"NAVAL INFANTRY"

[OSCSSW]

This topic is to explore the use of Naval Infantry. That is ships' companies formed and deployed into expeditions ashore for land combat.

I am not talking about actual Marine Infantry units or Army units specifically trained for landing purposes like:
USMC,
UK Royal Marines
Netherlands Marine Corps
French Troupes de Marine
Italian San Marco Marine Brigade, marines of the Italian Navy.
Italian Lagunari, amphibious troops of the Italian Army
German "Seebataillons'
The Russian Naval Infantry
Infantería de Marina AKA Spanish Naval Infantry Established 1537 and the oldest "Marine" unit
Japanese Special Landing Forces.

The Naval infantry or landing force must be formed from a ship's regular sailors. It must be formed for duty ashore alone or with other ship's landing forces. These forces will be returned to their ships for normal duty as soon as they have carried out their mission or have been relieved by "Regular Marine or Army units.

In the USN each ship had it's own "Landing Party" for use ashore. Usually it was formed from the Gunnery/Deck Departments.
Here is an article that I found very informative. It's a bit long but loaded with info on the subject. Let me know if this format is acceptable to the you folks. I could have just appended an address but I feel specific points in this article might spark discussion and beong able to see it in context here would be of help. I'm the Boot here and would appreciate your advice.

Sailors as Infantry in the US Navy
By Patrick H. Roth (Captain, US Navy, Ret.) Burke, Virginia October 2005

Up until the 1970s, competency as naval infantry—sailors performing as infantry, and sometimes providing land based artillery support—was an integral part of the Navy’s operations and mission.

· The use of sailors as infantry (and as artillerymen ashore) was common during the 19th century. At sea boarding was a recognized tactic. Likewise, landings and operations ashore were normal. Marines were a minority and landings were generally a ships company evolution, i.e., involving both marines and sailors.

· Use of sailors as infantry was part of the late 19th century great debate by naval reformers over the direction of the Navy. The debate centered on how to best use “our officers and men as efficient infantry and artillerymen,” not around the desirability or utility of use of sailors as infantry. Everyone in the Navy accepted that the use of sailors as infantry was a required Navy’s competency.

· Sailors performed as infantry a lot: at least 66 landings and operations ashore on distant stations during the 19th century; 136 instances in the Caribbean and Central America during the first three decades of the 20th century; numerous times on China Station and elsewhere. Using sailors as infantry ashore was what the Navy’s primarily did during the Seminole Wars and the War with Mexico. It was the Navy’s most valuable contribution during the Philippine Insurrection. Operations ranged from election security, pacification, peacekeeping, land convoy escort, protection of roads and railroads, occupation, and guard duty to large-scale major combat operations against regular Army forces.

· The Navy promulgated infantry tactical doctrine in 1891and continuously refined and updated it until 1965. During the Cold War period naval infantry schools existed. Navy infantry tactics followed U.S. Army, not Marine, tactical doctrine during its formative period reflecting a desire for inter-service interoperability. All fleet units were required to maintain, and train, landing parties.

· It was not until establishment of the Fleet Marine Force in 1933 that the use of Navy landing parties declined. Even then, organized infantry capabilities continued to be required both afloat and ashore until the 1970s.

· During the Cold War practical emphasis shifted to infantry defense of shore installations, although fleet units still maintained infantry capabilities.

· Sustainability has been the Achilles heel of the use of Navy forces as infantry. Logistics and support poor, naval infantry could not sustain itself very long. Future consideration of sailors as infantry must consider combat support services.

Introduction

On June 7 2005 Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Vern Clark, directed development of a “Navy Expeditionary Sailor Battalion Concept” with the goal of standing up a combat battalion in fiscal year 2007.1 This is return to the past. Up through the 1970s, competency as naval infantry—sailors performing as infantry, and sometimes providing land based artillery support—has been an integral part of the Navy’s operations.2 While this competency has been gone from the fleet for a generation, its return can be facilitated by an examination of a rich history.

