The Amphibious Revolution

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Prewar exercises had exposed the need for a truck fleet to clear supplies off the landing beach. Although the Navy explored the idea of a swimming truck (not as a cargo carrier from ships but as a means of getting enough trucks ashore promptly) it was the Army that developed an amphibious version of the standard 2-1/2-ton truck. This became the famous "Duck" (a coinage playing off the official designation of DUKW). Like the LVT, the DUKW was a modest and slow swimmer and so small it could not carry a standard cargo-net load from a ship. 16

Fire Support

History furnished many examples prior to 1939 of warships supporting amphibious assaults with naval gunfire. During World War II, it played key roles in the success of assault landings, perhaps most conspicuously at Sicily, Salerno, and Normandy. Moreover, the effectiveness of naval gunfire grew by leaps and bounds during the war primarily due to the creation of observation parties landing and advancing with the troops and outfitted with radios capable of calling for and adjusting fire. This enormously extended the reach and accuracy of naval gunfire. The only serious shortcoming was that the relatively flat trajectory of ship-mounted guns made them ineffective against reverse slopes. 17

American and British officers recognized before World War II that pinpoint firepower applied from close-in would be essential to overpower beach defenses. Even early landing craft were routinely fitted with machine guns for this purpose. 18

A converted Higgins design fitted with machine guns and later rockets, the Landing Craft, Support, Small (LCS(S)) debuted in North Africa. 19

They proved useful, but officers recognized the need for something heavier. In the Southwest Pacific theater, the Navy improvised, using a converted LCI(L) hull to fill this gap in 1943. Ever more sophisticated versions appeared as the war progressed. The ultimate product mounted a 3-inch/50-caliber gun and two 40mm mounts, supported by 20mm guns and rockets, designated Landing Craft, Support, Large (LCS(L)). Success with the LCI(L) naturally led to mounting a 5-inch/38-caliber mount and progressively more sophisticated rocket batteries on Landing Ship, Medium hulls. 20

Too unstable to accept a heavy armament, the American LCT became the odd man out in the fire-support role. Rocket-armed LCTs proved a decidedly limited success because the whole vessel had to be maneuvered to aim the rockets and there was no effective ranging method. The LCTs reached their pinnacle in the fire-support role at Normandy, where they appeared not only as rocket launchers but also in up-armored versions carrying M-4 Sherman tanks to provide high-velocity direct-fire support while still others served as platforms for the standard U.S. Army M-7 self-propelled 105mm howitzer in the low-velocity direct-fire role. 21

Unloading

Of all the difficulties highlighted in early operations, probably none produced more ill-tempered comment than the chaotic morass that landings generated on the beach. In retrospect, the miserly initial provision for control, manpower, and equipment was ludicrous. Gradually, doctrine evolved to provide a beach master of at least commander rank to boss the shore; vastly expanded work parties of sailors, Marines, or soldiers; and pallet-loaded supplies to ease handling. Another fruitful technique first used at Empress Augustus Bay at Bougainville was restricting sharply the amount of supplies loaded on transports. 22

Milestones

How then did all these developments fit into the chronology of World War II? The German conquest of Western Europe created a flood of fresh converts to the heretofore lonely and despised church of amphibious warfare, which had been ministered by U.S. Marine Corps and Navy officers between the wars. More-or-less successful small raids balanced failure at Dakar. Between May and November 1942, British and American forces conducted successful landings at Madagascar, Guadalcanal, and North Africa that ruptured the orthodoxy of Gallipoli pessimism.

The transforming year was 1943. The new landing ships and craft, such as the LST, LCI, and LCT, initially appeared in large numbers during the first half of that year. The repulse of an Italian and German armored counterattack at Gela on Sicily in July 1943 established the role of naval gunfire support. But Tarawa was the key turning point. It marked the fundamental amphibious-assault shift from flanking maneuvers aimed to avoid prepared defenses to storm landings straight into the teeth of those defenses.

The best-remembered amphibious operation is D-Day, the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944. American soldiers paid a stiff price on Omaha Beach for Allied commanders ignoring the Pacific amphibious experience. But here they must be cleared from false charges. The main culprit was not the air and sea bombardment plans, per se; the duration and effectiveness of both were properly subordinated to the need for tactical surprise and to limit beach cratering in order to permit rapid inland movement of vehicles. Further, the Army actually requested a full complement of the specialized, odd-looking, and effective British assault armor, but the British simply lacked the resources to manufacture enough of the "funnies" for their ally. Thus, commanders' one truly culpable failure was leaving 300 LVTs to stand idle. Pacific experience highlighted that they could have enormously reduced casualties by transporting troops, under protection from small-arms fire, from the water's edge all the way to the seawall. Further, a night landing may have lessened losses, but the ripple effect of that choice on the other beaches may have created other perils to the whole scheme. 23

The signal moment of 1944 arrived at mid-year in the Pacific when the combination of stupendous firepower and armored landing craft completely reversed the prewar conventional wisdom. American amphibious assaults were unstoppable, and the Japanese gave up even trying to defend at the water's edge. Thereafter, however, American commanders did not simply bludgeon their path forward. Perhaps the most elegant and effective landing operation of the war occurred in July at Tinian. There, in an extraordinary, daring stroke, the obvious and well-defended beaches were shunned in favor of tiny patches of shore on the northern coast. This was only feasible because of the extraordinary efficiency of U.S. amphibious technique.

