Marines and Maritime Prepositioning

Marines from 7th Marine Expeditionary Brigade headquarters at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, California, board buses en route to Desert Shield in August 1990. After flying to Saudi Arabia, the Marines of this brigade met ships of Maritime Prepositioning Ship Squadron Two, which carried their heavy equipment.

a reality. Moving combat power rapidly ashore has long been a Marine capability, but Marine power in the Gulf War was not projected by amphibious assault. Instead, it was projected through a new program, Maritime Prepositioning.

2

The Gulf War would be the largest deployment of Marines since the Vietnam War. It challenged the entire warfighting establishment of the Marine Corps— aviation, ground, and logistics—and forced a generation of Marines to put two decades of planning and training to the test. The Corps would see many of its tactical and operational philosophies justified under combat conditions. The Military Sealift Command’s Prepositioning Program proved its worth, enabling Marines to be the first combinedarms task force in Saudi Arabia.

Prepositioning ships are civilian crewed vessels with a squadron staff of U.S. Navy personnel, and the vessels supporting the Marines are named after Marine Corps Medal of Honor recipients. Maritime Prepositioning Ship Squadron One usually serves the Mediterranean Sea and eastern Atlantic Ocean; Squadron Three usually serves the western Pacific; and Squadron Two is normally based at Diego Garcia and covers the Indian Ocean and Middle East. Squadrons Two and Three deployed in support of Operation Desert Shield, with Squadron Two deploying from Diego Garcia on 8 August.

There was some controversy over the relatively late departure of the squadron. After the war, Generals Alfred Gray and Joseph P. Hoar

*

both argued that the prepositioning ships should have been deployed sooner, allowing the Marine brigade to deploy more quickly after the Saudis agreed to accept American forces to aid their defense. Though the ships were discussed at high levels prior to 7 August, they were not ordered to sail.

3

General Hoar later said, “It’s an important lesson for us as Marines that when a crisis begins that we, and our Navy partners, do not have to wait until

*In August 1990, then-LtGen Hoar was deputy chief of staff for plans, policies, and operations at Headquarters Marine Corps. As a major general, he served as chief of staff, U.S. Central Command, from 1988 to 1990, and he later succeeded Gen Schwarzkopf as commander in chief of Central Command in August 1991. Department of Defense photo (USMC) P2272-90-11