The first of the exercises started 15 January on the beaches of Culebra and Vieques until March 15 in 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.
