Kyle Gunn
The Marines’ first amphibious landing happened in March 1776, just a few short months after Capt. Samuel Nichols recruited the first two battalions of Marines at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in late 1775. The Continental Army needed gunpowder badly, having just 728 pounds in December 1775. So, the Marines raided New Providence in the Bahamas, seizing two British forts and 200 barrels of gunpowder.
Following the disastrous landings at Gallipoli by the Allies in 1915, where 250,000 men became casualties, large-scale beach assaults were thought to be a thing of the past due to the advent of machine guns and rapid-fire artillery. As many know, Marines don’t really listen to anybody, and in 1934, they published the first modern manual on amphibious assaults. Fun fact: In 1921, another Marine published a manual that would eventually become the Corps’ doctrine for the Pacific theater of World War II.
By World War II, amphibious operations had become a cornerstone of U.S. strategy in the Pacific. Entire divisions hit the beach under cover of naval gunfire and carrier air strikes, often suffering staggering casualties to seize tiny islands that gave the U.S. leverage over Japanese supply lines and forward bases to launch bombing campaigns on mainland Japan.
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