MARINE AVIATION ORDNANCE

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

    I suppose we should consider the man who handed the first grenade to the first pilot who subsequently dropped it in anger, as our first Aviation Ordnance man.  However, this act and the date it occurred are lost in history.  In an effort to establish a date we all might use, I have spent some time researching both at CMC and the National Archives.  To understand the date I now claim as the birthday for Aviation Ordnance, it is necessary to back up and look for a moment at the history of Marine Aviation.

    The germ of the idea of Marine Aviation dates, perhaps, from the year 1903, when a young Alfred Austin Cunningham first watched a manned balloon fly and then talked to its owner into giving him a ride.  A year later Cunningham entered the U. S. Naval Academy, graduating in 1909 and chose to become a Second Lieutenant in the Marine Corps.  He was continually obsessed with flying and, after stirring a congressional tempest, was ordered to the Navy’s Aviation camp at Annapolis for flight training on 22 May 1912.  There he became the Marine Corps first aviator and Naval aviator number 5.  From that date until WWI, Marine aviation was small.  Starting with only five officers and thirty enlisted men on the day the United States declared war, the Marines increased their air arm until the close of the war when they had 282 officers and 2180 enlisted men.

    It was during WWI that Marine Aviation first saw combat.  In 1918 the Marine First Aviation Force, with one squadron deployed to the northern coast of France to bomb the German submarine bases in Belgium.  They deployed without aircraft, which were to be furnished later.  These planes were so long in coming that the restless Marines proposed to the British and the French that Marines fly with them and use their planes.  The offer was accepted and the Marines flew with their allies for the rest of the war.

    In the two decades that followed WWI Marine Aviation went into Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua.  It was during this era that Aviation Ordnance was finally identified as a separate skill.  The document that did this was a Table of Organization (T/O).  To understand just how a T/O could establish a skill, it is necessary to trace backwards from our present system of Military Occupational Specialties.

    We are currently known as Aviation Ordnance and our occupational field is OF65.  This has only been true since 1949.  All Marines From 1942 to 1949 were identified by their Specification Service Numbers (SSN’s).  Enlisted ordnance men were SSN 911’s.  Prior to 1942 and through the years Marine Aviation was emerging, the Marine Corps identified their enlisted men through their promotion certificates, which were then called Branch Warrants.

    Upon graduating from boot camp and until a man was promoted to Corporal, he was a Marine with no identifiable skill.  On promotion to Corporal there would appear on the warrant the words “Corporal” (Aviation).  The term Aviation designated his branch.  There was no further breakdown.  The number of branches in the Marine Corps varied from time to time but generally included such specialties as Aviation, Communications, Engineers, Motor Transport, Ordnance (Ground), Artillery, and the Infantry (Line).

    To further identify the skill of a Marine it was necessary to look at the T/O and see what slot the man was filling.  The first Aviation T/O’s were issued about 1918 and showed only six kinds of personnel; Motor Shop, Quartermaster, Transportation, Mess, and Police.  It wasn’t until T/O No. 37 was issued on 25 April 1922 that ordnance appeared on a T/O, and when it did the term used was not Ordnance, rather, we were called Gunnery personnel.  This T/O authorized one Warrant Officer, one Sergeant, one Corporal, and one PFC for the Division Aviation.  They were assigned six airplanes.

    The name Gunnery personnel stayed with us until T/O No. 43-W was published on 11 September 1925 when the name was changed to Armament personnel.  At this time the personnel allowance for a squadron was increased to three Marine Gunners, three Sergeants, three Corporals, and three PFC’s.  This remained in effect until 6 February 1935 when T/O No. 23 changed our name to Ordnance.  This authorized an Ordnance strength of one First Lieutenant, one Marine Gunner, one Master Technical Sergeant, one Sergeant, one Corporal, and three PFC’s/Privates.  Since that day the title has stayed the same, only the method of identifying us has changed.

G. H. “STRETCH” CONNER

CAPT    USMC (Retired)