As World War II progressed, the Marine Corps gained hard fought experience in the application of close air support during amphibious landings. Marine Aviation's primary role was supposed to be supporting the Marines on the ground however by mid-1944 this had not been the case because of earlier decisions made by Marine Corps aviation leadership in the Pacific. In late 1942, then Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Ernest King convinced Marine Major General Ross E. Rowell, commanding general of Marine Air Wings, Pacific, that there was no longer a need for Marines to get carrier qualifications since all of their aircraft were currently based out of land based strips. This lack of foresight led to Marine pilots not being able to fly from escort carriers which were providing the close air support during later amphibious landings. This would return to haunt the Marine Corps during the Mariana and Palau Islands campaign in which it was generally felt that close air support provided by pilots from the United States Navy left much to be desired. The lack of adequate air support was coupled with the feeling amongst other senior Marine aviators such as Roy Geiger and then Commandant Alexander Vandegrift that Marine aviation was not paying attention to its primary purpose of providing close air support and was too concerned with shooting down enemy aircraft. In August 1944, General Vandegrift flew to Hawaii to meet with Admiral Nimitz and his staff and came up with the solution that Marine squadrons would be assigned to escort carriers providing planes for ships the Navy could not support, Marine aviation would take control of aircraft directly supporting ground troops during amphibious operations and "Marine Air Wing Pacific" would be renamed "Aircraft, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific". This new role was not welcomed by Rowell and he became so negative that he was quickly replaced by MajGen Francis P. Mulcahy in October 1944.