The Marine Parachute Battalion
The second type of specialist unit formed by the Marine Corps during the war was the Marine Parachute Battalion. The Marine Corps had made the first steps in forming its own parachute unit as early as 1940, however progress was painfully slow. By 1942 only one full Battalion was ready for service, with a second undergoing training. The initial aim was to provide each Marine Division with a single Parachute Battalion to allow it to combine a means of aerial assault with the more usual amphibious landings.
However, there were a number of problems in this theory. Firstly, the Marine Corps had limited air transport assets and would have had to concentrate practically all of these to lift a single Battalion. Secondly, the sheer range of potential targets from airbases in the Pacific was so huge that in many cases the aircraft simply could not reach them. Finally, there was a general reluctance amongst the senior commanders of the Corps to devise plans involving the use of parachutists, which in part stemmed from a belief that the Corps simply did not need such distractions.
The Marine Parachute Battalion, 1942
Headquarters Company (8 Officers, 98 men)
Battalion Headquarters Section (7 Officers, 7 men)
Communication Section (9 men)
Intelligence Section (10 men)
Maintenance & Supply Section (24 men)
Demolition Platoon (1 Officer, 33 men)
Company Headquarters (15 men)
Three Rifle Companies (6 Officers, 153 men) each comprised of;
Company Headquarters (3 Officers, 39 men)
Three Rifle Platoons, each comprised of;
Platoon HQ (1 Officer, 3 men)
Mortar Squad (5 men)
Three Rifle Squads, each comprised of 10 men
Total Strength of 583 all ranks (26 Officers and 557 men)
Points of note
In this initial form, the Marine Parachute Battalion was actually larger in strength than its Army equivalent, however in terms of firepower they differed considerably, with the heaviest weapon in the Marine inventory being the 60-mm mortar. During 1943 the above organisation was amended, with the inclusion of a Weapons Platoon per Rifle Company. It seems likely this change was linked to the acceptance that airborne operations were now highly unlikely to materialise, and put the Marine Parachute Company on a level with a standard Marine Rifle Company. Details of the amendments can be found at the below link. At time of writing, I do not know whether these amendments resulted in a revised Table of Organization, and if so I do not have a copy. If anyone does, please feel free to drop me a line!
The elements of the Battalion
Battalion Headquarters - the staff consisted of the Battalion Commander (Lieutenant-colonel), Executive Officer (Major), two Captains (Plans and Training, and Quartermaster respectively), and three Lieutenants (Adjutant, Intelligence and Communications officers).
Communication Section - this small Section was responsible for internal communications within the Battalion and included three radio telephone operators.
Intelligence Section - included three scouts under a Corporal chief scout.
Maintenance and Supply Section - apart from three riggers, this subunit was made up of non-parachute qualified personnel, and had the Battalion's transport pool of six vehicles.
Demolition Platoon - in line with the idea of using the Marine parachutists in similar vein to the Marine Raiders, the Battalion included its own Demolition Platoon. This consisted of a small HQ of Lieutenant, Sergeant and two runners, with three Squads. Each Squad was commanded by a Sergeant, with a Corporal assistant, four demolitions personnel, two light machine gunners, and two assistant gunners.
Company Headquarters - was another administrative element, concentrating the cooks, barbers and cobblers under the Adjutant, who doubled as Company commander.
The Rifle Company - normally when writing this type of description I have to try and identify the authorised individual weapon for each Platoon member, but not here. Every Marine within the Battalion was to carry an M55 Reising submachine gun. There was no official allocation of rifles anywhere in the Battalion, though there were two .45-cal pistols in Battalion HQ, presumably for the CO and his XO. Now every instinct tells me that rifles would have been issued and the Battalion could not rely solely upon submachine guns, but at what scale rifles may have been substituted I cannot suggest.
The ten man Squad was commanded by a Sergeant, assisted by a Corporal who was also to be trained in demolitions. There were then three light machine gunners, three assistant gunners, and two submachine gunners. The light machine gun selected for use by the Marine parachutists was the Johnson M1941. This was an unusual weapon, designed by the same Marine Corps officer who developed the Johnson rifle. The M1941 fired the standard .30-cal US round from a curved, side mounted magazine that held twenty rounds. It was markedly lighter than the BAR, and later versions even had a folding stock.
As with any new weapon, there were teething problems, however nothing as drastic as those which afflicted the Reising submachine gun. The fact that the Marine parachutists kept the M1941 in service throughout their existence attests to the fact it functioned, though there were other issues. The magazine was single column, similar to a semi-automatic pistol, making it long. This proved to be an obstruction when moving through jungle (something also levelled at the Sten), and equally the highly raised foresight tended to snag. Carrying sufficient numbers of magazines, which required a specialist series of pouches, was another difficultly, though they could be reloaded from five round chargers.
The M1941 was deployed by the Marine parachutists on Guadalcanal, though whether there were enough for the requisite twenty seven per Rifle Company at this time I cannot say. The substitute weapon was not the BAR, as might be expected, but the M1919A4. Certainly the concentration of nine light machine guns within a Platoon was impressive, whichever type of weapon was used. The Marine parachutists are also mentioned as using the Johnson rifle.
Platoon Headquarters was made up of a Lieutenant, Sergeant and two messengers, plus a Mortar Squad of a Corporal, two gunners and two ammunition bearers, serving a single 60-mm weapon. The Company had three Bazookas, allowing for one per Platoon.
Company Headquarters was split between Combat and Administrative Sections. The former included a Captain, five radio operators, and a US Navy medical detachment of an officer and four men, all of whom had to be parachute qualified. The Administrative and Supply Section was commanded by a Lieutenant, and was mostly non-jumping personnel.
Summary
Whether the Marine Parachute concept of combining an airborne assault within an amphibious landing operation would have worked will never be known. None of the four Marine Parachute Battalions eventually raised ever made a combat drop. Instead, they found themselves used as 'regular' infantry in a variety of Pacific island battles, making their assault not from the skies but from landing craft.
In early 1943 the two Marine Parachute Battalions allocated to Marine Divisions were withdrawn, and with the newly arrived 3rd Battalion were formed into the 1st Marine Parachute Regiment. This existed for barely a year, before being returned to the United States at the beginning of 1944 to be officially disbanded. Its personnel were reassigned to provide the cadre of the newly forming 5th Marine Division. This move signalled the end of all attempts to form specialised units within the Marine Corps, something which had been strongly opposed by many of its most senior figures throughout the war.
The United States Marine Corps