Advanced Base Force

The United States Marine Corps's Advanced Base Force was a coastal and naval base defense force that was designed to set up mobile and fixed bases in the event of major landing operations within, and beyond, the territorial United States. Established in the beginning of the 20th century, the Advanced Base Force was the United States's first combined task force that was built on the concept of the Marine Corps's traditional role in expeditionary warfare. The slow development of the advanced base force played a significant role in the controversy over the removal of the ships guards in 1908—1909.

Relying on the full projection capabilities of their naval counterpart, the Advanced Base Force enabled the United States Navy to meet all the demands for its use of naval services within its own sphere of maritime operations. It also allowed independence, without the cooperation of the United States Army for troops and military supplies, for such force may not be available. The Advanced Base Force had been concluded by the General Board that one or two regiments were highly adequate in defending naval bases against cruiser raids and were able to land with thirty emplaced naval guns, high-angled field artillery, machine guns, infantry, and water and land minefields.

Background
Before the creation of the Advanced Base Force, the victory over Spain in the Spanish-American War had greatly influenced the expansion of the United States. By the time the Treaty of Paris was ratified in 1898 the United States had annexed the Philippines in the western Pacific to influence foreign relations in China and Korea; primarily through the presence of the Asiatic Squadron. The McKinley Administration included Guam and the Hawaiian Islands to the south Pacific insular areas of Samoa. Also, Congress approved the Foraker Act in the annexation of Puerto Rico for the defense and protection of the newly independent Cuba from any possible foreign attack. The government also negotiated with Nicaragua and Columbia for the right to build an isthmian canal through Panama.

Due to the new, vast expansion of territory, the Navy began to assume strategic duties unimagined before 1898. In 1900, the "General Board of the Navy" was established to foresee and make recommendations on naval policy, assuming the tasks of the nation's naval expeditionary and strategic challenges.

The General Board developed some potential war plans for possible events that may be measured if such attacks were to be aimed for the continental east coast, Antilles of the Caribbean, or the Panama Canal. The most dangerous, likely foe that the United States Navy faced was the British Royal Navy, and had been implemented into War Plan RED, however, relations had improved and both already committed to a growing rapprochement. It instead agreed that the most likely foe would be the Germany's Imperial Navy, a burgeoning force of warships that were at the disposal of Emperor Wilhelm II. In response to possible German naval invasion of the Caribbean or attacks on the east coast, the United States devised War Plan BLACK. To also include Germany having purchased Spain's remaining central Pacific island colonies, and the Mariana Islands and the Caroline Islands, and its establishment of a naval base in China in 1900. And after the Russo-Japanese War, victorious Imperial Japan had serious plans of expanding its influence south and west in the Pacific. The United States Navy solely relied on the islands for refueling stations for the coal-powered navy ships; the lifeline to the naval bases in the Philippines and Guam. If such an attack was initiated by the Japanese, a system of Pacific naval bases were needed to be built, in order to put War Plan ORANGE into effect.

The sum of it all, the Navy's war planning after 1900 assumed that maritime attacks on the United States and its interests were possible in both the Pacific and the Caribbean, and given the thousands of miles the fleet would have to steam to provide security to the outermost bases of Guam, the Philippines, or of the similar. The General Board was convinced that it would require hastily developed advanced bases, and it could not depend on the small and overextended United States Army to defend the bases in short order.

Definitive history
In late 1901, a four-company battalion was formed at Annapolis and Newport by then-Commandant of the Marine Corps, Major General Charles Heywood for expeditionary and advanced base training. General Heywood had been pressured by both the General Board and Secretary of the Navy, John D. Long, to create such a force that was placed on naval transport and were well-drilled and equipped for duties given at short notice to any of the territories annexed by the United States, without having to rely on the slower and demanding process of deploying the Army.

Organization
The Advanced Base Force was "officially" created on 23 December 1913 by Commandant William P. Biddle. Momentarily, two regiments, the Fixed Defense Regiment and the Mobile Defense Regiment were designated. They both are the forebears of the Marine regiments that exist today; the 1st Regiment of the Advanced Base Force subsequently became the 2nd Marine Regiment, whereas the 2nd Regiment became the 1st Marine Regiment.

