Condition Red - Internet Archive

Condition Red:Marine Defense Battalionsin World War IIby Major Charles D. Me/son

apan, its military lead-ers confident theycould stagger the Unit-ed States and gain timeto seize the oil and

and other natural resources neces-sary to dominate the western Pacif-ic, attacked Pearl Harbor on 7December 1941, sinking or badlydamaging 18 ships, destroying some200 aircraft, and killing more than2,300 American servicemen. Thoughcaught by surprise, Marines of the1st, 3d, and 4th Defense Battalionsstanding guard in Hawaii foughtback as best they could. Few heavyweapons were yet in place, and am-munition remained stored on ship-board, along with many of the guns.Nevertheless, these units had eightantiaircraft machine guns in actionwithin six minutes after the firstbombs exploded at 0755. By 0820,13 machine guns were manned andready, and they cut loose when a se-cond wave of Japanese aircraft be-gan its attack a few minutes later.Unfortunately, shells for the 3-inchantiaircraft guns did not reach thehurriedly deployed firing batteriesuntil after the second and final waveof attacking aircraft had completedits deadly work. The Marinesresponded to the surprise raid withsmall arms and an eventual total of25 machine guns, claiming the des-

On the Cover: The crew of a 90mm gunstands by for action in the Solomonsduring November 1943. (Department ofDefense photo [USMC])

At left: Defense battalion Marines mana 5-inch seacoast gun at GuantanamoBay, Cuba. (Department of Defensephoto [USMC])

truction of three aircraft during themorning's fighting.

As the Japanese aircraft carrierswithdrew after the raid on Pearl Har-bor, a pair of enemy destroyers be-gan shelling Midway Island shortlybefore midnight on 7 December toneutralize the aircraft based there. Asalvo directed against Midway's SandIsland struck the power plant, whichserved as the command post of the6th Defense Battalion, grievouslywounding First Lieutenant George H.Cannon. He remained at his post un-til the other Marines wounded by thesame shell could be cared for and hiscommunications specialist, CorporalHarold Hazelwood, had put the bat-talion switchboard back into action.Cannon, who died of his wounds,earned the first Medal of Honorawarded a Marine officer duringWorld War II. Hazelwood received aNavy Cross.

For decades before Japan gambledits future on a war with the UnitedStates, the Marine Corps developedthe doctrine, equipment, and organi-zation needed for just such a conflict.Although the Army provided troopsfor the defense of the Philippines, thewesternmost American possession inthe Pacific, the Marine Corps facedtwo formidable challenges: placinggarrisons on any of the smaller pos-sessions that the Navy might use asbases at the onset of war; and seiz-ing and defending the additionalnaval bases that would enable theUnited States to project its power tothe very shores of Japan's Home Is-lands. A succession of Orange war

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plans — Orange stood for Japan in aseries of color-coded planningdocuments — provided the strategyfor the amphibious offensive re-quired to defeat Japan and the defen-sive measures to protect the basesupon which the American campaignwould depend.

As a militaristic Japan made in-roads into China in the 1930s, con-cern heightened for the security ofWake, Midway, Johnston, andPalmyra Islands, the outposts pro-tecting Hawaii, a vital staging areafor a war in the Pacific. (Althoughactually atolls — tiny islands clusteredon a reef-fringed lagoon —Wake,Midway, Johnston, and Palmyra havetraditionally been referred to as is-lands.) By 1937, the Marine Corpswas discussing the establishment ofbattalion-size security detachmentson the key Pacific outposts, and thefollowing year's War Plan Orangeproposed dispatching this sort ofdefense detachment to three of theHawaiian outposts — Wake, Midway,and Johnston. The 1938 plan calledfor a detachment of 28 officers and428 enlisted Marines at Midway,armed with 5-inch coastal defenseguns, 3-inch antiaircraft weapons,searchlights for illuminating targetsat night, and machine guns. TheWake detachment, similarlyequipped, was to be slightly smaller,25 officers and 420 enlisted men. TheJohnston Island group would consistof just nine officers and 126 enlistedmen and have only the antiaircraftguns, searchlights, and machineguns. The plan called for the units todeploy by M-Day—the date of anAmerican mobilization for war —"insufficient strength to repel minor

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naval raids and raids by small land-ing parties." In the fall of 1938, an in-spection party visited the sites to lookfor possible gun positions and fieldsof fire and to validate the initial man-power estimates.

Meanwhile, a Congressionallyauthorized board, headed by Ad-miral Arthur J. Hepburn, a formerCommander in Chief, Pacific Fleet,investigated the need to acquire ad-ditional naval bases in preparationfor war. While determining thatGuam, surrounded by Japanese pos-sessions, could not be defended; theHepburn Board emphasized the im-portance of Midway, Wake, John-ston, and Palmyra. As a result,during 1939 and 1940, Colonel Har-ry K. Pickett—Marine Officer, 14thNaval District, and CommandingOfficer, Marine Barracks, Pearl Har-bor Navy Yard — made detailed sur-veys of the four atolls.

In 1940, the Army and Navyblended the various color plans, in-cluding Orange, into a series of Rain-bow Plans designed to meet a threatfrom Germany, Japan, and Italy act-ing in concert. The plan that seemedmost realistic Rainbow 5, envisionedthat an Anglo-American coalitionwould wage war against all three

potential enemies, defeating Germa-fly first, while conducting only limit-ed offensive operations in the Pacificand ultimately throwing the fullweight of the alliance against Japan.Such was the basic strategy in effectwhen Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.

The interest of the Marine Corpsin base defense predated the proposalin the Orange Plan of 1937 to installdefense detachments at Wake, Mid-way, and Johnston Islands. Althoughthe spirit of the offensive predomi-nated over the years, both the Ad-vanced Base Force, 1914-1919, andthe Fleet Marine Force, established in1933, trained to defend the territorythey seized. In 1936, despite the ab-sence of primarily defensive units,the Marine Corps Schools at Quan-tico, Virginia, taught a 10-monthcourse in base defense, stressing coor-dination among aviation, antiair-craft, and artillery.

The increasingly volatile situationin the Pacific which led ultimatelyto war, the evolving Orange plan fora war against Japan, and the long-time interest of the Marine Corps inbase defense set the stage for the cre-

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ation of defense battalions to garri-son the crescent of outpostsstretching from Wake and Midway toSamoa. Influenced by Americanisolationist attitudes, Major Gener-al Commandant Thomas Holcombdecided to ask for funds to form newdefensive — rather than offensive —units. In carrying out the provisionsof the plan for a conflict withOrange, the Commandant intendedlstLt George H. Cannon of the 6thDefense Battalion, though mortallywounded by fire from a Japanese sub-marine on 7 December 1941, refused toleave his post on Midway. After the war,he was awarded the Medal of Honor.

Department of Defense photo (USMC) 11158

Department of Defense photo (USCG)

Fires started by bombs dropped by Japanese aircraft are still craft gun on the parade ground of the Marine Barracks. Byburning at Pearl Harbor as Marines set up a 3-inch antiair- the end of 1942, 14 Marine defense battalions were in existence.

to make the best use of appropriat-ed funds, which had only begun toincrease after the outbreak of war inEurope during September 1939. Indoing so he reminded the public thatthe Marine Corps would play a vi-tal role in defending the nation. Af-ter the war, General Gerald C.Thomas recalled in his oral historythat General Holcomb realized thatCongress was unlikely to vote moneyfor purely offensive purposes as longas the United States remained atpeace. At a time when even battle-ships and heavy bombers were beingtouted as defensive weapons, Hol-comb seized on the concept ofdefense battalions as a means of in-creasing the strength of the Corps be-yond the current 19,432 officers andmen.

Two officers at Marine Corpsheadquarters, Colonel Charles D.Barrett and Lieutenant ColonelRobert H. Pepper, turned conceptinto reality by drawing up detailedplans for organizations expresslydesigned to defend advance bases.The Kentucky-born Barrett enteredthe Marine Corps in 1909, served inthe occupation of Vera Cruz, Mexi-co, in 1914, and during World WarII would become a major general; in1943, while commanding I MarineAmphibious Corps, he died as aresult of an accident. Pepper, would

rise to the rank of lieutenant gener-al, assuming command of Fleet Ma-rine Force, Pacific after the war.Aware that isolationism still grippedthe United States in 1939; the twoplanners emphasized the defensivemission of the new units, stressingtheir ability to "hold areas for the ul-timate offensive operations of theFleet:' As the danger of war withJapan increased, the first of several900-man defense battalions tookshape in the United States. Each ofthe new outfits consisted of three an-tiaircraft batteries, three seacoast bat-teries, ground and antiaircraftmachine gun batteries, and a team ofspecialists in administration andweapons maintenance.

In late 1939, when the MarineCorps formed its first defense battal-ions, the future was still obscure.Japan remained heavily engaged inChina, but a "phony war" persistedin western Europe. At Marine Corpsheadquarters, some advocates of thedefense battalions may have felt thatthese new units were all the servicewould need by way of expansion, atleast for now. On the other hand, wi-thin the G-3 Division of Holcomb'sstaff, officers like Colonel Pedro A.del Valle kept their eyes fixed on amore ambitious goal, the organiza-tion of Marine divisions. Eventual-ly, the Marine Corps would expand,

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creating six divisions and reaching amaximum strength in excess of450,000, but the frenzied growth oc-curred after Japan attacked the Pa-cific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on 7December 1941.

In the immediate aftermath of theoutbreak of war in Europe and Presi-dent Franklin D. Roosevelt's declara-tion of a limited national emergency,the Marine Corps grew by smallincrements that included the defensebattalions. To explain the role ofthese units, General Holcomb in 1940circulated throughout the Corps aclassified document drafted by FirstLieutenant Robert D. Heinl, Jr., whowould serve in a wartime defensebattalion, become the author ofwidely read articles and books andactive in the Marine Corps histori-cal program, and attain the grade ofcolonel. Heinl declared that "throughsheer necessity, the Marine Corps hasdevised a sort of expeditionary coastartillery capable of occupying an un-tenanted and undefended locality, ofinstalling an all around sea-airdefense, and this within three days:'

In his annual report to the Secre-tary of the Navy for the fiscal yearending in June 1940, General Hol-comb stated that four battalions hadbeen established and two othersauthorized. "The use of all six ofthese defense battalions can be fore-

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for flu' Defense Battalion

seen in existing plans," he wrote, ad-ding that the fleet commanders hadalready requested additional units ofthis type. The new organizationstook advantage of the latest advancesin automatic weapons, radios, tanks,coast and antiaircraft artillery,sound-ranging gear, and the newmystery — radar. Teams of specialists,which had mastered an array of tech-nical skills, it was hoped would ena-ble a comparatively small unit todefend a beachhead or airfield com-plex against attack from the sea orsky. As time passed and strategic cir-cumstances changed, the defense bat-talions varied in strength, weaponry,and other gear. As an official histor-ical summary of the defense battal-ions has pointed out, theircomposition also reflected "the geo-graphic nature of their location andthe availability of equipment:' Con-sequently, the same battalion mightrequire a different mix of specialistsover the years.

Envisioned as combined armsteams capable of delivering intensefirepower, defense battalions wereexpected to have their greatest impactin the kind of campaign outlined inthe Orange plan. The Navy's seago-ing transports provided strategic mo-bility for the defense battalions, butonce ashore, the units lacked vehiclesand manpower for tactical mobility.Because the battalion became essen-tially immobile when it landed, eachmember had a battle station, as ona ship, to operate a particular crew-served weapon or other piece ofequipment. As configured in 1939and 1940, a defense battalion couldachieve mobility on land only byleaving its artillery, searchlights, anddetection gear and fighting as in-fantry.

Marine Corps defense battalionscould operate as integral units in sup-port of a base or beachhead, posi-tioning their weapons and equipment

Department of Defense photo (USMC) 61403MajGen Charles D. Barrett, while acolonel, together with LtCol Robert H.Pepper, played a major role in the de-velopment of the defense battalion.

to cover assigned sectors and meetspecific threats. Moreover, theymight form detachments with a sizeand armament suitable for a partic-ular task, such as defending variousislets within an atoll or protectingseparate beachheads. Although rela-tively static when in place, the abili-ty of the battalions to divide in thisfashion provided a kind of flexibili-ty that may not have been fully ap-preciated in 1939, when the basicconcept placed one battalion, thoughof variable size, at a given place.

Because a defense battalion could,in effect, form task organizations, itsomewhat resembled the larger in-fantry regiment, which could employbattalion combat teams. Accordingto Lieutenant Heinl, in terms of"strength and variety of material;' thedefense battalion "fnight well be aregiment. Actually, the seacoast andantiaircraft artillery groups arealmost small battalions, while theother three separate batteries (search-light and sound locator and the twomachine gun units) are undeniablebatteries in the accepted sense of theword:'

Despite the lieutenant's enthusiasm

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for the defense battalions, they haddefinite weaknesses, particularly ininfantry and armor for mobilereserves in the event of a large-scaleenemy landing. The failings,however, seemed acceptable to theGeneral Board of the Navy — roughlycomparable to the War Department'sGeneral Staff—which felt that thebattalions could nevertheless protectoutlying bases against raids by air-craft, ships, and comparatively smalllanding parties. Concern that thedefense battalions, in their currentconfiguration, might not be able torepulse more ambitious hostile land-ings caused the Marine Corps to de-bate, during the spring of 1941, thefeasibility of creating separate infan-try battalions to fight alongside thedefense units.

