Army and Navy Review 1915 Panama-California Edition - Balboa Park

THE FOURTH REGIMENT
By Thomas F. Carney, Sergeant Major, U. S. Marine Corps.
W
HILE the eyes of the world turned their seaward gaze on the
hurrying battleships and crowded transports that swept, with
smoking funnels, down the broad bosom of the Carribean Sea,
towards the low-lying shores that first felt the power of the
white race, when the conquistador of old burned his caravels,
in token that the mystic empire of the Montezumas must fade before the
westering sun of progress that then burst forth in the land, under the gold
and crimson flag of Spain, few there were who heeded the military operations
on the western littoral of Mexico, and, indeed, compared with the
spectacular events terminating in the seizure of the historic City of the
True Cross, there was little in those movements to stir the nation’s heart, or
inspire the historian or the poet. Yet, they also serve who only stand
and wait.
The Fourth Regiment U. S. Marines, was quickly organized in response
to telegraphic orders received on April 15, 1914, and was composed of the
25th, 26th and 27th companies stationed at Bremerton, Washington, and
the 31st, 32nd, 34th and 35th companies at Mare Island, California. The
command was assigned to Colonel Joseph H. Pendleton, whose long career
as an officer of the Corps reached backward into the days of wooden
ships and iron men, and whose record of service at the front in the stirring
days of ’98, was crowned by his dramatic capture of the bullet-swept, and
wire-entangled slopes of Coyotepe Hill, during the recent revolution in
Nicaragua. The newly formed regiment was embarked on the cruiser
South Dakota and the collier Jupiter, the contingent from Mare Island
boarding the vessels at San Francisco, having marched to their tugs with
colors streaming bands playing, and all the pomp and panoply of war, and
the last sight visible from the decks of the receding craft, as they steamed
down the bay to the parting cheers of thousands, was the gray-haired figure
of Colonel Waller, looking with longing eyes across the waters, as for
the first time in all his soldier days, he saw men departing for active service,
and he not with them.
On April 22 the vessels cleared the Golden Gate and proceeded southward,
the gigantic collier following the wake of the cruiser, carrying the
regiment, seven companies strong, while forward and aft a thousand rumors
circulated as to destination and port of call. Organization was completed,
inspections held, artillery-men toiled at their pieces, signal-men
practiced their art, and as the squadron, after a momentary call at San
Pedro, when the news of Vera Cruz was learned, drew into tropic seas, a
command, worthy to uphold the honor of the flag, was rapidly evolved from
the apparent chaos which might be inferred from a superficial glance at the
hour of embarkation.
But it profits not to dwell on the wearisome experiences of a military
command afloat, a condition which must be borne as part of the scheme of
things— and then forgotten. Since the memory of man runneth not to the
contrary, men have gone down to the sea in ships, and certain features of
similarity have marked every ocean journey from the days when the venturesome
Phoenician voyager, with garlands of flowers and burning incense,
installed his household god on his galley’s prow, to guard him against
the dangers of the deep, to the time when evil smelling oil-bags are used
for the same purpose. And the sonorous voice of the hortator on the Roman
trireme, we may well believe, was no more insistent and far-reaching
than the hoarse tones of the boatswain's mate of a modern man-o-war, proclaiming
to unwilling ears their impending tasks and toils.