In other tactical refinements, the 1st MAW had employed an airborne tactical air control center in combat for the first time. In July 1952, when the static ground situation led to a build-up of enemy flak along the front lines that interfered with effective CAS delivery, the 11th Marines had instituted a flak suppression program in front of the division sector. Later that year, CG Eighth Army had ordered a similar program used by all other Eighth Army commands. By December, apparently because of lack of success with their own methods, EUSAK had adopted the system developed by the Marine artillery regiment. The antiaircraft program, together with a reduction in the number of runs per aircraft per mission,707 had measurably decreased casualties for CAS missions conducted within artillery range. During 1952–1953 this loss rate for pilots and planes had dropped by a third, with no corresponding reduction in the sortie rate.

Stabilized warfare and enemy AA build-up had also led to an increasing use of enemy radars. Passive electronics countermeasures (ECM) were instituted by FAF. This program was enhanced in September 1952 by the commissioning of VMC-1 (Marine Composite Squadron 1), administratively assigned to MACG-2. The squadron possessed the only Fifth Air Force ECM capability to locate enemy radars and was the primary source of ECM intercept equipment in FAF squadrons for early warning and radar control monitoring. Throughout the duration of hostilities, VMC-1 remained the only Navy-Marine unit in the Korean theater with ECM as its prime function.

For its combat action, the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing was awarded two Korean Presidential Unit Citations and the Army Distinguished Unit Citation for the Wonsan operation. Wing pilots were responsible for downing 35 enemy planes, including the first night kill made by a United Nations aircraft. Participation of the 1st MAW in the war could also be measured in a different way. On the inevitable red side of the ledger: 258 air Marines had been killed (including 65 MIA and presumed dead) and 174 WIA. A total of 436 aircraft were also lost in combat or operational accidents.

From the command level, Korean operations marked the first time the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing had functioned for an extended period as a component in a broad, unified command structure such as FAF. Despite the weak links initially inherent in such a situation, the command structure did work. Marine-Navy and Air Force-Army differing aerial doctrines and tactics of close tactical air support, however, were never fully reconciled. The Marine wing made a notable contribution in providing really effective close, speedy tactical support during the sudden fluid battle situation that erupted in mid-July 1953. Simplified Marine TACP control, request procedures, and fast radio net system enabled 1st MAW pilots to reach the target area quickly. During this final month of the war—and indicative of the enormous amount of coordination involved in the FAF administrative apparatus—1st MAW planes flew 1,500 CAS sorties for the 19 different EUSAK frontline divisions.

CG, 1st MAW noted in General Order No. 153 issued the last day of the war, that “the Wing’s association with the Eighth Army, the Fifth Air Force and the Seventh U.S. Fleet in combined operations had been a professionally broadening experience—teaching tolerance, teamwork, and flexibility of operations.”708

Besides the FAF interdiction work and support missions for frontline units, new 1st MAW tactics and equipment had diversified the wing’s skills and capabilities in its primary role of providing CAS for Marine ground units. Of new tactical air support developments in the Korean action none had a more revolutionary effect than those created by the helicopter—which dramatically reshaped battlefield logistics and pointed the way to a new era in Marine Corps air-ground teamwork.

Helicopter709

A promising newcomer on the Marine aviation scene was the helicopter, whose tactical employment in Korea was to far exceed all expectations. A few helicopters had been used experimentally in the European and Pacific theaters toward the end of World War II, too late to evaluate their performance. But it was the Marine Corps, beginning in 1947, that had pioneered the development of combat techniques utilizing the rotor-driven aircraft as a means of enhancing its capability for the amphibious assault. When the Korean incident erupted in June 1950, the Marine Corps was in a position to assign four HO3S-1 Sikorsky two-place helicopters and flight personnel from its Quantico test unit, HMX-1, together with fixed-wing planes and pilots to form the brigade observation squadron, VMO-6. These Marines had the distinction of being the first helicopter pilots of any U.S. service to be formed into a unit for overseas duty.

