Origins
The history of amphibious warfare predates Greek antiquity. In United States history, early in the Revolution, Colonial marines were used to conduct amphibious landings and raids such as the Battle of Nassau, and the Penobscot Expedition. Amphibious operations were mounted in the American Civil War, and also prominently in the Spanish American War. Though this history produced a system of landing procedures, the advent of the motor vehicle (the tank in particular) and the airplane required planners to think more critically about the feasibility of amphibious operations.
In Panama, during the 1920s, the Marine Corps conducted a few modest experiments concerning modern amphibious warfare. At the beginning of the 1930s American defense policy shifted as the threat of the expansionist Japanese Empire became more apparent. The establishment of the Fleet Marine Force and greater concentration on the feasibility of amphibious assault were the direct result. Developing the ability to capture Japanese held islands during a Pacific war against Japan was a vital part of US war contingency plans; War Plan Orange. It was not until these contingency plans described the necessity of amphibious capability that testing key maneuvers in amphibious landings was funded.
Read more about this topic: Fleet Landing Exercises
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“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
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