Not since the Spartans has a band of warriors had such a reputation for ferocity in battle and generosity at home. A breed apart, the Marines represent a fine distillation of what can be sustained by the fruit of democracy. The Marine Corps exists for two reasons alone: Making Marines, and Winning Battles.
I have always loved the imagery and cadence in the writing of John W. Thomason, a Marine Captain in World War I with the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. His book, Fix Bayonets, if some of the finest American writing (and battlefield sketches) to come out of that war, and his essay, Leathernecks, excerpted below, is a great example.
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LEATHERNECKSby John W. Thomason
THEY tell the tale of an American lady of notable good works, much esteemed by the French, who, at the end of June, 1918, visited one of the field hospitals behind Degoutte's Sixth French Army. Degoutte was fighting on the face of the Marne salient, and the 2d American Division, then in action around the Bois de Belleau, northeast of Chateau Thierry, was under his orders. It happened that occasional casualties of the Marine Brigade of the 2d American Division, wounded toward the flank where Degoutte's own horizon-blue infantry joined on, were picked up by French stretcher-bearers and evacuated to French hospitals. And this lady, looking down a long, crowded ward, saw on a pillow a face unlike the fiercely whiskered Gallic heads there displayed in rows. She went to it.
"Oh," she said, "surely you are an American!"
"No, ma'am," the casualty answered. I'm a Marine."
It is a pleasure to record that they found good company in the U. S. Army. The 2d Division (U. S. Regular was the official designation) was composed of the 9th and 23d Infantry, two old regiments with names from all of our wars on their battle-flags, the 2d Regiment of Engineers-and engineers are always good-and the 12th, 15th, and 17th Field Artillery. It was a division distinguished by the quality of dash and animated by an especial pride of service. It carried to a high degree esprit de corps, which some Frenchman has defined as esteeming your own corps and looking down on all the other corps. And although it paid heavily in casualties for the things it did-in five months about 100 per cent-the 2d Division never lost its professional character.
Seven years after, across the world from France, I met a major of the American General Staff, who was on the Paris-Metz road that last week in May, 1918, and saw the Marine Brigade. "They looked fine, coming in there," he said. "Tall fellows, healthy and fit-they looked hard and competent. We watched you going in, through those little tired Frenchmen, and we all felt better. We knew something was going to happen-" and we were silent, over Chilean wine, in a place on the South Pacific, thinking of those days and those men.
There is no sight in all the pageant of war like young, trained men going up to battle. The columns look solid and businesslike. Each battalion is an entity, 1,200 men of one purpose. They go on like a river that flows very deep and strong. Uniforms are drab these days, but there are points of light on the helmets and the bayonets, and light in the quick, steady eyes and the brown young faces, greatly daring. There is no singing-veterans know, and they do not sing much-and there is no excitement at all; they are schooled crafts-men going up to impose their will, with the tools of their trade, on another lot of fellows; and there is nothing to make a fuss about. Battles are not salubrious places, and every file knows that a great many more are going in than will come out again-but that goes along with the job. And they have no illusions about the job.
In Charles the Second's time the English formed the first sea regiment-soldiers equipped as infantry, to serve on the sea in the fleet; to clear with musketry the enemy's decks and fighting-tops when the ship's of the line went into close action; to go ashore, and take up positions when the naval forces seized a base preliminary to land operations of the army.
Here by the way, comes the quip of old time: "Tell it to the Marines." They relate of Charles the Second that at Whitehall a certain sea-captain, newly returned from the Western Ocean, told the king of flying fish, a thing never heard in old England. The king and the court were vastly amused. But, the naval fellow persisting, the Merry Monarch beckoned to a lean, dry colonel of the sea regiment, with a seamed mahogany face, and said, in effect: "Colonel, this tarry-breeks here makes sport with us stay-at-homes. He tells us of a miraculous fish that forsakes its element and flies like a bird over the water." "Sire," said the Colonel of Marines, "he tells a true thing. I myself have often seen those fish in your Majesty's seas around Barbados-...." "Well," decided Charles, "such evidence cannot be disputed. And hereafter, when we hear a strange thing, we will tell it to the Marines, for the Marines go everywhere and see everything, and if they say is is so, we will believe it!"
