Compass Points - Big Battles
Units, equipment, & capabilities
Compass Points - Big Battles
Units, equipment, & capabilities
June 25, 2024
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What sort of force would it take for the Marine Corps to fight a peer or near peer competitor in the Pacific? Perhaps one clue is Okinawa.
By this day in June 1945 the last major battle in World War II was over. Okinawa was secured. To conduct the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific during World War II, it took a US force of 1,500 ships and half a million soldiers, sailors, and Marines. The Japanese commander, General Ushijima and his Chief of Staff, General Cho, committed ritual suicide on June 22. The losses endured to secured US victory were enormous.
The amphibious invasion of the island began on April 1, 1945. In the nearly12 weeks of brutal fighting, roughly 1,000 US military were killed every week. The Japanese military suffered 10 times that number of dead. Japanese military and civilian deaths on Okinawa may have reached 250,000.
The suicide drones being used in Ukraine today are nowhere near as destructive as the repeated waves of kamikaze suicide planes that struck the ships of the 5th Fleet. In just one major attack, nearly 400 kamikaze planes, escorted by 300 fighter escorts attacked the US ships off Okinawa's coast.
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During the Battle of Okinawa, the Fifth Fleet suffered:
• 36 sunk ships
• 368 damaged ships
• 4,900 men killed or drowned
• 4,800 men wounded
• 763 lost aircraft
-- History.com
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The Medal Of Honor was awarded to 23 Americans for the fighting on Okinawa including 14 awarded to Marines or those working with the Marines.
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Richard Bush
Rank at Time of Action: Corporal
Service: US Marine Corps Reserve
Birthday: December 23, 1923
Birthplace: Glasgow, Kentucky
Unit: 1st Battalion, 4th Marines, 6th Marine Division
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Robert E. Bush
Rank at Time of Action: Hospital Apprentice First Class
Service: U.S. Naval Reserve
Birthday: October 4, 1926
Birthplace: Tacoma, Washington
Unit: 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division
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Henry A. Courtney Jr.
Rank at Time of Action: Major
Service: U.S. Marine Corps Reserve
Birthday: January 6, 1916
Birthplace: Duluth, Minnesota
Unit: 2nd Battalion, 22nd Marines, 6th Marine Division
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James L. Day
Rank at Time of Action: Corporal
Service: U.S. Marine Corps
Birthday: September 23, 1921
Birthplace: San Bernardino, California
Unit: 2nd Battalion, 22nd Marines, 6th Marine Division
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John P. Fardy
Rank at Time of Action: Corporal
Service: U.S. Marine Corps
Birthday: August 15, 1922
Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
Unit: 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, 1st Marine Division
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William A. Foster
Rank at Time of Action: Private First Class
Service: U.S. Marine Corps Reserve
Birthday: February 17, 1915
Birthplace: Cleveland, Ohio
Unit: 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, 1st Marine Division
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Harold Gonsalves
Rank at Time of Action: Private First Class
Service: U.S. Marine Corps Reserve
Birthday: January 28, 1926
Birthplace: Alameda, California
Unit: 4th Battalion, 15th Marines, 6th Marine Division
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William D. Halyburton Jr.
Rank at Time of Action: Pharmacist’s Mate Second Class
Service: U.S. Naval Reserve
Birthday: January 28, 1926
Birthplace: Alameda, California
Unit: 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division
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Dale M. Hansen
Rank at Time of Action: Private
Service: U.S. Marine Corps
Birthday: December 13, 1922
Birthplace: Wisner, Nebraska
Unit: 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, 1st Marine Division
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Louis J. Hauge Jr.
Rank at Time of Action: Corporal
Service: U.S. Marine Corps Reserve
Birthday: December 12, 1924
Birthplace: Ada, Minnesota
Unit: 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, 1st Marine Division
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Elbert L. Kinser
Rank at Time of Action: Sergeant
Service: U.S. Marine Corps Reserve
Birthday: October 10, 1921
Birthplace: Greeneville, Tennessee
Unit: 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, 1st Marine Division
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Fred F. Lester
Rank at Time of Action: Hospital Apprentice First Class
Service: U.S. Navy
Birthday: April 29, 1926
Birthplace: Downers Grove, Illinois
Unit: 1st Battalion, 22nd Marines, 6th Marine Division
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Robert M. McTureous Jr.
Rank at Time of Action: Private
Service: U.S. Marine Corps
Birthday: March 26, 1924
Birthplace: Altoona, Florida
Unit: 3rd Battalion, 29th Marines, 6th Marine Division
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Albert E. Schwab
Rank at Time of Action: Private First Class
Service: U.S. Marine Corps Reserve
Birthday: July 17, 1920
Birthplace: Washington, D.C.
