3rd Battalion, 23rd Marine Regiment (3/23) is a reserve infantry battalion in the United States Marine Corps located throughout the Southern United States consisting of approximately 800 Marines and Sailors. The battalion was first formed in 1943 for service in the Central Pacific Area during World War II, taking part in a number of significant battles including those at Saipan and Iwo Jima before being deactivated at the end of the war. In the early 1960s, the unit was reactivated as a reserve battalion. The battalion is headquartered in Saint Louis, Missouri, with outlying units throughout the Southern United States. 3/23 falls under the command of the 23rd Marine Regiment and the 4th Marine Division. Recent operations have included tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Current units NameLocationHeadquarters and Service CompanyBridgeton, MissouriTOW SectionBroken Arrow, OklahomaIndia CompanyNorth Little Rock, ArkansasKilo CompanySmyrna, TennesseeLima CompanyMontgomery, AlabamaWeapons CompanySpringfield, Missouri
Mission
The unit's mission is to provide a well-trained and credible force, capable of rapidly mobilizing to augment or reinforce active duty Marine Corps forces participating in missions ranging from humanitarian/peacekeeping operations to major conflicts, in time of war, national emergency or contingency operations and during peacetime to provide operation tempo relief for active forces throughout the spectrum of operations including Joint and Combined Operations. Infantry battalions are the heart and soul of the ground combat element. The mission of locating, closing with, and destroying the enemy with fire and maneuver and repelling the enemy's assault with fire and close combat lies with the "grunts". Marine infantry battalions often have limited organic equipment outside of small arms (maneuvering by foot as light infantry, and must be supplemented with additional trucks to become motorized infantry or Amphibious Assault Vehicles to become mechanized infantry).List of United States Marine Corps battalions
Organization A Marine infantry battalion is organized into three rifle companies, a weapons company, and a headquarters company. The rifle company has three or four rifle platoons and a weapons platoon with medium machineguns and mortars. The weapons company includes a heavy machinegun platoon, a mortar platoon, and an assault platoon. Sometimes, the commander will mix these into Combined Anti-Armor Teams. The headquarters company includes all command, administration, intelligence, operations, logistics, and communication Marines and equipment, as well as the battalion's Surveillance and Target Acquisition teams (which include scout snipers).
History
World War II 3rd Battalion, 23rd Marines was activated on 22 July 1942, at what is now Marine Corps Air Station New River, North Carolina. In July 1943, the battalion relocated to Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California. In August 1943, they were assigned to 4th Marine Division. This division was formed by the organization and redesignation of several other units. The 23rd Marine Regiment began as infantry detached from the 3rd Marine Division, and an artillery battalion of the 12th Marines became the genesis of the 14th Marines and engineer elements of the 19th Marines formed the nucleus of the 20th Marines. In March the 24th Marine Regiment was organized, and then in May it was split in two to supply the men for the 25th Marines.John C. Chapin, "The 4th Marine Division in World War II", "U.S. Marine Corps", 1976
This war-time shuffling provided the major building blocks for 4th Marine Division. The units were originally separated, however, with the 24th Marines and a variety of reinforcing units (engineer, artillery, medical, motor transport, special weapons, tanks, etc.) at Camp Pendleton in California. The rest of the units were at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. This East Coast echelon moved to Pendleton by train and transit of the Panama Canal in July and August 1943. When all the units were finally together, the 4th Marine Division was formally activated on 14 August 1943, with Major General Harry Schmidt in command.
After intensive training, 23rd Marines shipped out on 13 January 1944, and in 13 months made four major amphibious assaults, in the battles of Kwajalein (Roi-Namur), Saipan, Tinian, and Iwo Jima, with the division suffering more than 17,000 casualties.
Roi-Namur An account of 23rd Marines attack during the battle of Roi-Namur: "As dawn broke on D plus 1 (February 1, 1944), the LVT's waddled out of the jaws of the LST's and took up their circling, while the air strikes and naval bombardment mounted in fury. Originally, 1000 had been designated as H-hour, but, due to unforeseen difficulties (such as the lack of usable LVT's), it was changed to 1100. As It was, the first waves did not land till nearly 1200. RCT 23 attacked Roi with its strategic airfield. After the earth-shaking barrage of naval shells and aerial bombs, climaxed by a deluge of rockets fired from LCI's, opposition on Roi was comparatively light, and the 0-1 line was reached at 1217. After pulling back some over-extended units and reorganizing, RCT 23 continued the attack about 1530. The twisted steel skeletons of the hangars and the shattered remnants of the Jap planes were overrun, and the northern edge of the island was reached by 1800. All that remained was mopping up the enemy snipers who were still hiding in the drainage ditches. This was completed by the next morning, February 2, and at 0800 Roi was declared secure. The third battalions Shore Party was the Seabees of 3/20."
