Marines in PTO casualties - Incompetence?

Any thoughts on whether the Marine's style of battle was inappropriate and in fact caused more casualties than were necessary in the PTO during WWII?

Uncas pustulated:

.....although several of the amphibious assaults suffered from poor INTEL and/or inadequate planning generating inaccurate conclusions, I'll be damned if I can figure any other method of accomplishing the missions assigned.

Battles are always more easily won in retrospect (and casualties lower). Island hopping could have been more ambitious, but ambition is a grievous fault (according to the Bard), and grievously might we have been called to answer it.

The Japanese seem to have been a bloody-minded lot, susceptible only to being physically and emotionally rooted from their lairs, veritable badgers in combat. My lttle Jack Russell terrier napping at my feet falls into the same category as did the USMC, bred, fed and trained for combat. With single minded purpose and intent diminished only by injury, he represents generations of trying to come up with a dog suited to go down the hole and stay 'till it's over. Speed, grace and talent are elements of victory, but dogged tenacity and the willingness to absorb punishment and come back for more seem to have been integral components of the equations on those bright, hot coral and sand spits in the Pacific.

The USMC probably, but the Royal Marines were in a class of their own.

About the only criticism I've heard of the Marines w.r.t. their combat tactics was their preference for quick frontal assaults rather than flanking moves or prepared offensives. Note that the Marines were trained for amphibious assaults, where a quick frontal assault was about the only viable option. However, the Marines' apparent problem was applying it further inland, where (in hindsight?) there were slower, but less costly and possibly more effective ways to engage the enemy.

Also, due to the small size of the US Marines Corp, their officers were not as experienced as the US Army in terms of handling large-scale operations.

Some of the differences between the US Army and Marines are listed in the book 'Howling Mad vs. the Army,' (IIRC) which is about the situation in Saipan where US Marine General H.M. Smith dismissed US Army General R. Smith, and the uproar that followed.

No, was there any other way? If you want to get specific, you can always refer to the bad decision made for the timing of the Tarawa invasion, for instance. Nobody listened to the old Aussie who knew the tides were unfavorable at the time the invasion was planned. However, if they did listen, they would have done an amphibious landing anyway at a more favorable time. The point being that maybe in certain instances the way amphibious tactics were employed might have been 'innapropriate' causing 'more casualties than were necessary', but overall were indeed appropriate for the 'terrain' there were engaged in.

The Marines had been training for and perfecting the art of amphibious assault for almost(?) two decades prior to WWII, so you can assume that a lot of thought went into the tactics used. Don't quote me on this, but at one point following WWI, before WWII, there was talk of dissolving the Marines completely, why I can't recall, but I think the tactical advantage of having an amphibious assault force factored into their survival.

The question requires clarification. The traditional specialization of the USMC was invasion landings, and most USMC engagements in WW2 were or began as invasion landings. So do you mean that invasion landings caused 'more casualties than were necessary' or do you mean the USMC was less good at invasion landings than other corps, e.g. the US Army?

What in the world does this mean? 'More casualties than were

Could you be more specific? Which aspect of the Marines' style of battle? And just when? As I recall, they modified their tactics from time to time, depending on the situation and how much they had learned fighting the previous battle.

Wow! Thanks for the heads up on 'Howling Mad vs. the Army'.

I guess I'm interested in learning whether or not the Marines were effective in relation to the cost i.e.. number of casualties, monetary costs as well the amount of time it took to reach success.

The Marines faced problems with the terrain - many of the islands were small (Tarawa) so that tactical sublety was out of the question. Each on the larger islands Bouganville the jungle was so thick that movement was impossible - restricted to a few trails. Frontal assualts were the only option. Also the Marines as part of the Navy realized that a quick assualt was necessary to reduce exposure of the supporting ships offshore. The longer the fight the greater the threat of attack to the ships anchored offshore. The Japanese strategic plan was counting on just such an occurance. While the soldiers fought to the death for the emperor the Navy/Air Forces would concentrate on sinking the supporting shoips.