Category: The Green Machine
“I sure wish we would have to mix with some of the [Warlord] armies over here as I would like to see if they are good in a scrap” – Pvt John Black, 3rd Brigade USMC, Tientsin, 15 Dec 1927
Until February of 1938 the Marines did not maintain a permanent presence in Tientsin. The city on the Pei ho River (Hai River) with both road and rail access served as a natural gateway to Peking. In 1900, during the Boxer troubles the Marines did fight here and earned the respect of a number of their allies for their courage under fire.
Furthermore, until shortly after WWI they routinely used the city as a logistics center for gathering supplies off loaded at the shallow water ports of Taku and Tangku. In the 1920’s they occasionally occupied the city when fighting between local warlords threatened to cut off Peking from the outside world. But apart from Smedley Butler’s 1927-28 expeditionary force, they rarely stayed beyond a few weeks. Bulter redeployed his force from Shanghai and brought them to Tientsin because he feared the fighting between the Nationalist forces and the warlord armies might cut off Peking from the outside world.
Pvt Black summed up Butler’s mission in much simpler and cruder terms: “I think I will have to go to Peking again soon as there is quite some fighting there and I am one of many that is here to see that when these Chinks fight that they don’t mix with anybody that is white.” Black never had to fight his way to Peking and by January 1929 Butler’s Marines returned stateside, leaving on rather good terms with the Chinese. Follow this link to pictures of Butler’s activities in Tientsin.
10 Novemebr 1928, Gen Butler and American Minister to China John Van Antwerten MacMurray along with Chinese officals at a dedication to a Sino-American cooperation and friendship project to honor of the opening of a highway between Tientsin and Peking.
10th Artillery park outside Tientsin
A company on paradeInstead, Tientsin was an Army town, as elements of the 15th US Infantry garrisoned Tientsin from January 1912 until they were withdrawn in March 1938. At that time the Marines took over the 15th old post,remaining until forced to surrender to the Japanese on 8 Dec 1941.
A common misnomer is the Tientsin compound was originally German barracks vacated during WWI. Although the buildings the 15th and the Marines used were inside the old German concession, the buildings were originally built as a residential apartment complex. Associated with Tientsin was the deep water port city of Chinwangtao. Since Tientsin was a shallow draft port, larger ocean vessels such as US Navy transports had to dock at Chinwangtao.
Chinwangato became after WWI, the primary entry point for Marines coming to north China. In addition, the 15th Infantry maintained a training camp with artillery range at Chinwangtao.
When the Marines took over Tientsin in 1938, they also assumed control of this camp which they renamed Camp Holcomb. Since Camp Holcomb was close to Chinwangtao, Marines were immediately dispatched to covertly record Japanese movements in and out of the port following the outbreak of hostilities between the Chinese and Japanese during the summer of 1937. Like the Peiping Marines, the Tientsin-Chinwangtao Marines were surrendered at the start of WWII.
Following WWII the 1st Marine Division was based at Tientsin from 30 September 1945 until their September 1947 withdrawal. The 1st along with the 6th Marine Division at Tsingtao were tasked with disarming and removing Japanese forces from North China as well as protecting the approaches to Peking. For some brief excerpts and images of post WWII duty around Tientsin and Tsingtao click here.
Gordon Hall during the Great Flood of 1938. Photo courtesy of the Tim Brig Collection
Training on the parade ground. Photo courtesy of the Tim Brig Collection
Marines with their Cole Carts. Photo courtesy of the Tim Brig Collection
Rare pre-WWII color images of the Tientsin Marines drilling on their parade field
Parade practice, 1938
Marine Guards, Camp Holcomb, 1938.
The following is a transcript of outgoing company commander Capt. Vince Miller’s change of command speech:
Good morning everyone. I’d normally begin with our unit motto, but after two and a half years of starting every meeting and discussion with it, I just don’t think I can stomach it anymore. So I’ll say good morning like a normal human being.
I should probably thank my battalion commander for the opportunity to command this company over the last few years, in both combat and garrison, but I think I’d rather go out into the parking lot and key his car for saddling me with the greatest collection of idiots, malingerers, and criminals that have ever walked the face of this earth.
You’ll notice my wife and daughters aren’t here sitting in the audience today. That’s because Sheila left me six months ago when I had to skip our 10th anniversary trip to Jamaica so I could come in on a Sunday for unit PT, since one of you dipshits decided to go out and get his third DUI.
