The Marines 65 years ago

[frogcycle]

My Dad was a career Marine. He had a lot of stories - and I am sure there were a lot more he never told.

One that comes to mind, for some reason (perhaps it is prompted by the Marines recently saying "let us go to Afghanistan and do something worthwhile"), was in 1941, when GB was at war with Germany, but the US was standing by.

At that time, US public opinion was against the US getting involved. We had been drawn into the "Great War" in Europe a couple of decades earlier, and many remembered it all too well. It was, after all, much fresher in memory than Viet Nam was in 2001.

Roosevelt was doing what he could to help Churchill. There was a lend-lease program Lend-Lease whereby we provided ships and materiel to the allies, and he was trying to work with congress to get us into the war, but not getting very far*.

GB had troops in Iceland, where they maintained a weather station. In those days, with no satellites or radars, advance-notice of coming weather was obtained largely by getting radio reports from someone stationed upwind. In the case of Northern Europe, Iceland was a strategic spot for that. And of course weather forecasting plays a big role in planning military actions, both air and sea, as well as to a lesser extent land.

Churchill approached Roosevelt and asked for help. He needed every soldier and plane he had in the fight against Hitler. He asked Roosevelt to take over protecting the weather outpost. Roosevelt agreed, and asked the Army and navy to make plans to occupy Iceland. Much discussion ensued, debating which army units would be used, what ships would be available, etc. According to my dad, Roosevelt was in a briefing when he turned to an aide and said "get me some Marines!"**. There was much political wrangling over the operation; the administration was trying to get a new Selective Service law passed, there was currently a 12-month limit on selectees deployments and the War Department had to move very carefully to avoid inflaming the large isolationist movement in the US. What had been a long-range plan to place a 22,000-man army unit in Iceland, replacing the brits entirely, eventually morphed into sending Marines to supplement them, and backfilling the marines in due course with the army. Of course, a few months later Dec 7, 1941 changed everything.

My dad was at the time a fresh-caught Second Lieutenant heading up the marine detachment aboard the heavy cruiser Wichita, which had been conducting "show the flag" cruises along the South American east coast***. Dad was transferred to the newly-created 1st Marine Brigade, later to become the First Marine Division. Here is Churchill's address "condoning" Operation Indigo, the US occupation of Iceland. The Wichita was in drydock and headed to Iceland in Indigo II; dad shipped out on a transport in the first convoy. The German battleship Tirpitz (the only sister ship to the Bismarck) was patrolling the North Atlantic, along with untold numbers of U-boats.

Dad told an anecdote that the transport ship aboard which his detachment sailed encountered rough seas and a bulldozer in the hold broke free from its restraining chains. The damned thing was rolling back and forth, slamming into the bulkheads, threatening to punch a hole and sink them. They had to turn and head into the seas to stabilize so someone could try to catch the thing. The convoy went on without them. Dad went into the hold when they were executing that mission and made two observations: (1)The 'dozer had smashed a number of fuel drums, spilling fuel oil all over the hold. (2)The CPO leading the contingent of swab-jockeys chasing the 'dozer had a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth.

The cigarette was quickly extinguished and no fire erupted to alert the Germans to the presence of this sitting-duck unescorted American transport ship that had been commandeered by the military to carry troops and material. Another "what if" scenario: what if the Germans had found and sunk that ship, perhaps not realizing it was a warship - or even that it was American? Would that have triggered our entry into WWII?

One last anecdote:

After the marines got to Iceland, built their gun emplacements, and began guarding the place against air or sea attack, he was on duty one day with a pair of binoculars watching for aircraft. He spotted one, and mentally went through all the aircraft profiles he had learned in basic school in Philadelphia (last class before Quantico opened). He eliminated the various American and British planes and realized it was a Heinkel. The marines manning light antiaircraft guns asked him whether they should open fire. He had standing orders not to fire first without direct orders from the battalion commander, O. P. Smith who went on to a distinguished career commanding the First Marine Division at Inchon and the Chosin reservoir (dad was in both of those, too). So Dad told them to hold off. The thing approached fairly close, then made a big arc and headed back east. O.P. Smith later berated them for not shooting it down. Dad told him "you ordered us not too" and Smith said they should have anyway. What if they had?


*there are, of course, rumors that Pearl Harbor was a LIHOP to get us in. I doubt that. Had efforts been made to defend against the attack, it still would have served the purpose.

**

"In discussing with Secretary Stimson the effect the Iceland movement would have on the use of expeditionary forces for all other purposes under the basic war plans, the President expressed his opinion that a unit of marines would have to go in the first contingent to Iceland. Although this solution was not thoroughly to the liking of the Chief of Staff... while the regiment was still at sea, orders were drafted for the newly created (1st Marine Brigade) to depart for Iceland ten days later.

" link

***They had a near run-in with the German pocket battleship Graf Spee prior to the battle of the River Platte. She was sinking British merchant ships all up and down the seaboard. According to Dad in late 1939 they had her in their sights off Brazil and requested permission to fire, but it was denied. That could have accelerated the US' entry into WWII by two years, possibly ending the war much faster, avoiding Pearl Harbor...who knows?

In reading the account of the Wichita's movements, I was touched by the annotation that she arrived at the New York Navy Yard 23 March, 1941. It was then that my Dad's Basic School roommate set him up with a blind date with the older sister of a woman he'd been dating. They wrote each other over the next four-plus years, became engaged the next time they saw each other four years later, and married in 1945. They both kept all the letters; I have them all.