An aviation detachment was established a few years before in 1911, under command of the United States's sixth naval aviator, Lieutenant Bernard L. Smith. This detachment is not to be confused with the much later "permanent" Aviation Company, which was under command of the United States's fifth (and Marine Corps's 'first') naval aviator, Alfred A. Cunningham.

Fixed Defense Regiment
On 19 June 1913, the Fixed Defense Regiment, under command of Lieutenant Colonel Charles G. Long, was formed at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. The Fixed Defense Regiment was the forerunner of the Marine Defense Battalions that were responsible for coastal defense of various naval bases throughout the Pacific during World War II.

On 3 January 1914, the Fixed Defense Regiment at Culebra Island, along with the Mobile Defense Force, formed the Advanced Base Force Brigade, under the command of Colonel George Barnett, who previously commanded the Marine Barracks at the Philadelphia Yard and the Advanced Base School. By 18 February 1914, it was redesignated as the 1st Regiment, Advance Base Brigade. For the next two months, the regiment operated onboard ship off New Orleans and Algiers, Louisiana.

In 1915, The regiment consisted of:
 * Headquarters company
 * C Company, was the minelaying company trained to handle harbor defense mines.
 * E Company, the signal company trained in radio, telephone, telegraph, buzzers, and visual signalling.
 * F and I Companies were responsibilities for the fixed batteries to be mounted in harbor defense.
 * H Company which was trained both as combat engineer company and as a heavy automatic weapons company
 * a field artillery battery which manned 3 in field piece

The Aviation Company was established by Alfred A. Cunningham at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 26 February 1917. The company's strength consisted of ten officers and forty men for billets as aviators and as staff personnel. The Advanced Base Force's aviation company became the first permanent aviation element in the Marine Corps.

Mobile Defense Regiment
Commandant Biddle assembled the Mobile Defense Regiment at the Pensacola Navy Yard, from the expeditionary battalions that were stationed abroad the Mexican territorial waters; Commandant Biddle assigned Lieutenant Colonel John A. Lejeune as the commanding officer. The regiment was composed of four rifle companies, a machine gun company, and a field gun battery. These composed into mobile infantry/artillery battalion landing forces, the predecessors to the Marine Regimental (RLT) and Battalion Landing Teams (BLT) that performed numerous landing operations from the Pacific Theatre of World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, to the latter years.

Between 2–3 January 1914, the Mobile Defense Regiment sailed aboard the USS Prairie and rendezvoused with the Fixed Base Regiment at Culebra Island, forming the "first" operational advanced base force brigade, the Advanced Base Force Brigade.

1900–1905
A brilliant naval intelligence officer, Marine Captain Dion Williams, who was serving in the Office of Naval Intelligence, wrote an extensive thesis in 1902 stressing that America's safety rested on the Navy's ability to coal its vessels, if in time of war. He endorsed that any war the United States will enter in the future will first be conceived through a "naval war". Dion, however, differentiated between fixed and mobile defense forces. He announced that the fixed defense force should be a permanent regiment of 1,312 Marines to man artillery and establish necessary minefields and barriers; the mobile defense force should be a regiment of two infantry battalions and one field artillery battery, which could be formed quickly from Marine naval base detachments. He urged stockpiling equipment and weapons, assigning transport permanently to the force, and holding annual maneuvers.

The summer of 1902, the Secretary of the Navy William H. Moody ordered the advanced base force battalion to be prepared for an upcoming fleet exercises during the winter in the Caribbean Islands. This exercise has proven to the Marine Corps the necessity of naval gun emplacement and setting up base defenses. Also, the expeditionary battalion that was stationed in Cavite, Philippines had already been exercising in Subic Bay and had employed eight heavy guns at the bay's entrance. Even though the battalion in the Philippines were not of the advanced base force concept; it was marking the new idealism for the Marine Corps.