The proposed 850-man infantrybattalions would forestall any pos-sible need to detail infantrymen fromthe regiments to reinforce the defensebattalions. Consequently, Secretaryof the Navy Frank Knox approvedthe creation of separate infantry bat-talions to serve with the defense bat-talions. After the Japanese attack onPearl Harbor, the regiments anddivisions — and for a time the special-ized units such as the raiders—demanded a lion's share of manpow-er, and with few exceptions, thedefense battalions had to fend forthemselves without the planned in-fantry battalions, though occasion-ally with an organic rifle company.Every Marine in a typical defensebattalion had to train to fight as aninfantryman in an emergency, withthe members of gun and searchlightcrews leaving their usual battle sta-tions. Rifle companies served at var-ious times with the 6th, 7th, and 51stDefense Battalions, and such a com-ponent was planned for the 52d, butnot assigned. Those battalions thatincluded a company of infantry borethe title "composite:'

Improvements in equipment, achanging strategic situation, anddeployment in areas that varied from

desolate coral atolls to dense jungleensured that no single table of equip-ment or organization could apply atall times to every defense battalion.Each of the organizations tended tobe unique —"one of a kind," as a bat-talion's history stated. Weapons andpersonnel reflected a unit's destina-tion and duties, much as a child'serector set took the shape dictated bythe person assembling the parts, orsuch was the view of James H. Pow-ers, a veteran of the 8th Defense Bat-talion. The selection and assignmentof men and equipment proved a dy-namic process, as units moved about,split into detachments, underwentredesignation, and traded old equip-ment for new. Much of the weaponsand material came from the stocks ofthe U.S. Army, which had similarlyequipped coast and antiaircraft ar-tillery units. The first 155mm gunsdated from World War I, but theArmy quickly made modern typesavailable, along with new 90mm an-tiaircraft guns that replaced the3-inch weapons initially used by thedefense battalions. In addition, theArmy provided both primitivesound-ranging equipment and threetypes of Signal Corps radar — theearly-model 5CR268 and SCR27Oand the more advanced 5CR268,which provided automatic targettracking and gun-laying.

By October 1941, the tables of or-ganization for the new defense bat-talions had certain features incommon, each calling for a head-quarters battery, a sound-locator andsearchlight battery, a 5-inch seacoastartillery group, a 3-inch antiaircraftgroup, and a machine-gun group.The specific allocation of personneland equipment within each battaliondepended, however, on where thebattalion deployed and the changes"prescribed by the Commandantfrom time to time:' In brief, thedefense battalions adhered to certainstandard configurations, with in-dividual variations due to time andcircumstance. The average battalion

strength during the war was 1,372officers and men, including Navymedical personnel. Like manpower,the equipment used by the defensebattalions also varied, although thearmament of the typical wartime unitconsisted of eight 155mm guns,twelve 90mm guns, nineteen 40mmguns, twenty-eight 20mm guns, andthirty-five .50-caliber heavy machineguns, supplemented in some in-stances by eight M3 light tanks.

Beginning early in 1940, thedefense battalions operated indepen-dently, or in concert with larger units,to secure strategic locations in the At-lantic and the Pacific. Colonel Har-ry K. Pickett's 3d Defense Battalionundertook to support the currentWar Plan Orange by occupying Mid-way Island on 29 September 1940,setting up its weapons on two bleak,sandy spits described by one Marineas being "inhabited by more than amillion birds:' Contingency plans forthe Atlantic approaches to theWestern Hemisphere called fordeploying defense battalions in sup-port of a possible landing in Marti-nique during October 1940, but thecrisis passed. In February of the fol-lowing year, the 4th Defense Battal-ion, under Colonel Jesse L. Perkins,secured the rocky and brush-coveredhills overlooking Guantanamo Bay,Cuba. A composite unit of infantryand artillery, the 7th Defense Battal-ion, commanded by LieutenantColonel Lester A. Dessez, landed atAmerican Samoa in March 1941 andbecame the first element of the FleetMarine Force to deploy to theSouthern Hemisphere during theprewar national emergency. Besidessecuring naval and air bases, the bat-talion trained a self-defense force ofSamoan Marines.

Plans to forestall a German inva-sion of the Azores by sending amixed force of soldiers and Marines,including defense battalions, provedunnecessary, but the most ambitiousof the prewar deployments occurred

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in the Atlantic. In June 1941, ColonelLloyd L. Leech's 5th Defense Battal-ion, less its seacoast artillery compo-nent, arrived in Iceland with the 1stMarine Brigade, which included the6th Marines, an infantry regiment,and the 2d Battalion, 10th Marines,an artillery outfit. The brigade tookover the defense of Iceland from Brit-ish troops, releasing them from theprotection of this critical region foreven more important duty elsewhere.Once in place, the defense battalionand the other Marines assumedresponsibility for helping keep openthe Atlantic sea lanes to the UnitedKingdom.

The 5th Defense Battalion set upits antiaircraft weapons, 3-inch gunsand machine guns, around the Reyk-javik airfield and harbor, where it be-came the first Marine Corps unit tomake operational use of the Army-developed SCR-268 and -270 radars.After-action reports covering the bat-talion's service in Iceland, declaredthat only "young, wide-awake, intel-ligent men" could operate the temper-amental sets satisfactorily. Thanks tothe efforts of the crews, the Marinesproved able to incorporate their ra-dar into the British air-defense andfighter-control system for "routinewatches and training:' Even thoughthe battalion played a critical role indefending against long-range Ger-man patrol planes, its members alsohad to engage in labor and construc-tion duty, as became common inother areas. Replaced by Army units,the last elements of the Marine gar-rison force left Iceland in March1942.

Of the seven Marine defense bat-talions organized by late 1941, onestood guard in Iceland, five served inthe Pacific — including the 4th, post-ed briefly at Guantanamo Bay — andanother trained on the west coast fora westward deployment. The firstPacific-based defense battalions werenicknamed the "Rainbow Five" afterthe war plan in effect when theJapanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The

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five units were: the 7th in Samoa; the6th, which took over from a detach-ment of the 3d at Midway Island; the3d and 4th at Pearl Harbor, and the1st divided among Pearl Harbor andJohnston, Palmyra, and Wake Is-lands. A sixth defense battalion, the2d, remained in training inCalifornia.

The first real test of the basedefense concept in the Pacific War be-gan with savage air attacks againstWake Island on 8 December and last-ed 15 days. Wake's defenders lackedradar and sound-ranging equipment,forcing the 400-man Marine garrisonto rely on optical equipment to spotand identify the attacking aircraft,which inflicted heavy losses on theAmericans during the first bombingraids. Commander Winfield S. Cun-ningham, who headed the Wake Is-land naval base, later insisted that"one radar" could have turned defeat

into victory. In contrast, TechnicalSergeant Charles A. Holmes, a fire-control specialist, believed that radar"would never have affected the out-come of the situation The set,moreover, might have fallen intoJapanese hands sufficiently intact toyield useful intelligence.

On 11 December, the fire of the5-inch guns of Major George H. Pot-ter's coastal defense batteries forcedthe withdrawal of the first Japanesenaval assault force consisting of threecruisers, their escorting destroyers,and a pair of troop transports. A Ma-rine communications officer vividlyremembered the repeated attacks byJapanese aircraft throughout thesiege. During each raid, he said, "oneor two would be smoking frommachine gun or antiaircraft fire:'Captain Bryghte D. Godbold's 3-inchantiaircraft group seemed especiallydeadly, and sometimes one or twoaircraft would be missing from aJapanese formation as it flew out of

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range. Gun crews stayed with theirweapons during the increasinglystronger air raids, while those Ma-rines not needed at their battle sta-tions were "hotfooting it for shelter:'

Early on, the Marines realized theywere fighting a losing battle,although, as Technical Sergeant Hol-mes pointed out, "We did our best todefend the atoll. . . ." and to preventthe Japanese from establishing them-selves there. With limited means attheir disposal — the weapons of thedefense detachment and a few fight-er planes — the Marines sank onewarship with aerial bombs andanother with artillery fire, and dur-ing the final assault inflictedhundreds of casualties on theJapanese who stormed ashore fromself-propelled barges and two lighttransports beached on the reef. Onthe morning of 23 December, beforea relief expedition could get closeenough to help, the defenders ofWake Island surrendered.

On Iceland, 5th Defense Battalion Marines, attached to the1st Provisional Marine Brigade, man a 75mm pack howitzeras British officers of the Iceland garrison look on. Note the

Photo courtesy of the U.S. Naval Institute

polar bear patches on the right shoulders of the onlookingMarine officers. In the background are truck-mounted.50-caliber antiaircraft machine guns on special tripods.

While the Wake Island garrisonfought against overwhelming num-bers and ultimately had to yield,Japanese naval forces began a short-lived harassment of Johnston andPalmyra that lasted until late Decem-ber and stopped short of attemptedlandings. On 12 December, shellsfrom a pair of submarines detonat-ed a 12,000-gallon fuel storage tankon Johnston Island, but fire from5-inch coast defense guns emplacedthere forced the raiders to submerge.Similarly, a battery on Palmyra droveoff a submarine that shelled the is-land on Christmas Eve.

The delays and confusion atten-dant upon organizing and mountingthe relief expedition, which includ-ed the 4th Defense Battalion andships that had survived the onslaughtagainst Pearl Harbor, demonstratedthe limits of improvisation. As aresult, the Marine Corps actedpromptly to reinforce the outlyinggarrisons still in American hands.The defense battalions at Pearl Har-bor provided additional men andmaterial for Midway, Johnston, andPalmyra Islands, and defense battal-ions fresh from training deployed to

the Pacific. The war thus entered adefensive phase that contained theadvancing Japanese and lasted intothe summer of 1942.

On 21 January, the 2d MarineBrigade (the 8th Marines and the 2dBattalion, 10th Marines, the latter re-cently returned from Iceland) arrivedin Samoa, along with LieutenantColonel Raymond E. Knapp's 2dDefense Battalion. The newcomersbuilt on the foundation supplied bythe 7th Defense Battalion and werethemselves reinforced by the newlyactivated 8th Defense Battalion un-der Lieutenant Colonel Augustus W.Cockrell. The Marines in Samoa an-chored a line of bases and airfieldsthat protected the exposed sea routesto Australia and New Zealand, whichwere judged likely objectives for theadvancing Japanese.

On 27 May 1942, the 8th DefenseBattalion moved southwest fromSamoa to the Wallis Islands, a Frenchpossession. Tanks, field artillery, mo-tor transport, and infantry reinforcedthe defense battalion, which re-mained there through 1943. The stayproved uneventful except for a visitfrom Eleanor Roosevelt, the Presi-dent's wife, who was touring the Pa-cific theater of war.

Elsewhere in the Pacific, LieutenantColonel Harold D. Shannon's 6thDefense Battalion strengthened thedefenses of Midway where, by thespring of 1942, reinforcements ar-rived in the form of the antiaircraftgroup of the 3d Defense Battalion,plus radar, light tanks, aircraft, in-fantrymen, and raiders. The Palmyragarrison was redesignated the 1stMarine Defense Battalion — of whichit had been a detachment beforeMarch 1942—under LieutenantColonel Bert A. Bone, with thedetachment on Johnston Islandreverting to control of the islandcommander. During March, the flowof reinforcements to the South Pacificcontinued, as Army troops arrivedin New Caledonia and the NewHebrides, while Marine aviators andColonel Harold S. Fassett's 4thDefense Battalion established itselfon the island of Efate in the lattergroup.

West of Midway Island, between4 and 6 June 1942, the course of thewar changed abruptly when anAmerican carrier task force sank fourJapanese aircraft carriers and des-troyed the cadre of veteran fliers whohad won the opening naval battles ofthe war from Pearl Harbor to the In-

The 5th Defense Battalion lived in Nissen hut camps as thisthroughout the unit's stay in Iceland. Most of them were built

and weatherproo fed by the Marines upon their arrival andbefore the onset of the exceptionally cold Icelandic winter.

Depcrtment of Defense photo (USMC) 528669

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dian Ocean. A reinforced defensebattlion, though hundreds of milesfrom the actual sinkings, contribut-ed greatly to the American victory.Since the fall of Wake Island, Ameri-can reinforcements had poured intoMidway. Colonel Shannon's 6thDefense Battalion, now 1,700-strong,helped build the island's defenseseven as it stood guard against an an-ticipated Japanese attack. The laborprojects included constructing under-water obstacles, unloading and dis-tributing supplies, and buildingemplacements for guns and sheltersfor ammunition and personnel.Shannon told his Marines that "Ourjob is to hold Midway . . . . Keepcool, calm, and collected; make yourbullets count."

On 4 June, the Japanese openedthe Battle of Midway by launchinga massive air strike designed to softenthe island for invasion. Radar pickedup the attackers at a distance of 100miles and identified them at 93 miles,providing warning for Midway-basedfighters to intercept and antiaircraftbatteries to prepare for action. Thestruggle began at about 0630 and hadended by 0700, with the deadliest ofthe fighting by the defense battalioncompressed into what one participantdescribed as a "furious 17-minute ac-tion." The Marine antiaircraft gun-ners claimed the destruction of 10 ofthe attackers, but damage at Midway

proved severe, with flames andsmoke billowing from a fuel storagearea and aircraft hangars. The is-land's defenders remained in thefight, however, causing the Japanesenaval commander to decide on afollow-up attack. His ordnancespecialists were in the midst ofreplacing armor-piercing bombs,designed for use against ships, withhigh explosives for ground targets,when the American carrier pilotspounced in the first of their devastat-ing attacks. The resistance by theMarines at Midway, both the avia-tors and the members of the defensebattalion, thus helped set the stagefor one of the decisive naval battlesof World War II.

