Major Dion Williams’ Advanced Base Force Lecture at the Naval War College - July 1912

Major Dion Williams’ Advanced Base Force Lecture at the Naval War College

John S. Naylor – December 10, 2025

 

Major Dion William, USMC, then serving with the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), delivered a lecture at the Naval War College (NWC) in 1912, titled THE NAVAL ADVANCED BASE. The lecture is important in that it documents the status of the Advanced Base Force in that year, reviewed its history, and laid out concerns regarding its implementation. In his address, Williams directed his focus towards what he saw as a strategically neglected area located between the physical development of the fleet, and the infrastructure of permanent naval bases; Williams draws the audience’s attention towards the need for temporary advanced bases supporting the battle fleet during a naval war.[1]

Williams’ exposition borrows greatly on the popular concepts of sea power and naval history of the era; not surprising as Mahan’s teachings remained omnipresent in American military and political circles. He uses the example of the Guantanamo landing to define the concept of the Advanced Base and develops the definitions important to naval leaders of the day, separating permanent, from temporary bases, in support of fleet operations. This definition figured in the contention between the Army and Navy in how the Philippines might be defended, and where to place the great American garrison in 1907.

Williams ties the evolution of the New Navy to the creation of the General Board of the Navy, and to war planning efforts made at the Naval War College under the board’s guidance. Japanese victories over the Russian fleets invoke the threat that he sees emanating from the Japanese navy and he raises the specter of the loss of Cavite and Olongopo. This prophecy creates the need for the fleet to be able to secure bases from where the U.S. could strike back at Japan. He states, “the lot of establishing and defending the advanced base selected would fall to an Expeditionary force carried in transports along with the fleet.” He establishes the need for exercises to develop the skills required to keeps the advanced base viable during a naval war, and warns of the consequences if the “expeditionary force is poorly trained in its duties, or ignorant of the details of the work required of it…” His recommendations are a plea to allow the Marines to shed their previous mission and adopt one in support of developing naval strategic planning.

            At Newport, Dion Williams is addressing a select audience, one that already acknowledged the threat Japan posed in the western Pacific. While he probably isn’t disclosing any operational intelligence or classified planning in his lecture, it is stamped THIS PAPER IS CONFIDENTIAL on its cover. His arguments largely mimic those made in PLAN ORANGE, created by naval planners at ONI and NWC for a war with Japan in the wake of the San Francisco School Board Crisis of 1906. Under ORANGE, planners anticipated the fall of U.S. defenses in Philippines, but that the Navy and Marine Corps would return in short order. 

A return to the Philippines, and maintaining the Open Door to China, required the sea services to secure an advanced base at some point on the great common between Hawai’i and the western Pacific, where the fleet could “recoal, refit, revictual, transfer the wounded and make ready…” The move across the Pacific would require the protection provided by a brigade of Advanced Base Force Marines. In order to continue to take the fight all the way to Japanese shores, as anticipated in planning, the temporary advanced base would need to be able to periodically “rapidly dismount their guns ashore  (sic) lift their mines, and with defenses and supplies embark in their transports and accompany the battle fleet to the new base…” ORANGE, and the Advanced Base Force, as it was known, presaged the island hopping campaign of the Pacific War. Once the fleet had engaged, and defeated, the Japanese fleet, “the command of the sea would be ours, and the; next step would be to move our land forces across the Pacific to regain the Philippines.” Williams is purposefully hazy on the particulars — would the advanced base be on Guam, or closer to Manila? — but he is confident that these steps would be required before Army involvement. 

He then shifts the audience’s attention closer to home; he supposes a European power has designs in the Caribbean, or South America. With the declaration of war, Williams imagines the Navy would play its part, and destroy any trespassing fleet; the European army ashore would be cut off from its logistics train. With the enemy isolated thus, a land engagement might not be required, and the diplomats could go back to work. This gambit recalls the true state of the Spanish Army in 1898, lacking supplies, while the Amada was bottled up at Santiago de Cuba. 

            Williams makes his case to the war college audience as the commandant did annually to the Secretary of the Navy, and to Congress; success of the Advanced Base Force would depend upon sufficient appropriations for equipage and training. Equipping the ABF would require increased outlays and investments. Without this support, the ABF would find itself isolated when the fleet is off in pursuit of the enemy. 

            To accomplish its mission, the ABF would need to accomplish the following:

“Mines must be laid across the entrances, guns must be mounted, magazines constructed, earthworks erected and then concealed,, search-lights and their power plants established to cover  the entrances from the sea and the probable landing place of an enemy’s raiding force, wireless stations put up to keep in touch with the Battle Fleet that operates from the base, and the whole must  be knit and tied together by a system of communications embracing wagon roads, trails, telegraph and telephone lines, cable lines across bays and rivers, flag and semaphore signal systems by day and electric and other light signals by night.” 

 

Buttressing these fixed defenses, Williams makes the case for a mobile regiment of infantry and artillery, to defend the defenders, and amplifies the point that the Marines that execute this mission must not be the Marines embarked on the ships of the Navy as security detachments. 

