The Battle that made the Marines.

Hearing phrases like over the top, machine gun nests, and barrage bring to mind the valor of our WWI heroes, in the Army and Marines. I have a copy of one of the letter's my grandfather wrote, describing his advance under enemy artillery, while serving as an Army draftee. The world has taken little note nor long remembered what they did over there, so thanks for the timely reminder...

 

The U. S. Marines were at first patterned after the British marines, which were mostly soldiers stationed on ships, Their main duty was close-quarter combat, firing rifles & small arms at personnel on enemy ships, & dealing with enemy boarders, freeing the sailors to man the cannons & run the ship, & forming boarding parties of their own. And during a battle, they made sure sailors didn't desert their posts. And they were often part of parties sentonto land to storm an enemy camp, etc.

Our Marine Corp was formed in 1775. While Belleau Wood established the MODERN Marines, the battle that made sure the Corps would remain part of our military was that of Derna, in Tripoli, in 1805. A band of Marines & mercenaries, led by Lieut. William Eaton, marched 521 miles across the desert from Alexandria, Egypt to make a surprise assault upon a much-larger force of Barbary pirates who'd seized the crew of the USS Philadelphia. The Marines won a decisive victory, made the ruler of Derna surrender & hand his sword to Eaton, & freed the crew of the "Philadelphia".

That victory is memorialized in the Marine hymn in the line, "To The Shores Of Tripoli". The sword surrendered to Eaton became the model for the current Marine dress sword.

And the battle that "sealed the deal" for the USMC becoming its own branch was, of course, Iwo Jima. Secy. of the Navy James Forrestal, seeing the US flag raised on Mt. Suribachi, said To Marine CO Gen. "Howlin' Mad" Smith, "The raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next 500 years!"

 

My father was an Army Sargent cook, who saw Omaha beach and battle of Bulge!
Youngest son now Mortar man in the Marines....

 

Some of the most-arrogant people I met in the service were Marine pilots.

The skipper of our ship wouldn'tpermit any of the usual trading of insults between sailors & Marines. Mop-pushers, seagoing bellhops, etc. as well as many vulgar ones) He said, "You may cuss & badmouth anybody's military all ya want, but on THIS ship arre US Sailors & US Marines, & you're all on the same side, same as your arms & legs are part of the same body." (He believed there were 2 kinds of people on earth-Americans & a common 12-letter scatology that starts with "m". He said our job was to kill every M on water our leadership wants killed, & whatever we did on his ship was in preparation for that task if it developed.)

As a corpsman in Nam, I dug lots of metal outta wounded Marines No one will badmouth them to me!