After making this contribution to

eventual victory over Japan, the 6thDefense Battalion remained at Mid-way for the rest of the war. As oneof its Marines, Ned Tetlow, pointedout, the long stay enabled the unitto develop a "distinct identity:'

During the defensive phase of thePacific War, the defense battalion un-derwent conceptual changes back inthe United States. Two new tables oforganization and equipment receivedofficial approval in the spring of1942. One called for a battalion of1,146 officers and men that had aheadquarters and service battery, a155mm artillery group of two batter-ies, a 90mm antiaircraft artillerygroup of three batteries, plus asearchlight battery, and a specialweapons group, made up of one bat-tery each of Browning machine guns,Oerlikon 20mm cannon, and Bofors40mm cannon. The other documentcalled for a slightly smaller compo-site unit, in which a rifle companyand a pack howitzer battery replacedsome of the less mobile weapons.Moreover, plans called for one of thecomposite defense battalions or-ganized in 1942 to be manned byAfrican-Americans under commandof white officers.

The wartime demand for man-power and the racial policy of the

Marine Corps Historical Collection

Smoke rises from Wake Island after a Japanese air attack. The command post usedby the detachment of the 1st Defense Battalion lies in the right foreground.

Defense battalion commander Maj James P 5. Devereaux pressed this ammunitionbunker into service as his command post during the defense of Wake Island.

Photo by the author

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Roosevelt administration caused theMarine Corps to agree in February1942 to accept African-Americanrecruits for the first time since theRevolutionary War, when a fewblacks had served in the Continen-tal Marines. The Commandant,General Holcomb, insisted that racialsegregation — not only lawful in mostplaces at the time, but enforcedthroughout much of Americansociety—would prevail and that theAfrican-Americans would performuseful military duty. To gain a mili-tary advantage from these recruits,without integrating the races, theMarine Corps decided to group themin a black unit that could train large-ly in isolation and fight almost in-dependently. Holcomb's policyresulted in the creation of the 51stDefense Battalion (Composite), corn-

manded by whites but manned byAfrican-Americans who had trainedat the Montford Point Camp, a ra-cially segregated facility at CampLejeune, North Carolina.

A decision to use the draft, begin-ning in January 1943, as the normalmeans of obtaining manpower for allthe services brought more blacks intothe Marine Corps than a singlebattalion — plus its training base andadministrative overhead — could ab-sorb. The transition of the 51st froma composite unit to an ordinarydefense battalion released infantry-men and howitzer crews to help forma cadre for a second African-American defense battalion, the 52d.Because the nature of the conflict wasagain changing as the advancetoward Japan accelerated, the MarineCorps organized no additional black

defense battalions, instead creatingnumerous independent companies toprovide logistics support for am-phibious operations.

The steps taken in May 1942toward standardized equipment be-gan bringing order to a sometimesbewildering array of new and old,simple and complex. When a veteranmaster sergeant joined one of thedefense battalions as a replacement,he asked to see the "new 155mmguns," but, to his astonishment, wasshown a weapon fabricated in 1918,"1 thought we had new guns here!"he bellowed. The radio gear and ra-dar required unceasing maintenanceand fine-tuning by specialists whothemselves were fresh from training.Radar, in particular, seemed a mys-tery to the uninitiated and a challengeto the newly minted technicians. In

Under a heavily clouded sky, Marines of the 16th Defense Bat-talion man a 3-inch antiaircraft artillery position on Johnston


Island. Note the absence of protective parapets or camouflage.Johnston was not seriously threatened in the course of the war.

In the 4 June 1942 Japanese air raid on Midway a numberof Marines in the garrison, including some from the 6th

Defense Battalion, were killed. Here, the surviving Marinesprepare to bury their buddies with full military honors.

Department of Defense photo (USN) 12703

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toneewith are aliown all Marts. Corps linkabnulder loin. recorded to I altlrat 1043,They represent the largest aanaba i.e dtter'root Identifying patches tree rowed In the

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The South Pacific

Shoulder Insigniaarines serving with the Army's 2d Division inWorld War I wore the Indian-head shoulderpatch, and during the occupation of Iceland,

in late 1941 and early 1942, members of the Marine brigadeadopted the polar-bear flash worn by the British garrisonthey were relieving. The Marines who sewed on the polar-bear insignia included men of the 5th Defense Battalion.Marine shoulder insignia proliferated after the officialrecognition of the 1st Marine Division's patch in 1943.

The designs chosen by the wartime defense battalionsmight either reflect the insignia of a Marine amphibiouscorps or of the Fleet Marine Force Pacific, but they mightalso be created by the individual battalion. Worn on theleft shoulder of field jackets, overcoats, service blouses andshirts, the patches identified individual Marines as mem-bers of a specific unit. On 1 August 1945, Marine Corpsheadquarters recognized 33 such designs, although othersexisted.

evaluating the radar specialists, Cap-tain Wade W. Larkin explained thatthe device was "technically complexenough for them to be justifiablyproud of what they were doing;' eventhough they could not talk openlyabout so "confidential" a piece ofequipment. At the time, radar wascutting-edge technology; Vern C.Smith, who helped operate one of thenew sets in the Wallis Islands,recalled that his SCR-268, acquiredfrom another battalion, was so newthat its serial number "was a singledigit."

The demarcation between thedefensive phase and the beginningsof the counteroffensive provedblurred at the time. Despite theAmerican victory at Midway, theenemy seemed dangerous, aggres-sive, and capable of resuming theoffensive. To forestall the threat tothe sea lanes between Hawaii andAustralia, the 4th Defense Battalionin July 1942 provided a detachmentto protect Espiritu Santo. However,the invasion of the southern Solo-mon Islands and its immediate con-

10

sequences clearly reversed the tide ofwar in the Pacific.

On 7 August 1942, the 3d DefenseBattalion, commanded by ColonelRobert H. Pepper, who had been soinstrumental in creating this kind ofunit, landed in support of the 1st Ma-rine Divisions attack on Guadalcanaland the subsequent defense of the is-land against Japanese counterthrusts.The machine gun and antiaircraftgroups landed "almost with the firstwaves" at Guadalcanal, although theseacoast artillery did not arrive un-til late August. Once the coastal

4

defense guns were ashore, theyscored hits on three enemy ships thathad beached themselves to landtroops. In general, the 3d Defense

Battle of Midway—and the navalbase established on the nearby islandof Tulagi. In early September, the 5thDefense Battalion, led by LieutenantColonel William F. Parks, supplieda detachment that took over atTulagi.

A combat correspondent with the1st Marine Division, Technical Ser-geant George McMillan, describedthe initial lodgment on Guadalcanalas a "stretch of beach, acres ofstraight-lined coconut grove, thefields of head-high kunai grass, andjungle-covered foothills." Six monthsof violent counterattacks by Japaneseair, ground, and naval forces shat-tered the appearance of calm.Throughout the fighting "malaria,jungle rot, and malnutrition' plaguedthe Americans, according to SecondLieutenant Cyril P. Zurlinden, Jr., ofthe 2d Marine Division, whichreplaced the 1st Marine Division inJanuary 1943, after the 1st had leftthe previous December.

Elements of the 5th Defense Bat-talion not needed at Tulagi occupied

Department of Defense photo (USMC)

African-American Marines of the 51st Defense Battalion are shown here in train-ing at Montford Point, Camp Lejeune, before their deployment to the Pacific War.

Battalion lent strength to the defensesof Lunga Point, Henderson Field—named for Major Lofton R. Hender-son, a Marine aviator killed in the

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South Pacific Tales

Funafuti in the Ellice Islands on 2 Oc-tober 1942. The Ellice force set up itsweapons hundreds of miles from thenearest major American base andfor the next 11 months held thenorthernmost position in the SouthPacific, just short of the boundarybetween that area and the CentralPacific. The battalion's commandingofficer, Colonel George F. Good, Jr.,recalled that his ragtag antiaircraftand ground defenses "stuck out likea sore thumb:' The Ellice Islandsserved as a staging area for raids onthe Japanese-held Gilbert Islands andconsequently bore the brunt of some10 Japanese air attacks, during whichthe 90mm antiaircraft guns downedat least six bombers. Meanwhile, ele-ments of the 5th Defense Battalionon Tulagi combined in January 1943with a 5-inch battery from the 3d tobecome the 14th Defense Battalion.

The 9th Defense Battalion, underColonel David R. Nimmer, reachedGuadalcanal in December 1942, setup its weapons around the airfieldcomplex at Koli Point, and prompt-ly destroyed a dozen enemy aircraft.Francis E. Chadwick, a member ofthe artillery group, recalled that theunit "met only stragglers upon land-ing and found an undersize, beaten

enemy battalion." The Marinedefense battalion thereupon beganreequipping in preparation for thenext move up the Solomons chain.In January 1943, the 11th DefenseBattalion, commanded by ColonelCharles N. Muldrow, relieved the 9thBattalion of its responsibilities atGuadalcanal.

Marines serving in the defense bat-talions learned lessons — some ofthem immortalized in legend — not

taught in training or in the manuals.They learned about "air-raid coffee:'strong enough to "lift one's scalpseveral inches per gulp:' Coffee potswould go on the fire when thingswere quiet; then the air-raid alarmwould signal Condition Red, whichmeant that an air raid was imminent,and the Marines would man theirbattle stations, sometimes for hours,waiting for and fighting off the at-tackers as the coffee boiled merrilyaway. The resulting brew becamethick enough to eat with a fork, andMaster Technical Sergeant TheodoreC. Link claimed that the coffee"snapped back at the drinker:'

Veterans also learned to take ad-vantage of members of newly arrivedunits, lavishly supplied but inex-perienced in the ways of the world.A widely told story related how"wolf-hungry" Marines, who hadbeen subsisting on canned rations,smelled steaks cooking at a field gal-ley run by another service. As Tech-nical Sergeant Asa Bordages told it,a Marine shouted "Condition Red!Condition Red!" The air raid signalsent the newcomers scrambling forcover, and by the time they realizedit was a false alarm, the Marineswere gone, and so were the steaks.

While American forces secured


The 3d Defense Battalion operated this 5CR268, the first search radar establishedon Guadalcanal after the 1st Marine Division landed there on 7 August 1942.

Searchlights and antiaircraft weapons of the 3d Defense Battalion on Guadalcanalpoint upwards to detect and destroj Japanese aircraft bombing Allied forces.


12

Guadalcanal and improved the secu-rity of the supply line to Australiaand New Zealand, increasing num-bers of Marines arrived in the Pacif-ic, many of them members of defensebau:alions. The number of these unitstotaled 14 at the end of 1942, and theMarine Corps continued to form newones into the following year. Threeother divisions were activated dur-ing 1943, and a sixth would takeshape during 1944. As the Pacificcampaigns progressed, the various di-visions and other units were assignedin varying combinations to corpscommands. Eventually the V Am-phibious Corps operated fromHawaii westward; the I Marine Am-phibious Corps had its headquarterson Noumea but would become theIII Amphibious Corps on 15 April1944, before it moved its base to theliberated island of Guam.

From Guadalcanal, the Marinesjoined in advancing into the centraland northern Solomons during thesummer and fall of 1943, forming

one jaw of a pincers designed to con-verge on the Japanese base at Rabaulon the island of New Britain. WhileGeneral Douglas MacArthur, theArmy officer in command in theSouthwest Pacific masterminded theRabaul campaign as an initial steptoward the liberation of the Philip-pines, Admiral Chester W. Nimitzprepared for a thrust across the Pa-cific from Hawaii through the Gilbertand Marshall Islands. By the end of1943, Marines would gain a lodg-ment in the northern Solomons andland in the Gilberts and on New Bri-tain; clearly the United States was onthe move.

Once the American counteroffen-sive got under way in earnest, themission of the typical defense battal-ion changed. Initially, the defensebattalions were expected to land ata site already under friendlycontrol — either a previously deve-loped base or a beachhead securedby assault troops — and remain untilrelieved. In actual practice, this con-

13

cept did not work, for it overlookedthe vulnerability of amphibiousforces, especially to aerial attack,during and immediately after a land-ing. Experience dictated that thedefense battalions land with the as-sault waves, whenever possible, andimmediately set up their weapons.Besides protecting the beachheadduring its most vulnerable period,the battalions freed other elements ofthe Fleet Marine Force from respon-sibility for guarding airfields andharbors. Whatever their role, thedefense battalions received less cover-age in the press than airmen, infan-try, or raiders. A veteran of the 11thDefense Battalion, Donald T. Regan,who would become Secretary of theTreasury in the cabinet of PresidentRonald Reagan, remembered theanonymity that cloaked these units."1 felt;' he said, "we were doing quitea bit to protect those who were do-ing the more public fighting."

In providing this protection, inwhich Regan took such pride,

An aging M1918 155mm gun, manned by the 5th Defense Bat-talion, stands guard over the Pacific surf from amid the beach-


front palms at Funafuti in the Ellice Islands, the first stop inthe Pacific following the unit's departure from Iceland.

