1932 U. S. MARINE CORPS RECRUITING POSTER - VINTAGE USMC
Item History & Price
| Reference Number: Avaluer:427688 |
This is a VINTAGE and ORIGINAL 1932 UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS RECRUITING POSTER depicting a Marine Color Party in tropical uniforms and campaign covers coming ashore on a tropical island somewhere. They carry the old style blue Marine Corps Colors used by the 5th and 6th Marine Regiments during this time period. This poster measures 16" x 21" and is in excellent condition and linen mounted. In the lower left corner is M. C. R. B. (Marine Corps Recruiting Bureau) 63151. 5-12-32 -... 500. This is an ORIGINAL vintage POSTER - not A REPRINT or Reproduction. Becoming very scarce and hard to find. Insured US Priority mail delivery in the Continental US is $ 17.50. Will ship worldwide and will combine shipping when practical.Any glare is due to the plastic sleeve the poster is in for protection.Banana Wars[edit] Marines in Nicaragua display a flag captured from Sandino in 1932Between 1900 and 1916, the Marine Corps continued its record of participation in foreign expeditions, especially in the Caribbean and Central and South America, which included Panama, Cuba, Veracruz, Haiti, Santo Domingo, and Nicaragua. These actions became known as the "Banana Wars", and the experiences gained in counter-insurgency and guerrilla operations during this period were consolidated into the Small Wars Manual in 1935. Action in these places south of the United States continued through World War I, and after for many. Many of these actions were part of the Monroe Doctrine; that is, the efforts of the United States to prevent further colonization and interference in the Western Hemisphere. Marines occasionally had to fight against their reputation as the private army of the State Department.[120] A total of 93 Marines would die throughout the various conflicts.[68] In December 1909, Major Smedley Butler commanded 3rd Battalion 1st Marines in Panama. The battalion, which had occupied Panama since that nation's independence from Colombia in 1903, would remain until 1914, with intermissions where it was sent to Nicaragua, Veracruz, and Haiti.[87] The United States occupied Cuba since the Spanish left on 1 January 1899, but could not annex it as a territory (unlike the Philippines and Guam) per the Teller Amendment. After establishing Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, the Marines assisted in the occupation from 1899 to 1902 under military governor Leonard Wood, and again from 1906 to 1909, 1912, and from 1917 to 1922. On 27 May 1910, Major Butler arrived in Bluefields with 250 men to protect American interests in Juan José Estrada's rebellion. Marines returned to occupy Nicaragua from 1912 to 1933 in order to prevent the construction of the Nicaragua Canal without American control. Butler returned in the summer of 1912 with 350 Marines on the USS Annapolis to supplement the 100 Marines sent there the previous month, again augmented by another 750 Marines under Colonel Joseph Henry Pendleton. Resistance from Luis Mena and Benjamín Zeledón was crushed that October, and the majority of the Marines left, having lost 37 of their number. The remainder occupied the nation, mostly fighting Augusto César Sandino and his group until the Good Neighbor policy and the Great Depression prompted their withdrawal in January 1933.[87] A total of 130 Marines were killed in the 21 years in Nicaragua, while two earned the Medal of Honor there. Sergeant Major John H. Quick raises a U.S. flag over Veracruz in 1914Marines also returned to Mexico during the Mexican Revolution. From 5 to 7 September 1903, Marines protected Americans evacuating the Yaqui River Valley.[87] In response to the Tampico Affair and to intercept weapons being shipped to Victoriano Huerta in spite of an arms embargo, Marines were deployed to Veracruz on 21 April 1914 to occupy it. Landing unopposed from USS Florida and USS Utah, Marines under Colonel Wendell Cushing Neville fought their way to their objectives on the waterfront. Around midnight, additional ships arrived, bring with them Maj Butler and his battalion from Panama, and in the morning, captured the Veracruz Naval Academy. Another regiment under Colonel Lejeune arrived that afternoon, and by the 24th, the entire city was secure. On 1 May, Colonel Littleton Waller arrived with a third regiment and took command of the brigade. Marines were gradually replaced with soldiers and returned to their ships until the American withdrawal on 23 November. Fifty-six Medals of Honor were awarded, including Butler's first. The Army would return to Mexico in two years for the Pancho Villa Expedition. Marines saw action in the Dominican Republic in 1903, 1904, and 1914, [87] then occupied it from 1916 until 1924. After Desiderio Arias seized power from Juan Isidro Jimenes Pereyra, Rear Admirals William B. Caperton and Harry Shepard Knapp landed Marines in May 1916 to restore order. Locals began a resistance that lasted until 1921, and the Marines were withdrawn the following year, with a total of three having earned the Medal of Honor. Marines would return in 1965. The Marines also occupied Haiti from 28 July 1915 until 1 August 1934. When Cacos overthrew the government and the possibility of an anti-American Rosalvo Bobo became the likely president of Haiti, President Woodrow Wilson sent the Marines in to secure American business dominance, but publicly announced to "re-establish peace and order". On 17 November 1915, Major Butler led a force of Marines to capture Fort Riviere, a Caco stronghold. After organized armed resistance was over, the governance from the United States began to improve infrastructure and living conditions, but