Serving in USMC during WW2

I have been unable to find definitive answers to these questions, so thought I'd pose it here.

And forgive me if they sound ignorant, but I am in the dark on these policies in wartime:

When a man enlisted with the USMC after war was declared in 1941, was he given a choice on how long he wanted to serve, or was it simply "for the duration"? I have read that it was "for the duration" plus six months. Was this something that changed during the war, or was the "for the duration plus six months" a rule from the beginning after war was declared?

Did the USMC also follow the points system as did the US Army? Does anyone know how these points were calculated? If a Marine had not yet hit his points allotment to be sent home, say, at Okinawa, and was wounded enough to be evacuated, would he be required to go and serve the 6 months after the war ended? For example, if a Marine was in the 1st Division and was wounded at Okinawa and did *not* have enough points to go home, would he have had to recover from his injury and go serve in China to make up those six months?


Appreciate any insight.

Thank you!

 

Yes, that is the correct term of service. "duration plus six months"

They did have a rotation system though it differed from the U.S. Army's. Many were rotated home during the course of the war to stand up, or flesh out new formations with veteran personnel, or for training new recruits. Many came home and were sent back with their new unit. As to your last question it depends. First, time lost due to combat wounds is not "time lost", nor is an illness contracted that is not the result of misconduct and doesn't have to be "made up". Time lost for illness-misconduct or injury-misconduct is applicable. So you're a Marine on Guadalcanal, you get Malaria and are hospitalized, no lost time. You catch a venereal disease, time lost. Also depends upon manning requirements of the units retained in theater. Post war the Marine Corps had a manning requirement whereby, a unit retained on occupation duty had to retain 90% T/O strength. So your hypothetical Marine might have enough points on paper to return home, but the Division could only release 10% of it's Marines and those with the highest points would go, and this would be modified by MOS, and duties. Say 10% of your artillerymen had the points to rotate and 20% of your infantrymen did, all artillerymen would be able to rotate but just the top 10% of eligible infantrymen. You also can't rotate all your officers, staff NCO's and NCO's out of a unit.

 

Excellent response. Thank you so much!