Training for D-Day on Maryland’s Western Shore
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photographs courtesy calvert marine museum
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efore 7 December 1941—the “date which will live in infamy”—the Solomons was a quiet, almost sleepy area that lived and breathed activities in, on, and around the waters of the Patuxent River and Chesapeake Bay. Whether one was interested in fishing, boating, or just escaping the hustle and bustle of Washington, DC, or Baltimore, the Solomons—also known as Solomons Island, in Calvert County, Maryland—provided a serene yet close refuge from the big cities. Solomons was also home to generations of watermen who made their living crabbing or oystering, or taking city-dwellers out on charter fishing excursions. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in far-off Hawaii, US leadership realized it could remain on the sidelines no longer, in spite of much popular sentiment surrounding American isolationism. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, long a proponent of the battleship and blue-water diplomacy, was outraged by the assault on the US fleet, as was, of course, the American citizenry as a whole. Military leadership realized that if it were going to take the fight to Imperial Japan and Hitler’s Europe, it would need to get a handle on amphibious tactical operations and naval aviation. After the failed Gallipoli campaign of World War One, amphibious operations had fallen out of favor throughout much of the world’s militaries. Nevertheless, amphibious tactics continued to be developed during the interwar period by England, Japan, and the United States. In 1933, the US Fleet Marine Force conducted amphibious landing exercises at Culebra, Puerto Rico, which contributed to the amphibious doctrine that would eventually be used in World War II. The US Marine Corps was a driving force in promoting amphibious tactics, as it needed to formalize the mechanism by which troops would transit from vessels to the beaches. German U-boats and Nazi hegemony prompted the Army-Navy Joint Board (later Joint Chiefs of Staff) to recommend an amphibious corps to protect Atlantic and Caribbean islands. A joint force of 1st
by Mark C. Wilkins
Aerial photo looking Northwest at the US Naval Amphibious Training Base showing Back Creek (top) and St. John’s Creek (bottom). Dowell Road runs through the center, acting as a busy highway for the base. In the upper left corner you can see Solomons Island Road. The inlet just below it is the location of the Calvert Marine Museum. This area is now predominantly townhomes and condominiums. Marine and 1st Army Divisions (Emergency Striking Force) was activated in June of 1941, with a USMC Amphibious Corps (Pacific Fleet or ACPF) headquartered on the West Coast in August. The ACPF conducted simulated assaults at Culebra, Onslow Beach (New River) in North Carolina, and Cape Henry in Virginia between February 1941 and January 1942. None of these operations were very successful, due to the shortage of amphibious vessels, poor training, and bickering between Army, Navy, and USMC leaders over doctrine and tactics. Finally, the War Department mandated that the USMC would oversee operations in the Pacific, and the Army would get Europe. The Navy would serve in both theaters. With England standing between the United States and Nazi-occupied Europe, and Imperial Japan spreading like a cancer throughout various island chains in the Pacific, American military planners focused on the development of major assault landings in both theaters on a compressed time-
line. American and British leadership debated the efficacy of various landing zones in “Fortress Europe.” Churchill persuaded FDR to invade North Africa first; Stalin was insisting on a second front, so FDR decided to commit US forces to Operation Torch (North Africa) on 25 July 1942, with D-day set for late October/ early November—the latest date possible before winter set in. The American amphibious training program was delayed because of debates over objectives and execution. In charge of landing craft training was Capt. William Clarke (USN). His first priority was to select sites for amphibious training bases (ATB); naval leadership suggested a base in “between Solomons Island and Cove Point in the Chesapeake Bay,” close to the large Navy base at Norfolk, Virginia, and protected from marauding German U-boats that were known to be cruising in the Atlantic, just off the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay. The Solomons was selected because it had suitable beaches and a good SEA HISTORY 166, SPRING 2019