WHAT IS A MARINE CORPS W oldiers of the fleet is probably the best term to describe marines They are troops recruited trained and organized for land sea and air service in operations related to naval campaigns The word marine is derived from the Latin word mare meaning sea The most signifi cant exploits by such troops were probably during World War II when fighting men of the United States Marine Corps were landed on island beaches throughout the Pacific theater of war Their mission was to take control of island after island from occupy ing Japanese forces They were normally the initial assault troops who established beach heads and engaged in some of the bloodiest combat of the war DEVELOPMENT The use at sea of troops essentially trained for land warfare was a natural outgrowth of the way sea battles were fought for many centuries 13
THE HISTORY OF MARINES AROUND THE WORLD United States Marines trudging through mud on Bougainville Island before facing Japanese forces during World War II Marines were instrumental in such campaigns in the Pacific throughout the war Hulton Archive Getty Images During the long age of galley warfare the ships sought direct confrontations They used two basic tactics ramming and boarding If an enemy ship was not sunk by ramming it was usually boarded by soldiers who had been spe cially trained to fight sea battles It was not until the 17th century however that there was any attempt to raise forces of men who were distinctly marines and not ordinary infantrymen During the 1660s the 14
WHAT IS A MARINE CORPS GALLEY WARFARE Galley warfare is sea warfare fought between forces equipped with specialized oаr driven warships par ticularly in the Mediterranean Sea where it originated in antiquity and continued into the age of gunpowder Galley warfare in the Classical Mediterranean was based on the ram equipped trireme which reached its highest level of development in ancient Greece from the 5th to the 1st century BCE Although boarding was also practiced the main tactic was ramming Ram equipped triremes were extraordi narily nimble and fleets of these vessels employed a variety of formations from which they could maneuver to ram and disable other ships During the Hellenistic period very large galleys were used mainly though not exclusively as platforms for missile weapons and boarding Once Rome had achieved control of the Mediterranean galleys NIE REIT An ancient Greek trireme a galley with three banks of oars used during the age of galley warfare Hulton Archive Getty Images 15
