Attached File

Tarawa

Iwo Gima

About a zillion other island campaigns.

What was the Army Theatre of Operations for a thousand, Alex.

If it had been a Marine operation it would have been accomplished with half the equipment (older, obsolete equipment), with half the men inflicting twice the casualties on ze Germans in half the time.

The USMC was a little busy.....  

True story bro.

Unfortunately a lot of men drown too. Amphibious operations and shit. How does it work.

Feeling a little envious or perhaps some regret?

Yeah the Marines were off fighting unethical savages in jungle infested shit holes with their bayonets and kabars.  You know this, why try to stir the pot?  Fuck off.

Tarawa

Let me guess, " I would have joined the Marines but...".

Pretty good read on why that took place.

Marines at Normandy

During WW2 there were 89 U.S. Army divisions and six Marine divisions.

In June 1944, those six divisions were:
1.Recovering after heavy fighting in New Guinea.
2.About to be hurled into the Battle of Saipan.
3.Preparing to attack Guam.
4.About to join the 2nd Division in battle at Saipan.
5.In reserve during the Battle of Guam.
6.In the process of being formed in the Solomon Islands.

That said, there were some Marines who operated in a support capacity during the D-Day landings - amphibious assault training, sniping, pre-landing sabotage and reconnaissance, so forth. But Eisenhower barred the few Marines in his armada from landing - he didn't want the headlines to read "Handful of Marines Save Army From Disaster at Utah Beach." The Marines present numbered only in the hundreds, in any case.

The relocation of a Marine division to Europe would not have had a huge impact on the landings, given the numbers involved, but it would have dramatically slowed down the island-hopping campaign in the Pacific. Eisenhower only planned to be on the beach for one day. He planned to be fighting inland for months or years.

EDIT: A Marine Corps Gazette correspondent critiqued the performance of the D-Day invasion and the German defense in December 1944. He didn't slam Eisenhower for shutting out the Marines - but he made a point of noting that both the U.S. Army's commanders and their German counterparts failed to absorb the hard-won lessons of fighting in the Pacific.


Excerpt from: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1g1s56/why_didnt_the_marines_lead_the_dday_assault/

Truth... how the Marines accomplish what they do, with what they have, is amazing.

Yet, the operation had involvement in training and planning with Marine input, just like Marines had been running around Europe in the OSS making it safer for when the Army showed up. 

Weird thread.

Army didn’t want them in Europe.

This topic sucks. My granddad was a marine.  Killed a metric ton of the enemy all over the pacific.  

Willing to bet OP wasn't there either

We, the unwilling, being led by the unknowing, have been doing so much with so little for so long that we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.  Ooh-rah.

This


Txl

I heard they drowned because they were carrying heavy ass USP 45's.

Balderdash! Plastic floats!

With added dicks drawn in the sand

Thread not working out as a fine laid plan for OP

So, Armyman, why don't you want civilians to own machine guns?

“Before Richard “Hall” Jeschke helped plan the amphibious assault that led to the liberation of Europe during World War II, he tended flowers at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island.“Colonel Jaschke [sic], a strong believer in the beautification of Parris Island, superintends a central garden on the post were flowers are grown and then transplanted to brighten other areas,” David Robison wrote in a March 16, 1941, article in The State (S.C.) newspaper.

Some of his fellow  Marine Corps officers laughed at him for placing the garden in the middle of the depot, Robison continued. “Replied Colonel Jeschke: ‘I intend to keep my eye on those flowers and see that they get proper attention. I can do this if they are out in the open where I can pass them frequently — and I couldn’t do it if they were stuck away in some little corner.'”Jeschke, then Parris Island’s chief of staff for Major Gen. James C. Breckenridge, would step onto Omaha Beach in Normandy a little more than three years later on June 6, 1944.

