to captain in February 1940. World War II Amphibious warfare Barbey assumed command of in the Pacific but in January 1941 he returned to the Atlantic to become Chief of Staff to Rear Admiral Randall Jacobs, Commander Service Force, Atlantic Fleet. This included the embryo Amphibious Force, Atlantic Fleet. In 1940 and 1941 he supervised the amphibious training of the 1st Marine Division and the 1st Infantry Division, conducting Fleet Landing Exercises along the coast of North Carolina. In May 1942, Admiral Ernest King, Commander in Chief U.S. Fleet appointed Barbey to organize a new Amphibious Warfare Section within the Navy Department. Barbey was charged with responsibility for the coordination of amphibious training and the burgeoning amphibious craft construction program. He became involved with the development and production of the new generation of landing craft. He was promoted to the rank of rear admiral in December 1942. On 8 January 1943 Barbey assumed command of Amphibious Force, Southwest Pacific Force. He established his headquarters aboard the attack transport (APA) on the Brisbane River and set about building up his small training command into a major amphibious force capable of carrying out the strategy of the Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA), General Douglas MacArthur, for an amphibious advance from Australia to the Philippines. On 15 March 1943, "by a stroke of Admiral King's pen," the Southwest Pacific Force became the Seventh Fleet and its Amphibious Force became the VII Amphibious Force. On meeting Barbey for the first time, MacArthur had only one question: "are you a lucky officer?" The VII Amphibious Force inherited the Royal Australian Navy amphibious training center HMAS Assault at Port Stephens, New South Wales and a Combined Training School at Bribie Island and nearby Toorbul Point in Queensland. There was only one APA, the , which was in a poor state of repair and trailed an oil slick wherever it went, precluding its use in a combat zone, but VII Amphibious Force had three Australian assault transports, known as Landing Ships, Infantry (LSI): , and . For the moment, they were too valuable to risk in forward areas. They were augmented by a flotilla each of the new beaching craft, Landing Ships, Tank (LST), Landing Craft, Infantry (LCI) and Landing Craft, Tank (LCT). There were also a small number of high speed transports (APD). MacArthur directed that the two navies would use a common doctrine, FTP