R

T he defense battalions employed several differentweapons against the attack of enemy aircraft.The M3 3-inch antiaircraft gun, initially used in

shipboard and ground defense, was the heaviest weaponavailable to the Marines when the defense battalions wereorganized. When positioned, the gun rested on a foldingM2A2 platform, dubbed a 'spider' mount, which had fourlong stabilizing outriggers. The gun fired a 12.87-poundhigh explosive round which had a maximum horizontalrange of 14,780 yards and could nearly reach a 10,000-yardceiling. The weapons, each having an eight-man crew whocould fire 25 rounds per minute, were organized in the bat-talions in four-gun batteries. They were successfully em-ployed at Wake, Johnston, Palmyra, and Midway Islands.By the summer of 1942, however, the M-3 was replaced

by the Army's 90mm antiaircraft weapon.This excellent M1A1 gun had an increased range and a

greater killing power than the M3. It became the standardantiaircraft artillery piece for the defense and AAA bat-talions. This gun could fire a 23.4-pound projectile, witha 30-second time fuze out a horizontal distance of 18,890yards and had a vertical range of 11,273 yards. The 10-mancrew could crank off 28 rounds-per-minute. The M1A1could be towed on its single axle, dual-wheel carriage. Ithad a distinctive perforated firing platform. The MarineCorps' 90mms generally landed early in an amphibious as-sault to provide immediate AAA defense at the beachhead.It had a dual role in that it could be directed against groundtargets as well.

Antiaircraft Artillery

ful in the destruction of enemy air-craft" whenever the improvisedwarning system was functioning.This experience may well have in-fluenced a decision to convene a ra-dar board at Marine Corps

defense battalions on Guadalcanaloperated long-range radar integratedwith the control network of MarineAircraft Group 23. LieutenantColonel Walter L. J. Bayler— the last

man off Wake Island, who had car-ried dispatches to Pearl Harbor onthe only Navy plane to reach Wakeduring the siege — declared that thegroup's fighters were "highly success-

headquarters.Formed in February 1943, the

board was headed by Bayler and in-cluded Lieutenant Colonel Edward C.Dyer, who was thoroughly familiarwith the techniques and equipmentused by Britain's Royal Air Force todirect fighters. The board stan-dardized procedures for "plotting,filtering, telling, and warning;' as theradar specialists fed information toa direction center that integrated an-tiaircraft and coastal defense, theprimary responsibilities of thedefense battalions, with the intercep-tion of attacking aircraft by pilots ofthe Marine Corps, Army, or Navy.The radar board refused, moreover,to lift the veil of secrecy that con-cealed the radar program, directingthat "no further items on the subjectwould be released" until the Armyand Navy were convinced the enemyalready had the information fromsome other source.

On 21 February 1943, the 43d In-fantry Division, the 3d Raider Bat-

Department of Defense photo (IJSMC) 59215

This 3d Defense Battalion 90mm antiaircraft gun, dug in at Guadalcanal, servedin a dual role with its ability to engage targets on the ground as well as in the air.

14

\ \t¼t

talion, and a detachment from the11th Defense Battalion secured theRussell Islands as a base for furtheroperations in the Solomons and else-where. Seacoast and antiaircraft ar-tillery landed at Banika, and twoweeks later, when the Japaneselaunched their first air strikes, the an-tiaircraft weapons were ready. The10th Defense Battalion, underColonel Robert Blake, arrived on 24February to reinforce the detach-ment. The Russells soon became aboomtown — a jerry-built stagingarea for Allied units arriving in theSouth Pacific, reorganizing, or mov-ing to other battlegrounds.

The 12th Defense Battalion, com-manded by Colonel William H. Har-rison, covered the occupation ofWoodlark Island, northeast of NewGuinea, by Army ground units on 30June 1943. In just 16 days, Army en-gineers built an airfield, which thebattalion protected until the end ofthe year. The main purpose of theWoodlark operation was to screenthe landings on New Georgia in thecentral Solomons.

Elements of the 9th, 10th, and 11th

Defense Battalions supported the Ar-my's XIV Corps in the central Solo-mons campaign. The stronglyreinforced 9th Defense Battalion,now commanded by LieutenantColonel William J. Scheyer, partici-pated in various aspects of the fight-ing. The 155mm and antiaircraftartillery groups landed on 30 June atRendova Island, just off the coast ofNew Georgia. In the confusion of theRendova landings, during which theassault waves arrived off scheduleand out of sequence, antiaircraft gun-ners doubled as infantry in eliminat-ing light opposition, and members ofthe 155mm unit, looking for firingpositions, clashed with Japanesepatrols. The heavy guns set up andregistered in time to support the mainlandings at New Georgia's Zananabeaches on 2 July. The 90mm antiair-craft guns also were ready that sameday, fortunately so, since theJapanese launched the first of 159 airraids carried out during the cam-paign. The battalion's antiaircraftweapons downed 46 aircraft, includ-ing 13 of 16 in one formation. Ed-mund D. Hadley, serving with theantiaircraft group, helped fight off

15

one of the heaviest raids. "1 will al-ways think of July 4, 1943, as the daythe planes fell;' he said, his memorysharpened by the fact that he and his90mm gun crew had to dive into amud hole to escape a Zero fighterstrafing Rendova.

The curtain of antiaircraft fire thatprotected Rendova and the Zananabeaches had an unintended effect onone of the two secondary landings onNew Georgia — Rice Anchorage andWickham Anchorage. Fragmentsfrom antiaircraft shells fired fromRendova rained down upon Rice An-chorage, to the north, where ele-ments of the 11th Defense Battalionguarded a beachhead seized by theMarine 1st Raider Regiment. Thecommander of a raider battalionrecalled setting Condition Redwhenever the 90mm guns cut looseon Rendova, for their "shrapnel wasscreaming in the air above the trees;'as it tumbled to earth.

The main landing on Zananabeach, New Georgia, took place on2 July under the cover of fire fromantiaircraft guns and 155mm artilleryon Rendova. Machine guns and lightantiaircraft weapons promptly

Photo courtesy of the U.S. Naval InstituteAn LST brings the 9th Defense Battalion to Rendova Island, set up its artillery and antiaircraft guns to support the assaultwhere the unit helped overcome Japanese resistance and then on heavily defended neighboring island of New Georgia.

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deployed from Rendova across thenarrow strait to New Georgia to helpprotect the beachhead there. Lighttanks from the 9th, 10th, and 11thDefense Battalions helped Armytroops punch through the Japanesedefenses barring the way to the prin-cipal objective, Munda Point airfield.The M3A1 Stuart light tanks andtheir crews defied jungle, mud, andsuicidal counterattacks in spearhead-ing a slow and deliberate attack. Thetank gunners fired 37mm canisterrounds to strip away the jungle con-cealing Japanese bunkers, followedup with high-explosive shells to pene-trate the fortifications, and usedmachine guns to cut down the sur-vivors as they fled. Captain RobertW. Blake, a tank commander whoearned the Navy Cross in the centralSolomons, noted that "death on theMunda Trail" was noisy, violent, andfar from romantic. "1 trip the seatlever;' he wrote, "and drop down be-hind the periscopic sight. I level thesight dot at the black slot and pressthe firing switch. Wham, the gunbucks, a wad of smoke billows

through the trees. The concealingbranches are left raw and broken."According to one analysis of thefighting, "A handful of Marine tanks,handicapped by difficult jungle, hadspearheaded most of the successfulattacks on New Georgia:'

On 4 August, the Marine tanksthat had survived Japanese fire, for-midable terrain, and mechanicalbreakdown, moved onto MundaPoint airfield, littered with wreckedairplanes and pockmarked with shellcraters. The infantry mopped up onthe next day, and the 9th DefenseBattalion moved its antiaircraftweapons into position to protect thecaptured airdrome, while its 155mmguns prepared to shell the Japanesegarrison on nearby Kolombangara.

The 4th Defense Battalion covereda landing by Army forces on 15 Au-gust at Vella Lavella, the north-westernmost island in the centralSolomons. The battalion's antiair-craft weapons, concentrated nearBarakoma harbor, shot down 42Japanese aircraft during 121 raids.Attempts to land cargo elsewhere on

16

the island, and thus speed the distri-bution of supplies, triggered a savagereaction from Japanese air power.Speed proved less important thansecurity, and after the sinking of anLST on 1 October, 1 Marine Am-phibious Corps directed that all shipswould unload at Barakoma under anantiaircraft shield provided by the4th Defense Battalion.

The tank platoons of the 9th, 10th,and 11th Defense Battalions—veterans of the conquest of NewGeorgia — boarded landing craft andsailed due west to Arundel Island,where Army troops landed on 27August. As had happened during theearlier capture of Munda Point, theStuart tanks used their 37mm gunsto breach a succession of defensivepositions, suffering steady attritionin the process. On 19 September, allthe surviving armor formed tworanks, the rear covering the frontrank, which plunged ahead, firing37mm canister to strip away the jun-gle concealment as the tanks gougedpaths for advancing soldiers. Thischarge proved to be the last major

Splattered by mud from a near-miss, Marines operating anoptical gun director check the equipment for damage as they


prepare for the next Japanese air attack on Rendova. On VellaLavella, Marines downed 42 enemy aircraft in 121 raids.

1w.-

fight during the conquest of Arun-del Island.

On 1 November 1943, the offen-sive reached the northern Solomons,as the recently organized 3d MarineDivision landed at Bougainville. The3d Defense Battalion, led by Lieu-tenant Colonel Edward H. Forney,followed the first waves ashore andhad heavy machine guns and lightantiaircraft guns ready for action bynightfall. The battalion organizedboth antiaircraft and beach defenses,taking advantage of the dual capa-bilities of the 90mm gun to destroyJapanese landing barges on the Laru-ma River. The 155mm artillery groupsupported Marine raiders andparachutists at Koiari and joined the12th Marines, the 3d Marine Divi-sion's artillery regiment, in shellingJapanese positions at Torokina. Thedefense battalion would remain atBougainville into the following year,earning the dubious honor of being"the last Fleet Marine Force groundunit" to be withdrawn from theSolomons.

Colonel William H. Harrison's12th Defense Battalion supported the

landing of the 1st Marine Divisionat Cape Gloucester, New Britain, inDecember 1943. The lodgment onNew Britain marked the end of theRabaul campaign — and of part icipa-tion by major Marine Corps units inthe South and Southwest Pacific—for the United States had decided toisolate and bypass the fortress insteadof storming it. Radar operator Vic-

tor C. Bond, a member of Harrison'sbattalion at Cape Gloucester, remem-bered sitting on the exposed "plowseat" of an SCR-268, with 90mmguns barking nearby. "During an airraid;' he said, "it was difficult to tellif all the noise and smoke was dueto the 90mms or the enemy:'

On New Britain, the 12th DefenseBattalion suffered most of its casual-


The 90mm antiaircraft guns on Rendova, as this one, threw up a barrier of fireto protect the troops attacking Munda airfield from enemy air raids and, in doingso, showered shell fragments on the Marines across New Georgia at Rice Anchorage.

The 9th Defense Battalion deployed light antiaircraft guns, asthis Bofors 40mm weapon, in the Solonions on Rendova and

New Georgia, both to protect the Zanana beachhead and tosupport the accelerating advance against the Munda airfield.

Department of Defense photo (USMC) 60095 by TSgt Jeremiah Sarno

17

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Antiaircraft Machine Guns

A number of "light" antiaircraft artillery weaponsand "heavy" machine guns were placed in theweapons groups of the defense battalions to pro-

vide close-in defense against low-flying aircraft.These weapons were flexibly employed and landed found

on the beach with the assault waves. They were designat-ed dual-purpose weapons as they were used against bothair and surface targets. While organized into batteries byweapons types, light antiaircraft weapons were often at-tached to task-organized teams.

The Bofors-designed 37mm and 40mm automatic gunswere the backbones of these teams. The Ml 40mm antiair-craft gun became the standard piece by July 1942. It wasmanufactured by Blaw-Knox, Chrysler, and York Safe &Lock in the United States. The Ml was recoil operated anddesigned for use against aircraft and could serve as an an-titank weapon. It fired 1.96-pound shells at a rate of120-per-minute with a maximum range of over four miles.Its M2 carriage had electric brakes and bullet-resistant tires,was towed at up to 50 miles an hour. and could be put inliring position within 25 seconds. Easily operated and main-tained, the 40mm gun was credited with 50 percent of theenemy aircraft destroyed by antiaircraft weapons accord-

ing to statistics gathered between 1944 and 1045, Anotherlight weapon in the defense battalion arsenal was the Oer-likon 20mm antiaircraft gun. It was made in the UnitedStates by Oerlikon-Gazda, Pontiac Motors, and HudsonMotor Car. These were Navy Mark 2 and Mark 4 weapons,first used on static pedestal mounts, but later mounted inpairs on wheeled carriages as a high-speed 'twin twenty:

It was a simple blowback-operated gun capable of beingput into action quicker than larger caliber weapons. It firedexplosive, armor-piercing, and incendiary projectiles at arate of 450 rounds a minute out to a maximum range of4.800 yards. Mobility, reliability, and high volume of lireenabled it to account for 32 percent of identified antiair-craft shot down during the 1942 to 1944 period.

Finally, the battalions were liberally equipped with heavy.30- and .50-caliber machine guns. The Browning M2 water-cooled machine gun was used on an M2 mount as an an-tiaircraft weapon by special weapons groups to help de-fend artillery and antiaircraft artillery positions. TheBrowning M1917 water-cooled machine gun was used forground and beach defense with crews made up fromdefense battalion personnel in contingencies.

ties from typhus and other diseases, fects of malaria, prevalent in the Marines to take a bitter-tasting medi-falling trees, and lightning. "There is swamps and rain forest, involved the cine that was rumored to turn skinno jungle in the world worse than in use of atabrine, a substitute for scarce yellow and make users sterile. In asouthwestern New Britain;' a mem- quinine. The remedy required hard moment of whimsy, Second Lieu-ber of the 1st Marine Division selling by medical personnel and tenant Gerald A. Waindel suggesteddeclared. The effort to limit the ef- commanders to convince dubious adapting a slogan used to sell coffeeEach Japanese flag painted on this 3d Defense Battalion 40mm gun on Bougainville represents a Japanese plane shot down.


