Alexander Vandegrift
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Mar 30, 2011 · Holland fumed about the Army’s slow pace, exclaiming to his staff, “The 27th won’t fight and Ralph Smith will not make them fight!” Things came to a head starting on June 21, when Holland ordered Ralph Smith to leave a battalion to mop up the remaining Japanese at Nafutan Point, while using the rest of the division in a northward sweep.
- Sharon Tosi Lacey
- Ralph Smith: A Gentle Man and A Gentleman
- Holland “Howlin’ Mad” Smith
- First Conflict on Makin
- The Benning Method vs Marine Aggressiveness
- Ralph Smith Relieved of Duty
- A Board Examines Ralph Smith’s Relief
- Conclusions of The Board
- Repairing The Rift Between The Services
- William Randolph Hearst Brings Public Attention to The Feud
- The Feud Within The Press
At the center of the dispute was Ralph Smith, who led the 27th Infantry, a New York National Guard outfit, with many of its men drawn from the state’s farming and mountain country along with others from New York City’s tough neighborhoods. Ironically, Ralph Smith was not a New Yorker. He was born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1893, and attended Colorado S...
Ralph Smith’s chief antagonist was a ferocious Alabaman, born in 1882. Holland McTyeire “Howlin’ Mad” Smith was the son of a prominent Alabama politician. While attending the Alabama Polytechnic Institute, a military school in Auburn, Holland Smith read about Napoleon and decided to become a career officer. He graduated from the Alabama Polytechnic...
Holland Smith headed the invasion of Tarawa in the Gilberts and its nearby islands of Makin and Abemama in November 1943, and under his command was Ralph Smith’s 27th Infantry Division. The two Smiths first clashed during the assault on Makin. On November 20, the 27th Division’s 165th Infantry Regiment, under Colonel Gardiner Conroy, assaulted Maki...
On March 15, 1944, Holland Smith became the Marine Corps’s second three-star general with command of the V Amphibious Corps. With great reluctance, he accepted the 27th Infantry into his command for the invasion of Saipan. When the 27th Infantry came ashore on Saipan, the actual landing was close to farce. The GIs landed by night, their landing cra...
On June 24, after consulting with his superiors, Vice Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner and Vice Admiral Raymond Spruance, Holland Smith relieved Ralph Smith, sending a captain from the Adjutant General’s Corps with the official order, typed up on V Amphibious Corps stationery, and the additional proviso that Ralph Smith and a single aide must leave Sa...
Holland Smith was right about the oncoming storm. When Ralph Smith arrived in Hawaii, he reported to Lt. Gen. Robert C. Richardson, the senior Army commander in the Pacific, and Richardson was outraged. He told Ralph Smith to take as much time as necessary to prepare a report on everything that had happened on Saipan. On July 11, Ralph Smith produc...
The Buckner Board reviewed the increasingly ugly mess, and arrived at four conclusions: (1) Holland Smith had full authority to relieve Ralph Smith. (2) The orders effecting the change of command were properly issued. (3) Holland Smith “was not fully informed regarding conditions in the zone of the 27th Infantry Division” when he asked for Ralph Sm...
The Buckner Board findings went next to Washington for review by Marshall and his Assistant Chief of Staff, Maj. Gen. Thomas T. Handy. They believed that while Holland Smith had some cause to complain about the 27th Division’s lack of aggressiveness, “Holland Smith’s fitness for this command is open to question” because of his deep-seated prejudice...
Unfortunately, now the controversy moved into the public arena. The Saipan battle was huge news in the United States, particularly the ghastly Japanese mass suicides on Marpi Point, which had been well-documented by film, photograph, and reporter accounts. The American public was shocked by how the island’s Japanese civilians chose suicide over sur...
The Navy had its partisans in the press war, however. Most notable of these was Charles Henry Luce, the publisher of Time and Lifemagazines. Luce’s admiration dated back to his youth as the child of American missionaries in China at the beginning of the 20th century. There, the Navy and Marines had burnished their reputation by protecting American ...
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Holland McTyeire "Howlin' Mad" Smith, KCB (April 20, 1882 – January 12, 1967) was a general in the United States Marine Corps during World War II. He is sometimes called the "father" of modern U.S. amphibious warfare. His nickname, "Howlin' Mad" Smith, had been given to him by his troops in the Dominican Republic in 1916.
- 1905–1946
- United States Marine Corps
Sep 28, 2022 · The most notable was the infamous “Smith vs. Smith” clash on Saipan in June 1944, when the senior officer ashore, Marine Lt. Gen. Holland M. Smith — believing the army troops there had moved too slowly on an important attack — abruptly relieved the commander of the army’s 27th Infantry Division, Maj. Gen. Ralph C. Smith, and ordered ...
Dec 4, 2015 · After the War, General Holland “Howling Mad” Smith would retire a full general where he would go on to keep his criticisms of the Army and Navy alive, well, and more vocal than ever. The story of General Smith against the backdrop of an Army, who had visions of absorbing the Corps and a Navy, who thought them a lesser branch give greater ...
Jul 7, 2014 · Holland Smith declared Saipan secure on July 9, though the 27th remained on the island for weeks. Survivors of the banzai attack were still recovering from their wounds when they learned of Smith’s comments lambasting their division. For many, an intense dislike of the Marine commander and leathernecks in general would last a lifetime.
Holland Smith stated the U.S. post-battle assessment best: “Of all our adversaries in the Pacific, Kuribayashi was the most redoubtable.” General Kuribayashi came to Iwo Jima during the second week of June 1944, and at once his heart sank. The small garrison was ill-prepared for war.
