BGuthrie Photos: VA -- Quantico -- Natl Museum of the Marine Corps -- Gallery: World War I (1914

VA -- Quantico -- Natl Museum of the Marine Corps -- Gallery: World War I (1914–1918):

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. MCMWW1_130210_013.JPG: 1stLt. Alfred A. Cunningham, the first Marine aviator, reported for duty at the Aviation Camp at Annapolis, MD, on 22 May 1912, a date now commemorated as the birthday of Marine Corps aviation.
2. MCMWW1_130210_022.JPG: Eugene Ely, a pilot for the Curtiss Exhibition Team, made the first flight from a ship on 14 November 1910. In January 1911, Ely also became the first pilot to land an airplane on a ship.
3. MCMWW1_130210_026.JPG: King Armored Car
4. MCMWW1_130210_076.JPG: Curtiss A-2
5. MCMWW1_130210_103.JPG: I had photographed this sign three years before and it was basically the same one except the years covered were 1866-1914 instead of 1866-1916.
6. MCMWW1_130210_124.JPG: The first tanks used by Americans in battle during World War I were French-built Renault M1917s. By the end of the war, an American version was in production. By 1927, five of the M1917 tanks accompanied Marines to China.
7. MCMWW1_130210_130.JPG: The King Armored Car proved largely unsatisfactory, suffering from both a weak transmission and an underpowered engine. Despite that, five cars saw service in Haiti and the Dominican Republic during the 1920s.
8. MCMWW1_130210_134.JPG: The King Armored Car, seen here in a four-color hand-applied camouflage paint scheme, was tested by Marines of the 1st Armored Car Squadron at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.
9. MCMWW1_130210_164.JPG: 1917-1918: Marines in World War I "Come on, you sons-of-bitches! Do you want to live forever?" -- Gunnery Sergeant Dan Daly, Belleau Wood World War dwarfed in size and horror any previous overseas war fought by the United States. By the time the first American forces -- including a brigade of Marines -- arrived in France, their British and French allies were exhausted from three years of grinding warfare against the Germans. The Marine brigade -- two infantry regiments and a machine gun battalion -- served alongside an Army brigade in the 2d Division, which entered action in June 1918 to stop a major German breakthrough aiming for Paris. The Marines fought the Germans at Belleau Wood, a three-week battle that eclipsed in its first bloody day all of the casualties the Marines had sustained in their first 143 years of existence. Hearing rumors after the battle that German soldiers referred to them as "teufelhunden" because of their battlefield prowess, Marines adopted "Devil Dogs" as a proud nickname.
10. MCMWW1_130210_179.JPG: Hand-to-Hand in Belleau Wood: "Not 20 feet from us was a line of about five light machine guns... It was hand-to-hand work for several strenuous minutes." -- Captain George W. Hamilton, 5th Marines, Belleau Wood Marines who survived devastating machine gun fire while charging through the wheat fields around Belleau Wood plunged into a hellish landscape, strewn with enemy positions protected by rocks and thickets. Under torrents of artillery fire and clouds of deadly gas, Marines grappled at hand-to-hand range with battle-tested German troops determined to hold their ground. Exhausted Americans, short on water and supplies, persevered and after three weeks won control of the battlefield.
11. MCMWW1_130210_186.JPG: The Marines Go To France: "The people... ran out & yelled 'The Americans are coming' ... Children were yelling 'Vive l'Amerique.' " -- Private JE Rendinell, 6th Marines, May 1918 More than 2,600 Marines sailed form New York for France on 14 June 1917, only 10 weeks after American entered the war. The first detachment landed at St. Nazaire on 27 June, the vanguard of a force that would number about 31,500 Marines by war's end. Through the bitter winter of 1917-1918, they guarded lines of supply and trained for combat in camp across the French countryside. From March to May 1918, a stint in the lines near blood-soaked Verdun introduced Marines to such unpleasant realities of trench warfare as poison gas attacks, mud, and lice.
