US Marine Corps - The Black Vault

404 Amphibians Came To Conquer
It was Admiral Turner’s belief that:
GUADALCANAL LOGISTICS
a. The United States Navy’s concept of logistics broadened mightily
during the early months of World War 11.
b. In no part of naval combat operations did logistics require a larger
part of a commander’s attention than in our early amphibious operations.1
The pre-World War II experience in logistical austerity, combined with
the multiple handlings arising from the nature of amphibious operations
and the juxtaposition of waves, coral, sand and hot sun, provided the pertinent
background for the Navy’s initial logistical inadequacies in the Lower
Solomons.
In the early amphibian operations, there were no LSTS or LCTS and very
few DUKWS.2 The guts of logistical support for the first phase of WATCH-
TOWER had to be winch-lifted out of the deep, deep holds of large trans-
ports and cargo ships, and loaded like sardines into small landing craft
dancing on the undulating seas, and then hand-lifted and piled at a snail’s
pace onto the beaches by tired sailormen or by combat oriented Marines
who, with rifle in hand, might better have been pressuring the retreating
and scattered Japanese.
Admiral Turner said:
Eighty percent of my time was given to logistics during the first four months
of the WATCHTOWER operation [because] we were living from one
logistic crisis to another.g
Many of the transport Captains in the WATCHTOWER Operation
became distressingly familiar with one phase of the complex logistics prob-
lem when their ships in July had to unload all Marine supplies and equip-
ment in New Zealand and then load them right back aboard so that they
would be available in the order in which they would be needed when the
Marines hit the beach. This “combat loading” was never quite so efficient
‘ Turner.
9L.YI-Landing Ship Tank; LCT-Landing Craft Tank. In the 1943 operations these landing
ships and craft ran dirertty up onto the beaeh and waterproofed wheeled vehicles or tanka unloaded
through bow doors. When depth of water or beach gradient did not permit this type of
unloading, they ran up onto hastily constructed ““hard” ramps or dropped their nose doors onto
beaeh grounded pontoon barges. DUKWS. These amphibious trucks could be loaded aboard
ship, unloaded by winch or launched out of bow doors and move throwgh he water up onto the
beach and inland surmounting the surf and riding over reefs or through swamps.
aTurner.