The Early Navy: Late 18th-19th Century

The use of sailors as infantry (and as artillerymen ashore) was common during the 19th century. At sea, boarding was a recognized tactic. Likewise, landings and operations ashore were normal. Marines assigned to ships were small in numbers and their primary duty was as ship’s guard, accordingly navy infantry assault operations, be it boarding or operations ashore, were largely ships company evolutions.3 Only when a small number of landing personnel were required might the marines carry them out without assistance of the ships crew.4 During the 19th century, marines were not permanently organized into tactical maneuver organization such as battalions and regiments. They rarely operated as an independent organized force.5

Naval infantry operated ashore regularly during the Quasi War with France, the War of 1812, Seminole Wars, the War with Mexico, the American Civil War, and the Spanish-American War.6 The Seminole Wars and the War with Mexico are particularly illustrative. Operations ashore were what the Navy did during these wars. The Seminoles, of course, had no navy. Mexico also had no navy to speak of. Almost all naval operations in both wars involved the use of sailors ashore in traditional Army roles. During the War with Mexico, sailors operated ashore in the capture of California and Mexican coastal cities and towns. Sailors famously landed Home Squadron heavy guns and operated them ashore during the siege of Vera Cruz. In fact, throughout the nineteenth century, the Navy provided, and sailors provided artillery/crew serviced light artillery and machine guns supporting landing operations by the naval services.

Exercising naval infantry (small-arms capability) was enshrined in Navy Regulations. Commanding officers were required “frequently to exercise the ships company in the use of…small arms.” Specific numbers of men (“exclusive of marines”) were required to be exercised and trained: 44 gun ships, 75 men; 36 gun ships, 60 men; 32 gun ships, 45 men; 24 gun ships, 40 men; 18 gun ships, 30 men; all smaller vessels, 20 men.7 US Navy Ordnance Instructions mandated that “the whole crew are to be exercised by divisions in the use of the musket, carbine, pistol and sword, and in firing at a target with small arms…boat’s crews [are] to be exercised in all preparations for attacking the enemy, either by land or water…”8

Following the Naval Academy’s founding in 1845, infantry tactics were an integral part of the curriculum being required in both the First and Second Class years.9 The Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography published a manual of exercises for small arms and field artillery in 1852 that was used at the Academy.10 Specialized landing party ordnance was developed. Commander John Dahlgren’s 1850 model 12-pounder boat howitzer, which was capable of being rigged on a field carriage, “was considered the best boat gun of its day in the world.”11 Dahlgren later, while commanding the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War, ordered that boat artillery and sailor infantry be “landed occasionally for practice.”12

When not engaged in war the 19th century Navy operated on distant stations with a mission to support commerce.13 With regularity, this involved operations ashore in order to maintain order and protect property. During the years before 1900, exclusive of wartime operations, sailors operated ashore as infantry at least 66 times while on distant stations. Operations might involve ensuing order, capturing pirates, punitive operations, or any number of reasons.

Reform At the End of the 19th Century and the New Navy

During the 1880s, a strong current of reform began to take hold in the Navy. This reform involved great advances in all aspects of naval endeavor: education, training, tactics, and the introduction of the steel steam Navy. The reformers did not neglect operation by sailors ashore as infantry, and as artillerymen.

Practical Drills and Training

On the waterfront, unlike earlier years when formal coordinated infantry training was rare, the Navy began to conduct landing drills and maneuver ashore. The North Atlantic Squadron conducted a large-scale landing at Key West in March 1874. In this exercise involving 2,700 men, a naval brigade consisting of five battalions of sailors as infantry and one of artillery maneuvered ashore.14 Navy training and education reformer Rear Admiral Stephen B. Luce conducted the first ever “no notice” amphibious landing while temporarily commanding the North Atlantic Squadron during August 1884. A brigade consisting of two infantry battalions (one composed of sailors) artillery and supporting elements landed at Gardiner’s Island, New York.15

Luce was not alone in applying formal training to landing tactics. Reproduced below is the North Atlantic Squadron training program for the winter of 1885-1886. Points 4 thru 6 involve infantry operations.

1. “Sight enemy cruisings, engage—fleet tactics, target practice, torpedo practice
2. Repairing damage after action. Sail and spar drill
3. Enemy located at Tampa, under guns of fort, guns and fort silenced, enemy attacked by torpedo boats of squadron
4. Capture of fort—land under guns of squadron, seize fort—land naval brigade
5. Seize enemy town (upriver). Boats equipped for distant service, 2 or 3 days away from squadron
6. Occupation of enemy’s position on shore
7. Rumors of torpedoes and fire rafts. Squadron at anchor. Protect from torpedo and fire rafts”16

Following his tour as first President of the Naval War College, Luce, again in command of the North Atlantic Squadron, conducted a major training exercise that included naval infantry landings and mock battles on Coddington Point at Newport. The attacking force consisted of ten companies of sailors. Additional fleet practical landing party training occurred in 1888, 1894, and 1895.

