The Development Of Amphibious Tactics In The U.S. Navy

General Holland M. Smith USMC

• Publisher: Verdun Press
• Year: 2015
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781786254184
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

FROM our entry into the war at Pearl Harbor in December 1941 until the Japanese surrender in September 1945, every major offensive campaign launched by the United States was initiated by an amphibious assault. Our landings at North Africa in November 1942, at Sicily and Italy in July and September 1943, and at Normandy and Southern France in June and September 1944 ended in the defeat of the German armies in Western Europe by the Allied Expeditionary Force in May 1945. The Pacific offensive, which began in the South Pacific with the landings at the Solomons in August 1942 and in the Central Pacific at the Gilberts in November 1943, carried us 3,000 miles to the Philippine Islands and 5,000 miles through to the inner defenses of the empire in the Volcano and Ryukyu Islands....Amphibious warfare was the primary offensive tactic in our conduct of global war.
The tactics and techniques of our landing operations represent a new and significant development in the art of war. Although military history contains many instances of landing operations conducted by both military and navy forces in all parts of the world, from the early time man first crossed the sea to wage war, the landings were generally either limited in scope and purpose or unopposed. The feasibility of amphibious raids, in which assault forces landed from the sea are withdrawn after limited operations, and of unopposed landings, relying on surprise and conducted for the purpose of subsequent military operations ashore, has long been recognized. Until the recent war, however, the effect of modern defensive weapons was considered too decisive to permit successful assault from the sea. The development of radar, aviation, coast defense guns, torpedoes, submarines, mines, defensive obstructions and obstacles, automatic weapons, highly mobile reserves, and the necessary communication facilities to coordinate and control them seemed to present insurmountable difficulties to amphibious attack.

PART I: BEGINNING A SERIES ON AMPHIBIOUS OPERATIONS BY THE MARINE WHO KNOWS THEM BEST

FROM our entry into the war at Pearl Harbor in December 1941 until the Japanese surrender at Tokyo Bay in September 1945, every major offensive campaign launched by the United States was initiated by an amphibious assault. Our landings at North Africa in November 1942, at Sicily and Italy in July and September 1943, and at Normandy and Southern France in June and September 1944 ended in the defeat of the German armies in Western Europe by the Allied Expeditionary Force in May 1945. The Pacific offensive, which began in the South Pacific with the landings at the Solomons in August 1942 and in the Central Pacific at the Gilberts in November 1943, carried us 3,000 miles up the New Guinea-Netherlands East Indies axis for the reconquest of the Philippine Islands and 5,000 miles through the atolls and islands of the Japanese Mandates to the inner defenses of the empire in the Volcano and Ryukyu Islands. Before the Japanese surrender in September 1945, we were preparing for the final assault—an amphibious assault—and the destruction of the Japanese Army. The surrender was caused by the losses inflicted on the enemy in our amphibious offensive and by the pressure we were able to bring to bear on Japan from the naval and air bases gained in that offensive. Amphibious warfare was the primary offensive tactic in our conduct of global war.

The tactics and techniques of our landing operations represent a new and significant development in the art of war. Although military history contains many instances of landing operations conducted by both military and navy forces in all parts of the world, from the early time man first crossed the sea to wage war, the landings were generally either limited in scope and purpose or unopposed. The feasibility of amphibious raids, in which assault forces landed from the sea are withdrawn after limited operations, and of unopposed landings, relying on surprise and conducted for the purpose of subsequent military operations ashore, has long been recognized. Until the recent war, however, the effect of modern defensive weapons was considered too decisive to permit successful assault from the sea. The development of radar, aviation, coast defense guns, torpedoes, submarines, mines, defensive obstructions and obstacles, automatic weapons, highly mobile reserves, and the necessary communication facilities to coordinate and control them seemed to present insurmountable difficulties to amphibious attack.

The combined operations conducted by the British during the Dardanelles Campaign in 1915 represent the only instance prior to the Second World War of an assault landing by a major force on a hostile and defended shore. The operations ashore for the seizure of the Gallipoli Peninsula were unsuccessful. The landing forces were evacuated in December and January of 1916 after an eight-month campaign, and the impracticality of opposed landings was apparently conclusively demonstrated.

In that gap of 25 years between Gallipoli and Guadalcanal, the United States developed the doctrine, organization, tactics, techniques, and equipment necessary to wage successfully this difficult and complex type of warfare. The basic principles governing amphibious tactics are, like the concept of landing operations, by no means new, nor are they peculiar to this type of warfare. Advances in the field of offensive tactics are limited largely to technical developments, new methods, and logistical skill which increase mobility and fire power; the fundamental axioms do not change. It is the actual application of well-established principles in the organization and employment of amphibious forces, armed with modern weapons and equipment, that is new.

