Advanced Base Force

The Advanced Base Force was a joint-United States Navy and United States Marine Corps effort in the early 20th century to build and defend fixed and mobiles bases in China, the Caribbean and the Philippines. It is the precursor to the Fleet Marine Force that exists within the Department of the Navy of today. It was an ideological factor that was established in 1901 by the General Board to oversee the Marine Corps role from its traditional ship duty to creating tactical units in defense of all bases near coastal areas to further inland; temporary, permanent and advanced bases beyond the territorial United States. Military analyst no longer viewed amphibious warfare as merely a matter of occupying and defending likely base sites. Landings would have to be carried out on hostile shores in the face of strong opposition. Evolving from a concept to a permanent tactical unit has taken a slow process to due lack of personnel, funding and interservice rivalry between the Department of the Navy and the United States Army hampered its establishment for fourteen years from 1900 until 1914. Eventually, the Advanced Base Force became the Expeditionary Force with two brigades and on December 7, 1933, the Department of the Navy creates the Fleet Marine Force per General Order 241. Historically, Advanced Base Force became the epitome of the Marine Corps' expeditionary force in amphibious warfare.

History

"The grammar here is atrocious and somebody should correct it. I've already corrected some factual mistakes which I consider a lot more dangerous than the grammatical ones (Hispaniola was never Cuban and Japan and Germany were not allied at the time)."

In the early 1900s, conclusions were made that Germans' interests in their colonization in the Pacific and the Caribbean and the territorial expansion of the Japanese across the Pacific, they could pose a threat on American soil. To include a possible attack from Great Britain from the Atlantic. In assurance of the United States being vulnerable against an attack, a naval policy was recommended to establish a series of naval outposts from which the Navy might defend the continental United States against an invader with full implication of defending the nation's maritime domain. [Harold Sprout and Margaret Sprout, "The Rise of American Naval Power, 1776-1918", 1944."] Also futhermore, it came to the attention of Captain Dion Williams, who was serving in the Office of Naval Intelligence, wrote in 1902 that the Navy ships fueled by coal had limited range due to the vast distances between the U.S. west coast and the fixed bases in the Philippines, it was sensible that advanced bases throughout the Pacific were needed to adhere for a contingency plan if such an attack was to commence on fixed oversea bases.William R. Braisted, "The United States Navy in the Pacific, 1897-1909", 1958.] They concluded that defense of a temporary base against raiding cruisers and a landing force was both possible and desirable.Cmdr. R.H. Jackson, USN, "History of the Advanced Base", 1913.] Cmdr. R.H. Jackson, USN, "The Naval Advanced Base", 1915.]

With the creation of the General Board that advanced bases became a concern and development of the new mission for the Marine Corps. The General Board of the United States Navy comprised of nine senior Navy and Marine Officers was established in 1900 to oversee the strategic challenges of the United States, with Admiral Dewey as Board President. Its duties abided in joint cooperation with the Naval War College in implementing naval studies, they provided institutionalized war planning for the United States Department of the Navy. Also, the General Board applied strategic analysis with the President, State Department and the War Department's General Staff. Most of their work were then given to the officers in the Bureau of Navigation and Office of Naval Intelligence. Their concept was to plan more defense in the U.S. occupied territories of the Philippines, Guam and Hawaii due to the annexation of the surrounding islands by Japan and Germany, colonizing islands in western and central Pacific Ocean.

Admiral Dewey requested George C. Reid, a Marine Corps member in the General Board who was appointed as the Board's Adjutant and Inspector, to report on the size and organization of a Marine force that seemed adequate in defending the islands in Puerto Rico. Also the Board requested the Department of the Navy troop transports for Commandant Heywood to establish battalions for the Far East. After analyzing the lesson of the Spanish-American War, Admiral George Dewey testified that an expeditionary force of Marines would had enabled him to seize Manila without the distasterous cooperation with the Filipino insurgents. [Adm G. Dewey to the Secretary of the Navy, January 14, 1909; Subject File 432, Records of the General Board, Operational Archives Branch, Naval Historical Division, Washington Navy Yard.]

The Marine Corps couldn't adhere to the General Board's request for establishing a Marine force capable of advanced base mission unless the Department of the Navy provided the appropriate funds and men. [Brig. Gen. Cmdt C. Heywood, memo, "General Board Recommends that the Marine Corps be directed to Organize and Equip an Emergency Battalion," Nov 16, 1901, HQMC, "Letters Sent Sec. of the Navy," RG 127, NA] The General Board and the United States Secretary of the Navy John D. Long pressed Commandant Heywood after seeing no effort for a year until Heywood agreed to form a four-company battalion but needed funds for expeditionary supplies and advanced base equipment. Commandant Charles Heywood explained to the Department of the Navy that there need to be an expansion of the Marine force of 20,000 or more to be well drilled and equipped that can be called on a short notice, without the necessity of calling the Army. [ Col. Cmdt. Charles Heywood to Representative E. Foss, December 12, 1898, HQMC, "Letters Sent, 1884-1911, "RG 127, National Archives.]