The unimaginable growth of amphibious warfare during World War II is illustrated by the contrast between the first U.S. operation and the proposed initial invasion of Japan in November 1945. Admiral Turner led only 51 vessels of the Amphibious Force South Pacific to Guadalcanal in August 1942, of which just 22 embarked approximately 19,000 Marines and their equipment. For Operation Olympic, Turner would have commanded some 2,700 ships and craft. This armada embarked simultaneously about 350,000 men (132/3 divisions plus support troops). Its vessels included hundreds of small combatants to provide fire support and control, hundreds more to haul tanks and vehicles, more than 500 LSTs, and attack transports and cargo ships in triple figures. 24

Keeping pace with the astronomical increase in numbers was the quantum leap in every phase of technique.

Amphibious warfare did not simply come of age during World War II; it transformed the very nature of how wars are fought. As practiced by U.S. forces, it was more revolutionary and enduring than the Blitzkrieg because it incorporated sea power as well as air and land arms. In fact, amphibious warfare proved the key to victory for the Western Allies, for every step toward that goal began with a landing. The amphibious warfare revolution so comprehensively reversed military thinking that only five years later it permitted the Inchon landing—arguably the single greatest U.S. military masterstroke of the 20th century.

1. George C. Dyer, The Amphibians Came to Conquer: The Story of Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner , Washington, D.C. Government Printing Office, 1971) p. 318 (hereafter, Dyer, The Amphibians Came to Conquer ). back to article
2. See Generally Merrill L. Bartlett, Assault from the Sea: Essays on the History of Amphibious Warfare (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1985); Norman Friedman, U.S. Amphibious Ships and Craft: An Illustrated Design History (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2002), p. 6 (hereafter Friedman, U.S. Amphibious Ships and Craft ); Dyer, The Amphibians Came to Conquer, pp. 208, 223-27. back to article
3. Friedman, U.S. Amphibious Ships and Craft , pp. 15, 23-65. back to article
4. Friedman, U.S. Amphibious Ships and Craft , pp. 99-100. back to article
5. Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol. VII, Aleutians Gilberts and Marshalls, April 1942 to April 1944 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1968) p. 88 (hereafter Morison and the individual volume). back to article
6. Richard B. Frank, Guadalcanal: The Definitive Account of the Landmark Battle (New York: Random House, 1990), pp. 35-36. back to article
7. Col. Joseph H. Alexander, USMC (Ret.), Utmost Savagery: The Three Days of Tarawa (New York: Ivy Books, 1995), pp. 41-42 (hereafter Alexander, Utmost Savagery ). back to article
8. Dyer, The Amphibians Came to Conquer , p. 744. back to article
9. For a concise synopsis of these specialized intelligence units see Gordon L. Rottman, U.S. Special Warfare Units in the Pacific Theater 1941-45 (New York: Osprey Publishing, 2005). back to article
10. Thaddeus Holt, The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War (New York: Scribner, 2004), Chapters 8, 10, 16, especially, pp. 770-777; Morison, Vol. IX, Sicily, Salerno, Anzio, June 1943- June 1944, pp. 20n-21n, 172. back to article
11. Friedman, U.S. Amphibious Ships and Craft , pp. 261-278. back to article
12. Friedman, U.S. Amphibious Ships and Craft , pp. 228-29, 278-283; Joseph Balkoski, Omaha Beach, D-Day, June 6, 1944 (Mechanicsburg, PA, Stackpole Books, 2004) p. 168 hereafter Balkoski, Omaha Beach ). back to article
13. Friedman, U.S. Amphibious Ships and Craft , pp. 103, 111-27. back to article
14. Friedman, U.S. Amphibious Ships and Craft , pp. 138-148, 202. back to article
15. Friedman, U.S. Amphibious Ships and Craft , pp. 213-219; Alexander, Utmost Savagery, pp. 62-65. back to article
16. Friedman, U.S. Amphibious Ships and Craft , pp. 100-101 back to article
17. Morison, Vol. IX, Sicily, Salerno, Anzio, June 1943- June 1944 , pp. 103, 118-19, 122. back to article
18. Friedman, U.S. Amphibious Ships and Craft , p. 223. back to article
19. Friedman, U.S. Amphibious Ships and Craft , pp. 223-26. back to article
20. Friedman, U.S. Amphibious Ships and Craft , 223-226, 233-240, 246-253. back to article
21. Friedman, U.S. Amphibious Ships and Craft , 227-228, 242, 246. back to article
22. Dyer, The Amphibians Came to Conquer , pp. 457-58, 745-46, 844, 883 1038-39; Morison, Vol. VI, Breaking the Bismarcks Barrier, 22 July 1942-1 May 1944 , pp. 289, 303-04. back to article
23. Balkoski, Omaha Beach , passim, provides an excellent discussion of planning. Steven Zaloga made the important discovery that contrary to long-standing belief, the Army requested British specialized armor in February 1944, with the results listed in the text. D-Day (1) Omaha Beach (New York: Osprey Publishing, 2003) pp. 21-30. Adrian R. Lewis provides a trenchant critique fixing the main flaw as failing to choose. back to article
24. Dyer, pp. 281-82, 1109; Richard B. Frank, Downfall: The End of the Japanese Empire (New York: Random House, 1999) pp. 118-122. back to article

Mr. Frank is the author of Guadalcanal: The Definitive Account of the Landmark Battle (Random House, 1990), and Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire (Random House, 1999).

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