Although military services of all nations have pondered the problems presented by landing operations, the United States Naval Service is responsible, to a major degree, for the developments currently employed. The same technical advances that were so influential in military and naval tactics have rendered the world an increasingly compact sphere. It is no coincidence that the Navy, traditionally the country’s first line of defense, should have pioneered in peacetime and refined and perfected in war its foremost offensive arm. To carry out its policy of maintaining a defense in distant waters, in order to assure a theater of operations removed from the continental United States the Navy was faced with the problem of securing and defending advanced bases for the support of the fleet. The benefits of a well-rounded, flexible fleet organization including an organic auxiliary air arm and a fleet marine force to exploit the advantages of sea power with landing operations have been more than realized in the solution of this problem. From beginnings in landings which were in concept auxiliary-naval actions, the Navy has developed and practiced large scale joint amphibious operations, which are purely offensive in nature. Tactics governing an opposed landing for the seizure of a small advanced base to facilitate or exploit a naval campaign are equally valid for undertakings of greater magnitude, incident to invasion and extensive land warfare. The basic problems are constant, regardless of the scope, purpose, or varying local conditions which may obtain in any given operation.

LtGen Smith has expressly requested that full credit be given to the former Lt Bill Lowe for his research and editorial assistance during the preparation of Amphibious Tactics. Mr. Lowe is now with World Report, Washington, D. C.

The Coordinated Attack

Any landing operation directly related with combat, in which the forces participating operate both in the water and on the shore, must be termed amphibious and tactical. It may be a simple river crossing, conducted merely in the presence of the enemy and in anticipation of a battle soon to be joined. However, in its most literal and modern connotation, amphibious tactics, as conceived and practiced by the Navy and as discussed herein, means the art of conducting an operation involving the coordinated employment of military and naval forces dispatched by sea for an assault landing on a hostile shore.

The most significant words in the foregoing definition are ‘coordinated” and “assault. In them is the key to the development of modern amphibious tactics. It was the recognition that a landing operation, a combined undertaking of great complexity, must be carefully coordinated in planning and in execution, and that the landing of troops on a hostile shore must be accomplished as a tactical movement, including an approach, deployment, and assault by the landing force following an adequate preparatory bombardment and accompanied by the effective supporting fires of surface and air forces, that gave the impetus to the development of successful tactics.

The idea of a combination of arms in order to apply the maximum effective force against the enemy at the right place and at the right time is one that precedes our landing operations doctrine by over a hundred years. Late in the 18th century there was developed the concept of a corps of all arms, which gave to ground forces a new flexibility and power. The effect of co-ordination of associated and supporting arms increased through the years with the invention of new material, and its application to modern weapons, such as the tank and airplane, has been facilitated by concurrent advances in the field of communications. Swift application, coordination and control of military force is made possible only by reliable communications. The effective employment of coordination in relation to modern offensive weapons in land warfare was most clearly demonstrated by the German airtank-infantry blitzkrieg techniques unveiled in the offensives in Poland and France in 1939 and 1940. Its application to naval tactics is best exemplified by the strikes of the battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, and destroyers of the powerful fast carrier task force of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. The highest and most inclusive degree of coordination yet achieved has been applied in the joint amphibious offensives which have featured our major campaigns during the war, wherein the Army and the Navy have together so successfully employed their surface, air and submarine forces in mutual support and coordinated mass. Here, in the realization of the full implications of combination, cooperation, and coordination, lies amphibious warfare’s most lasting and significant contribution to military science.

Military and naval mobilization, organization, administration, logistics, planning, training, movement and deployment are all directed to one end—combat. Combat is the means of achieving war’s end. It was only when the naval phase of our amphibious operations—the seaborne approach and the ship-to-shore or shore-to-shore movements—was visualized, not as a ferry ride, but as a tactical movement, culminating in an assault, that successful landing operations were possible. Only when reliance on tactical surprise and stratagem, and the hope for favorable conditions were abandoned, and the problem of effecting a frontal assault on a defended shoreline was squarely faced, were adequate solutions evolved. Planning for the worst and the consideration of all eventualities resulted in the development of weapons, equipment and techniques to meet them. The concept of assault is therefore elemental. In amphibious tactics, whether the battle is for an island base or an invasion beachhead, it is the assault landing and the subsequent operations of the landing force to which all activities and the support of all participating forces are directed. The mission of the landing force is the primary tactical consideration.

All warfare is concerned with certain general principles. The factors of superiority, concentration, and economy of force, surprise, speed, offensive spirit, mobility, and simplicity are characteristic of successful offensive action and have their special application to landing operations.

