User:RekonDog/Fleet Landing Exercises

Fleet Landing Exercises

The United States

Although mistakes were made during these exercises, their importance cannot be overstated. The joint effort of the Navy and Marine Corps corrected many shortcomings and improved many techniques. Improvements to landing craft probably are among the most notable. Great strides also were made in ship loading, bombing techniques of aviation, and firing techniques of naval gun fire. Thus adopting a new, refined doctrine in landing operations, the Fleet Training Publication 167.

• Used old battleships converted for troop transport, APDs. Combat loading techniques were developed so that ships could quickly unload the equipment required first in an amphibious landing, accepting some reductions in cargo stowage efficiency in return for improved assault capabilities.

• Experimented with every tangible amphibious technique and tactical approach to its limit of equipment available. Experimented in Day/Night landings. Varieties of air and naval gun support, concentrated assaults and dispersed infiltratios, firing all sorts of weapons from landing crafts, array of demonstrations, feints, subsidiary landings, and broad-front attacks.

FLEX1

conducted from January to March of next year. Although the "Tentative Manual for Landing Operations, 1934" had been written, the exercise highlighted many shortfalls in the conduct of an amphibious landing. Areas of needed improvement included NGF and aviation support, communications equipment, and landing crafts. Two infantry battalions and a mixed artillery battalion embarked on two old battleships or on the light cruisers and gunboats of the Special Service Squadron.

until World War II, the key maneuvers in Culebra were amphibious landings. Marines on the East Coast, beginning with Fleet Landing Exercise-1 (FLEX-1) in March 1935, conducted annual landing exercises at Culebra and Vieques. In 1936, amphibious exercises were transferred from Culebra’s Flamenco Beach to Vieques, and naval gunfire practice began on Flamenco Beach and on the adjacent Flamenco Point. The year 1936 marks the beginning of the Culebra/Vieques Inner Range or the Culebra/Vieques Complex, as it would be known until 1975 and the closing of the Culebra subranges. Culebra and Vieques “indisputably offered the U.S. military an experience of great value to the battles in the Pacific”. Culebra and Vieques were the two components of the Atlantic Weapons’ Range Inner Range. In recent years, the term “Inner Range” was applied only

(13)Ibid. 161-3; Guantánamo Base played the preeminent role in the training and dispatching of troops to several of these interventions. However, Puerto Rico –and especially Culebra—remained important in troop training and in preparing military personnel. (14)In the Pacific, maneuvers began in 1934. A battalion landing team from San Diego, California was the first unit to engage in Pacific Fleet maneuvers, and from that point on the Fleet Marine Force took part in each annual fleet problem. West Coast Marines made landings at San Clemente, California), in the Hawaiian Islands, and at Midway Atoll. http://www.usmc.mil/historical.nsf/table+of+contents (15)Héctor A. Negroni, Historia militar de Puerto Rico (San Juan: Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y el Caribe e Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, 1992), p. 425. See also Carmelo Delgado Cintrón, Culebra y la Marina de Estados Unidos (Río Piedras, Edil, 1989). (16)As distinct from the Outer Range, which is the open-sea range complex on 138,000 square miles of ocean northeast and southeast of Puerto Rico and Vieques, as well as south of Puerto Rico. The Outer Range is used primarily for missile firings, both surface-to-air and air-to-air, as well as for fleet exercises.

FLEX2

conducted in 1936, revealed many of the same mistakes seen in FLEX 1 as well as several new problems. It consisted of heavy naval gunfire and bombing of one of the beaches of San Clemente Island while the other portion in the Caribbean (Note: One of the converted-battleships, the USS Utah (AG-16) was to become one of the victims at Pearl Harbor five years later).

FLEX3

The origins of the destroyer transports are relatively obscure. The first mention of them came in the 1st Marine Brigade's after action report on Fleet Landing Exercise 3 (FLEX 3). Brigadier General James J. Meade suggested in that February 1937 document that destroyers might solve the dual problem of a shortage of amphibious transports and fire support. With such ships "troops could move quickly close into shore and disembark under protection of the ships' guns." The Navy apparently agreed and decided to experiment with one of its flush-deck, four-stack destroyers. It had built a large number of these during World War I and most were now in mothballs.

conducted in 1937, the problems identified during FLEXs 1 and 2 re-emerged. However, improvements were noted: "For the first time the troops used cargo nets to disembark over the side of their destroyer-transports; new Army radios provided better communications; and Marine pack howitzer batteries showed they could quickly go into action ashore."

Southern coast of California, embraced all three services. Army provided expeditionary brigade (understrengh infantry regiment and own transport. Navy embarked 2,500 Marines, the whole strenght of the FMF.

The U.S. Fleet Landing Exercise No. 3 (Flex 3) was conducted during the period January 30- February 18, 1937, IAW U.S. Attack Force Operation Plans 1-37 and 2-37. Participants included the FMF 1st Marine Brigade from Quantico, 2nd Marine Brigade, San Diego; the U.S. Army 1st Expeditionary Brigade, various naval elements of Battleship Division One including the USS Wyoming (AG-17), USS New York (BB-34), USS Utah (BB-31), and USS Nevada (BB-36), Cruiser Divisions 4 & 5 including the USS Salt Lake City (CA-25), and USS Houston (CL-81), and Destroyer Division 11.