When compared to today’s standards of training the frequency of landing exercises might seem to indicate that this facet of naval expertise was undervalued. In fact the whole idea of organized fleet training was in its’ infancy. Landing exercises involving sailors as the primary source of infantry were in the latter part of the 19th century conducted on a schedule comparable to exercises involving fleet tactics. Infantry skills were considered very important and the consensus was that they, like fleet tactics, improved with practical exercise.

The Intellectual Debate: Organization and Tactics
Practical training was a manifestation of an ongoing intellectual debate. A long running discussion among the navy reformers occurred in the pages of the Naval Institute Proceedings.17 It begins in 1879 with a paper by Lieutenant T.B M. Mason entitled “On the Employment of Boat Guns as Light Artillery for Landing Parties.” Mason’s, and subsequent arguments over then next decade or so, revolved around how to make “our officers and men efficient infantry and artillerymen.”18 The debate would revolve around this question not the desirability or utility of use of sailors as infantry. No article, or critical commentary, questioned the use of infantry operations ashore by sailors as a navy mission. All articles and comment sought to improve naval infantry organization, equipage and tactics.

A year after Mason’s article, Lieutenant John C. Soley submitted a paper that in part was a history of landing parties and in part a landing party manual. Significantly, he called for the development of efficient landing craft.19 The Naval Brigade was the subject of the Naval Institute prize essay contest in 1887. Lieutenant C.T. Hutchins won the gold metal with an essay entitled “The Naval Brigade: Its Organization, Equipment, and Tactics.”20 His essay was a proposed organization, organizational manual, operations manual and practical guide rolled into one. It foreshadowed the Navy’s Landing Party Manuals of the 20th century.

There was unanimous agreement among naval reformers about the need for regular infantry drill. The debate revolved around organization and tactics, i.e., whether to use current organizational tactics developed by Army training guru Emory Upton or a new organization proposal by Alfred Mahan’s reformist brother, Lieutenant Dennis Hart Mahan. The younger Mahan argued for closely tying ships’ divisional organization to landing party requirements. His proposed system also placed greater responsibility of petty officer leadership, as opposed Upton’s more central tactical control.21

D.H. Mahan appears to have been more or less isolated in his argument. Accompanying commentary was negative to a greater or lesser degree. In any event, the organizational and tactics question was settled in 1891 when the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation issued “Instructions for Infantry and Artillery, United States Navy” which largely adopted Upton’s recommended organization and tactics.22 Mahan’s detractors wrote that pocket-sized manual—the first ever issued by the Navy.23

What Should the Navy Infantryman Train For?
A sub-theme in the 1880s debate was the question of what kind of warfare should Navy infantrymen train for? Perhaps influenced by Civil War experience, a majority agreed with Ensign William Ledyard Rogers that history shows that “...in almost every war the Navy is called upon to take a more or less active part against the best troops of the enemy.”24 Accordingly, training and tactics should acknowledge this. Lieutenant William F. Fullam argued differently. He asserted, “…mob or street fighting, or service in the streets of cities, is that which naval battalions are most likely to perform, and therefore more attention should be paid to it.”25 Accordingly, Fullam argued for a simple landing party manual and drills optimized to the street fighting/mob control mission. His line of argument would theoretically degrade the usefulness of sailors as infantry. As it turned out, the Navy’s first infantry manual was a relatively simple one that did not emphasize street fighting. During ensuing decades, Navy infantrymen would face the enemies “best” as well as mobs in streets, and an assortment of everything in between.

What Are the Limitations of Sailors As Infantry?
While naval reformers argued the question of what kind of fighting to train for, there was general agreement that naval infantry sustainability was normally limited to 2-3 days and operations were limited geographically.

Who Does Naval Landings? Should Marines Be Embarked On Ships?
In 1889 the Secretary of the Navy appointed a board, headed by Commodore James Greer, to examine shipboard organization and landing party practices. The Greer Board took the position that ships crews should handle all evolutions. It recommended removal of the marine ship guard from naval vessels. The Secretary of the Navy did not accept this recommendation, but Board member Lieutenant Fullam began to lead a campaign over the next decade and a half to remove marines from ships.26 Most of the uniformed US Navy leadership supported Fullam.27 The campaign dragged on until 1908, when President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 969 redefining the Marine Corps duties to exclude ship guard and other on-board duties.28 Congress quickly reversed this decision.