The first advanced base exercises had taken place on Culebra, Puerto Rico in 1903, proving the General Board how well the Marines can perform the ideals and concepts that were conceived. It opened many new perspectives for the future of the Marines; and it sparked the harsh beginning of interservice rivalry. The captain of the USS Panther demanded that the Marines perform their same initial duties, ship security and a provost marshal by acting as a deterrence tool against mutiny, if any. This unencouraged act forcibly neglected the advanced base force battalion's training schedule and defense planning. Even ashore the naval officers had little understanding of the problems of moving heavy weaponry and equipment across broken terrain, the advanced base force languished by 1903 due to the large number east coast Marines were deployed to Panama and Cuba. Only then, the Marines in the Philippines were effected by the General Board's the advanced base force concept.

1905–1910
In an exercise in 1907 at Subic Bay, a battalion commanded by Major Eli K. Cole emplaced forty-four heavy guns in a ten-week period due to the Eight-eight fleet war scare with Japan in 1907, which convinced the Navy Department that it should organize the matériel for an advanced base force to be available in the Philippines and one that is well-prepared and trained in Philadelphia, PA. The Marine Corps at that time recorded a strength increase of two thousand men since 1903, the General Board considered it a favorable quota to proceed in the organizing a "permanent" advanced base force; thus making further cooperation with the Army unnecessary.

The General Board in 1909 reviewed the scant progress since 1900 and concluded that neither the Navy Department nor the Marine Corps had done much to make the advanced base force a reality. Commandant George F. Elliott and his staff were criticized by the Navy officers for not carrying out Charles Heywood's (the previous Commandant) agreements. Admiral George Dewey reviewed disappointment and Navy Commander William F. Fullam even denounced Elliott for failure to use additional Marines for expeditionary duty, which was the only hope to naval reformers in creating the advanced base force.

Many several factors helped renew the interests in the advanced base force. The most significant factor was the appointment of the new Secretary of the Navy, George von L. Meyer, in 1909, who created the Naval Aide system. Meyer's aides were four line officers with direct responsibilities for policy in four functional areas: operations, inspections, personnel, and matériel. To conclude the success, the Secretary Meyer appointed Bradley A. Fiske (Aide for Operations) and William Fullam (Aide for Inspections), the Marine Corps's own rival and nemesis, to staff these posts. The aides and the General Board improved policy matters and were very influential in behalf of war preparedness and establishing a balanced naval fleet. The Aide for Operations subsequently became the tutelage title of "Chief of Naval Operations". Another factor was the increased of men available for advanced base training due to the conflicts of Nicaraguan Expedition of 1912 and the Veracruz landing in 1914.

Importantly, Colonel William P. Biddle replaced General Elliott as the Commandant of the Marine Corps, who in turn approved three important reforms that strengthened the Corp's ability to respond to advanced base missions; one of which, was the establishment of an assistant to the Commandant. The Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps was responsible for the military training and preparedness of the Marines. Lieutenant Colonel Eli K. Cole became the first assistant to the Commandant. Secondly, the creation of permanent expeditionary companies to each Marine Barracks. And third and last, the institution of mandatory three months' recruit training. In addition, Biddle continued Elliott's policy of assigning a few Marine officers to Navy and Army advanced officer schools for further training in large unit maneuvers, artillery, communications, and contingency planning.

1910–1915
In March 1910, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Beekman Winthrop, sent Commandant Biddle a direct order to take custody of the advanced base materials and take the necessary steps to instruct the officers and enlisted in the use of the materials. Assessing the experiences learned to 1911, a Marine officer by the name of Major Henry C. Davis argued that the advanced base force was the Corps's "true" mission and is should be embraced as such. By next summer, the Advanced Base School was transferred to the Philadelphia Navy Yard.

Two new revolutions to the Marine Corps also helped established the legitimacy of the Advanced Base Force; the first was the formation of the Marine Corps Association (MCA) and the "Marine Corps Gazette", founded by John A. Lejeune in 1911, and second, the new innovative avenues of Marine/Navy Aviation. The Marine Corps's first aviator, Lieutenant Alfred A. Cunningham, saw a role for aircraft in the advanced base force. Joined at Annapolis by Lieutenant Bernard L. Smith, the Marine Corps's second aviator, both learned to fly planes from civilian instructors; which both later reported to the Advanced Base Force in 1913, to create an aviation section within the force.

June 1913, the Advanced Base Force brigade was formed, composed of two permanently organized regiments, the fixed defense and mobile defense regiments. Each regiment was tailored to its specific part in the advance base force concept. At the same time, numerical designations for companies were adopted to alleviate the problem of having more than one company A, for example, in any one of the expeditionary force.