The Continental Congress, on 10 November, 1775, authorized a corps of American Marines. This was the first Federal armed force to be raised by the young nation, and it antedated both the Federal army and navy, which had until that time, been matters of individual commonwealths. And since that date Marines have participated honorably in all American wars, and in some affairs, more or less interesting, where powder was burnt but which do not rate as wars.
Captain Richard Dale's Marines served with John Paul Jones, and manned the fighting tops of his ship, the Bonhomme Richard. The task of the Marines was to shoot down on the enemy ships, attending, in particular, to enemy officers. When the crew of one ship boarded another, it was difficult or impossible to tell friend from foe from high above. For that reason Marines officers adopted the peculiar device that resembled an embroidered cross so that their marksmen could tell friend from foe. Look at any Marine officers barracks or dress hat. You'll continue to see that same device embroidered there as a tribute to those long ago Marines who fought so gallantly some two-hundred years ago. Marines love tradition.
Those Marines in the fighting tops were also tasked, when possible, to drop explosive devices on the decks, or better yet through the hatches of enemy ships. Such a device thrown from the fighting tops of the Richard set off the powder-magazine of H. M. S. Serapis. This event turned the tide of events in favor of the poor old Richard, in the fight off Flamborough Head. There were United States Marines in Barney's naval force, formed across the Bladensburg Road, when Admiral Cockburn's people marched to burn Washington; and they stayed there until the line was turned by British regulars and they were all, including Barney, casualties; it was the only material resistance the British met. Marines marched to Mexico City in 1846; the red stripe on the blue trousers of officers and non-commissioned officers commemorates to this day service in that war. Marines served in the Civil War very widely: Marines died on Henry Hill at First Manassas and on the fire-swept beaches in front of Fort Fisher, and on the Mississippi around Vicksburg and Island No. 10. Colonel Huntington's Marines took Guantanamo, landing from the U. S. S. Marblehead in 1898. They marched to Peking in 1900, and were in the legation guard shut up there during the Boxer trouble. Cuba knows them, and the Philippines. They were ashore at Vera Cruz in 1914; every uneasy and volatile Wet Indian and Central American republic has become acquainted with them in a professional way, and their appearance at storm centers has always produced very presently a sweet tranquility. The navy takes them there, and sends bluejackets and chow along always. Every capital ship carries a guard of them. Aboard ship, besides forming the nucleus of the ship's landing force, they man the secondary batteries, the five-inch guns; furnish guards of honor for the comings and goings of the admiral and distinguished visitors, and so forth; perform all manner of curious and annoying details; and post ship's sentries whose meticulous ideas about the enforcement of orders lacerate the souls of jolly mariners, seamen, and engineer ratings. Normally, the strength of the corps is twenty per cent of the navy; just now there are about 19,000. They constitute an organization within an organization, with their own commandant, who functions under the Secretary of the Navy, as a separate and distinct service like the U. S. Navy, as in the past, in time of war, the U. S. Coast Guard. The rank and file are good enough Latinists to know what "Semper Fidelis"-which is their word-means; and any private will assure you the Marines are a corps d'elite.
In 1917, when trained Soldiers in the United States were at a premium, the Navy Department offered a Brigade of Marines for service in France; it was regarded desirable for Marine officers to have experience in large operations with the army; for it is certain that close co-operation between the army and the navy is a necessary thing in these days of far-flung battle lines. The British distress at Gallipoli is a crying witness to this principle. In a navy transport, therefore, U. S. S. Henderson, the 5th Regiment of Marines embarked for France in June, 1917,with the first armed American forces. The 6th Marines followed. The two regiments constituted the 4th Brigade, and served in the 2d Division. U. S. Regular, until the division came home in August, 1919. About 30,000 Marines were sent to France; some 14,000 of these were replacements to maintain the two regiments of the 4 th Brigade. A brigade musters some 7,500 officers and men; this brigade took part in some very interesting events.
Elsewhere, I have written of the Marines in the war with Germany; how they went up, and what they did there, and how some of them came out again. Being a Marine, I have tried to set forth simple tales without comment. It is unnecessary to write what I think of my own people, nor would it be, perhaps, in the best taste.
And I have written of Marines in this war because they are the folks I know about myself. Those battle-fields were very large, and a man seldom saw much or very far beyond his own unit, if he had a job in hand. As a company officer, I always had a job. There is no intent to overlook those very gallant gentlemen, our friends, the U. S. Army. Their story is ours, too.
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