Regardless of the outcome of the debate over embarked marines, it is quite clear that the professional Navy considered sailors to have a mission as infantrymen and that these bluejackets, with proper organization and training, to be as proficient as marines.

Tactical Doctrine Is Promulgated
Debate over organization and training spurred issuance of the Navy’s first formal publication outlining in detail training and organizational requirements for landing parties and their operation ashore. In 1891, the Bureau of Ordnance issued “Instructions for Infantry and Artillery, United States Navy.” Prior to this, aside from general requirements, some embodied in Navy Regulations, individual ship commanding officers and Commodore/Flag Officers were largely on their own. They adopted tactics from recognized sources such as Upton’s Tactics.29 “Instructions for Infantry and Artillery, United States Navy” provided a Navy standard—a point that the Reformers had argued for.

Besides providing instructions for drill and tactics for infantry and artillery, “Instructions” general regulations directed that:

"Each ship and squadron will have a permanently organized landing force composed of infantry and artillery….”
“ The section, consisting of one officer, two petty officers, and sixteen men, is the unit of organization. All sections are drilled both as infantry and artillery.”30

In 1905 “Instructions for Infantry and Artillery, United States Navy” was superceded by “The Landing-Force and Small Arms Instructions.” This manual went through various editions before the US entered World War I.31 All editions required maintenance of permanent organized landing forces. By 1907, tactics to cope with street fighting and riots were included as a part of the instruction/manual alongside conventional operations.32 In1918 the Landing-Force Manual, United States Navy was promulgated. The 1918 edition was a major revision with much more information on tactics, conduct of fire, and field fortifications. This document, went through various editions until 1950 when it as superceded by the “Landing Party Manual”33

An Era of Sailors Performing As Infantry

Although ships’ landing parties were permanently organized, the Spanish-American War provided little opportunity for their employment. Subsequently the Philippine Insurrection (1899-1903) involved numerous instances of the use of bluejacket landing parties ashore. Historian Vernon Williams claims “the most important role played [by the Navy during the Philippines Insurrection] was that of conducting land operations.”34

The Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America provided the backdrop for extensive use of bluejackets ashore in almost every conceivable type of infantry activity. In this region, there were at least 136 instances of individual groups of bluejackets operating ashore as infantry (from squad to brigade level) between 1901 and May 1929.35 Operations ranged from election security, pacification, peacekeeping, land convoy escort, protection of roads and railroads, occupation, and guard duty to large-scale major combat operations against regular Army forces. Ships landing parties or multiple landing parties organized into battalions, regiments, or brigades conducted almost all of this activity. Some of it—notably the “Bluejacket Expeditionary Battalion” sent to Nicaragua in 1928—was, however, conducted by units organized in the U.S. and then sent overseas.36

The largest operation during the early years of the 20th century involved the occupation of Vera Cruz Mexico in 1914. A seaman brigade of some 2,500 bluejackets conducted the landing and infantry assault alongside a 1,300 man marine brigade.37 Vera Cruz highlighted two problems associated with naval infantry: tactics and sustainability. The Mexicans, using machine guns, repulsed the assault by the Second Seaman Regiment on the Mexican Navy Academy when the regiment, used the massed infantry tactics of 1891 and earlier. The bluejackets quickly had to adopt improvised small unit tactics to cope with the street fighting.

Tactics could be changed. The second problem—sustainability—would be more difficult. Even during the age of sail, there was recognition that landing party sustainability was limited. At Vera Cruz, the sustainability problem was finessed when US Army formations quickly relieved the sailor brigade. Introduction of steam and complex gun systems also made the problem more difficult. Sailors were really required aboard ship in order to work and maintain it. In the sail navy, sailors were largely interchangeable and there were few specialists. The new steel, steam, navy was a different organization. Sailors were specialists and ships operation was more complex. Some specialists were just too valuable to send ashore—gun pointer and turret captains could not be included in landing forces. Sufficient men, with the right skills, were necessary to remain on board in order to maintain and fight the ship.38 After Vera Cruz very large-scale fleet bluejacket landings did not occur. Effectively use of the landing party was constrained, but not eliminated.

