Marines Conduct Bridge Demolition Exercise to Enhance Tactical Skills

bridge at San Clemente IslandPhoto byMarine Corps

In the sake of training, Marines can't destroy an intact bridge. And thus, they came upon an inferior one.

A dangerous 84-foot-long bridge was removed on a California training site by the aviation ground support unit Marine Wing Support Squadron 373, which is located out of Miramar, California, starting on January 5.

Marine spokeswoman Capt. Stephanie Leguizamon said that the Marines discovered the bridge while performing a site inspection in preparation for training on the island. The bridge offered a unique chance to the engineers and technicians of the squadron who dealt with explosive ordnance disposal.

Unit Marines claimed they were tearing down a military training area to repair it and to hone a skill that could be valuable in battle.

Capt. Zach Adler, commander of the squadron's engineering company, stated that the bridge was rusty from exposure to salty air and was therefore vulnerable to collapse. According to Adler, the military's sole West Coast location for ship-to-shore bombardment drills is a zone on San Clemente Island, and the bridge was the sole means of vehicular access to this area.

The demolition mission gave Marines an exceptional chance to exercise, and it also benefited the island that the Navy owned. The squadron's explosive ordnance disposal officer, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Austin Sabin, claimed to be unaware of any Marines detonating a bridge of that magnitude in the past few years.

"The majority of bridge owners would prefer that they remain standing," stated Master Sgt. James Arbuthnot, who was in charge of explosive ordnance disposal for the squadron.

As far as Adler is concerned, the Marines started by blowing up the bridge with explosives. The next step was for private contractors to come in and pick up the fallen bridge parts. The Marines will finally fill the breach with soil in February, creating a passage for vehicles.

The explosions occurred between January 5th and 7th, according to Arbuthnot. The Marines detonated about 275 pounds of explosives at strategic spots on the bridge before lowering it. The bridge was then dismantled into smaller parts by means of welding and smaller explosions.

In what Adler described as an environment evocative of a dispersed conflict among Indo-Pacific islands, the Marines were honing a talent with potential military implications. The Marine Corps has implemented a new strategy to combat China as part of its massive reorganization. One of the new concepts is expeditionary advanced base operations, whereby small units of Marines hide out in temporary camps near the coast.

According to Adler, sixteen Marines and one Navy corpsman were stationed on an island for training rather than in a desert like Twentynine Palms, California, where they would normally act as though they were surrounded by water.

Their constant supply of explosives and lack of communication technology kept them stranded on San Clemente Island for days, according to Arbuthnot. As a result, the Marines had to act similarly to how they would if they were covertly positioned within enemy fire range, making decisions based on the commander's objective rather than receiving explicit instructions as the mission advanced.

Sabin warned that in a real-world situation, the destruction of a bridge could impede the movement of enemy forces and supplies.

The Navy Cross was bestowed upon Marine Captain John Ripley in 1972 for his audacious mission to detonate the bomb at the Dong Ha bridge in South Vietnam, in an effort to halt an onslaught by the North Vietnamese Army.

The 12-mile bridge that links Russia and Crimea has evidently been the target of multiple attacks by Ukraine, continuing a pattern of bridge destruction in the conflict between the two countries.

"Bridges were a key structure, every single time," Sabin added, referring to the historical effect and importance of bridges during major conflicts that stretched back to practically ancient times.

Edited by Newsbreak Contributor Denys Shybinskiy