The General Board exhorted the Roosevelt Administration and the Secretary of the Navy to persuade Congress in the authorization of fourteen new battleships and armored cruisers, and personnel size increase from 25,000 to 44,500 men.Daniel J. Costello, "Planning for War: A History of the General Board of the Navy, 1900-1914", unpublished Ph.D dissertation, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, 1968.] Although it was confronted with difficulty in support by the State Department and Congress.Allan R. Millett, "Semper Fidelis: The History of the United States Marine Corps", 1980.] After many debates on several proposals and rights given by the cooperating governments of China, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Denmark (which owned the Danish West Indies), the request of such fixed oversea bases for preparations of such attack at the most vulnerable and highly strategic advancement to the United States through the Gulf of Mexico, Guantanamo Bay became the only source of a training base due to voter's appeal about the expansion costs and location.

Fixed overseas bases became an overhauled problem by series of strategic and jurisdictional disputes with the War Department and between the Army and United States Navy. The Army even argued that Luzon will be indefensible stating that is was infeasible to set up additional naval bases in the Philippines, such as in Subic Bay; mostly due because of their lack of cooperation. The Navy instead then took advantage of setting up their naval establishments at the Army's fortified Manila Bay and expanding the Cavite naval station. Not until four years later, the American base in the Philippines received its appropiations but none for Guam. After the creation of the Army-Navy Joint Board from the General Board and General Staff by President Theodore Roosevelt, the Department of the Navy analyzed that a strategic and operational bases at Pearl Harbor would be of principle in the Pacific, since they lost Presidential and Congressional support for establishing a base at Subic Bay.

In the first advanced base force exercises during 1903 through 1904 to justified and prove the General Board's conclusions and to gain a visual in the interservice rivalry relations. For instance, in manuoevres in Culebra in 1903, the advanced base battalion was harassed by the transport commander of the "USS Panther" conflicted the Marines' insisting that they are to perform the same duties as the ship detachments. This neglected their own training and preparations. Ashore, naval officers interfered with the battalion's defense plans and work schedules, showing little understanding of the problems caused by terrain and equipment. [BGen. Cmdt G.F. Elliot, USMC to Sec. of the Navy W.H. Moody, December 4, 1903, HQMC, "LSSN," RG 127, and Cmdr. J.C. Wilson, USN to Sec. of the Navy W.H. Moody, March 5, 1903, GB File 432.] And during exercises in Subic Bay in 1904 proved successful between teamwork of the Navy and Marine Corps but Major General Leonard Wood was distressed claiming that the Marines were overlapping the duties of their soldiers thinking they were building up a permanent base defense to cancel out the Army's role and leave it to an all-Navy/Marine insular possessions. [MGen. L. Wood to BGen T.H. Bliss, October 25, 1904, Leanard Wood Papers, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress.] Mostly, was due to the lack of Marine personnel and funding became overall the biggest factor of slow development.

After several years, the General Board asked then-Secretary of the Navy George Meyer to order the next Commandant William P. Biddle to assume the responsibility for the equipment at Philadelphia and Subic Bay. In since that Commandant Colonel Biddle has made significant changes to the Marine Corps that strengthened the ability to respond to the Advanced Base mission, such as the creation of the Assistant Commandant for the preparation and training of the Marines, creation of permanent expeditionary companies at each Marine barracks, and instituting the mandatory three months of recruit training. Commandant Biddle responded by creating the Advanced Base School at New London, Connecticut. Another great achievement occurred when in 1913, Lieutenant Alfred A. Cunningham foresaw the role of aviation in the Advanced Base Force creating the aviation section.

The Advanced Base unit was formed officially at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in 1913 as the 1st Regiment (Fixed Defense) commanded by Colonel Charles G. Long and at Pensacola Navy Yard the 2nd Advanced Base Regiment, a mobile defense regiment commanded by Lieutenant Colonel John A. Lejeune. The 1st Advanced Base Brigade was formed with the two regiments as they departed on January 3, 1914 for exercises on Culebra Island near Puerto Rico. It prospered both as a concept and an operational component of the Marine Corps during the exercise well into the time frame that the United States entered into World War I due to during the Wilson Administration, Major General George Barnett was appointed Commandant of the Marine Corps with him choosing Colonel John A. Lejeune as his Assistant, and both being a close friend of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt. Both Barnett and Lejeune were perfect candidates in reforming and developing the role of the Advanced Base Force effectiveness, profiting from Congress's interest in naval preparedness. After Barnett became Commandant, he reorganized the Advanced Base School into the Navy War College, received money for new base establishments at San Diego, California and a training area at Quantico. Many lectures and writings in fleet operation caught the eye of a brilliant, well-known war prophet Earl H. Ellis who conceived that the Marine Corps first might have to seize a defended island before it could become an advanced base, resting that the Advanced Base Force would be for both defense and assault. Ellis also was the planner in the Culebra maneuvers that soon impressed John A. Lejeune, who became his patron as well as a coadvocate in the Advanced Base ideology. [Dirk A. Ballendorf & Merrill L. Bartlett, "Pete Ellis: An Amphibious Warfare Prophet, 1880-1923", 1997.]

Notes