarded by Marines, or when you note that wherever the Navy has nuclear weapons, there are Marines guarding them. Sousa's music was the link that forged that special relationship.
World War I: The Corps Is Forged
For over a century, the Marine Corps was a tiny portion of the American military structure. Before World War I, its strength of 511 officers and 13,213 enlisted men made it just a fraction of the strength of the Army and Navy. America's entry into World War I meant that the country's modest peacetime military was going to expand exponentially in a short time. In support of this effort, the Marine Corps expanded rapidly. With the addition of new training facilities at Parris Island, South Carolina, the Marines grew to a wartime high of 2,462 officers and 72,639 enlisted ranks. This included a small number (277) of the first women Marines, recruited to free up men for combat. The war also saw 130 Marine aviators, a new kind of warrior. For World War I, the Marines deployed the largest formations in their history, brigades of up to 8,500 men, to fight on the Western Front. Rapidly pushed into that cauldron, they fought at Belleau Wood, Soissons, and St. Mihiel, and in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. These victories came at a high cost, with the Marine Brigade suffering 11,968 casualties, with 2,461 killed. Following the Great War, Marines participated in the occupation of Germany, keeping watch on the Rhine until July 1919, when they finally returned home. Following a victory parade in front of President Wilson with the rest of the U.S. 2nd Division, they were demobilized.
For all of its costs, World War I left the Marine Corps with positive results: For the first time, the Corps was allowed to form and operate combat units as large as those of the Army. They demonstrated that their unique training and indoctrination produced a more effective and aggressive combat infantryman than the other armies on the Western front. They experimented with new ideas, like integrating women into the Corps and using airpower to support Marines on the ground. Virtually every kind of challenge that faces Marines today was discovered and dealt with during the Great War — for example, the horror of poison gas. But most importantly, the Marines had been allowed to grow large, and had shown the country what a larger Corps could achieve. This would make it easier for the Marines to expand to meet the challenge of their defining moment, the Pacific campaign of World War II.
The 'Small Wars'
With the Great War won, the Corps returned to its peacetime routine of duty aboard ships, and peacekeeping missions in China and the Philippines. This was an era of 'small wars,' with interventions mostly in Central American and Caribbean countries in support of American foreign policy. This 'gunboat diplomacy' was a typically American mix of corporate greed (dominating the regional economy) and noble intentions (rescuing local populations from despotism or anarchy). At the cutting edge of these interventions were Marines, leading the way and taking most of the casualties.
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 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
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