Further, the Marine Corps also had 31 months’ experience with the strange looking, pot-bellied, ungainly aircraft in diverse battlefield tasks. These included casualty evacuation, reconnaissance, wire-laying, liaison, and administrative missions. But promising test exercises at Quantico and Camp Lejeune were hardly enough. The real test would come at the front. There, the helicopter’s military value would reflect and “depend to a large extent on how well the Marine Corps had worked out combat doctrines and techniques where none had existed before.”710

Landing with the brigade in August 1950, the choppers performed invaluable service from the earliest days of Pusan, Inchon, Seoul, and the Reservoir. During the most critical phase of the Chosin operation, the helicopters provided the only liaison between isolated commands. Wire-laying by air was first employed by VMO-6 during the second battle of the Naktong River, in September 1950. The ground had changed hands several times and control was uncertain. Using makeshift communication rigs, VMO-6 pilots unreeled telephone wire at a mile a minute. This method of putting telephone lines across Korean mountains became routine through the rest of the war, and Marine choppers strung miles of lines in rain and wind with the enemy blasting away at them. Wire was laid over terrain in a matter of hours where it would have taken men on foot weeks—if it could have been done.

Perhaps the greatest innovation of VMO-6, however, was its night casualty evacuation techniques first employed at Pusan. Darting in and out at treetop level around the Korean mountains, the light, easily maneuverable craft could land on a tiny patch of earth to evacuate injured men or bring in supplies. Once, during the early part of the war, when the aeronautical pioneer Igor Sikorsky was asked how his revolutionary vehicles were performing in combat, Mr. Sikorsky, bowing from the waist in his Old World manner, replied:

With the advent of the helicopter, as little as 43 minutes elapsed between the time a Marine was hit and the time he was on board the USS Repose or other hospital ships. Later on when the Marine transport copters arrived in Korea, HMR-161 pilots felt a new record had been set when only 30 minutes712 intervened between the time a frontline Marine was hit and delivered to a hospital facility 17 miles from the zone of action. The Consolation had been outfitted with a helicopter loading platform in July 1951, and eventually all hospital ships had such landing platforms. In Korea the flying ambulances could make the trip from rear area aid station to ship in five minutes and unload the wounded and clear the deck in 45 seconds flat.

Throughout the war nearly 10,000 wounded Marines were evacuated by helicopter; more than 1,000 such missions were carried out at night. Records indicate that VMO-6 flew out 7,067 casualties and that another 2,748 medical evacuations were made by HMR-161, for which the task ranked as a secondary mission. Although these humanitarian gains were important, major tactical innovations made by the helicopter were even more significant.

In the fall of 1951, HMR-161 successfully executed the first combat troop resupply mission in history. At this time while the division was deployed in the jagged razorback-ridge Punchbowl area, “a glimpse of future warfare was provided when Marine helicopter lifts on a company scale led to the lift of an entire battalion and its organic equipment.”713 Arriving in Korea on 31 August, the squadron had a complement of 15 new 10-place HRS-1 transport vehicles, with cruising speed of 60–85 knots. Developed specifically to meet Marine Corps combat requirements, the HRS marked a new era in Marine airborne support to ground troops. Both VMO-6 and HMR-161 came under operational control of the division. (With 1st Division and Wing headquarters separated geographically by more than 200 miles, it was particularly expedient to have the two squadrons under division control.)

The first step toward using the rotor-blade aircraft in the mission most closely related to the USMC basic helicopter concept—that of transporting troops and supplies by vertical envelopment—was accomplished 13 September 1951. In Operation WINDMILL I, HRS choppers carried out the first Marine mass helicopter combat resupply operation in history. A lift of one day’s supplies was made to 2/1 in the Soyang River vicinity. A total of 28 flights were executed in overall time of 2½ hours (a total flight time of 14.1 hours) to transport 18,848 pounds of gear and 74 Marines a distance of seven miles.

HMR-161 first applied the Corps’ new concept of vertical envelopment on 21 September when, despite heavy fog, it transported 224 fully equipped Marines and 17,772 pounds of cargo from the reserve area to the MLR. This was the first helicopter lift of a combat unit in history. Company-size troop lifts inevitably led to more complicated battalion-size transfers. In the 11 November Operation SWITCH, HMR-161 effected the relief of a frontline battalion, involving the lift of nearly 2,000 troops. Twelve of the 3½-ton aircraft made 262 flights in overall time of 10 hours (95.6 hours flight time).

The tactical and logistical possibilities of the multi-purpose rotor craft attracted considerable attention. So impressed, in fact, were Eighth Army officers by the mobility and utility displayed by Marine helicopters that in November 1951 General Ridgway had asked the Army to provide four Army helicopter transport battalions, each with 280 helicopters. Korea, Ridgway said, had “conclusively demonstrated that the Army vitally needed helicopters,”714 and he recommended that the typical field army of the future have 10 helicopter transportation battalions.