12. MCMWW1_130210_197.JPG: Marines Mobilize for World War: "We were all young and knew the thrill that comes with high adventure. We had a war to win and a world to make safe for democracy." -- Private Elton E. Mackin, 5th Marines, 1918 After 140 years of service in small detachments, the Marines Corps underwent dramatic expansion during the World War. From a strength level of 10,397 in 1916, the Corps increased to 75,101 officer and men in 1918. The unprecedented seven-fold growth required new training camps, such as Parris Island in South Caroline and Quantico in Virginia, and prodigious feats of leadership and innovation. The Corps recruited tens of thousands of good men, training and equipped them, and found officers and non-commissioned officers to lead them. Nearly half of the Marines in service reached France by 1918, where, at a considerable cost, they carved out a timeless legacy.
13. MCMWW1_130210_202.JPG: The European War: "The world must be made safe for democracy." -- President Woodrow Wilson's war message to Congress, 2 April 1917 World War I erupted in August 1914. The initial fighting swept across Europe in a series of dynamic offensives, but soon the war bogged down into a three-year stalemate that produced unimaginable butchery. When the United States declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917, America's young men flocked to the colors. The arrival of the eager troops of the American Expeditionary Forces -- with Marines aboard the first convoy -- invigorated the western alliance and broke the stalemate. The war killed 8 million soldiers (50,000 of them Americans) and 6.6 million civilians and wounded another 21 million.
14. MCMWW1_130210_208.JPG: World War I divided most of Europe into "The Central Powers" (notably Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire) against "The Allies" (principally France, Belgium, the British Empire, and Russia). Ten million men in arms died.
15. MCMWW1_130210_215.JPG: Kaiser Wilhelm II was photographed with Field Marshall Paul von Hindenburg and Gen Erich Ludendorff, Germany's senior military leaders.
16. MCMWW1_130210_322.JPG: Through the winter of 1917-18, Marines of the American Expeditionary Forces were trained by French instructors in the harsh realities of trench warfare. They were photographed here wearing French M-2 gas masks.
17. MCMWW1_130210_327.JPG: Marines of the 4th Brigade stood with a captured German trench mortar. The minnenwerfer was originally designed for use by engineers to clear obstacles that long-range artillery could not accurately target.
18. MCMWW1_130210_331.JPG: Imperial German Gas Masks and Cases, circa 1917-1918: The horrors of gas warfare affected all nations. Combatants rushed to develop new countermeasures. Initially made of rubberized fabric, German gas masks were eventually made of inexpensive nonporous leathers, such as dog skin. These captured gas masks are typical of the two designs used in 1917-18.
19. MCMWW1_130210_339.JPG: World War I Officer's Whistle: During World War I, both commissioned and non-commissioned officers commonly utilized whistles to orchestrate tactical troop movements or to alert their troops to don their protective gas masks in the event of a chemical attack.
20. MCMWW1_130210_345.JPG: U.S. Gas Mask M1917: The US was unprepared for chemical warfare. After experimenting with several gas mask designs, they selected the British Small Box Respirator model. In action, the case was worn on the chest. The case held the mask and respirator, a desiccant cloth to clean the lenses, and instructions for use.
21. MCMWW1_130210_391.JPG: USMC Organizational Colors, 5th Regiment: In January 1917, the Marine Corps adopted a standard of blue silk and gold fringe for regimental colors. For a brief period following World War I, battle honors were placed directly on the flag, but this became impractical with multiple honors and limited space on the flag.
22. MCMWW1_130210_431.JPG: The Meuse-Argonne: "In a twinkling of the eye four years of killing and massacre stopped as if God... had cried, 'Enough!' " -- New York Times, describing the armistice, November 1918 By November 1918, the Allies could sense the pending victory, yet the Germans continued to contest every advance. The veteran 2d Division, with its Marine Brigade, attacked northeast through the densely wooded Argonne Forest for a week, but the Germans withdrew across the Meuse River and defending the high ground on the far side. On the night of 10 November, the 143d birthday of the Corps, the 5th Marines braved a hail of fire in a desperate crossing of the Meuse. The stunned survivors discovered the next morning that their valor had been wasted. The war was over.
23. MCMWW1_130210_435.JPG: USMC Organizational Colors, 6th Regiment: The Marine Corps activated the 6th Marines in July 1917 at Quantico, VA, and the regiment deployed by increments to France during 1917-1918. Assigned to the 4th Marine Brigade in the 2d Division, the regiment received the French Croix de Guerre three times, thereby authorizing the members of the 6th Marines to wear the fourragere award permanently on the left shoulder.