Despite the efforts in the creation of the Advanced Base School, too much energy had been spent on academic arguments over the advance base concept; it was time to fully test the concept in fleet maneuvers. By December 1913, the Marine Corps had done more to make the advanced base force a reality in one year than it had in the last twelve years.

By 1914, the advanced base force would utilize reconnaissance seaplanes for the force. The fortunes of Marine aviation from its infancy were associated with the advanced base operations.

In July 1914, a Marine Colonel, Joseph Pendleton, encamped his Marines onto the fairgrounds in Balboa Park in San Diego, CA. On 19 December 1914, he established the Marine Barracks to house the advanced base/expeditionary forces. However, the status of a permanent base was debated in the federal government.

During the time the Panama-Pacific Exposition opened in July 1915, the Marine Corps received enough money to develop its new bases on the west coast, in San Diego, CA; and a similar training base, Marine Corps Base Quantico, was formed on the East Coast. Also, the funding provide the necessary materials to establish an aviation company of ten officers and forty men, which subsequently grew larger in proportions shortly after, due to the reorganization in increasing personnel strength that was ordered through the General Board and the Navy Department.

After George Barnett became Commandant, HQMC transferred the Advanced Base School [again] to Newport, Rhode Island, adding to the Navy War College curriculum. This move unbeknownst became the fulcrum of the advanced base force's successful future. The earliest scholars and missionaries of the Navy War College were Dion Williams, Eli K. Cole, John H. Russell, and Robert H. Dunlap, all who pioneered the advanced base force concept since the very beginning.

A brilliant and well-decorated Marine intelligence officer, Lieutenant Colonel Earl H. Ellis, a fellow patron of the Navy War College during 1912—1913, was influenced by the advanced base operations concept. In his tenure as a student, and later as an instructor, he scholarized and instrumented war plans and procedures that became vital to the success of the United States' Pacific island-hopping campaign that would occur 25-years later in World War II. He also plotted accurate charts, based on his ability in hydrographic surveying and topography; pointing that seizing a well-defended island rested upon the integral advanced base force, and that the Marine Corps's future fully relied upon of the advanced base force, for both defense and assault. Ellis even impressed John A. Lejeune of his brilliance, who soon became his patron as well as a coadvocate of the advanced base force concept.

Ellis participated in drafting war plans against Japan that later became the vital major thesis on which the Pacific Theatre during the World War II was based on. Ellis covertly spied on the Japanese, disguised as a civilian seeking business interest in Micronesia, and surrounding nearby islands.

Also in 1915, Colonel Eli K. Cole continued his own advocacy upon the moment he was appointed as the Commandant of the Advanced Base School and the commander of the 1st Regiment (Fixed Defense), (ending his tenure as the "first" Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps, 1911—1915), by emphasizing in the procurement, plus the necessary technical training, of new weapons and equipment.

Next to serve as the next assistant to Commandant Barnett was Colonel John A. Lejeune. During his tenure of 1915—1917, he spoke for the Commandant, stressing the missions of the Advanced Base Force. He argued that the Marine Corps's organization needed reconstructing, urging that the Marine Corps as a "whole", not just 'particular' regiments assigned to advanced base duty; this reorganization should be the Marine Corps's primary function to the United States's naval services. Col. Lejeune even supported the article printed in the Marine Corps Gazette by John H. Russell, who has drafted one of the earliest advanced base force studies.

The expeditionary duties in the Caribbean had been one of the main causes that conflicted in the formation of a legitimate advanced base force that could be retained permanently, to serve abroad the navy bases. While the conflicts were arising in Europe, the German and Austrian armies against the coalition of Great Britain, France, and Russia since August 1914. Nevertheless, the battles of World War I in 1917—1919 would prove and test the Marine Corps new creed of maritime combat. From 1900 through 1916, much has changed to evolve the old principle of "ship-only" duty of security guards, and the occasional landing force participants. Insomuch, the "advanced base force concept" had emplaced itself as the father of modern-amphibious warfare, another concept that would revolutionize the Marine Corps in years to follow.

