Vintage Military - Part 77

 Beirut Crisis 1958

In 1943, Lebanon became an independent country (formerly it was part of Syria).  Lebanon was a unique country in the region: half Christian and half Muslim.  By May 1957, mob violence erupted in Lebanon, fed by militants receiving weapons from Syria.  In February, 1958, Egypt and Syria united to form the UAR (United Arab Republic).  The President of Lebanon requested American military intervention.

U.S. President Eisenhower had a policy called the Eisenhower Doctrine that the U.S. could intervene in the Middle East if a country was being threatened by armed aggression.  So, in July, 1958, Eisenhower sent the U.S. Army and the Marines to Lebanon.

The intervention was called Operation Blue Bat.  The mission of the Army and Marines was to occupy and secure Beirut International Airport, and then to secure the port of Beirut and the approaches to the city.

The photos in this post are from the LIFE photo archive, taken by LIFE photographer Paul Schutzer in July 1958.  The show a group of Marines landing equipment on a beach.  These photographs were not published in LIFE magazine.

After landing their equipment, the Marines found themselves on the beach with nothing more to do, so they began playing in the sand and the water.  Most of them kept on their shorts, but a couple of them saw no need to do that ...

like this guy helping his buddy get buried in the sand.

Here are a bunch of Marines playing in the waves.  They have their shorts on, but I noticed ...

one of them had something sticking out of his shorts.

The Lebanon crisis was resolved diplomatically.  Both sides reached a compromise by electing the moderate Christian general Fouad Chehab as President, and Muslim prime minister Rashid Karami formed a national reconciliation government.