18

F' —_akvfr aat\'

Fig1ii;ig Borecloiii

The Central Pacific Drive

or division headquarters. Theproblem of the future of the defensebattalions in a changing situation re-mained unresolved when the year1944 began.

back in the United States: "Atabrine— Good to the last drop:'

In March 1944, a detachment fromthe 14th Defense Battalion landed atEmirau, St. Mathias Islands, in sup-port of its occupation by Armytroops. Technical Sergeant George H.Mattie reported that "the Marinessent some troops ashore, met no op-position, and in a matter of days theSeabees ripped up the jungle" for anairfield. The deadliest things aboutduty at Emirau, Mattie remembered,were "boredom and loneliness:' Otherdetachments from the 14th DefenseBattalion supported the 1st MarineAircraft Wing's occupation of GreenIsland, the coup de grace forbypassed Japanese forces at Rabauland throughout the Bismarck Ar-chipelago. The use of Green Islandas an air base for hammering thebypassed stronghold of Rabaul sig-naled the attainment of the final rungin the so-called Solomons Ladder,which began at Guadalcanal and re-quired the services of three Marinedivisions, two Marine aircraft wings,and a variety of special units, includ-ing the defense battalions. In a yearand a half of fighting, the Marines —

along with soldiers and sailors — hadnot taken any "real, honest-to-Godtowns;' just "grass shacks and lizardsand swamp 'gardens' of slimy banyantrees:'

As the campaign against Japangathered momentum, defense battal-ions on outlying islands like the El-lice group, Samoa, Johnston,Palmyra, and Midway found them-selves increasingly in the backwashof war, struggling with boredomrather than fighting an armed enemy.Major General Alexander A. Van-degrift, former commanding gener-al of the 1st Marine Division andsince July 1943 the commander of IMarine Amphibious Corps, noticedthe fragile morale of some of thedefense battalions, as did his chief ofstaff, Colonel Gerald C. Thomas,during their inspection tour of theSolomon Islands. "The war had gonebeyond them;' recalled Thomas, anda number of the junior field-gradeofficers were "pleading just to get intothe war" and out of the defense bat-talions. As a result, some 35 officersreceived transfers to the Commandand Staff College at Quantico, Vir-ginia, for future assignments to corps

19

One technique used by a defensebattalion's communicationsspecialists in the battle against bore-dom consisted of eavesdropping onthe radio nets used by the fighter pi-lots. The chatter among aviators,though discouraged by commanders,rivaled the dialogue in the adventureserials broadcast in late afternoonback in the United States—radioshows such as Captain Midnight orHop Harrigan. First Lieutenant Wil-liam K. Holt remembered hearingcries of: "I'm Deadeye Dick, I nevermiss"; or, borrowing directly from ayet another radio serial, "Here comesJack Armstrong, the all-Americanboy:' Imitations of machine gun firepunctuated the commentary.

By the end of 1943, as the programreached its peak wartime strength, 19defense battalions had been or-ganized. One of the early units, the5th Defense Battalion, was redesig-nated as the 14th Defense Battalion,so that the 19 units accounted for 20numbers. At the peak of the pro-gram, 26,685 Marines and sailorsserved in the 19 defense battalions,a figure that does not include the var-ious replacement drafts that keptthem at or near authorized strength.Since a Marine division in 1943 re-quired some 19,000 officers and en-listed men, the pool of experiencedpersons assigned to the defense bat-talions made these units a target forreorganization and consolidation asthe war approached a climax.

Defense battalions supported theattack by V Amphibious Corpsacross the Central Pacific an offen-sive that began in November 1943with the storming of two main ob-jectives, Makin and Tarawa, in theGilbert Islands. Long-range bombers


The light antiaircraft artillery of the 12th Defense Battalion on the deck of an LSTapproaching Cape Gloucester, New Britain, is poised to fire on Japanese aircraft.

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based in the Ellice Islands helped pre-pare the atolls for the impending as-sault, and the 5th and 7th DefenseBattalions protected the bases theseaircraft used from retaliatory airstrikes by the Japanese.

In the bloodiest fighting of the Gil-berts operation, the 2d Marine Di-vision stormed Betio Island inTarawa Atoll on 20 November andoverwhelmed the objective withinfour days. On 24 November, the lastday of the fighting, Colonel NormanE. True's 2d Defense Battalionrelieved the assault units that hadcaptured Betio. The defense battal-ion set up guns and searchlights toprotect the airstrip on Betio—repaired and named Hawkins Fieldafter First Lieutenant William D.Hawkins, one of the 2d Marine Di-vision's heroes killed in the battle—and another airfield built by Seabeesat adjacent Bonkiri. The defendersemplaced radar and searchlights toguard against night bombing raids,

employing a combination of radar-directed and free-lance searchlightsthat could pick up approaching air-craft at a slant range of 60,000 feet.Between November 1943 and Janu-ary 1944, the Japanese hurled 19 airraids against True's battalion, alongwith numerous harassing raids bylone airplanes known as "Washing-Machine Charlie:' Only once did theenemy escape detection. According toone of the unit's officers, CaptainJohn V. Alden, the Japanese raidersusually aimed for the airfields, oftenmistaking the beach for the runwaysat night and, in one instance, hittinggun positions on the coast of Bairiki.

On 28 November 1943, the 8thDefense Battalion, commanded byColonel Lloyd L. Leech, went ashoreat Apamama, an atoll in the Gilbertscaptured with a minimum of casual-ties, to relieve the Marine assaultforce that had landed there. Apama-ma lay just 80 miles from blood-drenched Tarawa, but for First Lieu-

20

tenant James G. Lucas, a MarineCorps combat correspondent, it was"difficult to imagine they were in thesame world:' Japanese bombers fromthe Marshall Islands sometimes raid-ed Apamama, recalled SergeantDavid N. Austin of the antiaircraftgroup, and one moonlit night thegunners "fired 54 rounds before thecease-fire came over the phone:'

The bold thrust through the Gil-berts penetrated the outermost ringof Japanese defenses in the CentralPacific. The next objectives lay in theMarshall Islands, where in a fast-paced series of assaults V Amphibi-ous Corps used Marine reconnais-sance troops and Army infantry toattack Majuro on 30 January 1944and, immediately afterward, two ob-jectives in Kwajalein Atoll. The 4thMarine Division assaulted Roi-Namur—actually two islets joined bya causeway—on the 31st, and anArmy infantry division landed atKwajalein Island on 1 February. A

In the jungle, Marines found no towns, few villages, and few-er permanent buildings to commandeer for shelter. As a result,

Photo courtesy of the U.S. Nava' 1nsitutethe men of the defense battalions lived in pup tents and, whenrain was not falling, took catnaps on uncomfortable surfaces.

mixed force of Marines and soldiersstormed Eniwetok Atoll, at thewestern limit of the Marshall group,on 17 February. Those who watchedfrom shipboard off Roi-Namur saw"pillars of greasy smoke billow up-ward:' This awesome sight convincedan eyewitness, Master Technical Ser-geant David Dempsey, a combat cor-respondent, that the preliminarybombardment by aircraft and navalguns must have blasted the objectiveto oblivion, but somehow theJapanese emerged from the shatteredbunkers and fought back.

The 1st Defense Battalion, underColonel Lewis A. Hohn, and the15th, led by Lieutenant Colonel Fran-cis B. Loomis, arrived in the Mar-shalls and initially emplaced theirweapons at Roi-Namur and Majuro.On Roi, the defenders set up antiair-

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craft guns in some of the 50 or morecraters gouged in the Japanese run-ways by American bombs and shells.Machine gunner Ed Gough recalledthat his special weapons group cameashore "on the first or second day;' re-maining "through the first air raidwhen the Japanese succeeded in kick-ing our ass:' The enemy could not,however, overcome the antiaircraftdefenses, and calm settled over thecaptured Marshalls. Marines fromthe defense battalions helped is-landers displaced by the war to returnto Roi-Namur, where, upon cominghome, they helped bury the enemydead and clear the wreckage from a"three-quarter-square-mile junkyard:' Tractors, trucks, and jeepsground ceaselessly across the airfieldon Roi bringing in constructionmaterial for new installations and

21

removing the rubble.Colonel Hohn's battalion moved

on to Kwajalein Island and EniwetokAtoll by the end of January, andLieutenant Colonel Wallace 0.Thompson's 10th Defense Battalionjoined them on 21 February. The vic-tory in the Marshalls advanced thePacific battle lines 2,500 miles closerto Japan.

Far to the south, the African-American 51st Defense Battalion,commanded by Lieutenant ColonelCurtis W. LeGette, landed at the El-lice Islands in February 1944. Oneglance at the isolated chain of deso-late islands suggested that the whiteMarines of the departing 7th DefenseBattalion "were never so glad to seeblack people" in their lives. The 51sttook over airfield defense and en-gaged in gun drills and practice

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alerts, finally firing on a radar returnfrom a suspected surfaced Japanesesubmarine on 28 March. The 51st as-sumed responsibility for defendingEniwetok in September, replacing the10th Defense Battalion, but actualcombat continued to elude the blackMarines despite unceasing prepa-ration.

Once established ashore in the Gil-berts and Marshalls, the defense bat-talions rarely, if ever, faced the threatof marauding Japanese ships or air-craft. As the active battlefieldsmoved closer to Japan, the phenome-non of sign-painting took hold. Oneof them summarized the increasingisolation of the defense battalionsfrom the fury of the island war. "Sha-dy Acres Rifle and Gun Club," readthe sign, "Where Life Is a 155mmBore." Such was the forgotten war onthe little islands, described as "almostmicroscopic in the incredible vastnessof the Pacific;" which became stopson the supply lines that sustainedother Marines fighting hundreds ofmiles away. According to one observ-er, the captured atolls served as"stopovers for the long, gray convoysheading westward," though some ofthem also became fixed aircraft car-riers for bombing the by-passed ene-my bases. While the defensebattalions prepared for attacks thatdid not come, a relatively small num-ber of airmen harassed thousands ofJapanese left behind in the Marshalland Caroline Islands.

At Marine Corps headquarters,General Vandegrift, now the Com-mandant, faced a problem of usingscarce manpower to the greatest pos-sible effect. Vandegrift's director ofthe Division of Plans and Policies,Gerald C. Thomas, promoted tobrigadier general, received instruc-tions to maintain six divisions andfour aircraft wings, plus corps troops

and a service establishment — allwithout a substantial increase in ag-gregate strength. Most of the menthat Thomas needed already wereundergoing training, but he alsorecommended eliminating specialunits, including the defense battal-ions. Abolishing the defense battal-ions promised to be difficult,however, for the Navy Departmentfelt it would need as many as 29 bat-talions to protect advance bases.General Vandegrift exercised hispowers of persuasion on Admiral Er-nest J. King, the Chief of NavalOperations, and talked the navalofficer into agreeing not only to formno new defense battalions but alsoto accept deactivation of two of theexisting 19 units, while reorientingthe 17 survivors to meet the current

22

threat. The process began in April1944, and five months later, thedefense battalions that began theyear had converted to antiaircraft ar-tillery units, though a few retainedtheir old designation, and in rare in-stances the 155mm artillery group re-mained with a battalion as anattachment rather than an integralcomponent.

A new table of organization ap-peared in July 1944 and reflected theemphasis on 90mm and 40mm an-tiaircraft weapons, though it left themanpower level all but unchanged.The document called for a battalionof 57 officers and 1,198 enlisted men,organized into a headquarters andservice battery, a heavy antiaircraftgroup, a light antiaircraft group, anda searchlight battery. Only three

Department of Defense photo (USN)

As this sign on Majuro indicates, the advance in the Pacific war to this atoll inthe Marshall Islands had many interesting and challenging stops along the way.

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units retained the designation ofdefense battalion until theydisbanded — the 6th, the 51st, and the52d. In the end, most of the defensebattalions became antiaircraft ar-tillery outfits and functioned underthe Fleet Marine Force, Pacific.

While these changes were takingplace, defense battalions participat-ed in the final phase of the CentralPacific campaign — three successivelandings in the Mariana Islands byV Amphibious Corps and III Am-phibious Corps, and the destructionby American carrier pilots of thenaval air arm that Japan had recon-stituted in the two years since theBattle of Midway. In the Marianas,

the Marines stormed large islands,with broken terrain overgrown byjungle, a battlefield far different fromthe compact, low-lying coral out-croppings of the Gilberts and Mar-shalls. The Marianas group alsodiffered from the recently capturedatolls in that the larger islands hada sizable civilian populace that hadlived in towns flattened by bombsand artillery.

On 15 June 1944, the conquest ofthe Marianas began when V Am-phibious Corps attacked Saipan withthe 2d and 4th Marine Divisions,backed by the Army's 27th InfantryDivision. The 17th Defense Battal-ion, under Lieutenant Colonel Tho-

mas C. McFarland, reached Saipanin July, where the 18th Defense Bat-talion, led by Lieutenant ColonelWilliam J. Van Ryzin, joined it andbecame part of the island garrison.Although Saipan was by now offi-cially secure, danger from varioustropical maladies persisted. After abriefing on the island's innumerablehealth hazards, Technical SergeantJohn B. T. Campbell heard a privateask the medical officer "Sir, why don'twe just let the laps keep the island?"