Superiority of force is a prerequisite of amphibious assault. A condition of sea and air supremacy or decisive superiority must exist at the objective area and in the approaches thereto before a landing attempt is justified. The superiority must be exercised once the landing is begun to prevent enemy intervention or reinforcement and to provide reconnaissance, observation, and tactical support. The task of securing complete or even adequate intelligence, which in landing operations must include detailed data on terrain, hydrography, and meteorology as well as information on enemy strength and disposition, combines with the logistic problems of transport and support, frequently over extended sea lines of communications, to make the organization of an amphibious attack force peculiarly difficult. Superiority must be achieved in accurate fire power, planning, training, organization, and aggressive mobility rather than in numbers. It is the coordinated concentration of the resulting force that provides the superiority. The logistical problems of transport and supply and the requirements of speed and mobility render economy of force mandatory.

The mobility of sea-borne forces and the resulting ability to approach under cover of darkness and to conduct diversionary feints tends to increase their opportunity for tactical surprise. However, in any operation in which the enemy defenses require a prolonged preparatory bombardment the factor of surprise is sacrificed for the more certain advantages of destruction and neutralization achieved by bombardment.

“For the victor, the engagement can never be decided too quickly; for the vanquished, it can never last too long. The speedy victory is a higher degree of victory; a late decision is on the side of the defeated some compensation for the loss.”{1} From the time an amphibious attack is launched, speed is essential—speed in debarkation in the transport area, speed in the vulnerable period of the ship-to-shore movement, speed in the initial seizure of a beachhead, speed in landing tanks, artillery and other supporting arms, equipment, supplies and reinforcing troops, speed in the expansion of the beachhead and in the capture or construction of airfields, and speed in the pursuit and destruction of the enemy. A prerequisite of speed is offensive spirit. The decisive measure of superiority in the more difficult amphibious operations of the war had been frequently provided by the relentless aggressive spirit of the troops in maintaining a constant pressure on the enemy, denying him the ability to move, communicate or reorganize. The importance of constant offensive action in the apparent chaos of an opposed landing and the necessity for resourceful, dynamic leadership in all echelons cannot be over-emphasized. “Therefore, the more lively the attacks are, the less men they cost. By making your battle short, you will deprive it of the time, so to speak, to rob you of many men. The soldier who is led by you in this manner will gain confidence in you and expose himself gladly to all dangers.”{2}

The opportunity to choose the route of approach and move rapidly to any chosen objective and the immediate availability of mobile reserves for exploitation is greater for sea-borne than for land-based troops. The development of assault transports, troop-carrying destroyers, fast landing craft and other special equipment has all been directed at achieving increased mobility.

The complex and variable nature of landing operations requires comprehensive and flexible planning. The execution of plans by the many diversified component parts of a joint amphibious force in a coordinated and effective manner requires a simple scheme.

A joint operation may be one in which military and naval forces perform consecutive and distinct missions, in which coordination is a simple matter of timing, in which there is a sharp delineation between the phases of army and navy participation. Such undertakings may be termed cooperative. There is, however, in an amphibious operation a critical middle phase; during which the naval and military forces function simultaneously and in combination. Prior to the landing and then after the troops are established ashore, the functions of the naval forces and of the troops are, for the most part characterized by their normal distinct naval and military tasks. It is the interim period that is the province of amphibious tactics. Here there is the combination of military and naval tactics, the mutual adjustment of respective techniques. The “task force” (whether it be an amphibious corps, reinforced division landing force, regimental combat team or battalion landing team) organized after the naval manner with rega...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• PREFACE
• THE AUTHOR . . . LTGEN HOLLAND MCTYEIRE SMITH
• PART I: BEGINNING A SERIES ON AMPHIBIOUS OPERATIONS BY THE MARINE WHO KNOWS THEM BEST
• PART II: AMPHIBIOUS WARFARE FROM THE REVOLUTION TO WORLD WAR I
• PART III: BIRTH OF THE FMF, FLEET MANEUVERS, CONCEPTION OF AMPHIBIOUS DOCTRINES
• PART IV: TRAINING, EXPERIMENT, SIX FLEET LANDING EXERCISES-1934-1941
• PART V: THREE YEARS OF EXPERIMENT IN LANDING DOCTRINE BEFORE PEARL HARBOR
• PART VI: AMPHIBIOUS WARFARE'S INFLUENCE ON THE GRAND STRATEGY OF GLOBAL CONFLICT
• PART VII: THE BAPTISM-GUADALCANAL, MAKIN RAID, DIEPPE, AND NORTH AFRICA
• PART VIII: STRATEGIC ATTU AND KISKA FALL, SUCCESSFUL LANDINGS MADE ON NEW GEORGIA
• PART IX: MUNDA, NEW GUINEA, SICILY FALL BEFORE THE ALLIES' GROWING SEABORNE MIGHT
• PART X: SICILY SECURED, GEN EISENHOWER NOW HAD A BRIDGE TO ITALY. HE LAUNCHED A TWO-PRONGED ATTACK; THE FIFTH HITTING SALERNO AND THE BRITISH EIGHTH CROSSING MESSINA STRAIT. THE ALLIES FOUND HEAVY GERMAN RESISTANCE 40 MILES SOUTH OF NAPLES