Ship Organization and Tasking for Operations Ashore

Ships continued to be required to organize and train landing parties and the Fleet planned, and did, use them. Two examples illustrate ship organization for operations ashore during much of the rest of the century:

USS New Mexico Organization and Regulations, 192939
New Mexico Standard Service Landing Force
· 1st Infantry Company (marines)
· 2nd Infantry Company (seamen)
· 3rd Infantry Company (seamen)
· Artillery Section
· Machine Gun Company
· Battalion Headquarters Company
· Pioneers
Standard Organization Book for 2200-ton Destroyers, October 194440
&#x20The landing force organization will consist of two rifle squads…The first Lieutenant will be in charge of the landing force.”
· No. 1 rifle squad
o BM2 2nd division
o 9 riflemen 1st and 2nd divisions
· No. 2 rifle squad
o GM1c O division
o 9 riflemen E division

U.S. Asiatic Fleet Regulations 1931 is typical of Fleet tasking.41
Art. 521. [General] Every ship of the Fleet shall have a landing force composing one or more complete units (squad, section, platoon, company, or battalion) depending on complement, organized in accordance with the Landing Force Manual.
Art. 522. Emergency Force. When in port where conditions on shore are disturbed and when the necessity for a quick landing may arise, there shall be kept in readiness an emergency landing force consisting of one commissioned officer, one signalman, and a squad of eight men, one of whom shall be equipped with an automatic rifle.
Art. 523. Exercise Frequency”. [Landing parties will be exercised frequently.]

Tactical Doctrine Parallels Army Doctrine

The Navy took care to be compatible with Army operations ashore. An Army officer helped author the 1891 “Instructions for Infantry and Artillery, United States Navy.”42 The 1905 and subsequent editions of “The Landing-Force and Small-Arm Instructions” drew heavily on US Army Infantry drill-regulations. In an effort at standardization, Navy documentation adopted Army nomenclature for units and sub-units (squad, platoon, etc.). The 1918 Landing Force Manual stated this explicitly: “when operating on shore, whether alone of in conjunction with vessels of the fleet, the landing force, it well trained and efficiently handled, carries out the same tactics, and in the same manner, as would a similar force from the US Army under the same conditions.”43 The 1927 edition was specifically updated to be in agreement with US Army Training regulations for infantry, machine-gun units, and combat principles.”44

The reasons for alignment of Navy infantry tactics with the Army appear to be several. There was a great deal of interest in cooperation with the Army during this period. The Naval War College and the General Service School at Fort Leavenworth were cooperating on combined operations studies. At the strategic level, the Navy Officer professional organization, the Naval Institute, was promoting interest in joint Army and Navy Operations is a long series of articles during the years 1924-25.45 The Joint Army-Navy Board was also effective in stimulating cooperation. More practically, adoption of Army infantry tactics might have been stimulated by the decade and a half effort to remove marines from ships. This may have been a key underlying factor. In any event, The Navy perceived a need to align itself with Army tactics, and acted upon it.

The Marines Take the Lead: 1930s and World War II

The Marines eventually took the lead in amphibious assault operations, making the role of bluejackets largely unnecessary. This was a slow process. Initially, during the years before World War I, the Corps, under pressure from the Navy’s General Board and the Secretary of the Navy, took up a mission of defending temporary advanced bases.46 The process began very early in the 20th century, but a permanent marine advanced base defense force organization was not formed until 1913. Meanwhile there was a need to have greater numbers of marines available for expeditionary duties. Facilitating this expeditionary mission, in November 1902, a battalion embarked on USS Panther beginning a practice of having an embarked battalion available for expeditionary duties in the Caribbean and Central America. The landing party mission, however, continued to be in conjunction with Navy bluejackets.47

Implicit in the advanced base defense concept was that marines might have to seize advanced bases and to do this the Marine Corps had to be organized for field operations. Following World War I, the Corps under the leadership of Commandant General John A. Lejeune, concluded “to accompany the Fleet for operations ashore in conjunction with the Fleet” was “the real justification for the continued existence of the Marine Corps”.48 The Marines put action behind statement and major landing exercises were held in 1922, 1924, 1925, and 1926. Amphibious infantry assault and infantry operations ashore—from the sea—were by then the acknowledged major mission of the Marine Corps.

