Originally Posted by
Jeep
Mike: My father, who was a landing craft commander in the Pacific, and who is now in his mid-90's--would tell you to this day that from the US side it was almost entirely an amateur effort, that those amateurs had to learn as they went along, that a lot of Americans died because of that, but by the end of the war the survivors had learned what they needed to know. (He would also tell you that the Marines in 1945--the guys who took Iwo and participated at Okinawa, were the finest troops he ever saw and he suspects were some of the finest in world history--their leaders were the guys who had learned the tough lessons in 1942-43).
And the fact that they started out as amateurs was no surprise. The Army in 1939 had only something like 150,000 men, and expanded in a few years to something like 8 million.
Those amateurs did well, but until they taught themselves they really were amateurs, just like most of our soldiers had originally been in WW I.
Let us hope that the current defense cuts don't leave us in that situation once again. It was an expensive lesson to learn.