The Fleet Landing Exercises, or FLEX were amphibious landing exercises conducted by the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps between 1935 and 1941. The purpose of these exercises was to formulate a workable amphibious warfare doctrine. The development of the necessary craft and other equipment, and the proper tactical deployment of them were also results. Finally, the exercises demonstrated the usefulness of a standing body of Marines, the Fleet Marine Force, specially prepared for amphibious expeditions.HQ, 1st Marine Brigade, FMF, "Notes on the Organization and Activities of the Fleet Marine Force in Connection with Landing Operations," msg., July 3, 1939, HAF 73

Origins The history of amphibious warfare predates Greek antiquity. In United States history, early in the Revolution, Colonial marines were used to conduct amphibious landings and raids such as the Battle of Nassau, and the Penobscot Expedition. Amphibious operations were mounted in the American Civil War, and also prominently in the Spanish–American War. Though this history produced a system of landing procedures, the advent of the motor vehicle (the tank in particular) and the airplane required planners to think more critically about the feasibility of amphibious operations.

In Panama, during the 1920s, the Marine Corps conducted a few modest experiments concerning modern amphibious warfare.Fergusson, p. 36. At the beginning of the 1930s American defense policy shifted as the threat of the expansionist Japanese Empire became more apparent. The establishment of the Fleet Marine Force and greater concentration on the feasibility of amphibious assault were the direct result. Developing the ability to capture Japanese held islands during a Pacific war against Japan was a vital part of US war contingency plans; War Plan Orange. It was not until these contingency plans described the necessity of amphibious capability that testing key maneuvers in amphibious landings was funded.

History After the First World War and until the mid-1930s, appropriations for the United States Navy were small. Ships fitted as troop transports were not priorities for the Navy in fact or in theory, so as a stop-gap measure the responsibility fell to battleships and cruisers to lift Marine landing forces. As a consequence of the standard davits on Navy ships, a length of 30’, the spacing of the davits fitted to these ships, and a weight of 5 tons (the maximum capacity of the davits) were imposed as basic requirements for all new landing craft Hough, p. 24.

Soon after the formation of the Fleet Marine Force, plans were made for training the FMF in landing operations in the Caribbean. The northwest peninsula of Culebra Island was chosen as the training area.Allan R. Millet, Semper Fidelis: The History of the United States Marine Corps, 1980 The experimental problem used for the training involved a landing attack by the Fleet Marine Force embarked on Navy vessels moving from ship to shore in ship's boats and cutters. The Training Squadron consisted of the battleships Arkansas, Wyoming, and a destroyer squadron. In December 1934, a conference between Brigadier General C. H. Lyman of the Fleet Marine Force and Admiral C. S. Freeman was held aboard the flagship Trenton at St. Petersburg. Florida, to develop plans. The Marine contribution to the exercise included the 1st Marine Brigade, stationed at Quantico, composed of two infantry battalions, an artillery battery from the 10th Marine Regiment, and small engineer and service units.

FLEX 1 The first of the exercises started 15 January on the beaches of Culebra and Vieques until March 15, 1935. The lift was provided by 18 ships' boats and one dumb barge artillery lighter.Friedman, p. 19. Fleet Landing Exercise Number 1 tested a series of theoretical and practical assumptions collected by the United States Marine Corps and Navy that soon became "Tentative Landing Operations Manual" of 1935.Tentative Manual The exercises included landings, naval gunfire experiments, and the use of aviation in landing operations. Aircraft conducted aerial reconnaissance and bombardment sorties. The Caribbean fleet tested a range of weapons while the Marines moving from ship-to-shore employed machine guns, 81-mm mortars, and the 75-mm pack howitzers against beach targets.Smith, H., p. 46. Due to the mixed results experienced with the boats used in the exercise, the Marines concluded that landing boat design needed to be improved. In one of the experiments, a boat was successfully covered in a protective smoke screen, but this caused the landing party to immediately halt, and the waves broke up the unit, while many boats lost their way to the beachhead.Col. E.P. Moses C/S FMF to Col. J. Marston, November 20, 1935, Little Papers. While the landing parties were ashore, the Navy held naval gunfire tests to assess the effects of different shells and fuses. These test concluded that area suppressing fire was far better than attempting pin-point bombardment.Lt.Cmdr. David L. Nutter, USN, "Gunfire Support in Fleet Landing Exercises," September 1939, HAF 73. However, many supporting fire practices, both by aircraft and warships, were strictly limited due to safety precautions for the Marines conducting maneuvers along the beach. The outcome of these exercises convinced the Marines that better landing craft and boats were needed, as well as more dependable communications equipment and techniques.Headquarters, 1st Marine Brigade, Fleet Marine Force, "Notes on the Organization and Activities of the Fleet Marine Force," pp. 4-10.

