Over the beach - University of Oregon

considered for deployment. Both the 1st and 3d Infantry Divisions did
their best to carry out amphibious training, but both units were repeatedly
stripped of experienced offcers and soldiers to serve as cadre for new units
being activated. Neither unit was able to bring an entire division together
for training during those hectic days. Furthermore, Major General Lesley J.
McNair, GHQ Chief of Staff, was concerned that such specialized training,
if carried too far, would interfere with the unity of the Army and its ability
to carry out its fundamental ground combat mission. In early 1941 McNair
cautioned the commanding general of the 3d Infantry Division that basic
training was more important than the amphibious training, warning, “Even
though landing is the frst step, success presumably will come only from
skill in combat.” 77
Early in 1941 an Engineer School committee examined the role of
“engineer troops in an amphibious assault,” studying Marine Corps and
British doctrine and recent German and Japanese tactics. They proposed
using engineers as assault troops to destroy beachhead fortifcations ahead
of the frst wave of infantry and stressed the importance of overall Army
engineer control of beach and shore operations. (Under doctrine current
at that time, the Navy beach party removed underwater obstacles and provided
temporary docks and ramps, while the Army shore party constructed
emergency roads, removed mines and obstacles, and prepared hasty defensive
positions against counterattacks, with the Navy beach party controlling
the overall operation.) The committee recommended that the Army
develop craft suitable both for river crossings and to augment Navy landing
craft if necessary, and that engineer combat units be trained to handle
small boats in rough seas and for transferring materiel from ships to shore
(lightering). In June 1941 the Army published its own amphibious feld
manual, FM 31-5, Landing Operations on Hostile Shores, and while most
of it was taken almost verbatim from the Navy/Marine Corps manual, FM
31-5 also incorporated some of the conclusions from the engineer study. 78
Army forces once again participated in FLEX 7 in February 1941 in
the Caribbean, where three battalions of General H.M. Smith’s 1st Marine
Division were joined by a two-battalion task force of the 1st Infantry
Division. In June 1941 the Joint Board issued a plan (the Carib Plan) for
amphibious training on the east coast. The 1st Infantry Division and the
1st Marine Division were organized into the landing force component of
the 1st Joint Training Force, subsequently renamed Amphibious Force,
Atlantic Fleet, which conducted further exercises at New River, North
Carolina, in August 1941. The Pearl Plan of September 1941 designated
the 3d Infantry Division and the 2d Marine Division as the landing force
of the 2d Joint Training Force (later, Amphibious Force, Pacifc Fleet) at
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