On 24 July, Marines boarded land-ing craft on Saipan and sailed directlyto Tinian, the second objective in theMariana Islands. McFarland's battal-ion landed at Tinian in August and

Coast and Field Artilleryhe first defense battalions were equipped with5-inch/51-caliber naval guns which wereoriginally designed for shipboard mounting and

later extensively modified for use ashore. These weaponswere then emplaced in static positions, but with greatdifficulty. The guns fired high explosive, armor piercing,and chemical shells.

Initially, the defense battalions were issued the standardM1918 155mm "GPF" guns, which had split trails, singleaxles, and twin wheels. These World War I relics deployed

to the South Pacific with the defense battalions. Later, thebattalions were issued standard M1A1 155mm "Long Tom"guns. This piece weighed 30,600 pounds, had a split trailand eight pneumatic tires, was pulled by tractor, and wasserved by a combined crew of 15 men. It was pedestalmounted on the so-called "Panama" mount for its seacoastdefense role. It combined great firepower with high mo-bility and proved to be a workhorse that remained in theinventory after World War II.

On drab, desolate Eniwetok, the 10th Defense Battalion testfires a 155mm gun out across an empty ocean. Despite the

lack of threat of any immediate enemy attack, the weaponwas camouflaged just in case Japanese planes flew over.

Department of Defense photo (USN)

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devoted its energy to building andimproving gun positions, roads, andliving areas. The battalion's histori-an, Charles L. Henry, Jr., recalledthat "round-the-clock patrols werestill a necessity, with many Japanesestill on the island:' Skirmishes erupt-ed almost daily, as Marines from thebattalion "cleaned up the island" The18th Defense Battalion moved fromSaipan to Tinian, where the 16thDefense Battalion joined it in Sep-tember to help protect the new air-fields.

On 21 July 1944, the 9th DefenseBattalion, commanded by LieutenantColonel Archie F. O'Neil, and the14th, under Lieutenant Colonel Wil-liam F. Parks, landed on Guam. Thetwo units served with distinction inthe recapture of the island by the 3dMarine Division, 1st Provisional Ma-rine Brigade, and the Army's 77th In-fantry Division under the overallcontrol of III Amphibious Corps.The 9th Defense Battalion support-ed the Marine brigade at Agat Bay,and the 14th protected the 3d MarineDivision on the Red Beaches, where

it landed under intense fire, preparedthe beachhead defenses, set up an-tiaircraft guns, and later helped res-cue civilians made homeless by thewar. An account prepared by the 3dMarine Division related that,although Guam was secured rapid-ly, "the fighting was not over" by Au-gust, for more than 10,000disorganized Japanese stragglers heldout in the northern part of the islanduntil they fell victim to "the long,

grueling process of mopping up."Both defense battalions also bore thetwin burdens or working as laborersand doubling as infantry in search-ing out the Japanese and killing orcapturing them.

The captured Mariana Islandsdemonstrated their strategic value inNovember 1944, when Boeing B-29sbased there began the systematicbombing of targets in Japan's HomeIslands. From the outset, Marine an-tiaircraft gunners helped defend theseairfields. Eventually, the African-American 52d Defense Battalion,commanded by Lieutenant ColonelDavid W. Silvey, reached the Man-anas after service at Roi-Namur andEniwetok, where it had replaced the1st and 15th battalions. The 52d setup its antiaircraft weapons on Guamin the spring of 1945, patrolling forJapanese stragglers and providingworking parties. The emphasis onlabor caused one noncommissionedofficer to observe that instead of "be-ing a defense unit, we turned out tobe nothing more than a working bat-talion;' a complaint that members ofother defense battalions would echo.

Despite constant patrolling andfrequent clashes with the die-hardJapanese, duty in the Marianas be-came a matter of routine. The samepattern prevailed throughout the cap-tured Gilberts and Marshalls, as well.Aviation units manned the airfields;

Photo courtesy of the U.S. Naval Institute

A violent barrage from the 12th Defense Battalion greets attacking Japanese air-craft over Cape Gloucester, New Britain. As the danger from Japanese surface shipsdiminished, the defense battalions became concerned with Japanese air raids.

The fire from Marine antiaircraft gunners defending the Saipan beachhead againsta Japanaese night air attack makes interesting "4th of July" patterns in the sky.

Department of Defense photo (USCG)

24

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unit, supported the Marine divisionwhile it fought to conquer the island.Also present on Peleliu — described as"the most heavily fortified ground,square yard by square yard, Marineshave ever assaulted"—was the lightantiaircraft group of the 4th Antiair-craft Artillery (formerly Defense)Battalion. The 7th Defense Battalion,now an antiaircraft outfit, workedwith the Army's 81st Infantry Divi-sion on Anguar, remaining there af-ter the soldiers took over the fightingon Peleliu.

antiaircraft gunners peered into anempty sky, hoping the enemy wouldappear; those members of defensebattalions not otherwise employedwrestled cargo between ship's holdsand dumps ashore; and Seabeessweated over construction projects.

While the Central Pacific campaignmoved through the Gilberts, Mar-shalls, and Marianas, the 1st MarineDivision, after wresting control ofNew Britain and isolating Rabaul,

prepared to seize Peleliu in the PalauIslands to protect MacArthur's flankas he reentered the Philippines. Thedivision landed on 15 September1944, triggering a bloody battle thattied down the bulk of the divisionuntil mid-October. Army troops didnot crush the last organized Japaneseresistance until the end of November.During the bitter fighting on Peleliu,the 12th Defense Battalion, nowredesignated an antiaircraft artillery

The Marine antiaircraft gunners atPeleliu dug in on what was describedas "an abrupt spine of jagged ridgesand cliffs—jutting dragon-toothcrags, bare and black, where Marineinfantrymen fought maniacal Japs."As the fury of the fighting abated,the 7th Battalion transferred person-nel and equipment to the 12th,which — according to its logisticsofficer, Harry M. Parke — receivednewer material and "men with lesstime overseas," who would not be-come eligible to return home whenthe units began preparing for the in-vasion of Japan.

By the end of 1944, with Peleliuand the Marianas firmly in Ameri-can hands, 74,474 Marines andsailors served in island garrisons and


Marines of Battery 1, 14th Defense Battalion, man their twin-barrelled, Mark I1Qerlikon-designed 20mm guns on top of Chonito Ridge overlooking Adelup Point.In the initial stages of the Guam operation, these antiaircraft guns were in support.

An optical gun director is manned by Marines from one ofthe defense battalions participating in the Peleliu operation.

Fortunately for the attacking 1st Division Marines, no enemyair appeared overhead to hazard the ground operations.


25

Fire Control

A combination of convent-ional optical sightscoincidence range finders,

sound locaters, primitive radarsets, and searchlights comprised the firecontrol equipment in the early defensebattalions. As the war progressed inthe Pacific, most of these items weremodified and improved.

The Sperry 60-inch searchlight firedup a 800-million-candlepower lightbeam with a slant range of 20,000yards. Originally intended for il-luminating ships at sea, the Sperry wassoon employed in finding and track-ing enemy aircraft overhead. Thesearchlights were also used to directnight fighters to intercept enemy

planes, to guide friendly aircraft backto their bases, and in support ofground forces as their beams werereflected off of low cloud cover in ord-er to illuminate the battlefield.

Searchlights, radar, and sound de-tectors worked in conjunction withgun directors to convert tracking infor-mation into firing data. Gun directorsfunctioned as computers in providingthe trigonometic solutions whichpredicted flight paths and furnishingfuze settings for the antiaircraft ar-tillery. The input of height finderscombined with information about theazimuth and elevation of the targetsalso was fed to remotely controlled40mm and 90mm antiaircraft guns.

The radar and fire control equip-ment employed by the defense battal-ions in turn allowed them to becomean integral part of the overall airdefense of a captured target area.Although dispersed throughout thebeachhead, this equipment was linkedprimarily by telephone with a radiobackup. A battalion fire control centercoordinated the operations of eachgroup of weapons and in turn was in-corporated with other Allied radarnets. The effective ranges for fire con-trol equipment was variously 20-45miles for fire control gear and 120-200miles for search radar.

18th with V Amphibious Corps).The 52d Defense Battalion, whichwould reach Guam in the spring of1945, stood guard at Majuro andKwajalein Atolls.

base defense forces. As the defensebattalion program focused on an-tiaircraft weapons, defense units —most of them by now redesignatedas antiaircraft artillery outfits —served in Hawaii (the 13th at Oahuwith the Fleet Marine Force, Pacific;the 8th on Kauai with Fleet MarineForce, Pacific; and the 2d, 5th, 7th,and 16th with V Amphibious Corps)and at Midway (the 6th). In theSouthwest Pacific, battalions were

stationed at Guadalcanal (the 3d and4th with III Amphibious Corps), theRussell Islands (the 12th with III Am-phibious Corps), and the ElliceGroup (the 51st). Locations in theCentral Pacific included Eniwetok(the 10th with V AmphibiousCorps), Guam (the 9th and 14th withIII Amphibious Corps), Majuro (the1st with V Amphibious Corps), Roi-Namur (the 15th with V Amphibi-ous Corps), and Saipan (the 17th and

Master Technical Sergeant AlvinM. Josephy, Jr., a Marine combatcorrespondent, wrote in 1944 that"since the beginning of the war manyof the men . . . had seen action inunits smaller than divisions — indefense and raider battalions andother special commands:' These Ma-rines "had been fighting for a longtime;' he said. Leatherneck, a maga-zine published by and for Marines,predicted in September 1944 that notuntil the war was won would thecomplete story of each defense bat-talion be told. Because of the vitalpart they played, "much informationabout them . . . must be withheld,but there are no American troopswith longer combat records in thiswar:'

MacArthur's advance from theSouthwest Pacific by way of thePhilippines and Nimitz's Central Pa-


This Army-developed SCR-584 radar took over the work of the optical gun direc-tor on Peleliu, to provide automatic target tracking and gun laying for the Marines.

26

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cific campaign aimed ultimately atthe invasion of the Japanese HomeIslands. To prepare for the climacticbattles, the 2d, 5th, 8th, and 16thAntiaircraft Artillery (formerlyDefense) Battalions formed the 1stProvisional Antiaircraft ArtilleryGroup. The group did not see actionat Iwo Jima in February 1945, but atOkinawa, the final objective beforethe projected attack on Japan, it cameunder the operational control of theTenth Army's 53d Antiaircraft Ar-tillery Brigade.

The Marine and Army divisions ofthe Tenth Army landed across theOkinawa beaches on 1 April 1945.On the 13th, the first echelon of thenewly redesignated 8th AntiaircraftArtillery Battalion arrived at recentlycaptured Nago, near the neck ofOkinawa's Motobu Peninsula, toconduct "normal AA [antiaircraft]

defense operations." James H. Pow-ers recalled that the battalion gotcredit for a Mitsubishi G4M bomber(nicknamed "Betty" by the Allies) andalso helped secure a defensiveperimeter against Japanese stragglers"making trouble in our vicinity:' The5th battalion set up in the Yontan-Kadena area by 6 May, where itreceived credit for making one killand assisting in another. These an-tiaircraft battalions demonstratedthat they had learned, in the six yearssince the first of the defense battal-ions was formed in 1939, to makegood use of weapons, communica-tions gear, and radar.

Technical Sergeant John Worthtold of a Marine officer looking forfiring positions and living quartersfor his battery in one of the antiair-craft artillery battalions. The officerlocated a cave, free of booby traps,

27

that would provide adequate shelter,but he had to keep some other unitfrom taking it. To enforce his claim,he put up a sign: "Booby Traps. KeepAway:' After he left to report his dis-covery and deploy the unit, a demo-litions man saw the sign and, blewup the cave, sealing it shut.

Japanese air attacks attained un-precedented savagery in the watersoff Okinawa, as the Special AttackCorps pressed home the suicidalkamikaze attacks first employed inthe Philippines. Hoping to saveJapan — much as a storm, the origi-nal Kamikaze or divine wind, hadscattered a Mongol invasion fleet inthe sixteenth century — the suicide pi-lots deliberately dived into Americanships, hoping to trade one life forhundreds. Other vehicles for suicideattack included piloted bombs,

Tracers fired by the 5th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion—formerly the 5th Defense Battalion — light up the night skies

Department of Defense photo (USMC) 08087 by TSgt CV. Corkranover Okinawa during a Japanese air attack. A Marine fightersquadron's Corsairs are silhouetted against the spectacle..

4

Gone But Not Forgotten

Armor and Support

W hile defense battalions could defend themselveswith small arms and machine guns, theylacked maneuver elements which, in turn,

made them vulnerable when deployed independently ofother ground forces. In 1941, the Marine Corps decidednot to form separate infantry units to support the defensebattalions. For the most part, they would have to dependupon the infantry elements with which they landed in an

amphibious assault. In some cases, however, infantry, ar-mor, and artillery support was provided to reinlrce defensebattalions in certain operations. During the Pacific War,provisional rifle companies were formed and assigned tothe 6th, 7th, 51st, and 52d Defense Battalions, and tankplatoons were assigned at various times to the 9th, 10th,and 11th Defense Battalions.

manned torpedoes, and explosives-laden motorboats. These desperatemeasures could not prevail, however,and the United States seized an es-sential base for the planned invasionof Japan.

