The Saber and Scroll
rine Corps in the 1920s was the first to attempt to create a doctrine for landing under fire . The establishment of such a doctrine necessarily included the capability to execute unopposed landings . Thus the latter was generally ignored during training and development exercises . 3 Under the leadership of Commandant John A . Lejeune , the Marine Corps took the lead on the program as it would be the task of the Marines to seize the naval bases in question . Throughout the 1920s and 1930s , amphibious exercises were conducted by the Marines , to include the Navy and the Army , which examined a wide variety of techniques and scenarios . The exercises emphasized a combined arms approach including naval gunfire , light armor and artillery , engineering , and air power . 4
In 1938 , the Navy published Fleet Training Publication 167 ( Landing Operations Doctrine ), a document that had been in development by the Marines since 1934 as the Tentative Manual for Landing Operations . FTP 167 was a sober assessment of the lessons learned over the previous 17 years of work . The Marines recognized that opposed amphibious operations were possible , but they would be difficult . The basic principles read like a broad summation of the Normandy operation itself : the target area would have to be isolated ; a violent barrage of naval gunfire and close air support would precede and support the landing force ; the landing itself would be carried out on a broad front by a combined arms team employing the utmost speed and violence and immediately followed up by reinforcements including tanks and artillery . The greatest threat to the operation was a naval or air attack against the supporting fleet elements , but the most immediate concern was an enemy counterattack against the landing force . 5 The new doctrine was the result
of realistic training and an honest assessment of the needs in an ever more likely Pacific war with Japan . The nature of such a war would severely curtail , if not eliminate , the opportunities to land forces unopposed and move to assault a suitable port from the landward side , a problem that would face Allied planners in Europe as well . As a result of the efforts of the Marines , with Navy and Army participation , the US military possessed the most modern amphibious doctrine in the world by the outbreak of war , if not the forces or resources to implement it . 6
The British also studied amphibious doctrine during the interwar period , though they lacked an organization to take the lead on the issue , as the Marines had in the United States , until 1938 . The Admiralty grew concerned over the development of amphibious capability in the United States and Japan and finally established the Inter-Services Training and Development Centre , under the command of Royal Navy Captain L . E . H . Maund , to conduct research and development on amphibious operations . With such a late start , the most significant achievement of the program was to educate British defense officials , including the Chiefs of Staff and the Committee of Imperial
6