By 1927 the final version of Joint Action of the Army and the Navy recognized that the marines had “assumed responsibility for land support of the fleet for initial seizure and defense of advanced bases and for such limited land operations as are essential to the prosecution of the land campaign.”49 In 1932, SECNAV, on recommendation of CNO Admiral William V. Pratt, formally approved Lejune’s vision. A year later Navy Department Order 241, with the support of Admiral Pratt, established the Fleet Marine Force. By the mid to late 1930s, the Marines had largely and near exclusively become the navy’s infantry. They exercised this capability in a series of Fleet Landing Exercises.50 The Navy assumed the role that which is recognizable today—support, transportation, naval fires, etc.

This did not mean that the Navy ships landing force went away. Guidance on amphibious landings continued to be included in Navy Landing Force Manuals until 1938. By then amphibious landing tactical doctrine had been subsumed by publication of the Marine Corps developed “Tentative Landing Operations Manual” of 1935, which was adopted by the Navy in 1938 as “Fleet Publication 167.” Landing party organization continued to be required and infantry drill and tactics continued to be part of the Landing Force Manuals. Bluejacket infantry continue to have a role, albeit much more minor than it had been decades earlier. In China, infantry operations ashore by sailors continued as an integral part of the Asiatic Fleet’s operations along the Yangtze River even though the marines had taken over the bulk of activity.

During World War II there were few examples of the use of sailors as infantry. Most famously, a Naval Battalion, formed from the remnants of the shore establishment of the 16th Naval District in the Philippines, performed bravely and effectively on Bataan in late 1941 and early 1942. The USS Philadelphia landed a landing party to assist the 47th Infantry in capturing airport at Loa Senia, Morocco, during Operation Torch. Admiral Halsey’s Third Fleet sailors, organized as three battalions of infantry, assisted marines and a British Landing party with the occupation of Yokosuka Naval Base at the end of World War II. Samuel Eliot Morison suggests that the sailor battalions were necessary because not enough marines were available to Third Fleet.

The Cold War: Fading of a Mission

Use of ship landing parties appears to absent, or at least very limited, during the Korean and Vietnam Wars. The author has been unable to uncover no overseas Cold War use of sailors from ships as infantry. The last instance he has been able to identify of ship landing parties going ashore is domestic—the formation of a naval battalion from the landing parties of ships in port Long Beach California in connection with the 1965 Watts Riots.51 Nonetheless, formal requirements for organization and training of parties continued at least into the 1970s.52 A Landing Party School existed at Dam Neck, Virginia. The Amphibious School at Coronado, California, Special Operations Department taught a course in infantry base defense in support of Navy operations in Vietnam.

During the Cold War, it is in the connection with naval infantry formed from shore stations that the use of sailors as infantry has its most impact. Naval Emergency Ground Defense Forces were formed at overseas stations. They were vigorously exercised at places where there was a threat. Very active Navy Emergency Ground Defense Forces were organized at Naval Support Activity Danang, South Vietnam and at Naval Air Station Keflavik, Iceland.53

Landing Party Manual 1960 (OPNAV P 34-03)

The Landing Party Manual superceded the Landing-Force Manual in 1950. It was issued in 1950 and 1960. The last edition was revised in 1962 and again in 1965. Because it is the last official Navy guidance it is treated in some detail.

By 1960, each ship, division, force and fleet was required to “maintain a permanently organized naval landing party consisting of headquarters, rifle, machine gun, and other units as prescribed by the force or fleet commander.” Organization was based on ship type:54

· BB, CVA, CVS, CVL, all cruiser classes…. One rifle company (6 officer, 195 enlisted)55
· Amphibious ships………………………….. One rifle platoon (1 officer, 44 enlisted)
· Destroyer types…………………………….. One rifle squad (13 enlisted)
· Divisions of capital ships (battleships, cruisers)….. A battalion headquarters (8 officers, 48 enlisted)
· Destroyer squadrons……………………….. Two platoon and one company headquarters (Company headquarters: 2 officers, 9 enlisted)

A 1960s Naval Landing Party Battalion consisted of 28 officers and 636 men; a company 6 officers, 195 men; rifle platoon 1 officer, 44 men; machine gun platoon 1 officer, 55 men. A rifle squad had one petty officer squad leader and 12 men divided into three fire teams.

Starting in 1950, the Landing Party Manual applied not only to ships but also to the shore establishment. Shore Stations were required to “maintain naval emergency ground defense force (NEGDF) organizations consisting of headquarters, rifle and other units as prescribed by responsible naval authority.”56

The 1960 edition modified 1950 requirements to some extent. Cruisers landing parties were increased in size. Destroyer type requirements were reduced. Both editions recognized the priority of maintaining afloat unit effectiveness. Landing personnel requirements were not to detract from the ability to conduct split-plant operation (two watch sections), operation of all aircraft, antiaircraft weapons, one turret, all control stations, and Combat Information Center and radars (three section watch). Probably in recognition of competing shipboard requirements, P 34-03 ordered that marines compose the entire landing party whenever their numbers were adequate.