I wasn’t allowed to go to marriage counseling last year when our relationship was on the rocks because the commander had said that soldiers were the priority. So instead I gave my slot to Private Steadman and his former prostitute wife who he met on R&R in Brazil the month prior. Once they got back, she took all his money and Steadman killed himself. So thanks for that.
Do any of you morons have any clue how much paperwork it causes when you blow your sad little heads off? At least have the courtesy to go AWOL first. But for fuck’s sake don’t come back for at least 30 days so I can drop you off my books and let someone else deal with the meatsack of failure that is your existence.
This would now be the part of the speech where I talk about our glorious combat achievements. Too bad, there’s nothing glorious about walking around Afghanistan for 12 months finding IEDs with your feet.
Now I’m deaf in one ear, have almost a pound of shrapnel in my ass, and occasionally I wake up screaming for no fucking reason. But you know what? That doesn’t make me a goddamned hero. That was the worst part about coming back. Not my empty home, empty bed, or shattered dreams. No, it was listening to you fuckwads thump your chests and talk about how badass you all were. Did any one of you actually get a confirmed kill over there? One?
I didn’t think so.
So in closing, let me say this. Thank you for the countless weekends I lost with my daughters because I had to deal with your trivial bullshit. Thank you for the two suicide investigations that forced me to cancel training events I’d planned for almost a year. And most importantly, thank you for the dishonesty, poor accountability, and outright theft of almost two million dollars in equipment, which is why I won’t be receiving another paycheck until February.
May God smite you all with the power of a thousand suns, and your souls be condemned to Hell for eternity.
And to the incoming commander. Good luck and God bless you for making such terrible life choices.
There’s a bottle of scotch in the third drawer of my desk. You’re going to need it.
I hate you all.
Outgoing Commander: ‘I Still Hate You All’
The following address was delivered by Capt. Vince Williams at his Headquarters Company change of command ceremony.
Good morning everyone. I won’t start with our battalion motto because the very sound of it makes my stomach curdle and my jaw clench with an unholy rage.
Eighteen months ago I stood right here and thanked the battalion commander for the privilege and honor of leading an infantry rifle company in combat and in garrison. You all have no idea how happy I was to hand over control of that lunatic asylum. I took some leave and came back prepared to spend my last six months in the Army behind a nice comfortable desk up at the Division Headquarters waiting for my unqualified resignation to process.
After command was over I had managed to convince Sheila to come home with the girls, and we were working on repairing the train wreck that my marriage had become. We’d even started sleeping in the same bed again. I had also started a nice routine with my AA group off-post, and was clean and sober for almost three weeks. That was when I got the call that the HHC commander had been caught making inappropriate comments on his personal Facebook page and that I would be the new commander.
Let’s fast forward ten months to today. I stand before you all a broken man. These soldiers are the refuse of society. The overweight, the battalion staff, the felons, and the drug addicts.
No human being should have to endure what I have gone through over these last months. I had been in command seven hours when I got my first phone call…from the ATF! My mortar platoon sergeant had decided to sneak away from a training event and try to sell his 60mm tubes to an undercover agent who he thought was a domestic terrorist.
And don’t get me started on the staff. Technically I’m a commander, but what does a commander do when someone outranks him and refuses to come to work, is nineteen pounds overweight, and has a rater who is also his drinking buddy so he’ll never get a negative counseling in his life? I’m looking at you, sir.
The real highlight of my tenure as the HHC commander was when I had to come in on Christmas to explain why my senior medic was caught having sex in the Sgt. Major’s office with the assistant S-2 while she was on staff duty.
We won’t even talk about the time my wallet was stolen when I was forced to spend Thanksgiving dinner in my Class A’s serving food at the mess hall, or the enormous pile of human shit that someone left in the dayroom two hours before this ceremony.
That’s because seeing you all standing before me today, in your clean uniforms and black berets, masquerading as human beings and not the vile hell-spawn you really are, brings a darkness over my soul that can only be fixed with lethal amounts of hard alcohol or a manslaughter charge.
So to my successor remember this: always lock your door, don’t ever go into the barracks at night, for any reason, and never provide information about you or your loved ones to anyone in your unit — ever!
Or better yet, go AWOL. Right now. It only gets worse from here.
This is Havoc Six signing off the net. I still hate you all.
