"From Ralph W. Donnelly's A Brief History of the 3D BATTALION, 4TH MARINES"
1.0 Formation 2.0 Regiment Goes to China 3.0 Regiment Redesignated as the 4th Marines
The 3d Battalion, 4th Marines (3/4) was activated on 1 October 1925 at the Naval Operating Base, San Diego, California. It had a headquarters and a provisional machine gun company, newly activated, the 25th Rifle Company transferred from 1/4 and the 29th Rifle Company transferred from 2/4. On 10 November 1925, the Provisional Machine Gun Company was redesignated the 26th Machine Gun Company.
In July 1926, the triangular organization of the battalion's parent regiment was abandoned, and the 4th Regiment returned to its previous two-battalion organization. On 6 July 1926, the 26th Machine Gun Company was transfered to the 1st Battalion and was redesignated as the 26th Machine Gun and Howitzer Company; the 25th Company was also transferred to the 1st Battalion, and the 29th Company was transferred to the 2d Battalion. The Headquarters Company, 3d Battalion, was deactivated.
The 3d Battalion, 4th Regiment, was reactivated on 10 January 1927 at San Diego, California, with a Headquarters and Headquarters Company and the 30th, 33d, 34th, and 35th Companies.
Two weeks later (24 January 1927), the four numbered companies were
redesignated. The 30th became the 19th; the 33d became the 21st; the
34th became the 22d; and the 35th became the 24th.
2.0 Regiment Goes to China
In view of the troubled situation and the civil war in China, the 4th Marine Regiment (less the 2d Battalion), Colonel Charles S. Hill, commanding, embarked aboard the USS CHAUMONT at San Diego and sailed for China at noon on 3 February 1927.
Early in the morning of 24 Febuary, the CHAUMONT steamed up the Whangpoo River and moored off the Standard Oil Company docks, five miles below the Shanghai custom's jetty.
The 3d Battalion remained on board ship until 21 March 1927 when it disembarked at Shanghai to participate in the garrisioning of the International Settlement in Shanghai China. Once ashore the 4th Regiment was assigned virtually two-thirds of the International Settlement. The 3d Battalion moved into Billet 10, at avenue Foch and Moulmein Road and was assigned to interior policing assignments.
In addition to the 1st and 3d Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, various other Marine companies were landed. These units were orgainzed as a Provisional Battalion and attached to the 4th Marines, making a third battalion at Shanghai.
This Provisional Battalion was disbanded at Shanghai on 7 October 1927, and many of the men transferred to the existing companies of the 1st and 3d Battalions, 4th Marine Regiment.
It was during this duty that the 4th Marines became closely associated with the Shanghai Volunteer Corps and various British Army units. As a result of a chance conversation, the Shanghai Volunteer Corps presented the regiment a set of musical instruments, including 10 fifes. The Green Howards, the British Arumy unit then in Shanghai, volunteered the services of their bandmaster to teach the 4th Marines regimental band to play these special instruments, and thus was born the Fessenden Fifes. Their first public appearance was on 17 November 1927.
The 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, finally reached China, via the Phillippines, as a unit of a Provisional Regiment. It was sent to Tientsin where on 4 October 1927 it was redesignated as the 2d Battalion, 12th Marines, a newly created unit.
On 28 October 1928, the 21st Company sailed from Shanghai on board the USS Trenton bound
for the Phillippines. They disembarked at Olongapo on 17 November and on 19 November
were at the Rifle Range, Maguinapa, where they remained for some months. After the
company was reduced in strength to 44 men, it returned to Shanghai on 18 May
1929. Here the personnel were transferred to the other three companies of the battalion
(the 19th, 22d, 24th Companies), leaving just the first sergeant on the roll.
On 13 July over 30 officers and men were transferred in the company, and on 21 July some
50 new men were received from San Diego and Mare Island, California, and the 21st Company
was re-constituted.
3.0 Regiment Redesignated as the 4th Marines
The 4th Maine Regiment was officially redesignated the "4th Marines" on 13 February 1930. On the same date, letter designations replaced the numerical designations of the compaines of the regiment. In the 3d Battalion the 19th company became company "I", the 21st became "K", the 22d became "L", and the 24th became "M."
In Janauary 1932, hostilities broke out between China and Japan, the 4th Marines were again actively employed in the protection of Shanghai's International Settlement. Reinforcements from the Philippines and the United States arrived on 3 February 1932 and were used to strengthen the two battalions of the 4th Marines in China (the 1st and 3d). In about a month the Japanese forced the withdrawl of the Chinese and tension eased.
On 17 September 1932, the 4th Marines was increased to a three-battalion regiment at Shanghai by the activation of a new 2d Battalion orgainzed by men transferred from the other battalions and men received from San Diego and Mare Island.
But the three-battalion regiment didn't last long, as the 3d Battalion became a casualty of national economic retrenchment in the 1930's and was deactivated on 19 December 1934, at Shanghai.
With the impeding outbreak of the war with Japan in late 1941, the 4th Marines, now consisting of just the 1st and 2d Battalions, was shipped out of Shanghai on November 27 and 28, 1941, and disembarked on December 2nd at Olongapo, Philippine Islands.
Also in the Philippines, at Cavite, was the 1st Separate Battalion of Marines (23 officers and 708 enlisted men) under the command of Lieutenant Colonel John P. Adams. This battalion had been activated on 1 May 1941 when the Marine Detachment at Cavite reached an unwieldy number of more than 350.