24. MCMWW1_130210_513.JPG: 2dLt Ralph Talbot became the first Marine pilot to be awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during bombing missions over Belgium on 8 and 11 October 1918. Talbot crashed and burned to death only days later.
25. MCMWW1_130210_571.JPG: 1917-1918: We, the Marines Global Deployment: More than 40,000 Marines served their country during 1917-1919 without going to France. After their 1914 landing at Vera Cruz, Marines remained on duty protecting the US border with Mexico against violent incursions by revolutionist Pancho Villa. Marines also served in Central America and aboard 62 warships worldwide. Insignia: General Pershing's uniform regulations required the Marines to appear identical to the Army. Some Leathernecks rebelled by wearing USMC insignia on their helmets. When Assistant Navy Secretary Franklin Roosevelt visited the Marine Brigade after Belleau Wood and Soissons, he said Marines had earned the right to wear blackened USMC emblems on their collars. Total Strength: - Total Marines on 6 April 1917: 13,725 - Total Marines on 11 November 1918: 72,963 - Peak Active Duty Strength: 75,101 on 11 December 1918 - Marines on Duty in 1920: 17,047
26. MCMWW1_131221_05.JPG: 1919-1939: The Marines Have Landed "It will be necessary for us to project our fleet and landing forces across the Pacific and wage war in Japanese waters." -- Lt. Col. Earl H. Ellis, 1921 Between World Wars I and II, as America struggled through the Great Depression, experimented with prohibition of alcohol, and warily eyed the increasing aggression of Japan and Germany, the Marines repeatedly intervened in Haiti, Santo Domingo, and Nicaragua as "State Department Troops" to protect U.S. interests, often remaining as affiliated members of the local constabulary. Meanwhile, other Marines at Quantico developed a distinctive new mission that exploited the Corps' unique air-sea-land capabilities and enhanced the nation's preparation for the seemingly imminent naval war against Japan. Here was born the concept of amphibious assault against a heavily fortified beach by Marine landing forces, a role foreseen by the visionary Lt. Col. "Pete" Ellis. In the late 1930s, with mar ever more likely, the Marines urgently pressed the Navy to develop the amphibious ships and landing craft needed to execute a forcible beach assault.
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Description of Subject Matter: World War I: 1914–1918
America entered World War I in 1917. This was dwarfed in size and horror any previous overseas war�fought by the United States. As visitors stroll down a typical American street, they are greeted by a�newsboy hawking his papers and extolling the big news: U.S. Marines are now in the fight in a place�called Belleau Wood. The gallery immerses the visitor in the French countryside and the Battle of�Belleau Wood. Visitors witness battle tactics—including the smell of cordite and the whistle of bullets�through the leaves—used by the Marines, move through a stand of trees and into the field of wheat,�and find themselves behind an overtaken German machine gunners’ position. Hunkered down in a�nearby crater, surrounded by a ghostly woods, correspondent Floyd Gibbons can be found typing his�report: “U.S. Marines smash Huns!” Visitors experience the full fury of the Marine Corps. The Battle of�Belleau Wood lasted three weeks and, in its first bloody day on 6 June 1918, eclipsed all the casualties�sustained by the Marine Corps in its first 143 years. Because of the Marines’ widely publicized�achievements in France, the Marine Corps was renowned on both sides of the Atlantic for its�determination, courage, and self-sacrifice. This iconic battle’s history is taught to every Marine recruit in�the early weeks at boot camp.
The gallery provides additional World War I experiences through the eyes of the Marines who served.
* Model T truck, although askew on the damaged road, brings in supplies and carries out the�wounded.�
* An 1897 French 75mm field gun sits alone in the decimated forest.�
* At an oral history station guarded by an armed Marine who has just donned his gas mask,�Marines and corpsmen describe the hell they had just lived through.�
* Peering through periscopes to see beyond the trenches while overhead a nimble and very�responsive Thomas Morse S-4B aircraft scouts the area.�
* A Liberty truck is the logistic vehicle used to get the “beans, bullets, and Band-Aids” to Marines in�the field.�
* Personal weapons (including John A. Lejeune’s M1911 pistol), uniforms, accruements, and the�honors received by some of those who fought on all sides.
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