Chuck Roots
27 March 2017
www.chuckroots.com
Brute the Intrepid
Picking up from
last week’s article, Brilliant Brute, it is my intention to share more of the
brilliancy of this man, Victor “Brute” Krulak. Up to this point (1946), Brute has
been mostly a staff officer, serving at the whim of flag grade officers (Marine
generals and Navy admirals). Granted, he was often given carte blanche with his various ideas, but this next bit of
visionary thinking was beyond brilliant. The reason for this is that no one
else is on record for having the foresight Brute demonstrated. His idea was a
tactical, combat, wartime game-changer.
What was
this idea of Krulak’s? Quite simply, it was the use of a new-fangled
contraption known as a helicopter. This aerial wonder left most people gawking
as it whirred and spun, often in strangely contorted ways. After all, leading
authorities all agreed that the aerodynamics of the helicopter made it
impossible to fly. Well, at least on paper it shouldn’t be capable of sustained
flight!
The first
helicopters in the military had only come into use at the end of World War Two,
primarily in the role of reconnaissance, observation and medical evacuation.
But not as a vehicle for combat operations. Since the first helicopters were
years away from becoming the massive powerhouses in lifting that we see today,
there were many doubters that this weird flying machine could ever be of much
use. They were regarded as a novelty, an experimental curiosity, nothing more. Brute
saw things differently. In fact, author Robert Coram writes in his book “Brute”,
“Before helicopter doctrine was developed
and before the Marine Corps had its first helicopter squadron, [Brute] was
teaching helicopter tactics at the Amphibious Warfare School.” Krulak and
another Marine, Ed Dyer, had written “the
first textbook for Marine helicopters and war planners. Usually doctrine and
tactics are developed after a weapon is available, but Krulak believed that
doctrine should drive, not follow, the development of the helicopter.” The
Army would later take this textbook, copy it practically verbatim, and put an
Army cover on it!
So
committed to the use of helicopters was Brute, that one of his pilots offered
to give him a lift. Literally, harnessed in a canvas sling, Brute was lifted
off the ground to demonstrate its use in potentially transporting troops
inland. Up to this point, the other branches of the military had little use for
the Corps, viewing it as useful only in making beachhead landings, but nothing
more. This attitude about the Marine Corps generated a tremendous battle within
Congress over the next ten years following the war. Debate raged on as to
whether or not the Corps should simply be done away with, or be absorbed into
the Army, or given a place at the table of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This
pervasive negative view of the Marine Corps was harbored by such luminaries as Army
Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower and George C. Marshall, along with President
Harry Truman, all “trying to do what the
Japanese empire had failed to do: destroy the United States Marine Corps.”
The helicopter would change all of
that in short order. Through Krulak’s doggedness in incorporating the
helicopter into Marine Corps combat tactics, the Marines were given new life by
Congress. Krulak was tireless in his defense of the Corps, fearlessly going
nose-to-nose with those who were attempting to disband the Marine Corps.
One of the
more interesting stories of the helicopter and its introduction into the Marine
Corps, had to do with the formation of the first Marine experimental helicopter
squadron (HMX-1) on December 1, 1947. Pilots were selected for this squadron
and assembled for duty without a single helicopter in the Marine Corps inventory!
In February of 1948 the fledgling squadron received five Sikorsky helicopters,
each of which could carry a pilot and two Marines.
The
Marines’ use of the helicopter came into use in warfare in Korea, where, once
again, Vic Krulak was present. He had a pilot fly him over the battle zones
right in the midst of battle, frequently setting down near a Marine command to
share what he was observing of enemy troop movements. But it was Vietnam where
the helicopter came into its own, securing once and for all the role of Marines
and helicopter warfare.
In an
ironic twist, then Lt Gen Victor “Brute” Krulak in 1967 was meeting with
President Lyndon Baines Johnson in the Oval Office. Brute, never one to miss an
opportunity to be perfectly frank, even with a sitting president, told Johnson
exactly what he thought of the way the president was prosecuting the war in
Vietnam! Johnson, in turn, unceremoniously ushered Krulak out of the office. As
a former Marine and Vietnam vet, President Johnson should have paid close
attention to this man!
Brute is
the story of a man who was fearless in taking on the high and mighty. Though he
passed from this life at age 95, he has survived as a beloved icon of the Marine
Corps.
Semper Fi,
Brute.
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