Ridgway was thereby renewing requests for helicopters made in the early days of the war by both the Army (through General MacArthur) and the Air Force (by General Barcus). But the UNC Commander’s enthusiasm, although understandable, turned out to be the undoing for substantial Army use of the rotary-blade aircraft in Korea. The scale of operations715 envisioned by Ridgway unwittingly led to a “jurisdictional controversy”716 about possible duplication of aerial functions not reconciled by the two services until a year later. Although both services had helicopters in limited use, “hostilities were in their last stages before either the Army or the Air Force began to receive the cargo helicopters which they had put on order in 1950 and 1951.”717

A successful three-day Army regimental supply exercise in May 1953 and a combat maneuver the following month in which the choppers formed an air bridge to a heavily attacked, isolated ROK unit caused General Taylor, then CG, EUSAK, to observe: “The cargo helicopter, employed in mass, can extend the tactical mobility of the Army far beyond its normal capability.” He strongly recommended that the Army make “ample provisions for the full exploitation of the helicopter in the future.”718

Pioneering developments by the Marine Corps had, of course, continued meanwhile. Logistical operations had grown increasingly complex and diversified. In Operation HAYLIFT II, 23–27 February 1953, Marine helicopters set an all time cargo-carrying record when they lifted 1,612,306 pounds of cargo to completely supply two JAMESTOWN regiments with daily requirements for the five-day period. This represented a total of 1,633 lifts and 583.4 flying hours for the operation. The record day’s lift was 200 tons, whereas plans had called for lifting a maximum 130 tons per day. Experience gained during the operation indicated that similar tactical maneuvers in warmer weather would be even more successful when troop fuel oil requirements were reduced.

Other Marine innovations by HMR-161 included supplying ammunition from the rear area ASP to the MLR and redeployment of 1st 4.5-inch Rocket Battery personnel and guns from one firing area to another. And although VMO-6 executed most of the mercy missions, the transport squadron performed an unusual assignment in July 1952. Flood conditions throughout Korea brought an urgent request from the Army for use of HMR-161. On 30 July, the Marine squadron evacuated 1,172 Army troops from their positions in the Chunchon area where they had been trapped by the heavy rains.

With a new tactical exercise held nearly every month, HMR-161 operations that once had rated world-wide headlines were now practically routine. VTOL-style battalion troop lifts were no longer novel and regimental resupply operations were becoming almost standard practice. In both relocation of units and logistical support, combat helicopters had provided high mobility and reasonable speed. They had introduced a new infantry technique of “hit and run” tactics. The transport helicopter squadron had proved most effective when employed in major tactical movements and not when used piecemeal on minor missions. Marine Corps wartime use of the new aerial vehicle had clearly proven that helicopters had become a necessary and integral component of the modern-day balanced military force.

FMF and Readiness Posture719

The flexibility and readiness capability inherent in the Marine Corps FMF structure was a strong undergirding factor in its swift response to the Korean crisis. As noted, in June 1950 the Marine Corps had 74,279 officers and men on active duty. Its Fleet Marine Force, consisting of FMFPac and FMFLant, numbered 27,656. The 11,853 personnel of FMFPac included 7,779 men in General Smith’s 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton and 3,733 in General Harris’ 1st Marine Aircraft Wing at El Toro. On the East Coast, FMFLant numbered 15,803 with approximately 8,973 Marines in the 2d Division at Camp Lejeune and 5,297 air personnel attached to the 2d Wing at Cherry Point.

Outbreak of Korean hostilities thus presented the Marine Corps with the tasks of organizing and deploying for combat first a brigade and then a full war-strength reinforced division, each with supporting aviation elements. Despite the low strength to which FMFPac had shrunk due to stringent national defense economy measures, the heavy demands placed upon it were met. Both missions were accomplished quickly and effectively. In fact, “few achievements in the long history of the Marine Corps can equal what was achieved in the 11 weeks which elapsed between the outbreak of the Korean War and the amphibious assault of the 1st Marine Division at Inchon.”720

As early as 2 July, CinCFE MacArthur had requested that a Marine RCT-air unit be dispatched to the Far East. On 7 July the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade was activated; on 12–14 July it embarked. With departure of the brigade, personnel shortages within the 1st Division and 1st Wing became acute. The division was reduced to 3,459, less than a RCT; and the wing to 2,300. Meanwhile, as the increasing demand had continued for a Marine Division deployed to Korea, it became equally apparent that if the Marine Corps were to fulfill this requirement of deploying a full-strength division to Korea,721 its reservists would have to be called up to alleviate these shortages.

