US Marine Corps - The Black Vault

232 Amphibians Came To Conquer
The author can record that the Naval War Planners, which Rear Admiral
Turner headed (as F-1 on Admiral King’s Staff), and of which the writer
(as F-II on the Plans Division for the first year of the war) was a very
small cog, were under a great deal of professional pressure to make the
concept of offensive amphibious action, as in the Rainbow Plan, live again.
ARMY PLANNERS POSITION
The United States Army Planners in Washington 4 in early 1942 took
a dim view of any large scale diversion of Army resources for counteroffensive
purposes in the Pacific Ocean Area, as long as the over-all direc-
tion for the conduct of the war stated that:
1.
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3.
Germany is the predominant member of the Axis Powers,
The Atlantic and European Area is considered to be the decisive
theater, and
“The principal United States military effort will be exerted in the
decisive theater, and operations of United States forces in other
theaters will be conducted in such a manner as to facilitate that
effort ,”5
The Army’s official history makes this position clear.
The basic Army position was:
. . . to emphasize the need for economy of effort in “subsidiary’ theaters.
They classified as subsidiary theaters not only the Far East but also Africa, the
Middle East, the Iberian Peninsula, and the Scandinavian Peninsula. . . .
to consider all other operations as strictly holding operations, and to regard
with disfavor any proposal to establish and maintain in a ‘subsidiary’ theater
the favorable ratio of Allied to enemy forces, that would be necessary in order
to take the offensive there.e
‘ Senior Army War Planners in late 1941 and early 1942 included Major General L. T. Gerow,
Chief of War Plans Division, General Staff; Major General Carl Spaatz, Army Air Force;
Brigadier General D, D. Eisenhower, Deputy Chief, War Plans Division, General Statf; Brigadier
General J. T. McNarney, War Plans Division, Army Air Force; Brigadier General R. W. Crawford,
War Plans Division, General Staff; Colonel T. T. Handy, War Plans Division, General
StaE. At this time there was no separate Air Force. The Air Force was created from the Army
Air Force on 26 July 1947.
s Navy Basic War Plan, Rainbowl%e, WPL-46, app. I, sec. IV, para. 13a, subj: Concept
of the War.
a Maurice Matloff and Edwin M. Snell, Strategic Planningfor Coaii$~onWar/aw 1941–1 942,
Vol. HI in subseries Tbe Wur Department of series UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD
WAR 11 (Washington: Otlice of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1953),
p. 101-02.