History
The two atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan to end World War II demonstrated the threat of nuclear warfare. In December 1946, Marine Corps instructor Colonel Robert E. Cushman, Jr. wrote an extensive staff report to then-Marine Commandant Alexander Vandegrift about feasible massive amphibious landings over small areas subject to potential tactical nuclear weapons. He envisioned that the Marine Corps could no longer imagine small-scale operations, recommending the planning for greater mobility and dispersion, and focus entirely on operating more inland from the sea:
- "The tiny island, the single port, the small area...these will no longer be proper objectives. We must think in terms of 200 miles in width and depth." —Colonel Robert Cushman, April 1955.
It was not until 1951, after the Korean War had commenced, that the Marine Corps began to develop heliborne experience in the battlefield when they used helicopters to rapidly transport companies and battalions into the combat zone. However the Marine Corps didn't have enough helicopters nor the individual helicopter lift capability at that time to employ the tactics needed to implement Colonel Cushman's concept of dispersion.
Marine Commandant Lemuel Shepherd's staff realized the Marine Corps was in need of a test unit outside the operationally committed Fleet Marine Force to develop special tactics, techniques and organizational concepts for the nuclear age; however, it had to remain under operational control of the Commandant of the Marine Corps. On 1 July 1955, Commandant Shepherd approved his staff's recommendation and activated Marine Corps Test Unit #1, near Basilone Road at Camp Horno on MCB Camp Pendleton.
Read more about this topic: Marine Corps Test Unit
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“All objects, all phases of culture are alive. They have voices. They speak of their history and interrelatedness. And they are all talking at once!”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)