Marine Corps Generals in World War II
Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 2021, 232 pp
Hardcover ISBN: 9781682477083
Author: Stephen R Taaffe
Reviewed by: Chris Roberts
Professor Stephen R Taaffe has written several books on groups of senior United States military and naval commanders, covering those in the Army of the Potomac and the US Navy in the American Civil War, the US Army during the Second World War, and General Douglas MacArthur’s Korean War generals. He now presents a study of the US Marine Corps (USMC) generals who served as divisional and corps commanders during the war in the Pacific, seeking to bring them out of obscurity and examine their performance. Taaffe does this in chronological order through the 12 major engagements the marines fought in, from the hastily organised and under-resourced Guadalcanal campaign (August 1942 to February 1943) to their final effort under the command of the US 10th Army on Okinawa (April to June 1945). He rounds out his study with an excellent conclusion, which analyses the Marine Corps senior leadership during the war, and the difficulties they faced.
Commencing with a brief background of the prewar USMC, Taaffe highlights that it was a small, racist and insular force facing charges of being superfluous. To counter this, following the Great War the Marine Corps sought a mission to give it relevance by embracing amphibious warfare and developing a doctrine that supported such operations. The Second World War gave the marines the opportunity to employ this warfare, and in doing so they demonstrated their worth. From a force of 65,000 men in July 1941, with only five major generals, nine brigadier generals and 70 colonels, by January 1945 the USMC had grown to 421,000 troops organised into two amphibious corps and six marine divisions. It emerged from the war with highly publicised combat achievements, and having cemented its future in the US defence organisation.
This book focuses on the two Marine Corps commandants and the generals who led marine combat formations throughout the Pacific War. Both Major General Thomas Holcombe, 17th commandant of the Marine Corps from December 1936 to December 1943, and his successor, Lieutenant General Alexander Vandergrift, played leading roles in the USMC’s expansion and were instrumental in selecting officers for key command appointments. The generals’ personal friendships with their commandants, and both commandants’ deep knowledge of the officer ranks, determined many of their choices. Set within a chronological overview of the marines’ combat engagements, each divisional commander is introduced within the context of the operation in which they first assumed command. Following a résumé of their career to that date, Taaffe frankly discusses their persona, highlighting their strengths, any perceived weaknesses, and the manner in which they dealt with others. He then relates their performance in the ensuing and later campaigns. What emerges is that those who were successful were professional, forceful, decisive and hard-driving men who trained their units to a high standard, were ready to weed out officers who underperformed, and in combat fought tenaciously and aggressively.
During the war in the Pacific, a total of 16 officers commanded six marine divisions and two amphibious corps over three years of combat. While this may seem an excessive turnover, overall the commandants’ selections proved to be successful. Of the 11 officers who were removed from their commands, four were promoted to more prestigious appointments and, with the episodic nature of marine operations, and a desire to rest divisional commanders and transfer their combat knowledge to those training in the US, many were rotated home to assume important appointments. Of the remainder, two were relieved of their command before they were tested in combat, another’s leadership and combat performance were highly questionable, and one was replaced because of doubts about his initiative and decisiveness.
In relating the various marine operations, and the generals’ performance in each, Taaffe delivers a balanced and honest assessment. While he is largely laudatory about the marines’ achievements, and rightly so, Taaffe readily addresses their mistakes, weaknesses and underperformance. Amphibious operations are extraordinarily difficult affairs, and the majority of these marine generals showed considerable skill in organising, equipping and training their formations, while leading them to victory on all occasions. This was marred somewhat by unnecessary inter-service rivalry with the army, affecting cooperation and the conduct of operations on occasions. It was a rivalry that seems to have been driven partly by the personalities of some marine generals and, more broadly, by the marines’ desire to carve out a name for the Marine Corps and secure its future. While the marines overly criticised the army’s perceived lack of aggressiveness and slowness in conducting operations (ignoring the instances when marine units became bogged down), the army commented on the marines’ lack of tactical finesse and their readiness to accept heavy casualties. This atmosphere of competition reached its apogee with the heated ‘Smith versus Smith controversy’. In this incident, the confrontational Lieutenant General Holland ‘Howlin’ Mad’ Smith, commanding the V Amphibious Corps, relieved the 27th Infantry Division’s Major General Ralph Smith without properly assessing the difficult situation the division faced on Saipan. While this event threatened to irrevocably damage relationships, it burst the boil, leading to cordial cooperation on Okinawa under Lieutenant General Roy Geiger, commanding the III Amphibious Corps.
This is a well-written, easily read book that hums along without getting into unnecessary detail. Taaffe’s assessments are largely valid, although on occasion he contradicts himself. In his conclusion, Taaffe attributes the marines’ superior tactics as one of the reasons for their success. Yet he writes that, due to the nature of the terrain they largely fought over, the marine generals had little opportunity to demonstrate any tactical or operational flair, having to resort mostly to brutal frontal attacks. In this regard he highlights Major General Rupertus’s and Colonel ‘Chesty’ Puller’s unimaginative and costly tactics on Peleliu. Conversely, he cites the ‘brilliant Japanese tactics’ on Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. In these instances, the Japanese eschewed counterattacks and sought to force the marines to attack strongly defended positions, with the intention of drawing out the battle and inflicting heavy casualties—an aim they achieved. While Taaffe provides lessons learnt from the early operations, they are brief and very broad brush, simply stating the general elements; greater detail on the specifics at divisional and corps level would have enhanced the value of his study.
Overall, as a study of command, Commanding the Pacific is worthy of wide readership. It also provides a concise account of the USMC’s operations in the Pacific, and of the nature of amphibious warfare at that time. Above all, it demonstrates that strong personalities, sound professionalism, decisiveness and forceful action drive success.