Manpower potential of the Marine Corps Reserve was 128,959, nearly twice that of the regular establishment. In June 1950, the Organized Marine Corps Reserve (Ground) numbered 1,879 officers and 31,648 enlisted personnel being trained in 138 OMCR units of battalion size or less. Membership of the ground reserve was approximately 76 percent of its authorized strength. At the same time the Organized Reserve (Aviation) consisted of 30 fighter and 12 ground control intercept squadrons attached to the Marine Air Reserve Training Command organized at Glenview, Ill. in 1946. These MARTCOM squadrons numbered 1,588 officers and 4,753 enlisted, or approximately 95 percent of authorized strength. In addition to nearly 40,000 members of the OMCR, the Marine Volunteer (nondrill, nonpay status) Reserve carried approximately 90,000 on its rolls.

A warning notice went out on 19 July from the Commandant, General Cates, to District Directors that the OMCR would shortly be ordered to active duty; later that same day mobilization of the Reserve was authorized by President Truman, with Congressional sanction. On 20 July, the first 22 ground units, with nearly 5,000 men, were ordered to active duty on a schedule that took into account the unit’s state of readiness, proximity to its initial duty station, and facilities there for handling the personnel overload.

Less than a month after hostilities began in Korea, key infantry, artillery, and engineer units of the OMCR had been ordered to extended active duty. On 31 July, West Coast ground reserve units from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, and Phoenix were the first to report in to Camp Pendleton for augmentation into the 1st Marine Division. The following day their opposite numbers from the East Coast units arrived at Camp Lejeune. By 11 September, all of the organized ground units had reported for duty and the OMCR (Ground) had ceased to exist.

While the organized ground reserve was being mobilized, the first of the 42 MARTCOM fighter and intercept squadrons began arriving at El Toro. Personnel of six reserve VMF and three MGCI squadrons were ordered to duty on 23 July as replacements in the 1st MAW which had furnished units and men for the MAG-33 component of the brigade.

Commenting on the success with which the Marine Corps achieved this expansion, the Secretary of Defense was to note later:

As late as 20 July, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had informed MacArthur that a Marine division could not be sent before November or even December. Finally, on 25 July, the CinCUNC’s third request for the division was approved. It would, however, be a division minus one RCT, and the Joint Chiefs were “adamant in their decision that MacArthur must wait until autumn or even winter for his third RCT.”723

The JCS also directed on 25 July that the Marine Corps build its division (less one RCT) to full war strength. The date of 10–15 August was set for its departure to the Far East. Among the many steps taken in the mobilization schedule, the JCS directed that the Camp Lejeune-based 2d Marine Division be expanded immediately to war strength.

Fleshing out personnel—against short-fuzed manpower and time factors—for the 1st Marine Division and Wing, due to embark in mid-August, a month after the brigade had left, was a round-the-clock operation for all hands. Between 25 July-5 August, the Marine Corps provided personnel for the expanded Division/Wing by:

Expansion of the 1st Marine Division was in two phases, bringing the division (less one RCT) up to war strength and then organizing its third reinforced infantry regiment, the 7th Marines. With the cadre of 3,459 men in the division after the brigade left and the influx of regulars and reservists, the 1st Division embarked for Korea between 10 and 24 August. It had reached wartime strength (less one RCT) on 15 August, just 27 days after beginning its buildup from a peacetime T/O. As it had approached war strength, the Division CG, General Smith, was directed by CMC ltr of 4 August to activate a third RCT and prepare it for departure to Korea no later than 1 September.

While mounting out, the division transferred approximately 1,000 of its rear echelon to be used in the buildup of the 7th Marines. The 6th Marines of the 2d Division provided the base for building this new regiment. (Approximately 800 Marines of 3/6 were reassigned from Mediterranean duty and ordered to the Far East, via the Suez Canal, to join the 7th Marines upon its arrival there.) By drawing men from widely scattered sources, it was possible to activate the 7th Marines on 17 August. Departure of this regiment on 1 September was thus far in advance of the late fall or winter target date originally set by the JCS.