Veracruz, 1914
The Marine Corps's Advanced Base Force, and its Navy cooperatives, participated in the United States's next intervention when the late-President of Mexico Francisco Madero was executed by Victoriano Huerta's Porfirista military conspirators on 22 February 1913.

The aviation company with the Advanced Base Force, however, missed its first chance at expeditionary duty during the 'Veracruz, Mexico' landing in April 1914 because it had not yet discovered a way to get its two aircraft, both seaplanes, to the objective area in flying condition.

Advanced Base School
The Advanced Base School was established at New London, Connecticut by the Headquarters Marine Corps (HQMC) in April 1910. The General Board asked the Secretary of the Navy, George Meyer, to order the newly appointed-Commandant of the Marine Corps, Colonel William P. Biddle, to assume responsibilities for the advanced base equipment assembled at Philadelphia, PA and Subic Bay, Philippines. More or less, the Commandant was in charge of ensuring that all the officers and enlisted were adequately trained and embedded in the formal study of the advanced base force. The Marines themselves found the training more demanding than they encountered before. Marines had in the past were restricted only to sea duty, the advanced base concept opened new revolutionary methods never thought before in the United States's naval history. Labored by day and studying by night, the regiment's officers trained their men to assemble and aim the melange of 3-inch and 5 in naval guns, army field artillery, mines, searchlights, and automatic weapons.

By March 1910, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy Beekman Winthrop in lieu sent the order to the Commandant. The school assembled a handful of officers and men to begin the formal study of advanced base defenses. The next summer, the school was moved to the Philadelphia Navy Yard in order to work more closely with the actual equipment that were to be used by the Advanced Base Force. However, training had little continuity, mostly due to the expeditionary duty that took place in the Caribbean.


 * "You will prepare for the care and custody of advanced base material and take necessary steps to instruct the officers and men under your command in the use of this material." —Assistant Sec. of the Navy, Beekman Winthrop to Commandant William Biddle, March 1910.

Fleet exercises
The Advanced Base Force Brigade, commanded by Colonel George Barnett, landed on Culebra Island of Puerto Rico on 3 January 1914, with the landing forces of the Atlantic Fleet, and spent a week preparing coastal defenses for their upcoming "first" advanced base exercise.

The Culebra exercises became the first of many fleet landing exercises to come over the years, consisting of the occupation and defense of the island by the advanced base force brigade. The brigade emplaced batteries of 3 in field guns on each side of the entrance to Culebra's harbor and the laying of control mines offshore; the aggressor forces were acted by a detached Marine battalion landing force with the Atlantic Fleet. The signal company, in addition to laying mines, provided communications (telegraph and telephone) for the brigade, established radio stations, and operated day and night visual stations. The engineers assisted the fixed gun companies in the preparation of gun emplacements, built docks, and established machine gun positions on certain parts of the harbor shore line. The 1st 3-inch battery emplaced 4.7 in guns in permanent positions, holding its 3 in field pieces in reserve.

However, they found many discrepancies during the off-loading of equipment; mainly the landing crafts, both experimental lighters and ships boats, were almost to the point of being unsuitable. Once ashore, they discovered shortages of engineering tools and transportation, even with the use of the portable Decauville portable track system. Nonetheless, the Marines moved into position, manning the guns, its infantry entrenched. A counterattack force hid in the hills as the "attacking" force conducted simulated raids by cruisers and large beach landing teams.

The Chief umpire, Rear Admiral William S. Sims, and the Navy observers (mostly from the Navy War College) offered recommendations to the Marine artillery crew in different naval gunfire techniques. They thought that the Marines shouldn't engage the "enemy" warships in an artillery duel, risking exposure; they agreed instead that high-angle artillery and flat-trajectory naval gunfire would make the fixed defenses the absolute choice in engagements. RAdm Sims concluded that the Marines, making up the "mock" landing force of 1,200 sailors and Marines, could not breach the island's defenses. However, amidst the smoke and the barrage of blanks, and an array of searchlights scanning the beaches, the Advanced Base Force successfully defended Culebra. The Navy umpires officially agreed that the Marine Corps had finally refined the advanced base concepts and able to organize the operational units required by the General Board's war plans.