Fleet Marine Force

In the summer of 1950, the entire corps had about 74,000 Marines on active duty scattered across ships, security posts, bases, and training stations around the world.

Just over a third of them belonged to the Fleet Marine Force, its fighting arm.

The First Marine Division, the Corps' main force in the Pacific, had fewer than eight thousand marines, a fraction of its wartime strength.

The Second Marine Division on the East Coast was only slightly larger.

The Corps had no units of any size in the Far East.

What it did have was a commandant eager to act.

Cates briefed the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Forrest Sherman, on what the Marine Corps could offer and urged that the Fleet Marine Force be used.

Sherman passed the offer to General Douglas MacArthur in Tokyo, who had just returned from a discouraging look at the front.

You're fine.

They tell you to ignore that, and then you go to infantry school and they say, "Ignore all of that bullshit." Uh, and then you get to the Fleet Marine Force.

When I got to the Fleet Marine Force, all of those guys had just come back from the Gulf War.

Um, so you know, Chesty Puller once said, you know, "Take me to the brig, I wanna see real Marines." So we got to the barracks, uh, on a Friday just after they secured for liberty.

So, uh, Staff Sergeant Chris Yates was my first platoon sergeant in the Marine Corps.

So as we're running up this hill, all of these Gulf War veterans, these guys that we were so looking forward to meeting, they're falling out of the run.

They're vomiting.

I'm like, "These guys are shit bags." Uh, so that was my first introduction to the Fleet Marine Force, like, literally a m- like, within weeks of them coming back from, from the Gulf.

As his term as Commandant came to a close, Ben Fuller was able to effect a far-reaching change that John Russell was to carry further into execution.

In December 1933, with the approval of the Secretary of the Navy, Fuller redesignated the existing Marine Expeditionary Forces on both coasts as the Fleet Marine Force, FMF, to be a type command of the U.S. Fleet.

Building on the infantrymen of the 5th Marines at Quantico and those of the 6th Marines at San Diego, two brigades came into being which were the precursors of the 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions of World War II.

In keeping with the times, Commandant Russell could point out the next year that he had only 3,000 Marines available to man the FMF, but the situation would improve as Marines returned from overseas stations.

San Diego's recruit depot was crowded with men striving to become Marines, but it no longer had to call on the Second Division for extra drill instructors as it had often in 1940 after the president declared a national emergency and the recruiting stations were flooded with applicants.

The recruit training cycle, down to as few as twenty-four days on both coasts in 1940, was fairly stable at seven weeks, with three on the rifle range.

The Fleet Marine Force units in the west, like those in the east, were itching for action, although the commandant noted at the time that Marines still needed to train further for combat, a quite different situation.

Most of the planes and crewmen of the Second Wing were already at least as far west as Hawaii.

Maybe he'll come back to, come back to Mayberry for a little while.

Yeah, after a brief leave, he will report to Camp Henderson on the West Coast, where he'll become part of the Fleet Marine Force.

Oh.

He's going to the West Coast.

I get it in my contract.

James said, specifically make sure that you have it in your contract that says Fleet Marine Force.

You want to be FMF

8404 corpsman.

So that's how that happened.

That's the story of how I joined the military.

Um, and became a fleet Marine force corpsman.

So I had good guidance growing up.

By late January, less than two months after opening, it was pushing 500 out the door.

The Fleet Marine Force in the Pacific had led the main attacks during the war.

Demobilization affected it more than any other part of the Corps.

Over a year and a half, about three Marines left for every new arrival.

Demand stayed high throughout the year, and the Marines with the most experience were often the ones with enough points to leave.

The Navy's basic post-war plan set the Corps' strength at 108,200 Marines, and from it, Vandegrift drew four peacetime missions.

Maintain a balanced fleet Marine force ready to seize or defend advanced naval bases.

Keep refining amphibious warfare.

He was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1905.

There followed a series of overseas assignments in the Philippines, Nicaragua, Santo Domingo, and with the Marine Brigade in France in World War I. beginning in the early nineteen thirties he became increasingly focused on the development of amphibious warfare concepts soon after the outbreak of war with japan in nineteen forty one he came to a crucial position command of all marines in the central pacific as another marine officer later described him he was of medium height perhaps five feet nine or ten inches and somewhat paunchy his once black hair had turned gray his once close-trimmed mustache was somewhat scraggly he wore steel-rimmed glasses and he smoked cigars incessantly there was one other feature that characterized him a ferocious temper that earned him the nickname howlin mad smith although his close friends knew him as this characteristic would usually emerge as irritation at what he felt were substandard performances one famous example of this was his relief of an army general in saipan a huge inter-service uproar erupted less than two years later after forty-one years of active service during which he was awarded four distinguished service medals for his leadership in four successive successful amphibious operations he retired in april nineteen forty six as a four-star general he died in january nineteen sixty seven the second marine division The origins of this division lay in the activation of the 2nd Marine Brigade as part of the Fleet Marine Force on 1 July 1936.

A year later, the brigade deployed to Shanghai, China, returning in 1938 to San Diego, California.

On 1 February 1941, the unit was redesignated as the 2nd Marine Division.

Naval gunships bombarded Eratica Island, well away from the troops' landing at Mele Bay.

one overlooked aspect of the rehearsal paid subsequent dividends for the marines in the coming assault major william k willie k jones commanding l t one six took the opportunity to practice embarking his troops in rubber rafts In the pre-war Fleet Marine Force, the 1st Battalion in each regiment had been designated the Rubber Boat Battalion.

The uncommon sight of this mini-flotilla inspired numerous catcalls from other Marines.

Jones himself was dubbed the Admiral of the Condom Fleet.

He graduated from the Naval War College in 1917 and, as did many other frustrated Marine Corps officers, spent the duration of World War I in Quantico.

As were shipmates Colonel Merritt A. Edson and Major Henry P. Crowe, Smith was a distinguished marksman and former rifle team coach.

Command experience in the Fleet Marine Force, FMF, was limited.

He commanded the 5th Marines in 1938, and he was commanding officer of the FMF training school at New River until being ordered to the 2nd Marine Division in May 1943.