68 years ago, 175,000 American, British, and Canadian soldiers assaulted the beaches of Normandy. Notably absent were the U.S. Marines, who specialize in amphibious assaults. Marines trained the soldiers who would participate in the raids and even rode along as observers, but Gen. Eisenhower barred Marines from landing at Normandy. Why? First, the Marine Corps was then–as it has always been–much smaller than the Army. During World War II, the Corps swelled to a force comprising six divisions, whereas the Army expanded to 89 divisions. The Corps’ resources were stretched thin, and much of its efforts were focused on the fighting in the Pacific. Second, a deep-seeded rivalry between the Army and Marines was in full bloom: Its origins stretching back to World War I; the defining period of the modern Marine Corps. Following the 1918 Battle of Belleau Wood (France), in which Marines played a leading role, newspapers in the U.S. credited much of the success of the American Expeditionary Force to the Marines. This occurred at the expense of deserving Army units even when referring to actions in which Marines did not participate. In one instance, a number of newspapers covering the fighting at the Marne River bridges at Chateau-Thierry (a few days prior to the Battle of Belleau Wood) published headlines that read “Germans stopped at Chateau-Thierry with help of God and a few Marines.” The headlines contributed to the Corps’ already legendary reputation, and the Army was justifiably incensed. The Germans in fact had been stopped at Chateau-Thierry by the U.S. Army’s 7th machinegun battalion. Army leaders–including Generals George C. Marshall, Eisenhower, and Omar N. Bradley–were determined not to be upstaged by Marines, again. Thus, when America entered World War II in late 1941, the Marine Corps was deliberately excluded from large-scale participation in the European theater. And when the largest amphibious operation in history was launched, it was for all intents and purposes an Army show. I always find this story funny, as the butt hurt the Army has for the Marines, exists all the way into the General ranks. I would have liked to see Marines land in Europe for one reason, it would finally put an end to the argument of which was worse, the Pacific landings or D Day. So called military experts debate this back and forth all the time, but the reality is, no one knows because no one did both. Truth is EVERY grunt back then was a bad ass, you had to be. So hats off to ANYONE who served in WWII, even the coast guard was driving landing craft on D Day.
Posted on: Fri, 06 Jun 2014 20:23:58 +0000
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