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Marines are soldiers who serve on board ship or who operate in close association with naval forces. Before the 16th century, soldiers were mainly responsible for fighting at sea. The high charged medieval warship, equipped with fore and after castles, was essentially a fighting platform that was used to board and capture an enemy. Soldiers were deployed to fire missiles and to engage in hand-to-hand fighting as they struggled to take an enemy ship or defend off an attack. The nature of warfare at sea changed dramatically at the end of the medieval period, as the naval gun made its impact and hand-to-hand combat largely disappeared.
Despite this time of revolutionary change, navies continued to require the services of soldiers at sea. They operated guns, made up crew numbers and maintained discipline on board as well as led amphibious operations. These increasing demands eventually led to the formation of separate marine forces. France first took this step as early as 1627, although the new unit did not survive for long and had to be reconstituted later. The first English Marine regiment was established in 1664, but it did not become a permanent force until 1755. It has been known as the Royal Marines since 1923, when two separate marine branches, the Royal Marine Light Infantry and the Royal Marine Artillery, were abolished. In the United States the first marine corps was created in 1775, at the beginning of the American War of Independence, 1775-1783. The United States Marine Corps remains a separate organization managed by the Department of the Navy and is the largest service of its kind in the world, with just under 500,000 men and women in its service.
Other counties also developed separate marine services, but only in Britain and the United States did they come to play a wide variety of roles onboard ships. They acted as sharpshooters, served as sentries and made up landing and boarding parties and could constitute up to a quarter of the crew. The introduction of Ironclad warships prompted a change in their role because marksmen were no longer needed on board. Instead, now they were expected to man the gun turrets. Their most important contribution has been to take a leading role in amphibious operation from the capture of Gibraltar in 1704 to the Falklands war in 1984. During World War I, this role was extended further when British and American Marine units served on land in France. In a more traditional role, they served in the landing parties during the raid on Zeebrugge, in April 1918.
History provided no real advance warning of the scale of amphibious warfare that was experienced during World War II, when marine forces were forced to respond rapidly to events in the European and Pacific theaters. From the Dieppe Raid in 1942 until current today, the Marines have led most major amphibious operations and they have assumed a commando role on each occasion. They played a major role in the U.S. island-hopping campaign in the Pacific Theater, bearing the brunt of the fighting on Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima and the other islands. This elite force function has continued in the postwar period when they have been regarded as the Elite Force that is highly selective in recruitment and undergoes particularly demanding training. Marines have been widely deployed in the conflicts of the Cold War period, from Korea to Vietnam and the Falklands, in a wide variety of contexts, reflecting their special skills and training in operating in diverse types of environment. Marine forces typically have a special espirt de corps and regard themselves as the toughest and proudest of all the armed services.
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