To build his argument, he recounts the efforts of the Marines to establish the ABF since Guantanamo, and the hurdles they experienced in the dozen intervening years. Lagging appropriations, antiquated weapons and gear, and the lack of a well-equipped campus upon which Marines could practice the tasks required by the mission were the refrain of the entire Marine Corps for decades, and were only exacerbated given the focus of the ABF mission. Williams anticipated future criticism of the force, and acknowledged that the fundamental change it’s engaged in was a difficult row to hoe. 

            Williams continues his lecture by offering the audience an estimate of the situation and presents a table of organization specific to the advanced base mission. He makes his case for permanently assigned units (without mentioning that the bulk of the Marine Corps’ experience with expeditionary units had been ad hoc prior to the War of 1898). To accommodate large permanent garrisons, the Marines would need established permanent stations on the east and west coasts; at the time, the best facilities to house the regiments of the brigade were located at League Island (Philadelphia), Mare Island (north of San Francisco), and Honolulu. Guantanamo would remain a good location for basing and training the force, given the harbor’s waters, and expanses of terrain to conduct exercises.

            Williams describes the artillery the ABF has been making-do with, cast off deck guns taken from the decks of pre-Spanish War cruisers. He makes the case for the purchase of modern naval rifles, as arming Navy cruisers at that date, infantry machine guns, and modern field artillery pieces. Force engineers would require “portable derricks with donkey boilers and engines” — mobile cranes —— and trucks, and portable rail set-ups to haul the gun platforms and mounts for the naval guns. He highlighted the need for range-finding apparatus for the naval rifles (which was missing during exercises in the Philippines in earlier years) and weatherproof magazines for the guns firing bagged charges. Naval mines, produced by the Army, in numbers large enough to span a two-mile wide strait, and the boats capable of handling said mines would be essential to the Marines’ mission. He itemized the requisite communications equipment to communicate in all available mediums, and a wish-list of tools and equipment wanted. Searchlights, generators, cables, tents, three months’ provisions, and a field hospital, as well as everything else listed would require dedicated shipping, and the Marines of the unit should travel as complete units, not doled out to travel on the various ships of a squadron. 

            Dion Williams delved into nautical architecture discussing the requirements for dedicated (amphibious wasn’t a term used yet) shipping for the ABF, and made recommendations on how other naval vessels may be employed in the defense of the base. Minelayers, submarines, and destroyers would multiply the Marines’ field of surveillance, and he envisioned the use of ships’ electricians in helping Marines with the construction of electrical infrastructure ashore.

            Finally, Williams reiterates the necessity of theoretical instruction, drills, and exercises the outfit would require in every aspect of establishing the advanced base; to establish the capabilities desired, large scale exercises, using battalion sized forces, needed to be conducted using the real estate available at Guantanamo, Culebra, near San Diego, in Hawai’i, Guam, and the Philippines. 

 

            Williams’ lecture is interesting on many levels. It displays the level of understanding within the Marine Corps of a mission only partly adopted a decade prior, but clearly on the Navy’s menu for decades. It establishes the Marine Corps’ new role within strategic fleet operations in support of the American quest for sea power. It identifies the Japanese as the near-peer competitor in the western Pacific and displays the sophistication of plans that strategists at ONI, NWC, and the General Board had developed regarding the threat to the Philippine Territory. Williams highlights where the Marine Corps was challenged in adopting the mission, and asked for assistance in securing new ships, equipment, and real estate. His lecture is important because it documents the history of the ABF, its status in 1912, and plans envisioned for its utilization in support of naval operations. Its place in the development of Marine Corps amphibious doctrine prior to the Great War cannot be denied. 

            Williams had as much experience with the concept of the Advanced Base Force as any Marine. He led the Marine detachment ashore at the Battle of Manila Bay to secure the naval station at Cavite in May of 1898 and authored what may be the first volume on amphibious reconnaissance doctrine created in the U.S. He served in the Philippines during the insurrection and had multiple tours serving as a Fleet Marine Officer, reporting to naval squadron commanders, and messing with Navy officers. His 1912 lecture provides us a snapshot in the development of American amphibious doctrine development, and offers current and future generations a model for the discussion of the role of the Marine Corps.

“Objections have been advance that the service above outlined for the Marines would preclude them from possible participation with the Army in the strictly military land operations that follow the conquest of the sea; but, far from it, the service thus performed by these Marine brigades in defending the advanced bases for the Navy would make them the best seasoned troops under the flag; and their duty in the first phase of the campaign, - the strictly naval phase – completed, they would be ready to join an Army of invasion, welcome additions to such a fighting force, ready to profit by their varied experiences in the opening actions of the war.”

 

 

 

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Entire text available at:

https://nhc.duracloud.org/durastore/collections/RG15_02_26_01.pdf

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[1] Since leading a detachment of Marines ashore at Cavite, in the wake of Dewey’s victory at Manila Bay, Williams had attended and instructed at NWC, had been Fleet Marine Officer for the Atlantic, then U.S. Fleet, and authored a major work on pre-landing reconnaissance.