With all OMCR ground units called up and absorbed into the 1st and 2d Divisions, and air squadrons being mobilized on a slower schedule (due to less-urgent combat needs for air personnel in the early war stage), the Marine Corps dealt with its remaining body of reserve strength. Bulk orders went out beginning 15 August to the Volunteer Reserve, and by the end of the year 58,480 men and women in this category were on active duty. More than 80 percent of the volunteer reservists on Marine Corps rolls served during the Korean War.

Attesting to the impact of events in Korea is the fact that “following the epic withdrawal of the 1st Division from the Chosin Reservoir, the number of new enlistments into the active Volunteer Reserve jumped from 877 in December to 3,477 in January.”724

Complete mobilization of the organized ground reserve had been accomplished in just 53 days, from 20 July to 11 September. A previous estimate had shown an expected 80 percent availability of ground reserve on M-Day; the actual mobilization figure was 90 percent. Of 33,528 OMCR ordered to active duty, a total of 30,183 (1,550 officers/28,633 enlisted) reported. Marine aviation also expanded rapidly. By January 1951, 32 organized reserve air units (20 of the 30 existing VMFs and all 12 MGCIs) had been activated and by October of that year all of the reserve squadrons had been called to active duty. Of the 6,341 organized air reservists, 5,240 received orders; 4,893, or 93.4 percent, reported in. In contrast to the ground reserve, air units had been recalled on a staggered or partial mobilization schedule, a matter which was later to receive Congressional attention (and ultimately to set a new trend) when the Nation’s entire Korean War mobilization procedures were reviewed and subsequently revised.

Of the Marines participating in the Inchon invasion, 17 percent were reservists. By June 1951 the proportion of reservists in Marine Corps units in Korea had increased to nearly 50 percent. Between July 1950 and June 1953, approximately 122,000 reservists, both recruits and veterans, saw active duty with the Marine Corps.

Throughout the war the Marine Corps effected approximately 34 replacement drafts and another 31 rotation drafts. Ground Marines served an average tour of 13 months overseas (although actual time attached to the division was about 10½ months). The collapse of North Korean forces after the Inchon-Seoul operation and the unopposed landing at Wonsan had pointed to an early end of the Korean conflict. Massive Chinese intervention in November 1950, however, changed the prospect of a short war to a long one and made it necessary to implement a rotation and release policy. By March 1951, HQMC had worked out a preliminary phaseout program for reserve personnel (based on the various categories and length of service prior to recall) which was put into effect in June 1951.

During 1952 and up until July 1953, approximately 500 officers and 15,500 enlisted men joined the 1st Marine Division in Korea every six months. Individual monthly replacement drafts generally ranged from 1,900 to 2,500, depending on the combat situation and other personnel needs within the Marine Corps. Monthly rotation drafts of Marines assigned to the States or other duty stations from Korea were usually somewhat smaller than their corresponding incoming numbers. Ranks and MOS of replacement personnel to the end of the war, however, did not always meet the needs of the division. Specialty training conducted by the 1st Marine Division in Korea helped remedy most of the worst deficiencies.

During the latter half of 1952 and throughout 1953, tours for Marine pilots/combat air crews averaged 9 months, and for aviation ground officer/enlisted personnel, 12 months. Following a detailed HQMC study of the advantages of tactical unit as opposed to individual pilot rotation, a new squadron replacement policy was instituted. This procedure assured standard precombat training of all pilots725 and development of a team spirit prior to the squadron’s arrival in the combat theater. Previously this had not been possible with the continuing turnover of 1st MAW personnel under the individual release system. Despite plans during 1952–1953 for replacement and rotation of squadrons as an entity, this did not come about until late in the war when carrier squadron VMA-312 was replaced by VMA-332 in June 1953. With the end of hostilities, tours were extended to approximately 14 months for both aviation and ground Marines.

Buildup of Marine Corps personnel during the Korean War from the June 1950 base of 74,279 is seen in the following strength figures:

Altogether, an estimated 424,000 Marines served during the period of hostilities. The war also witnessed a sizable increase in the number of Negro Marines on active duty. This figure grew from 2 officers/1,965 enlisted in 1950 to 19 officers/14,468 enlisted by 1953. Marine officials commented on their fine combat performance, including that of many outstanding NCOs. In line with the changing climate of events and legislation,726 the Korean War marked the first time that Negro personnel were fully integrated into the military services, in contrast to the segregated units before and during World War II.