More than 150,000 Allied troops landed on French beaches that day, according to Britain’s D-Day Museum. Of those, about 73,000 were Americans. And of those, just a handful were Marines.The Marines had gained notoriety for their exploits in the Pacific but numbered far fewer in the European theater, where the U.S. Army was concentrated.

Jeschke had led troops at Guadalcanal in 1942, according to the Corps’ “A Brief History of the 8th Marines.” And, as that history noted, he later “played an instrumental role in planning the invasions of Sicily in 1942 and Normandy in 1944.”According to retired Marine Lt. Col. Harry W. Edwards’ “A Different War: Marines in Europe and North Africa,” Jeschke was part of the Normandy amphibious assault and “subsequent operations” through July 1, 1944.“(Jeschke) made frequent liaison visits to front-line Army combat units ashore,” Edwards writes, “and was subsequently awarded the Legion of Merit for this service.”He was later invited back to Normandy by the French government to mark the 10-year anniversary of the landings, according to Devereux Oldfield Audilet, a 74-year-old resident of McLean, Va., and Jeschke’s granddaughter.He survived the war and died in December 1957 after retiring at the rank of brigadier general.....  “ — http://usmclife.com/2017/06/one-marine-helped-plan-d-day-amphibious-assault/

Plus, there'd be an awful lot of French baby boomers running around today with a craving for crayons after the Marines ran through the local bars.

Its gotta be rough with hand-me-down Ospreys and 416s.

LoL.... Not even half, by a very long shot ;-)


Attached File

The Operation Union II team the day after the jump into occupied France, Aug. 2, 1944. From left: Sgt. John Bodnar, Maj. Peter J. Ortiz, Sgt. Robert LaSalle, Sgt. Fred Brunner, Capt. Frank Coolidge, and Sgt. Jack Risler. All except Coolidge were Marines. Photo courtesy of Laura Lacey

https://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/the-incredible-saga-of-col-peter-j-ortiz/

Thread just got interesting.

Also, Adam, calm down on your YouTube posting. I keep seeing ya.

Frogmen went first.

German bunkers, smashed panzers, doors to French wine cellars, Berchtesgaden, Hitler's forehead...


And before anyone gets too butthurt, heroes everywhere, we all stand on the shoulders of those who came before us.

What's up with the "Day 1" stuff, archer?

I normally prefer hanging out with Army grunts than Marine pouges.

Normally because they don't act like whiny boots.

FDR could have sent a platoon of Marines to save Europe, but Great Britain did not want all those Army personnel sitting around England for the next two months while the Marines liberated Europe.

If only there were 96 divisions of Marines instead of soldiers. War would have been won much faster.


And taken Moscow in winter.

No Amtracs no care.

Truer words have never been spoken!

Semper fi!!

YouTube

I work with the Army every day (and I do indeed love my job), but I have to disagree.

They don't have the problems that the USAF and USN do, but the USMC they aren't.  Nor will they ever be.

I love my Army friends, but when we start swapping stories it's like "WTF, apparently I picked challenge mode". 

God Bless the greatest generation!

There's quite a few threads started about "I talked to a recruiter!" Or "I've made up my mind to join the military!" and the OPs seek advice or look for pats on the back. I'll keep the thread alive with a running tally to keep up with their progress. Some threads are close to a birthday already. Ill stop posting the day count when they actually get in, but I haven't had to do that yet because no one who has started that type of thread has followed through.

TLDR: I'll stop counting the days in your thread when you enlist. Also, why not ask in the actual thread I posted it in?

Because mah feels......

English hospitals also couldn't staff their maternity wards adequately with that many Marines on the island.  True story.

^^^
This.  I’ll take Army Grunts over Marine POGs all day, every day.  Have had the opportunity to work with 11B’s from various units.  Those guys are all more rifleman than any POG could ever pretend to be.

And anyways a big portion of that inter-service stuff is a spot on way to be identified as a boot or a Marine who spent their years perfecting field day...  No one really cares anymore.

The Marine Corps had business elsewhere.

Intra service flame wars are gay as fuck.