denied the Haitians any real self-governeance. In 1930, after the Forbes Commission criticized this, and President Herbert Hoover began a withdrawal in 1932. The last Marines departed on 15 August 1934. In the nineteen-year occupation, eight Marines would earn the Medal of Honor, including the second awards to Gunnery Sergeant Dan Daly and Major Butler, the only Marines to be twice awarded. The latter would later express his disapproval of the occupation and gunboat diplomacy in his book War Is a Racket. The Marines would return to Haiti in 1994 and 2010. Marine Aviators began to experiment with air-ground tactics during the Banana Wars and making the support of their fellow Marines on the ground their primary mission. It was in Haiti that Marines began to develop the tactic of dive bombing and in Nicaragua where they began to perfect it. While other nations and services had tried variations of this technique, Marine aviators were the first to embrace it and make it part of their tactical doctrine.[116] Cunningham had noted in 1920 that "...the only excuse for aviation in any service is its usefulness in assisting the troops on the ground to successfully carry out their missions."[121] On 3 May 1925 the Marine Corps officially appeared in the Navy's Aeronautical Organization the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics authorized three fighter squadrons.[122] Also in the 1920s, Marine squadrons began qualifying on board aircraft carriers. World War I[edit] Georges Scott's La Brigade Marine Americane Au Bois De Belleau in 1918In World War I, Marines served limited in the United States' entry into the conflict. Unlike the majority of Allied armies, the Marine Corps had a deep pool of officers and non-commissioned officers with battle experience, and experienced a smaller growth but they were not trained for the intense and highly technical conflict. They participated in small ways throughout 1918 (such as Château-Thierry, Soissons, and Saint-Mihiel), but its most famous action of the war would come that summer as the Spring Offensive neared its end. From 1 to 26 June, Marines fought their celebrated Battle of Belleau Wood, then the largest in the history of the Corps (but very minor given the overall size of the battle), creating their reputation in modern history. Rallying under the battle cries of "Retreat? Hell, we just got here!" (Capt Lloyd Williams) and "Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?" (GySgt Dan Daly), the Marines drove German forces from the area but suffered many losses mostly explained by the lack of experience of its officers and the use of outdated tactics. While its previous expeditionary experience had not earned it much acclaim in the Western world, the Marines' fierceness and toughness earned them the respect of the Germans, who rated them of storm-trooper quality. Though Marines and American media reported that Germans had nicknamed them "Teufelhunden" [sic][note 1] or "Devil Dogs", there is no evidence of this in German records. Nevertheless, the name stuck, such as a famous recruiting poster.[123] The infamous "Devil Dog" recruiting posterThe French government renamed the forest to "Bois de la Brigade de Marine" ("Wood of the Marine Brigade"), and decorated both the 5th and 6th Regiments with the Croix de Guerre three times each. This earned them the privilege to wear the fourragère, which Franklin D. Roosevelt, then Secretary of the Navy, authorized them to henceforth wear on the left shoulder of their dress and service uniforms. Marine aviation also saw exponential growth, as the First Aeronautic Company which deployed to the Azores to hunt U-boats in January 1918[124] and the First Marine Air Squadron which deployed to France as the newly renamed 1st Marine Aviation Force in July 1918[118] and provided bomber and fighter support to the Navy's Day Wing, Northern Bombing Group.[117] By the end of the war, several Marine aviators had recorded air-to-air kills, and collectively dropped over 14 short tons (13, 000 kg) of bombs.[116] and their number totals included 282 officers and 2, 180 enlisted men operating from 8 squadrons.[125] In 1919 the 1st Division/Squadron 1 was formed from these units, and exists as VMA-231. Near the end of the war in June 1918, Marines were landed at Vladivostok in Russia to protect American citizens at the consulate and other places from the fighting of the Russian Civil War.[87] That August, the Allies would intervene on the side of the White Russians against the Bolsheviks to protect the Czechoslovak Legions and Allied materiel from capture.[126][127] Marines would return on 16 February 1920, this time to Russky Island to protect communications infrastructure, until 19 November 1922.[87] Opha May Johnson was the first woman to enlist in the Marines; she joined the Marine Corps Reserve in 1918 during World War I, officially becoming the first female Marine.[128] From then until the end of World War I, 305 women enlisted in the Corps.[129] The Marine Corps had entered the war with 511 officers and 13, 214 enlisted personnel and, by 11 November 1918, had reached a strength of 2, 400 officers and 70, 000 enlisted.