In his new book published by the Naval Institute Press, Commanding the Pacific: Marine Corps Generals in World War II, author Stephen R. Taaffe analyzes the 15 high-level Marine generals who led the Corps’ six combat divisions and two corps in the conflict. The Marine Corps covered itself in glory during the war in such iconic, hard-fought battles as Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and Iwo Jima. In Commanding the Pacific, Taaffe shows how the Corps’ generals played an indispensable role in leading their men to victory.
Taaffe, professor of history at Stephen F. Austin University, recently participated in an author q&a with former Naval History editor-in-chief Fred Schultz to discuss the book:
FS: You’re obviously a qualified scholar, especially of Marine Corps history, and an excellent writer as well. What sets your work on Commanding the Pacific apart from all the other histories written about the Marine Corps’ role in the Pacific during World War II? What in your book is especially fresh and new?
ST: Thanks for the kind words. It occurred to me a few years ago that although Iwo Jima is the most famous Marine engagement of World War II, I knew almost nothing about the Marine commander there. And I’m supposed to be an expert on such things. There are plenty of fine books on Marine Corps operations during World War II, but almost none on the Corps’ high-ranking combat commanders—the men who led its divisions and corps through some of the bitterest battles in the Pacific War. I wrote the book to give these unheralded but important officers their due. I tried to explain who they were, why they were selected for their posts, and why they succeeded or failed in their difficult missions.
FS: Marine Corps veterans have written a large share of books about the Corps. Is being a veteran an advantage, or does it tend to reflect a bias toward the Corps in telling its story?
ST: I think that historians should be as honest and objective as possible in their writing because this gives them a certain credibility. However, there is nothing wrong with a Marine taking pride in the Corps as long as he or she acknowledges this bias and keeps it within bounds. I’ve noticed that the biggest problem that veterans have in recounting their experiences is that they sometimes opine on larger issues on which they really aren’t experts and really don’t know much about. One of the things that made Eugene Sledge’s book so wonderful is that he wrote on what he knew: his time as an enlisted Marine in the Pacific War. He didn’t delve into strategy, interservice relations, logistics, intelligence, etc., because he didn’t know any more about these things than anyone else. As the saying goes, write what you know.
FS: According to most accounts, the Navy abandoned the Marines in several campaigns of World War II in the Pacific? Did it? What happened?
ST: You can make a case that the Navy abandoned the Marines at Wake Island and Guadalcanal. I’m more familiar with the latter incident. The Marines came ashore at Guadalcanal in August 1942 in an effort to keep the Japanese from severing the supply and communication lines between Australia and the United States. A few days after the landing, Admiral Jack Fletcher withdrew his aircraft carriers from the area, which deprived the Marines of air support. Without this air support, Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner had to depart with his partially unloaded supply vessels. This left the Marines on their own with limited supplies, equipment, and ammunition with which to begin the operation. Now, Fletcher had his reasons and Turner did over the following weeks periodically slip in supply ships to succor the Marines, but it’s easy to understand the Marine argument that the Navy initially let them down at Guadalcanal because they didn’t get the support they expected.
FS: To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Guadalcanal campaign, historian John Lundstrom wrote a two-part article published in summer 1992 by Naval History—arguably the most-discussed piece of scholarship ever to appear in that magazine. Lundstrom’s premise is “Frank Jack Fletcher Got a Bum Rap.” Vice Admiral Fletcher does not fare well in your telling. Did he get “a bum rap?”
ST: Well, Fletcher had his reasons for withdrawing his aircraft carriers from the area—he was running low on fuel, and he had lost a lot of planes. He also understood that the Navy could not afford to lose any more carriers in the Pacific. However, a good commander overcomes such problems. From the accounts I’ve read of Fletcher’s attitude toward the Guadalcanal operation during the planning phase, it’s hard not to conclude, as one officer did, that he was focused more on fighting the problems the operation entailed than in solving them.
FS: At what point did the realization come to light that the Marine Corps was more than simply “the bodyguard of the Navy?”
ST: It depends on whom you ask. During World War I, the Marines showed through their actions in France at Belleau Wood and elsewhere that they were a formidable combat force capable of doing much more than guarding Navy yards and providing shipboard contingents. The problem was that they did little on the Western Front to differentiate themselves from Army troops who also fought bravely there.
It was the Marine Corps’ decision after World War I to focus on amphibious warfare, which made them different from the Army. Even though both the Army and Marine Corps engaged in amphibious warfare in World War II, the Marine Corps pioneered the amphibious warfare doctrine that made possible American amphibious victories in North Africa, Europe, and the Pacific. The Marine Corps’ long record of success in such amphibious operations certainly demonstrated that they were a vital cog in the American military establishment, not just an appendage of the Navy.
FS: You rate Major General Alexander Vandegrift and Lieutenant General Roy Geiger as the two best Marine Corps commanders in the World War II in the Pacific. Those two names rarely appear at the top of any such list compiled by other historians. What sets them apart?
ST: High-level Marine combat commanders did not have much opportunity to demonstrate the kind of strategic and tactical prowess that won Army officers such as George Patton and Douglas MacArthur so much acclaim. There are several reasons for this. For one thing, Marine generals usually did not select their island targets; that was the Navy’s job. This denied them the chance to show their strategic abilities. In addition, once the Navy had secured the waters around and skies over the islands it targeted, Marine victory was pretty much inevitable. It was simply a matter of time and casualties. Finally, the constricted geography of most of the islands the Marines assailed limited their tactics to direct frontal assaults that don’t get kudos from historians.
Vandegrift was different from other high-ranking Marine combat commanders in that he led the Marines through the Guadalcanal operation. The Marines did not have the advantages there that they became accustomed to in the remainder of the war, which gave Vandegrift an opportunity to shine and differentiate himself from other Marine commanders. As for Geiger, he oversaw multiple successful operations, more than any other high-level Marine officer, and he did so in a way that won the admiration of almost all of his contemporaries.
FS: You mentioned a book that continues to be an impeccable source of Marine Corps history, E. B. Sledge’s With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa. Was this still the “old breed” he wrote about, or was it in actuality the “new breed”?
ST: A little of both. By the time that Sledge joined the First Marine Division for the Peleliu operation, there had been so much turnover that it wasn’t really the same outfit that had assailed Guadalcanal in August 1942. It had new commanders, new officers and enlisted men, new equipment and weapons, new tactics, etc. So I guess from that perspective it was a new breed. On the other hand, the division had the same pride, tradition, commitment to amphibious warfare, discipline, and so forth. In that respect, it remained the Old Breed.