Two aircraft squadrons, from Quantico, VA. and North Island, comprised of VF, VO, VB, and VJ aircraft, also participated. Figure 3 depicts the aviation target areas for these squadrons during this exercise. The mission: “To capture SAN CLEMENTE ISLAND.” Mission information: “The hostile land force consists of a reinforced regiment, supported by light artillery, 155 MM guns, anti-aircraft artillery, and aviation not exceeding twenty planes. The UNITED STATES FLEET will provide protection against attack by enemy surface vessels. Attack by submarines is possible.” The total amphibious landing force was comprised of approximately 4700 Army and Marine Corps personnel. 14 Tragically, while firing a scheduled secondary battery practice on board the USS Wyoming on the last day of the exercises at San Clemente Island, an explosion occurred in the #13 5-inch gun mount, killing one officer and six enlisted personnel. Thirteen other personnel were injured in the blast. (Author’s Note: The USS Utah AG-16, now converted to an aerial bombing target configuration, would be one of the victims of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The USS Houston (CL-81) of this exercise, would later be lost on 1 March 1942 in the battle of Sundra Strait off the Netherlands East Indies.)15 This exercise brought out very clearly several points in connection with amphibious landing operations. Naval vessels were not well adapted to transporting landing forces. “The crowded conditions, and the lack of adequate boats are a great handicap,” wrote Lt. Col. B.W. Gally, U.S. Marine Corps, Atlantic Squadron (1939). “It is believed that suitable transports should be built or acquired, and that they be constantly available for transportation of the Fleet Marine Force.”16 These findings contributed major impetus to the development of a specialized “Naval Amphibious Force.” The San Clemente Exercise, and similar operations at Culebra and Vieques in the Caribbean, proved exceedingly valuable for training boat crews under conditions of heavy surf. It also proved conclusively that a special type landing boat with superior power, maneuverability, surf-riding qualities and protection was a highly desirable adjunct to the equipment for landing operations. The Higgins boat, or Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel (LCVP) was to be the result of these requirements. After WWII, General Dwight David Eisenhower stated, “If Higgins had not designed and built those LCVP’s, we never could have landed over an open beach. The whole strategy of the war would have been different.”17 Thus were two of the major impacts of San Clemente Island on the outcome of WWII, and our nation’s history. A major contribution to the success of these 1936-1938 training exercises at San Clemente Island, as stated in post-operational analysis, and which is still a key element in the training evolutions of our Pacific Fleet, was the islands close proximity to support bases at San Pedro, San

FLEX4

Jan - Mar 1938, 1st Marine Brigade tested the concept of delivering 4-man patrols by submarines. The exercise missions were a mixed success at Vieques and Puerto Rico when two patrols were captured, but it was realized that with experience and refinement the concept held promise.

Brigadier General James Roosevelt, eldest son of the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt entered the Marine Corps on 13 November 1936 as a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve, and completed various period of active duty – with the Marine Detachment aboard the USS Indianapolis; with Fleet Landing Exercise #4 (FLEX-4) in the San Juan-Culebra-Virgin Islands area on reconnaissance patrols and experiments with raiding and patrolling parties; and at Parris Island, South Carolina, in connection with testing of anti-aircraft batteries.

Army's contribution climbed to three infantry regiments with supporting arms and brigade alternated in the part of landing force and shoreline defender.

FLEX5

The Marine Corps — always interested in finding better ways to get men across a beach in an amphibious landing and frustrated that the Bureau of Construction and Repair could not meet its requirements — began to express interest in Higgins' boat. First used on an experimental basis in FLEX 5 (1938) at Culebra, it won its way over rivals. When tested in 1938 by the Navy and Marine Corps, Higgins' Eureka boat surpassed the performance of the Navy-design boat and was tested by the services during fleet landing exercises in February 1939. Satisfactory in most respects, the boat's major drawback appeared to be that equipment had to be unloaded, and men disembarked, over the sides, thus exposing them to enemy fire in a combat situation. The Higgins boat was adopted as the standard personnel landing craft by 1940.

1939

No army involvement

FLEX6

As a partial response to this problem, Smith seized upon the newly developed destroyer transport. During FLEX 6, his plan called for the Manley (APD 1) to land a company of the 5th Marines via rubber boats at H-minus three hours (prior to dawn) at a point away from the primary assault beach. This force would advance inland, seize key terrain dominating the proposed beachhead, and thus protect the main landing from counterattack. A year later, during FLEX 7, Smith had three destroyer transports. He designated the three companies of the 7th Marines embarked on these ships as the Mobile Landing Group. During the exercise these units again made night landings to protect the main assault, or conducted diversionary attacks.

In 1940, patrols were successfully infiltrating ashore and reporting information and became an accepted doctrine in amphibious reconnaissance.

No army involvement

In November 1938 the Navy reclassified Manley (DD 74) as a miscellaneous auxillary (AG 28). After a few weeks of hasty work in the New York Navy Yard, the ship served as a transport for Marine units in the Caribbean. In the fall of 1939 Manley went back into the yards for a more extensive conversion. Workers removed all torpedo tubes, one gun, two boilers, and their stacks. That created a hold amidships for cargo and troops. The Chief of Naval Operations made it a rush job so the ship would be available for FLEX 6 in early 1940. Company A, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, was the first unit to use the revamped Manley. It used rubber boats to execute its 23 February 1940 assault landing against Culebra in the Caribbean.

FLEX7

A year later, during FLEX 7, Smith had three destroyer transports. He designated the three companies of the 7th Marines embarked on these ships as the Mobile Landing Group. During the exercise these units again made night landings to protect the main assault, or conducted diversionary attacks.

The First Marine Division was one of the first two division-sized unit ever formed by the Corps. It was established in February 1941 aboard the USS Texas in Cuba around the nucleus of the pre-war First Marine Brigade. The Division's first commander was the amphibious warrior, BrigGen Holland M. Smith. There was no record of an activation ceremony since the division was deep in the preparations for FLEX 7, the last of the pre-war fleet landing exercises