Unit: 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division
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For the Battle of Okinawa 23 Medals of Honor were awarded. The US could have awarded 230 Medals of Honor and still not have begun to recognize all the acts of conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity that reflected great credit on every person who served on Okinawa.
So many Medals of Honor were awarded because the fighting was so difficult. Even with the massive force of soldiers, sailors, and Marines, it was still a close contest.
In just one three month battle at Okinawa in World War II, the Japanese military destroyed or damaged more ships than exist today in the entire US Navy. In just that one battle, the US had to be able to logistically support the living, wounded, and dead for a force of one-half million men. Today, to seriously contest a peer or near peer military like China, the US military will have to be able to blot out the sun with squadrons of aircraft. darken the seas with fleets of ships, and clog the sea lanes with an array of submersibles. All those aircraft, ships, and submersibles will be needed to support US ground forces who will still have to land and then with blood and thunder rip away key territory from a determined foe.
Over the last several years in the Office of the US Secretary of Defense, the Office of the Secretary of the Navy and at the highest levels of the Marine Corps, there has been much talk of preparing to fight a peer adversary like the massive military of China. Some experts have placed an unreasonable faith in technology. Technology is always important. Unfortunately though, technology by itself never wins victory. Peer adversaries cannot be easily defeated. The future of war is on display now in the Ukraine and in Gaza. Despite all the advances of technology, the fighting on those battlefields today is still continuous, hard, and bloody. Nothing comes easy and nothing comes quick. Big adversaries mean big battles.
Should war breakout with China in the Pacific, the US will require a massive air, sea, and land force. Marines will be expected, as always, to do more than their share. Even if open war with China does not breakout, there will be one global crisis after another and each will need the response of a highly trained, equipped, and capable force of Marines. The Marines must be ready to arrive quickly and be reinforced, expanded, and augmented almost as quickly. That Marine force will deter, assist, and fight. When the Navy and Marine ARG-MEU suddenly appears off the shore of a nation in crisis, civilians and friendly forces should smile and know that help is near, while the bad guys should look for an exit because they know their end is near.
Those Marines who fought so fiercely on Okinawa 79 years ago, are sending a warning to the Marine Corps today. Prepare now for a fight more difficult than can be imagined. The future fight will never be an antiseptic technology duel. The future fight, like the Battle of Okinawa, will be brutal and bloody. There are no technology tools and there are no technology tricks that can easily defeat a peer adversary in war. It is time for the US to rebuild the combined arms capabilities of the Marine Corps as part of a buildup of US air, sea, and ground forces. On Okinawa the US 5th Fleet withstood the loss of more than 30 ships and more than 700 aircraft and still kept fighting. If the Marine Corps is going to be able to keep fighting today, the Marine Corps must bulk up, rebuild, and rebalance the MAGTF, and focus relentlessly on global, combined arms, crisis response.
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History.com
Battle of Okinawa
By History.com Editors
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-okinawa
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Medal of Honor Museum
The Battle of Okinawa
https://mohmuseum.org/the-battle-of-okinawa/
The bottom line is this, instead of reducing the Marine Corps capabilities to fund FD, the Corps needs to grow, and grow exponentially to meet the threat of peer and near peer competitors.
Heritage.Org published on Jan 24, 2024 “Executive Summary of the 2024 Index of U.S. Military Strength.”
While the Marine Corps was scored as “Strong,” they did state that the “Corps is already at 74 percent of the battalions and related air and logistical capabilities it should have. It needs to grow.”
Well, instead of growing, the Marine Corps downsized. In the Heritage report, they scored the e Marine Corps as “WEAK” with respect to “CAPACITY.”
Campus Point is absolutely correct, we need a Corps that is capable of conducting the bloody fight, against a huge, well armed adversary in that adversary’s backyard…we won’t be able to do that with a neutered Marine Corps.
By the way, the other services scored worse than the Marine Corps. If our brothers and sisters in arms are marginal, weak and very weak in capacity, capability and readiness, how the hell will our Marines survive?
Threats to Our Conus Bases:”By Todd Bensman as published June 26 by the Center for Immigration Studies
The U.S. government will withhold names of two illegal alien Jordanian nationals, one of whom illegally crossed the Southwest Border, who on May 3 tried to ram a box truck into Quantico Marine Corps base, citing as grounds that their personal privacy outweighs “minimal” public interest in knowing who they are, according to a …”