Kenneth Estes - Marines Under Armor: the Marine Corps and the Armored Fighting Vehicle, 1916-2000

KENNETH W. ESTES

Naval Institute Press

Annapolis, Maryland

This book has been brought to publication by the generous assistance of Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest.

First Naval Institute Press paperback edition published 2012.

ISBN 978-1-61251-353-9

Naval Institute Press

291 Wood Road

Annapolis, MD 21402

2000 by Kenneth W. Estes

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Estes, Kenneth W.

Marines under armor : the Marine Corps and the armored fighting vehicle, 19162000 / Kenneth W. Estes.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. United States. Marine CorpsArmored troopsHistory20th century. 2. Armored vehicles, MilitaryUnited StatesHistory20th century. I. Title.

VE23.E88 2000

359.968309730904dc21 00-29212

17 16 15 14 13 12 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First printing

For Genevive

The morning of 16 June 1944, Maj. Robert Neiman signaled to his fourteen Sherman tank crews to start their engines. The twenty-eight General Motors diesels throbbed in response. His C Company, 4th Tank Battalion, spread out in a shallow V formation and passed through the lines of the 23d Marine Regiment, then facing across the waist of the island of Saipan. Ahead lay the best defenses yet offered by the Japanese army, and Neiman knew that the success of the offensive lay in his own hands. But he knew also the mettle of his men; he had personally selected them and their officers, and had personally directed the preparation of his machines, the twin-diesel M4A2 medium tanks with which his company had been equipped since the previous November. Now he had to close with the enemy, some 2,000 yards beyond over open terrain, impossible for the infantry to cross. There the entrenched Japanese troops stood ready to die at their guns, if necessary. The division had promised artillery support for the attack, but the guns remained silent. The essential coordination had fallen through again, as remained customary for the war.

But attacking was Bob Neimans specialty, and he proved it that day as he led his tanks against the Japanese lines. His command tank received a heavy shell hit, knocking out its electrical system even as it careened toward the Japanese lines. He quickly waved over an alternate vehicle and continued the attack. Boom! A mine canceled that effort and he jumped into a third tank, one from his nearest platoon, and continued to direct the advance. The tanks proceeded into the position, destroyed all the Japanese weapons emplacements, and savaged the enemy infantry until the men of the 23d Marines arrived. As the marines mopped up the outmatched enemy, they could see the waters edge of the east coast. The island had been crossed, and they were winning.

That day, when Bob Neiman won his Navy Cross medal on Saipan, fairly illustrated the distance covered by the men and machines of the Marine Corps fighting-vehicle units since their commandant had ordered them into existence less than a decade before. In fact, only three years earlier, Second Lieutenant Neiman, fresh out of his platoon leader class, had taken his first tank-driving lesson with 1st Lt. Bruce Mattson in number eight of the Corpss fleet of ten tanks. The tank slipped from a Quantico hilltop and rolled sideways down the hill after running one track up on a stump. At the bottom, the tank lay on its side. Mattson was knocked out, and Neiman revived him and led the way out of the hatch as the tank caught fire. Unwittingly, Neiman had that day contributed both to the first Marine Corps tank loss and the demise of the independent procurement of tanks by his Corps. Yet, in 1944, the Marine Corps operated diesel tanks banned from overseas service by the U.S. Army, and the army operated some of the amphibian tanks ordered originally for Marine Corps use. These and other interesting anomalies characterized the introduction of the armored fighting vehicle into the U.S. Marines.

The coming of the Second World War brought a new look and maturity to the U.S. Marine Corps, achieved in an astoundingly short time, much like the other U.S. forces. The incorporation of modern weaponry, like the armored fighting vehicle, into that service forms a small but crucial part of that greater story. But the acquisition and use of armored fighting vehicles over the course of several generations by the Marine Corps also illustrates to some extent the characteristics of both the Corps as a military institution of the United States and the men who have thus far guided its development.

This is a story of men, machines, and mission. It is, almost regrettably, not a history of combat operations, for that would require yet another book. It is, rather, a study of how the U.S. Marine Corps came to acquire the armored fighting vehiclewhy, how, what, from where and when, and what it tried to do with it. In doing so, we learn much about the institutional workings of the U.S. Marines as a military organization.

This book treats the planning, acquisition, and employment of armored fighting vehicles, chiefly tanks, amphibian tractors, and armored cars, by the Corps. I explore the concepts and plans that led to the fielding of these weapons systems, the doctrines and tactics intended for them, and how the Corps used them in combat operations of the Fleet Marine Force during its twentieth-century conflicts. I cover the combat operations in sufficient detail to describe how armored fighting vehicles were used or to what extent. The idea is to identify trends, not to analyze battles or present a primer on Marine Corps history and lore. Apart from the story of men and machines, the nature of the Marine Corps as a military institution reveals itself. The reader will see it as a fairly closed system of institutional goals and values, with doubtful feedback and analysis loops, seldom extending to foreign practices, open to exogenous variables, such as army procurement practices, and well ridden with cults of personality. These points have been covered before by such historians of the Marine Corps as Allan R. Millett, but never in such a microcosm.

Unlike the British army, the Marine Corps has never had a regimental system, replete with its traditions, customs, and regimental histories. That being said, I offer what follows to my fellow armored vehicle unit comrades as a hopefully worthy substitute for a regimental history.

My continuing interest in history grew under the guidance of the late Professor William H. Russell, my mentor during my undergraduate years (and later) at the U.S. Naval Academy. Professors Theodore Ropp and Irving B. Holley improved the vigor and scope of my contemplation at Duke University, and George O. Kent and James A. Harris of the University of Maryland sharpened my discourse while guiding my doctoral studies there.

This study owes much to the pathfinding work of Arthur E. Burns III, who wrote an excellent student paper at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College on Marine Corps tank units through 1945 and discussed his work with me while we attended a short course together at Fort Knox in 1979. Col. Robert C. McInteer, USMC, served as my military mentor and allowed me to broaden my abilities as an officer and tanker. Brig. Gen. Edwin H. Simmons, USMC (Ret.), as Director of the Marine Corps History and Museums Division, encouraged me over many years to contemplate and attempt this project, and Dr. Allan R. Millett caused me to begin work with his enthusiastic endorsement for a related work.