In the Marianas, Marines on Tin-ian witnessed the takeoff on 6 Au-gust of the B-29 Enola Gay, whichdropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshi-ma. Three days later, another B-29,also from Tinian's North Field,dropped a second atomic bomb onNagasaki. The shock of the atomicweapons, the entry of the Soviet Un-ion into the war against Japan, thecumulative effects of attritionthroughout the vast Pacific, monthsof conventional bombing of theHome Islands, and an ever-tighteningsubmarine blockade forced Japan tosurrender. Members of the 8th An-

tiaircraft Artillery Battalion onOkinawa recall tracking the last airattack of the war, a raid that turnedback short of the target when theJapanese government agreed to sur-render. The formal cessation ofhostilities, effective 15 August 1945,also put an end to the systematicmopping-up in northern Okinawa.The dour prediction of the early daysin the South Pacific "Golden Gate in'48:' gave way to a new slogan,"Home Alive in '45." The actualhomecoming would be delayed,however, for those Marines sched-uled for occupation duty in Japan orNorth China.

Defense battalions deployed ear-ly and often throughout the Pacificcampaigns, serving in a succession of

distant places, some dangerous,others boring. They did not benefitfrom post-battle rest— though fewrest areas lived up to their name —nor were their accommodations com-parable to those of an aircraft wingsharing the same location. The Ma-rines of the defense battalions en-dured isolation, sickness,monotonous food, and primitive liv-ing conditions for long periods, asthey engaged in the onerous task ofprotecting advance bases in areas thatby no stretch of the imaginationresembled tropical paradises. Afterputting up with these conditions formonths, many of these same Marineswent on to serve as replacements inthe six Marine divisions in actionwhen the war ended.

Throughout their existence, the

The 13th Defense Battalion passes in review at GuantananioBay, Cuba, in 1943. Marine historian and veteran defense bat-talion Marine Col Robert D. Heinl, Jr., described the men of

Marine Corps Historical Collection

these battalions, who often endured months of waiting pun c-tuated by days of savage action, as a "hard worked and frus-trated species." The 13th was shortly to deploy to the Pacific

defense battalions demonstrated a

28

fundamental lesson of the PacificWar— the need for teamwork. Asone Marine Corps officer has point-ed out, the Marine Corps portion ofthe victorious American team was "it-self the embodiment of unification."The Corps had "molded itself into theteam concept without the slightestdifficulty. . . . Marine tank men, ar-tillerymen, and antiaircraft gunnersof the defense battalions, interestedonly in doing a good job, gave equalsupport to. . . [the] Army and Navy

Relations with other combat serv-ices, arms, and units defined the roleof the defense battalions in the Pa-cific, for they functioned as a part ofa combined effort at sea, in the air,and on the ground. During the war,there were examples of independentdeployment, as at Wake Island andMidway. It was equally common,however, for battalions or their com-ponents to serve with brigades or di-visions, as at Iceland, Samoa, orGuadalcanal, or to operate undercorps-level commands, as at New Ge-orgia. Finally, especially after thetransition to antiaircraft artillery bat-talions, the units tended to performbase-defense or garrison duty underthe Fleet Marine Force, Pacific. Theshift of the defense battalions fromfighting front to backwater of the warreflected changing strategic realityand not an arbitrary decision todeemphasize. Some of the Marinesin these units may have felt that thespotlight of publicity passed them byand focused on the assault troops,even though antiaircraft gunners andeven artillerymen sometimes accom-panied the early waves to an embat-tled beachhead, but the apportion-ment of press coverage stemmed fromthe composition of the Marine Corpsand the nature of the fighting.

Because the defense battalioncould train and serve as an essentiallyindependent organization, it becamea logical choice for the first African-American unit formed by the Ma-rines. Although segregation prevailed

in the Corps throughout World WarII, the creation of the 51st and 52dDefense Battalions signaled a breakwith racist practices and became amilestone on the road toward today'sracially integrated Marine Corps.

Colonel Robert D. Heinl, Jr., a Ma-rine historian who had helped shapethe concept of the defense battalionand served in one of the wartimeunits, described the members as a"hard-worked and frustrated species."He felt that the defense battalionsrepresented the culmination of Ma-rifle Corps thinking that could traceits evolutionary course back to theturn of the century. The weapons, ra-dars, and communications equip-ment in the battalions at timesrepresented the cutting edge of war-time technology, and the skill withwhich they were used paid tribute tothe training and discipline of themembers of these units. Charles A.Holmes, a veteran of the defense bat-talion that fought so gallantly atWake Island, said that, in his opin-ion, anyone could serve somewherein a division or aircraft wing, but "itwas an honor to have served in a spe-cial unit of the U.S. Marines."

Defense battalion war diaries,muster rolls, and the unit files heldby the Marine Corps HistoricalCenter provide the basis for the fol-lowing brief accounts of the serviceof the various defense battalions. Theactions of some units are welldocumented: for example, the 1stDefense Battalion on Wake Island in1941; the 6th at Midway in 1942; andthe 9th in the Central Solomons dur-ing 1943. Few of the battalionsreceived group recognition commen-surate with their contributions to vic-tory, although the 1st, 6th, and 9thwere awarded unit citations. Eachdefense battalion created its own dis-tinctive record as it moved from oneisland to another, but gaps and dis-crepancies persist nevertheless.

29

1st Defense Battalion(November 1939-May 1944)

The unit, formed at San Diego, California,deployed to the Pacific as one of the Rain-bow Five, the five defense battalions sta-tioned there in accordance with the Rainbow5 war plan when the Japanese attacked PearlHarbor. Under Lieutenant Colonel Bert A.Bone, elements of the battalion arrived inHawaii in March 1941. The unit provideddefense detachments for Johnston andPalmyra Islands in March and April of thatyear and for Wake Island in August. TheWake Island detachment of the 1st DefenseBattalion received the Presidential Unit Ci-tation for the defense of that outpost—whichearned the battalion the nickname "Wake Is-land Defenders"— and other elements dealtwith hit-and-run raids at Palmyra and John-ston Islands. In March 1942, the scattereddetachments became garrison forces and areconstituted battalion took shape in Hawaii.Command passed to Colonel Curtis W.LeGette in May 1942 and to LieutenantColonel John H. Griebel in September. Lieu-tenant Colonel Frank P. Hager exercised com-mand briefly; his successor, Colonel Lewis H.Hohn, took the unit to Kwajalein and Eniwe-tok, in the Marshall Islands, in February1944. The following month found the bat-talion on Majuro, also in the Marshalls,where it became the 1st Antiaircraft ArtilleryBattalion on 7 May 1944, under the com-mand of Lieutenant Colonel Jean H. Buck-ner. As an antiaircraft unit, it served as partof the Guam garrison, remaining on the is-land through 1947.

2d Defense Battalion(March 1940-April 1944)

The battalion was formed at San Diego,California, under Lieutenant Colonel Bert A.Bone. By the time the unit deployed toHawaii in December 1941, five officers hadexercised command; Major Lewis A. Hohntook over from Colonel Bone in July 1940,followed in August of that year by ColonelThomas F. Bourke, in November 1940 byLieutenant Colonel Charles I. Murray, andin February 1941 by Lieutenant Colonel Ray-mond E. Knapp. Under Knapp, who receiveda promotion to colonel, the battaliondeployed in January 1942 from Hawaii toTutuila, Samoa. Lieutenant Colonel NormanE. True briefly took over, and Knapp succeed-ed him from October 1942 to May 1943, butTrue again commanded the battalion whenit deployed in November 1943 to TarawaAtoll in the Gilbert Islands. True remainedin command when the unit was redesignat-ed the 2d Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion on16 April 1944. The organization subsequent-ly served in Hawaii and Guam before land-

S —.a 't—r" M3Cs

0

National Archives Photo 127-N-62097

The Sperry 60-inch searchlight was employed by the 3d Defense Battalion bothto illuminate incoming enemy aircraft and to spot approaching surface vessels.

to Guadalcanal in September 1943 and inNovember of that year, while commanded byLieutenant Colonel Edward H. Forney, land-ed at Bougainville, remaining in the north-ern Solomons until June 1944. Redesignatedthe 3d Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion on 15June 1944, the organization was disbandedat Guadalcanal on the last day of that year.

4th Defense Battalion(February 1940-May 1944)

na, with Lieutenant Colonel Robert H. Pep- Marines of the 7th Defense Battalion, one of the "Rainbow Five," give their newper in command, the battalion deployed in M3 Stuart light tank a trial run at Tutuila, American Samoa, in the summer of 1942.May 1940 to Hawaii where it became one of Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 54082the Rainbow Five. Colonel Harry K. Picketttook command in August of that year, andin September approximately a third of thebattalion, under Major Harold C. Roberts,went to Midway and assumed responsibilityfor the antiaircraft defense of the atoll. Lieu-tenant Colonel Pepper brought the rest of theunit to Midway in 1941, but the battalionreturned to Hawaii in October and helped de-fend Pearl Harbor when the Japanese at-tacked on 7 December. A detachment of37mm guns and the 3-inch antiaircraft groupjoined the 6th Defense Battalion at Midway,opposed the Japanese air attack on 4 June1942, and shared in a Navy Unit Commen-dation awarded the 6th Battalion for thedefense of that atoll. In August 1942, the bat-talion, still led by Lieutenant Colonel Pep-per, participated in the landings atGuadalcanal and Tulagi in the Solomon Is-lands. During 1943, the unit experienced achange of commanders, with Harold C.Roberts, now a lieutenant colonel, takingover in March 1943, Lieutenant Colonel Ken-neth W. Benner in May, and LieutenantColonel Samuel C. Taxis in August. After astay in New Zealand, the battalion returned

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The organization took shape at Parris Is-land, South Carolina, under Major GeorgeE Good, Jr.; Colonel Lloyd L. Leech took overin April; and Lieutenant Colonel Jesse L. Per-kins in December 1940. Colonel William H.Rupertus commanded the unit when itdeployed in February 1941 to defend thenaval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Un-der Colonel Harold S. Fasset, the battalionarrived in the Pacific in time to become oneof the Rainbow Five. Its strength was divid-ed between Pearl Harbor and Midway, andhelped defend both bases against Japanese at-tacks on 7 December. The unit deployed inMarch 1942 to Efate and Espiritu Santo in theNew Hebrides. It moved in July 1943 to NewZealand and then to Guadalcanal beforelanding in August 1943 at Vella Lavella insupport of the I Marine Amphibious Corps.After becoming the 4th Antiaircraft ArtilleryBattalion on 15 May 1944, the unit returnedto Guadalcanal in June but ended the war onOkinawa, arriving there in April 1945.

5th Defense Battalion(December 1940-April 1944)

Organized at Parris Island, South Caroli-na, under Colonel Lloyd L. Leech, the 5thDefense Battalion subsequently became the14th Defense Battalion, thus earning the un-

ing on Okinawa in April 1945. It returnedto the United States in 1946 and was deac-tivated.

3d Defense Battalion(October 1939-June 1944)

Activated at Parris Island, South Caroli-

I

official title of "Five: Fourteenth." ColonelLeech took the 5th Defense Battalion (minusthe 5-inch artillery group) to Iceland with theMarine brigade sent there to relieve the Brit-ish garrison. He brought the unit back to theUnited States in March 1942, and in July itsailed for the South Pacific, where onedetachment set up its weapons at Noumea,New Caledonia, and another defended Tulagiin the Solomons after the 1st Marine Divi-sion landed there in August 1942. The bulkof the battalion went to the Ellice Islands;there Colonel George F. Good, Jr., assumedcommand in November, and was relieved inDecember by Lieutenant Colonel Willis E.Hicks. On 16 January 1943, the part of theunit located at Tulagi was redesignated the14th Defense Battalion, while the remainderin the Ellice group became the MarineDefense Force, Funafuti. In March 1944, theMarine Defense Force, Funafuti, sailed forHawaii, where, on 16 April, it became the5th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion, seeing ac-tion under the designation during the latterstages of the Okinawa campaign.

6th Defense Battalion(March 1941-February 1946)

Lieutenant Colonel Charles I. Murrayformed the battalion at San Diego, Califor-nia, but turned it over to Colonel RaphaelGriffin, who took it to Hawaii in July 1941.It relieved the 3d Defense Battalion at Mid-way in September. In June 1942, the 6th, nowcommanded by Lieutenant Colonel HaroldD. Shannon, helped fight off a Japanese airattack and repair bomb damage, thus earn-ing a Navy Unit Commendation. The bat-talion remained at Midway until redesignatedMarine Barracks, Naval Base, Midway, on 1February 1946. The wartime commanderswho succeeded Shannon were LieutenantColonels Lewis A. Hohn, Rupert R. Deese,John H. Griebel, Charles T. Tingle, Frank P.Hager, Jr., Robert L. McKee, Herbert R. Nus-baum, and Wilfred Weaver, and MajorRobert E. Hommel.

7th Defense Battalion(December 1940-April 1944)

Lieutenant Colonel Lester A. Dessezformed the unit at San Diego, California, asa composite battalion of infantry and ar-tillery. In March 1941, he took the outfit toTutuila, Samoa, as one of the Rainbow Five.The 7th later deployed to Upolu and estab-lished a detachment at Savaii. Colonel Cur-tis W. LeGette took command in December1942, and in August of the following year,the battalion moved to Nanoumea in the El-lice Islands in preparation for supportingoperations against the Gilbert Islands. Lieu-tenant Colonel Henry R. Paige took over inDecember 1943 and brought the unit to

Hawaii where, on 16 April 1944, it becamethe 7th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion. Asan antiaircraft outfit, it deployed to Anguar,Palau Islands, in September 1944, where itserved in the garrison force for the remainderof the war.