Saipan For Saipan the 23rd landed on beaches blue 1 & 2. Shore party for 3/23 was the third battalion 20th Marines( 121st Seabees).
Iwo Jima
For Iwo 3/23 was commanded by Col. Shelton Scales|"Col Shelton Scales and the 133rd NCB" interviewed by Lt. Col Oliver North and was the reserve Assault Battalion for Yellow Beach. They landed from the USS Lowndes (APA 154). Their assigned Shore Party was C Co. 133rd Seabees.How Annex 4th Marine Division Operations Report, April 1945, National Archives, College Park, MD,20704
23rd Marine Regiment was awarded two Presidential Unit Citations and a Navy Unit Commendation, and then deactivated on 10 November 1945.
Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm 3rd Battalion, 23rd Marines was activated in Nov 1990 and deployed to Saudi Arabia for Desert Shield. 3/23 was commanded by LtCol Ray Dawson, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and attached to the 8th Marine Regiment of the 2nd Marine Division and deployed along the Kuwait/Saudi Arabian border conducting patrolling and security operations. 2 days before G-Day, 3/23 attacked into Kuwait at Umm Gudair to secure forward artillery positions for the support of the attack into Kuwait. With this action, 3/23 became the first unit of the 2nd Marine Division to enter combat since World War II. 3/23 continued to advance as part of 8th Marines, fighting actions into Kuwait City when the ceasefire was called.
Detailed synopsis of 3/23 Desert Storm Assault 3d Battalion, 23rd Marines was assigned the G-Day missions of (1) providing security in the division zone forward of the Saudi defensive berm, which was located on the Saudi-Kuwait border, prior to G-Day; (2) passing through the breach lanes, and: (3) clearing its zone of action to support the attack north, and (4) screening to the northeast in order to allow 3d Battalion, 10th Marines (3/10) to establish artillery firing positions to provide preparation fires for offensive operations. Phase One was the conduct of the route reconnaissance by TOWs, heavy machine guns (HMG), combat engineers, snipers, and artillery reconnaissance assets. Phase Two was the introduction of one motorized infantry company, the battalion command element, and the 81 mm mortar platoon in the forward sector. The motorized company would be placed in a blocking position oriented northwest, facing possible Iraqi units being flushed out by 2nd LAR screening to the northwest. The teams were tasked to position themselves between the Iraqi defenses and friendly artillery to screen the Iraqi forward defensive belt, and orient to the northeast. Phase Three would be the movement of the artillery units to their firing positions on 23 February 1991, G-1, under the cover of darkness.
On 22 February 1991 (G-Day minus two), 3/23 commenced combat operations as bulldozers cut three gaps in the Saudi berm to allow 3/23 and 3/10 to execute their missions. Approximately halfway through Phase One, the 8th Marines further tasked 3/23 to provide a Forward Air Controller close to the Iraqi defenses to control an air strike on a pumping station in the Umm Gudair oil field, which had been determined to be a high priority target. This required the 81 mm mortar element to move forward of their assigned position in order to range the target for back-up marking capability. A number of Iraqi infantry and trucks were observed in and around the Iraqi trench line. In the waning daylight of 22 February 1991, the Iraqis were engaged by the forward 3/23 81 mm mortars. Simultaneously, the 3/23 Forward Air Controller (FAC) attempted to direct close air support (CAS) onto the assigned target. However, smoke and haze from the burning oil field obscured the target from the FAC, making laser designation impossible. Company I 3/23 quickly and effectively searched and cleared a large compound located forward of the Iraqi defenses discovering that, although unoccupied, it had been recently used by Iraqi forces as a major supply cache and observation point. The compound was prepared for demolition by combat engineers, and subsequently completely destroyed. Artillery fire was requested on the Iraqi defenses and Battery F, 2/14 responded as well as organic 3/23 81 mm mortar fire. The direct fire capability of 3/23 combined with the indirect fire destroyed five BTR-60s, three BDRMS, eight tanks (T-55/T-62) and inflicted approximately 52 Iraqi KIAs. 10-20 Iraqis emerged from their trenches and made their way through their minefields to members of the 81 mm mortar platoon, 3/23 quickly mobilized enemy prisoners of war (POW) processing teams which sped the POWs to the rear. The POWs were determined to be from the Iraqi 1st Battalion, 83d Brigade, 29th Infantry Division. Ultimately, the battalion captured 238 POWs, to include an Iraqi Battalion Commander, and sustained no friendly casualties.