Landing force and ground defense force operations were limited both in scope (limited to ground force operations requiring small arms) and duration (approximately one week). The Landing Party Manual did not envision the more complex infantry operations of its predecessors. The Manual attributes this to the impracticality of getting several ships’ landing parties together for large ground force operations.57 While not stated, this constraint seems to reflect Cold War operating tempo.

[OSCSSW]

There just has to be loads of info for the Royal Navy but so far all I have found in any detail is for the USN.

The USS Olympia's Landing force operated IAW
The Landing-Force And Small-Arm Instructions United States Navy1907

The following Info was compiled by Lucas R. Clawson, 3 September 2013

February 2014

Operations:

Many of OLYMPIA’s sailors saw service as part of the ship’s Landing Force late in the war and after hostilities ceased.

After serving on convoy escort duty just after America’s entry in the Great War, OLYMPIA received the assignment of going to Murmansk, Russia, as part of an inter-allied “expeditionary force.” The purpose of this expedition was to safeguard Allied supplies in Murmansk and Archangel, bolster the local population against any attacks by the German Army, and later back “white” Russian forces in their fight against the Bolsheviks. The political and military situation in Russia quickly deteriorated in February 1917 following the abdication of Czar Nicholas II. Bolshevists under Lenin and Trotsky initiated the “Red” Revolution in October, which threw the country into further chaos. These developments, along with the Bolshevists’ separate peace treaty with Germany (Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, March 1918) caused a lot of concern among Allied military commanders. German troops formerly fighting the Russians were now free to shift to the Western Front. Also, tons of supplies the Allies sent to the ports of Murmansk and Archangel to assist Russia may fall into either German or Bolshevist hands. Allied Command decided to send a combined land and naval force, led by the British, to Murmansk and asked U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to send troops and ships. Against the advice of his advisors, Wilson committed U.S. forces to the expedition. The U.S. naval contingent consisted of OLYMPIA and selected administrative personnel.

OLYMPIA arrived in Murmansk on 25 May 1918 and took up station in the city’s harbor. The first Navy infantry to go ashore landed on 8 June. 108 men (100 enlisted, 8 officers) comprising two infantry companies, one machine gun section, and associated cooks, signalmen, and a pharmacist’s mate moved into a log barracks formerly occupied by Royal Marines. OLYMPIA’s landing force was under the command of Lieutenant Henry Floyd. These sailors spent their early days drilling and setting up defensive positions in case of attack. Note that this force was entirely sailors; there were no U.S. Marines aboard OLYMPIA at that time.

OLYMPIA’s landing force did duties such as patrolling Murmansk and helping quell riots, guarding the docks and supplies, screening refugees for weapons, and unloading British supply ships. Sailors left aboard OLYMPIA carried on with the ship’s duties, kept the main and secondary batteries in constant readiness, and participated in up to three hours of rifle drill per day.

At the end of July 1918, fifty men from the 1st Infantry Company, under the command of Ensign Donald Hicks, left Murmansk for Archangel as part of a Russo-Allied Naval Brigade. The brigade marched as part of a British led expedition to push the Bolshevists away from the port and secure supplies and transportation lines. On 3 August, Hicks’s detachment made an attack at Vologda, Russia, where they captured 54 Bolshevik prisoners. During the next few months, OLYMPIA’s detachment took part in combat operations around Archangel and along the Dvina River. The furthest point these sailors fought was at the city of Onega, on the White Sea, which was around seventy miles to the southwest of Archangel.

Most of OLYMPIA’s landing force returned to the ship on 14 September. They had served fourteen weeks ashore. Eleven men from Ensign Hicks’s detachment remained ashore to help train other units in the Naval Brigade and to assist the American naval attaché and the commanding U.S. Admiral. These men remained in Russia when OLYMPIA left Murmansk on 13 November 1918. The last of Ensign Hicks’s detachment left Murmansk for England in December 1918 and January 1919.