8th Defense Battalion(April 1942-April 1944)

Lieutenant Colonel Augustus W. Cockrellraised this battalion from Marine units atTutuila, Samoa. In May 1942, the battaliondeployed to the Wallis Islands, where it wasredesignated the Island Defense Force. Lieu-tenant Colonel Earl A. Sneeringer assumedcommand for two weeks in August 1943 be-fore turning the unit over to Colonel ClydeH. Hartsel. Colonel Lloyd L. Leech becamebattalion commander in October 1943, amonth before the unit deployed to Apama-ma in the Gilberts. On 16 April 1944, aftermoving to Hawaii, the organization becamethe 8th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion and,as such, took part in the Okinawa campaign,remaining on the island until November 1945when the unit returned to the United States.

9th Defense Battalion(February 1942-September 1944)

Formed at Parris Island, South Carolina,and known as the "Fighting Ninth," the bat-talion was first commanded by Major Wal-lace 0. Thompson, who brought it to Cubawhere it helped defend the Guantanamonaval base. Lieutenant Colonel BernardDubel and his successor, Colonel David R.Nimmer, commanded the battalion while itserved in Cuba, and Nimmer remained incommand when the unit landed in Novem-

31

ber 1942 to reinforce the defenses of Guadal-canal. In preparation for further action, thebattalion emphasized mobility and artillerysupport of ground operations at the expenseof its coastal defense mission. LieutenantColonel William Scheyer commanded the 9thduring the fighting in the central Solomons.Here it set up antiaircraft guns and heavy ar-tillery on Rendova to support the fighting onneighboring New Georgia before moving toNew Georgia itself and deploying its lighttanks and other weapons. The battalion'stanks also supported Army troops on Arun-del Island. Lieutenant Colonel Archie E.O'Neil was in command when the unit land-ed at Guam on D-Day, 21 July 1944. The bat-talion was awarded the Navy UnitCommendation for its service in action atGuadalcanal, Rendova, New Georgia, andGuam. Redesignated the 9th Antiaircraft Ar-tillery Battalion in September 1944, the unitreturned to the United States in 1946.

10th Defense Battalion(June 1942-May 1944)

Formed under Colonel Robert Blake at SanDiego, California, the Unit arrived in theSolomon Islands in February 1943, and par-ticipated in the defense of Tulagi in that groupand Banika in the Russell Islands. The bat-talion's light tanks saw action on New Ge-orgia and nearby Arundel Island. UnderLieutenant Colonel Wallace 0. Thompson,who assumed command in July 1943, the10th landed at Eniwetok, Marshall Islands,in February 1944. The unit was redesignat-ed the 10th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalionon 7 May 1944.

Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 56812This Browning M2 watercoo led antiaircraft machine gun, operated by 9th DefenseBattalion Marines, shot down the first attacking Japanese aircraft at Rendova.

11th Defense Battalion(June 1942-May 1944)

This battalion was activated at Parris Is-land, South Carolina, under Colonel CharlesN. Muidrow and deployed during December1942 to Efate in the New Hebrides. Beginningin January 1943, it helped defend Tulagi inthe Solomons and Banika in the Russellsgroup. During the Central Solomons cam-paign, it fought on Rendova, New Georgia,and Arundel Islands. In August, the entirebattalion came together on New Georgia andin March 1944 deployed the short distanceto Arundel Island. Redesignated the 11th An-tiaircraft Artillery Battalion on 16 May 1944,the unit moved in July to Guadalcanal whereit was deactivated by year's end.

12th Defense Battalion(August 1942-June 1944)

Colonel William H. Harrison activated thisunit at San Diego, California, and took it toHawaii in January 1943. After a brief stayin Australia, the 12th landed in June 1943 atWoodlark Island off New Guinea. Next the12th took part in the assault on Cape Glou-cester, New Britain in December 1943. Lieu-tenant Colonel Merlyn D. Holmes assumedcommand in February 1944, and on 15 Junethe defense battalion was redesignated the12th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion. Itmoved to the Russell Islands in June and inSeptember to Peleliu, where it remainedthrough 1945.

13th Defense Battalion(September 1942-April 1944)

Colonel Bernard Dubel formed the battal-ion at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where itdefended the naval base throughout the war.In February 1944, Colonel Richard M. Cutts,Jr., took command. The unit became the 13thAntiaircraft Artillery Battalion on 15 Apriland was disbanded after the war.

14th Defense Battalion(January 1943-September 1944)

Colonel Galen M. Sturgis organized thisbattalion from the elements of the 5thDefense Battalion on Tulagi, which inspiredthe nickname "Five: Fourteenth:' LieutenantColonel Jesse L. Perkins took command inJune 1943, and during his tour of duty, thebattalion operated on Tulagi and sent adetachment to Emirau, St. Mathias Islands,to support a landing there in March 1944.Lieutenant Colonel William F. Parks tookover from Perkins that same month and inApril brought the unit to Guadalcanal to pre-pare for future operations. The organization

landed at Guam in July and in September be-came the 14th Antiaircraft Artillery Battal-ion, remaining on the island until after thewar had ended.

15th Defense Battalion(October 1943-May 1944)

Organized in Hawaii by LieutenantColonel Francis B. Loomis, Jr., from the 1stAirdrome Battalion at Pearl Harbor, the unitbore the nickname "First: Fifteenth:' Begin-ning in January 1944, it served at Kwajaleinand Majuro Atolls in the Marshalls. Lieu-tenant Colonel Peter J. Negri assumed com-mand in May 1944, shortly before the unit,on the 7th of that month, became the 15thAntiaircraft Artillery Battalion.

16th Defense Battalion(November 1942-April 1944)

Lieutenant Colonel Richard P. Ross, Jr.,formed the unit on Johnston Island from ele-ments of the 1st Defense Battalion that hadbeen stationed there. Lieutenant ColonelBruce T. Hemphill took over in July 1943 andturned the unit over to Lieutenant ColonelAugust F. Penzold, Jr., in March of the fol-lowing year. Redesignated the 16th Antiair-craft Artillery Battalion on 19 April 1944, theoutfit went to Hawaii by the end of August.It subsequently deployed to Tinian, remain-ing there until moving to Okinawa in April1945.

17th Defense Battalion(March 1944-April 1944)

At Kauai in Hawaii, Lieutenant ColonelThomas C. McFarland organized this unitfrom the 2d Airdrome Battalion, which hadreturned from duty in the Ellice Islands. Theredesignation gave rise to the nickname 'Two:Seventeen;' and the motto "One of a Kind:'On 19 April, the defense battalion becamethe 17th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion. Itmoved to Saipan in July and to Tinian in Au-gust, At the latter island, it provided antiair-craft defense for both Tinian Town andNorth Field, from which B-29s took off withthe atomic bombs that leveled Hiroshima andNagasaki.

18th Defense Battalion(October 1943-April 1944)

Activated at New River, North Carolina,by Lieutenant Colonel Harold C. Roberts,who was replaced in January 1944 by Lieu-tenant Colonel William C. Van Ryzin, theunit became the 18th Antiaircraft ArtilleryBattalion on 16 May of that year. By August,echelons of the battalion were located at Sai-pan and Tinian, but by September it had

come together on the latter island, where itremained until the end of the war.

51st Defense Battalion(August 1942-January 1946)

Organized at Montford Point Camp, NewRiver, North Carolina, this was the first oftwo defense battalions commanded by whiteofficers, but organized from among African-American Marines who had trained at Mont-ford Point. Colonel Samuel Woods, Jr., whocommanded the Montford Point Camp,formed the battalion and became its firstcommanding officer. Lieutenant Colonel Wil-liam B. Onley took over in March 1943 andLieutenant Colonel Floyd A. Stephenson inApril. The initial plan called for the 51st tobe a composite unit with infantry and pack-howitzer elements, but in June 1943 it becamea conventional defense battalion. LieutenantCurtis W. LeGette assumed command inJanuary 1944 and took the battalion to

Nanoumea and Funafuti in the Ellice Islands,where it arrived by the end of February 1944.In September, the 51st deployed to Eniwetokin the Marshalls where, in December, Lieu-tenant Colonel Gould P. Groves became bat-talion commander, a post he would holdthroughout the rest of the war. In June 1945,Lieutenant Colonel Groves dispatched a com-posite group to provide antiaircraft defensefor Kwajalein Atoll. The battalion sailed fromthe Marshalls in November 1945 and dis-banded at Montford Point in January 1946.

52d Defense Battalion(December 1943-May 1946)

This unit, like the 51st, was organized atMontford Point Camp, New River, NorthCarolina, and manned by African Americanscommanded by white officers. Planned as acomposite unit, the 52d took shape as a con-ventional defense battalion, It absorbed thepack howitzer crews made surplus when the51st lost its composite status and retrainedthem in the employment of other weapons.Colonel Augustus W. Cockrell organized theunit, which he turned over to LieutenantColonel Joseph W. Earnshaw in July 1944.Under Earnshaw, the 52d the unit deployedto the Marshalls, arriving in October to manthe antiaircraft defenses of Majuro Atoll andRoi-Namur in Kwajalein Atoll. LieutenantColonel David W. Silvey assumed commandin January 1945, and between March andMay the entire battalion deployed to Guam,remaining there for the rest of the war. Lieu-tenant Colonel Thomas C. Moore, Jr.,replaced Silvey in May 1945, and in Novem-ber, the 52d relieved the 51st at Kwajalein andEniwetok Atolls before returning to MontfordPoint; where in May 1946 it became the 3dAntiaircraft Artillery Battalion (Composite).

32 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1996 386-768/20003

SourcesThe basic sources for this pamphlet

are the five volumes of the History ofU.S. Marine Corps Operations in WorldWar II. Other books that contributed tothe narrative include: Jane Blakeny,Heroes, U.S. Marine Corps, 1861-1 955(Washington: privately printed, 1957);Antiaircraft Defense (Harrisburg, Penn-sylvania: Military Service PublishingCompany, 1940); Robert D. Heinl, Jr.,Soldiers of the Sea (Annapolis,Maryland: U.S. Naval Institute Press,1962); Uncommon Valor (Washington:Infantry Journal Press, 1946); OrdnanceSchool, Handbook of Ordnance Materi-al (Aberdeen, Maryland: AberdeenProving Ground, 1944); Patrick O'Sheeland Gene Cook, eds., Sem per Fidelis(New York: William Sloane, 1947);Robert Sherrod, History of MarineCorps Aviation in World War II(Washington: Combat Forces Press,1952); Stanley E. Smith, ed., The Unit-ed States Marine Corps in World War II(New York: Random House, 1969);Carolyn A. Tyson, A Chronology of theUnited States Marine Corps, 1935-1946(Washington: Historical Division,HQMC, 1965); and Charles Updegraph,Jr., U.S. Marine Corps Special Units ofWorld War II (Washington: HistoricalDivision, HQMC, 1972).

Available in the archives at the Ma-rine Corps Historical Center is an im-pressive body of primary source materialprepared by individual defense battal-ions during the Pacific War. Also in theMarine Corps Historical Center are theOral History and Personal Papers Col-lections, containing many first-hand ac-counts of World War II.

The author wishes to thank membersof defense battalion reunion groups andassociatioñs, who provided letters,manuscripts, recollections, and photo-graphs to aid in the writing of this sto-ry. Especially helpful were FrankChadwick, Curtis Cheatham, and JimPowers. Special recognition also goes toMary Beth Straight, U.S. Naval Institute;Alice S. Creighton, the Nimitz Library;Lena M. Kaljot, Marine Corps Histori-cal Center; the staff of the HistoricalElectronics Museum, Inc.; and David A.Melson for their help with the photo-graphs.

M ajor Charles D. Melson, USMC (Ret), wasborn in the San Francisco Bay area. He is

married to Janet Ann Pope, a former Navy nurse,and has two children, David and Katie. MajorMelson completed his graduate training at St.John's College, Annapolis, Maryland. He iscoauthor of The War That Would Not End, avolume in the official history of Marine Corpsoperations in Vietnam, and contributed to U.S.Marines in the Persian Gulf, an anthology. He

also wrote Up the Slot: Marines in the Central Solomons, another pamphlet inthe World War II commemorative series.

A Marine for 25 years, 1967-1992, Major Melson served in Vietnam, during theGulf War, and carried out a variety of assignments in the Fleet Marine Force. Healso taught at the United States Naval Academy and served at Headquarters, U.S.Marine Corps. For six years, he was a historian at the Marine Corps HistoricalCenter, Washington Navy Yard, and he continues to deal with the past as a writerand teacher.

PCN 190 003133 00

945 .ØWORLD WAR IITHIS PAMPHLET HISTORY, one in a series devoted to U.S. Marines in theWorld War II era, is published for the education and training of Marines bythe History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps,Washington, D.C., as a part of the U.S. Department of Defense observanceof the 50th anniversary of victory in that war.

Editorial costs of preparing this pamphlet have been defrayed in part bygrants from the Special Marine Corps Units Fund, Defense Battalion Associ-ation; the Defense Battalion Association; Mr. Charles L. Henry, Jr.; the Ameri-can Lighting Company; Mr. James H. Powers; and the Marine Corps HistoricalFoundation.

WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIESDIRECTOR OF MARINE CORPS HISTORY AND MUSEUMS

Colonel Michael F. Monigan, USMCActing

GENERAL EDITOR,WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES

Benis M. Frank

CARTOGRAPHIC CONSULTANTGeorge C. MacGillivray

EDITING AND DESIGN SECTION, HISTORY AND MUSEUMS DIVISIONRobert E. Struder, Senior Editor; W. Stephen Hill, Visual Information

Specialist; Catherine A. Kerns, Composition Services Technician

Marine Corps Historical CenterBuilding 58, Washington Navy Yard

Washington, D.C. 20374-5040

1996

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