FLEX 2 The Fleet Landing Exercise Number 2 was conducted from January 4 to February 24, 1936, marking the beginning of the Culebra/Vieques Inner Range or the Culebra/Vieques Complex as it would be known until 1975 and the closing of the Culebra subranges. The amphibious exercises were transferred from Culebra's Flamenco Beach to Vieques, and naval gunfire practice began on Flamenco Beach and on the adjacent Flamenco Point. The 1st Brigade had revealed many of the same mistakes seen in FLEX1 but encountered several new problems. The Marines needed to get closer to the beach and the battleships were not able to tread in shallow waters. As for the landing craft boats, the problem was still not resolved as they were slow and extremely vulnerable. In several testing of various boats, they found that they proved to highly unstable for gun platforms, dangerous in disembarking the troops and were incapable in crossing submerged coral reefs. The uses of smoke and darkness to conceal the beach landings were still causing confusion amongst the landing parties. While the artificial naval gunfire tests were being continued, the rapid area fire had made the aerial spotting difficult for the pilots. And still communications were a problems. However, the barrage-type bombardment met the approval for the Army Officer-Observers to reinforce a fundamentally sound doctrine. The Marine brigade gained tactical experience in the amphibious maneuvers ashore but the FLEX 2 had not made any significant breakthroughs in fixing the problems encountered during FLEX1.

FLEX 3

The Fleet Landing Exercise Number 3 was conducted on San Clemente, California from January 26 to March 3, 1937, in agreement with U.S. Attack Force Operation Plans 1-37 and 2-37. The 1st Marine Brigade was transferred to San Diego for the exercise and was absorbed by the small-sized 2nd Marine Brigade; the whole Fleet Marine Force. Also present were the understrength provisional Army 1st Expeditionary Brigade. And once again, the testing problems of previous exercises presented themselves. The heavy California surf proved the landing boats were infeasible for beach landings; the Navy coxswains disembarked their troops too far from the beach, broached their boats, or dispersed the concentration of the landing in scouting out better, safer landing spots. After five standard-type naval boats foundered in four-foot surf, efforts to adapt these were ended.Hough, p. 26. They were criticized for lacking speed and maneuverability and being difficult to handle in surf. The experience proved conclusively that a specially designed landing boat with superior power, maneuverability, protection and surf-riding qualities was vital for landing operations. Smoke and darkness continued to present problems as in earlier tests. Bombardment tests were extensive but the spotting techniques, ordnance, and communications used remained unsatisfactory. The only significant improvements for the landing forces were the new Army Radios that were highly effective for communications and the Marine pack howitzer batteries showing that they could deploy on the shore efficiently. Plus, they learned that aerial attacks had to be made at certain right angles to the direction of the attack to avoid friendly fire. The pilots however argued that they lacked the special-type of attack aircraft and the proper air-ground communications before they were to gain precision in strafing and bombing. Two aircraft squadrons, from Quantico, VA. and North Island, composed of the VF, VO, VB, and VJ aircraft. Also, FLEX 3 was the first time cargo nets used for embarking troops to the landing boats. The method proved a success, but as in the past, other Marines were loaded into boats at the rail before lowering.

The origins of the destroyer-transports, or APDs were not widely known at that time until it was first mentioned in an after action report when Brigadier General James J. Meade suggested destroyers might solve the dual problem of a shortage of amphibious transports and naval gunfire support. With such ships "troops could move quickly close into shore and disembark under protection of the ships' guns." The Navy apparently agreed and decided to experiment with one of its flush-deck, four-stack destroyers. It had built a large number of these during World War I and most were now in obsolete compared to the battleships that were being used as troop transports during those times. And he further concluded that the battleships can be pressed on to other naval missions instead of being relied for troop transportation. Although the APD provided lesser carrying capacity and limited ability in carrying landing crafts and heavy equipment. Of these various naval elements of APDs, the Navy detached Battleship Division One including the , , and had added. The , which was reconfigured as a mobile aerial bombing target. The total amphibious landing force was composed of approximately 4,700 Army and Marine Corps personnel. While firing a scheduled secondary battery practice on board the USS Wyoming on the last day of the exercises at San Clemente Island, an explosion occurred in the #13 5-inch gun mount, killing one officer and six enlisted personnel. Thirteen other personnel were injured in the blast.

FLEX 4