OLYMPIA’s next assignment was to the Adriatic on a mission to help keep the peace in what was left of the Austrio-Hungarian Empire. Arriving in Spalato, Austria (now Split, Croatia) on 22 February 1919, the ship contributed twelve men under Lieutenant Henry Floyd to the “Inter-Allied Patrol.” This patrol was charged with making a show of force in the city to prevent riots and any attempts at disrupting the peaceful governance of the area. This group stayed ashore while OLYMPIA cruised the Adriatic making stops at various ports on the Italian and Austrian coastlines. The only other occasion that OLYMPIA sent a landing party ashore was at Trau, Austria (near Spalato). A small force landed there on 26 September 1919 to prevent an uprising. The landing force only stayed ashore a couple of days before returning to the ship. OLYMPIA left Spalato to return to the United States at the end of October 1919. Although OLYMPIA returned to the Adriatic the following year, no infantry force went ashore.

Uniform for Navy Infantry:
There was no prescribed uniform for U.S. Navy Landing Forces. Nowhere in the 1917 Bluejacket’s Manual, the 1917 U.S. Navy Uniform Regulations, or the 1916 Landing Force and Small-Arm Instructions is it specified what uniform landing parties are to wear. The general regulation is that whatever the ranking officer present deemed to be the uniform of the day is what enlisted personnel wore. This is explicitly stated in both the Bluejacket’s Manual and the U.S. Navy Uniform Regulations.

Based on photographic evidence the two most common uniforms seen on men under arms in this period is either the “blue undress” or “white undress. “Blue undress” includes the blue undress jumper (no cuffs, no white piping or stars on the collar; includes watch stripe, specialty marks, and rating badges), blue trousers, white “Dixie Cup” cap, watch cap,or flat cap, black shoes. Leggings are worn for men under arms. This uniform does not include the neckerchief or knife lanyard for landing parties. It also can include the jersey (sweater), gloves (black), and pea coat. “White undress” includes the white undress jumper, white trousers, white “Dixie Cup” cap or watch cap, black shoes. Leggings are worn for men under arms. This uniform does not include the neckerchief or knife lanyard for landing parties. It also can include the jersey (sweater), gloves, and pea coat.


Equipment for Navy Infantry:
Weapon:
The standard long arm for the U.S. Navy Landing Force, Marine Corps, and Army during this period was the “United States Rifle, Caliber .30-06, Model 1903,” otherwise known as the 1903 Springfield. All ships carried enough for their designated landing forces. Sailors were also issued the appropriate bayonet for this weapon.

OLYMPIA’s sailors in Murmansk used the 1903 Springfields along with Mosin-Nagant M1891 Infantry rifles captured from Bolsheviks in Murmansk or taken from stores in Murmansk and surrounding areas. Most of the Mosin-Nagant M1891’s that the sailors used were manufactured my Remington Arms Company under contract to the Czarist Russian government. Landing force members who served with the Russo-Allied Naval Brigade during the Archangel expedition were armed exclusively with Mosin-Nagant M1891 rifled.

Some of OLYMPIA’s sailors also carried the “Automatic Pistol, Caliber .45, M1911,” commonly known as the 1911 Colt. Petty Officers acting as “sergeants” in the infantry company along with members of artillery and machine gun detachments were authorized to carry them.

OLYMPIA carried a few “M1895 Colt-Browning” .30 caliber machine guns (also known as “Potato Diggers”) and trained detachments on their use and deployment. While in Murmansk, landing forces captured some Lewis Automatic Machine Guns and quickly used them to replace their M1895s.

Field Gear:

By World War I the U.S. Navy used the M1910 field gear as their standard issue for Navy infantry. Please see the excerpt from the 1916 Landing Force manual for a full description of this equipment which includes a list of equipment as well as instructions and diagrams on how to pack the equipment and carry it. Sailors also, as part of the field gear, carried the bayonet appropriate to their weapon either attached to the cartridge belt or the haversack when wearing “full pack.”

Helmets are not included in the gear list for the 1916 Landing Force manual. OLYMPIA’s sailors did not have them when they entered Murmansk. The only OLYMPIA landing force men to receive them were those who participated in the Russo-Allied Naval Brigade. These were British “Brodie” type helmets distributed by the English Army forces in charge of the Archangel expedition. Helmets did not become standard landing force equipment until after World War I ended. Photographic evidence seems to confirm this assertion; the only U.S. sailors photographed during the war wearing helmets are those who served large-caliber railway guns in France. These detachments did not even wear U.S. Navy uniforms, but rather those of the U.S. Army with Navy insignia.