OCR Text |
Show A LITTORAL DEFENSE CORPS. Recent developments suggest the thought that the time may have arrived ar-rived for the creation of a littoral defense de-fense corp3 as a distinct branch of the military establishment. The strength of the movement to exclude the marines from naval vessels and sonflne their functions to the guarding f navy yards and bases seems to have became apparent even to the marines themselves, says the New York Tribune. The Tribune's Washington Wash-ington bureau reports that the commissioned com-missioned personnel of the marine corps seriously contemplates asking congress to transfer the entire corps to the army, with the hope of finding there more congenial surroundings. Gen. Murray, chief of artillery, after an extended inspection of the coast defenses, announces the necessity of an additional force to guard "the back doors" of the modern fortifications and those portions of the coast beyond be-yond the reach of the fortified ordnance. ord-nance. The amalgamation of the marine mar-ine and coast defense corps in a littoral lit-toral defense corps might solve all the difficulties. The marines under such an arrangement would retain suffi' cient mobility to enable them to guard naval bases, the rear approaches to the fortifications and unfortified portions por-tions of the littoral, while practically the entire supervision of that Important Impor-tant branch of defense could be confined con-fined to a single head of the newly created corps, who in turn could be made responsible to either the secre tary of the navy or the secretary1 ol war, as circumstances might dictate. |