[130] The war cost 2, 461 dead and 9, 520 wounded Marines, [68] while eight would earn the Medal of Honor. A new amphibious mission[edit] Victorious Marines parade in France in November 1918Between the world wars, the Marine Corps was headed by Major General John A. Lejeune, another popular commandant. The Marine Corps was searching for an expanded mission after World War I. It was used in France as a junior version of the army infantry, and Marines realized that was a dead end. In the early 20th century they had acquired the new mission of police control of Central American countries partly occupied by the US. That mission became another dead end when the nation adopted a "Good Neighbor Policy" toward Latin America, and renounced further invasions. The corps needed a new mission, one distinct from the army. It found one: it would be a fast-reacting, light infantry fighting force carried rapidly to far off locations by the navy. Its special role was amphibious landings on enemy-held islands, but it took years to figure out how to do that. The Mahanian notion of a decisive fleet battle required forward bases for the navy close to the enemy. After the Spanish–American War the Marines gained the mission of occupying and defending those forward bases, and they began a training program on Culebro Island, Puerto Rico. The emphasis at first was on defending the forward base against enemy attack; they would be like the Turks who in 1915 inflicted 250, 000 casualties on the British, Australian and New Zealand invaders of Gallipoli, forcing their withdrawal. As early as 1900 the Navy's General Board considered building advance bases for naval operations in the Pacific and the Caribbean. The Marine Corps was given this mission in 1920, but the challenge was to avoid another disaster like Gallipoli. The conceptual breakthrough came in 1921 when Major "Pete" Ellis wrote "Advanced Base Operations in Micronesia" a secret 30, 000-word manifesto that proved inspirational to Marine strategists and highly prophetic.[131] To win a war in the Pacific, the Navy would have to fight its way through thousands of miles of ocean controlled by the Japanese—including the Marshall, Caroline, Marianas and Ryukus island groups. If the Navy could land Marines to seize selected islands, they could become forward bases. Ellis argued that with an enemy prepared to defend the beaches, success depended on high-speed movement of waves of assault craft, covered by heavy naval gunfire and attack from the air. He predicted the decision would take place on the beach itself, so the assault teams would need not just infantry but also machine gun units, light artillery, light tanks, and combat engineers to defeat beach obstacles and defenses. Assuming the enemy had its own artillery, the landing craft would have to be specially built to protect the landing force. The failure at Gallipoli came because the Turks could easily reinforce the specific landing sites. The Japanese would be unable to land new forces on the islands under attack.[132] Not knowing which of the many islands would be the American target, the Japanese would have to disperse their strength by garrisoning many islands that would never be attacked. An island like Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands, would, Ellis estimated, require two regiments, or 4, 000 Marines. (Indeed, in February 1944 the Marines seized Eniwetok with 4, 000 men in three battalions.) Guided by Marine observer airplanes, and supplemented by Marine light bombers, warships would provide sea-going artillery firepower so that Marines would not need any heavy artillery (in contrast to the Army, which relied heavily on its artillery.) Shelling defended islands was a new mission for warships. The Ellis model was officially endorsed in 1927 by the Joint Board of the Army and Navy (a forerunner of the Joint Chiefs of Staff).[133] The first group of 71 Women Marine Officer Candidates arrived 13 March 1943 at the U.S. Midshipmen School (Women's Reserve) at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MassachusettsActual implementation of the new mission took another decade because the Corps was preoccupied in Central America, the Navy was slow to start training in how to support the landings, and a new kind of ship had to be invented to hit the beaches without massive casualties. In 1941 British and American ship architects invented a new class of "landing ship" to solve the problem. In World War II, the Navy built 1, 150 LSTs. They were large (2400 tons) and slow (10 knots); officially known as "Landing Ship Tank, " the passengers called them "Large Stationary Targets." Lightly armored, they could steam cross the ocean with a full load on their own power, carrying infantry, tanks and supplies directly onto the beaches. Together with 2, 000 other landing craft, the LSTs gave the Marines (and Army soldiers) a protected, quick way to make combat landings, beginning in summer 1943.[134] In 1933, a "Fleet Marine Force" was established with the primary mission of amphibious landings. The Force was a brigade with attached Marine aviation units that were trained in observation and ground support. By paying special attention to communications between ground and air, and between shore and sea, they developed an integrated three-dimensional assault force. By 1940, having adding enough men, the appropriate equipment, and a rigorous training program, the Marine Corps had worked out, in theory, its doctrine of amphibious assaults. Under the combat leadership of Holland "Howlin Mad" Smith, the general most responsible for training, the Marines were ready to hit the beaches.[135] The Corps acquired amphibious equipment such as the Higgins boat which would prove of great use in the upcoming conflict. The various Fleet Landing Exercises were a test and demonstration of the Corps' growing amphibious capabilities. Marine aviation also saw significant growth in assets; on 7 December 1941, Marine aviation consisted of 13 flying squadrons and 230 aircraft.[136][137] The oldest squadron in the Corps, known today as VMFA-232, was commissioned on 1 September 1925, as VF-3M.[138] ^ sic: "teufelhunden" is grammatically incorrect in German, the proper term for "devil dogs" would be "teufelshunde". For more information, see: Devil Dog.