Peak strength of the Marine Corps during the Korean emergency occurred on 30 September 1953, when 261,343 were on duty. At the end of the war, 33,107 Marines (26,072 division, 7,035 wing) were stationed in Korea. The time of peak deployed strength in Korea during 1950–1953 appears to have been April 1953, when Marines of the 1st Division/Wing numbered 35,306.727

While the Korean War was still in progress, Congress passed new legislation to remedy certain shortcomings that had become apparent during the emergency, particularly the Nation’s recent experience with partial mobilization. These new laws affected the size of the FMF structure of the Marine Corps, its active-duty strength, and its reserve component.

Public Law 416, enacted 28 June 1952, represented several major advances for the Marine Corps. It authorized an increase of Marine Corps strength to a minimum of three combat divisions and three wings; raised the ceiling of regular active-duty personnel to 400,000 (except for normal expansion in a national emergency or war); and provided for the Commandant to sit as co-equal member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff728 on matters of direct concern to the Marine Corps. In reaffirming the role of Marine Corps in the seizure and defense of advanced naval bases, as well as land operations incident to naval campaigns, the law also cited the corollary Marine Corps mission of “performing such other duties as the President may direct.” Commenting on Public Law 416, the Commandant observed: “Our views are considered. Our interests are protected. The entire Marine Corps has benefited greatly by these gains.”729 General Shepherd further noted that the new legislation “expresses clearly the intent that the Marine Corps shall be maintained as a ready fighting force prepared to move promptly in time of peace or war to areas of trouble. It recognizes that in the future there may be a series of continuing international crises—each short of all-out war, but each requiring our nation ... to move shock forces into action on the shortest of notice.”730

The two new laws affecting the future training and composition of the Marine Corps and other services were: (1) the Universal Military Training and Service Act (UMT&S), as amended, approved 19 June 1951; and (2) the Armed Forces Reserve Act of 1952 (Public Law 476), approved 9 July 1952. Basically, the two laws sought to establish a sounder mobilization base and were complementary in nature. The Armed Forces Reserve Act of 1952 implemented a new mobilization concept: either a partial or total callup of the Nation’s reserve forces. In the past, the M-Day target had been geared to a total war only. A limited war, resulting in a partial, Korean-type mobilization, had not been envisioned. The 1952 act thereby provided greater flexibility for dealing with both contingencies and also consolidated much of the existing legislation affecting reserve forces.

Members of the reserve were newly designated by different categories of M-Day priority: ready, standby, and retired reserve. These varying degrees of availability for callup reflected training status (OMCR/volunteer), length of prior service, and related factors (i.e., men with the least service were designated for first callup, or the “Ready” category.) Previously, they were all equally subject for recall in an emergency, regardless of prior service.

The 1952 act and its new provisions thereby distinguished between a future national emergency and an all-out war. Theoretically, at least, a national emergency could be proclaimed by the President, calling for a partial mobilization, as in Korea. A declaration of war by Congress, as in World War II, would call for total mobilization. Thus the Marine Corps Reserve was newly earmarked for either a partial or total mobilization.

Under UMT&S, a military service obligation of eight years was established for all young men under age 26 entering the armed forces (whether by enlistment, draft, appointment, or reserve) after 19 June 1951. The act also authorized drafting of male citizens for two-year active duty periods. This new system of eight-year obligors provided the post-Korean MCR with a stable body of personnel who had received their basic training but still had a reserve obligation.

Also as a result of the Korean mobilization, the Organized Marine Corps Reserve troop list was modified in order to provide a manpower pool for additional elements of the regular establishment. Supply, service, and security units were added to provide more of an FMF type of augmentation than that furnished by reserve units in the past. Reestablishment of the OMCR began in October 1951, when the first group of recalled reservists were released from Korean duty. Plans called for a larger reserve and more comprehensive training. Ground units were to be increased from 138 to approximately 255, with the air squadrons to number 42. The Volunteer Reserve was similarly to be strengthened by stricter requirements for participation.

Traditionally the mission of the Marine Corps Reserve, since 1916, had been defined as “providing trained personnel for integration into the Marine Corps in time of national emergency.” The strengthened MCR program as a result of Korea and the new laws led to a more serious reappraisal of its role. In looking to its post-Korea future, the Marine Corps planned a revitalized training program that would now “assist in extending the ‘force-in-readiness’ concept to the Marine Corps Reserve.”731 More than ever before, the Marine Corps sought to make its reserve a mirror-image of the regular establishment.

Problems Peculiar to the Korean War732