Tag Archives: 1st MARDIV

Strongpoint

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Talk about pucker factor. It happened 75 years ago. 15 September 1950, “Somewhere in Korea,” but we know now it is in the newly established Inchon enclave.

Original Caption: “Marines with a bazooka and a protecting machine gun set up a security post against a possible tank counter-attack. 1st MarDiv. Korea.”

Photog: Sgt. Frank Kerr. 127-N-A2747. National Archives Identifier 5891325

Note the M20 3.5-inch “Super Bazooka” with a rocket loaded and at least four more on standby, as well as the M1919 air-cooled Browning .30 cal with three cans of belted ammo ready to go. All in all, at least a few minutes’ worth of “tough resistance” before these Devils had to be reinforced or fall back. Their jute bag protection, however, is more concealment than cover.

Rushed to Korea in July 1950, the Marines quickly fell in love with the new Super Bazooka, which replaced their smaller and much less effective 2.36-inch M9 Bazookas. Besides putting the T-34 on the menu, at least at close range, it proved useful in knocking out enemy bunkers and clumps of positions.

“Marine riflemen in the background stand by while their 3.5 bazooka man puts a round into a Communist position down the hill. This action took place in mopping-up operations in Korea.” 18 September 1950. From the Photograph Collection (COLL/3948), Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections

The Old Breed’s Last Bolt-Action Battle

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Some 80 years ago this month, a scratch force of Marines waded ashore on a little-known island in the Pacific, with their beloved ’03s in hand, determined to stop the Rising Sun.

Some eight months after Pearl Harbor was attacked, and long after Wake Island, Guam, and the Philippines fell to the Japanese onslaught during World War II, the Allies in the Pacific moved to seize the initiative and launched the first Allied land offensive in the Theater as well as the first American amphibious assaults of the war. Between Aug. 7 and Aug. 9, 1942, some 11,000 men of the newly-formed 1st Marine Division landed on the beaches of Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Japanese-occupied Solomon Islands, a chain of islands far closer to Australia than to Tokyo. There, the Marines aimed to seize an airfield the Japanese were carving out of the jungle and use it for their own fighters and bombers.

However, while the Army in 1937 had opted to switch to the M1 Garand from the M1903 Springfield– a bolt-action .30-06 adopted during the administration of Teddy Roosevelt– the Marines were slower to move towards the semi-auto battle rifle. It was only in Feb. 1941, just ten months before Pearl Harbor, that Marine Gen. Alexander Vandegrift wrote that he considered the Garand reliable enough to arm his Marines. With that, it wasn’t until after America was in the war that the Corps officially adopted the M1 Garand and later the M1 Carbine.

“Captured Japanese Battle Flag, Guadalcanal Airfield, circa 1942.” (Photo: Thayer Soule Collection/Marine Corps History Division)

Guadalcanal Campaign U.S. Marines rest in the field on Guadalcanal, circa August-December 1942. Most are armed with M1903 bolt-action rifles and carry M1905 bayonets along with USMC 1941 pattern packs. Two men high on the hill at the right have vests to carry patrol mortar shells and one in the center has a World War I-style hand grenade vest. The Marine seated at the far right has an M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle. (Photo: U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.)

More in my column at Guns.com.

Warning signal

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Original Caption: Symbolically, there’s a warning signal against them as Marines move down the main line to Seoul. 1st MarDiv. Korea. 9/20/1950

Photog: Sgt Keating. NARA 127-N-A3206

Following the landing at Inchon and the liberation of Seoul, the First Marine Division reembarked on amphibious ships and transferred Wonson on the east coast of Korea, preparing for the advance on the Yalu. Just when the war seemed wrapped up, the Marines were hit by eight fresh divisions of Chinese “volunteers” at a place called the Chosin Reservoir.

For more information on the 1st MarDiv during the conflict, check out the Korean War Project.

“The long and bitter struggle…”

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Official caption: “Victory Carving-First Division Marines on Okinawa gather around Corporal John Dulin as he wields a Japanese samurai sword to cut a VJ cake that he baked for the celebration. That isn’t sugar cake though, the icing is made of starch.” From the Marion Fischer Collection (COLL/858), Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections

“On board all naval vessels at sea and in port, and at our many island bases in the Pacific, there is rejoicing and thanksgiving. The long and bitter struggle, which Japan started so treacherously on the seventh of December, 1941, is at an end,” began Fleet Adm. Chester Nimitz’s address to the combined Pacific Fleet on Sept. 2, 1945, as World War II officially ended, some 75 years ago today.

While today is ostensibly a Warship Wednesday, and logically I should do the USS Missouri, I like to dedicate WW to covering little-known ships and, on this day, Mighty Mo will have her story told far and wide by more mainstream sources than I. This includes a live stream of the anniversary celebration on her decks today.

With that being said, let us take to the sky with a great video on the 75th Anniversary Warbird overflights in Hawaii.

No more posts today, Happy Surrender Day +75. Reflect on those lost. Salute those left.