instruction at Pensacola and service with Observation Squadron 3 at Quantico, the Brice began another overseas tour of duty, this time with Scouting Squadron 1 on Guam. From Guam he was ordered to China in April 1927, when most of the squadron was sent there to help protect Americans and other foreigners during the Chinese Civil War. The squadron was withdrawn to the Philippines in May while arrangements for a flying field were made with the Chinese government, and the next month it returned to China to begin operating from Hsin Ho in support of the 3rd Marine Brigade. Returning to the United States in December 1927, Brice was assigned the following month to Fighter Squadron 9-M at Quantico where he remained until October 1931. On November 2 of that year, he reported aboard the aircraft carrier in command of Scouting Squadron 15-M, which thus began its service as one of the first two Marine squadrons to be based on Navy carriers. (The other unit, Scouting Squadron 14-M, boarded the "Saratoga" the same day.) Brice remained on the Lexington until January 1933. In June 1933, after six months at San Diego, he returned to Quantico. There, during the next three years, he served on aviation duty, completed the Junior Course and was a member of the War Plans Section. He entered the Army Air Corps Tactical School at Maxwell Field, Montgomery, Alabama in August 1936, and upon graduation in June of the following year, returned to Quantico to serve as executive officer and later, commander, of Scouting Squadron 1. After that he was an instructor at Pensacola from June 1939 to August 1941, when he returned to Quantico, this time as Operations Officer of Marine Aircraft Group 11 (MAG-11). Brice moved with MAG-11 to San Diego in December 1941, and there, in March 1942, he assumed command of Marine Aircraft Group 12. He headed that unit until September 1942, when he rejoined Marine Aircraft Group 11 as its commander, and the following month he sailed with it (via New Caledonia) for the New Hebrides Islands, where the group began feeding planes and pilots into Guadalcanal. In December 1942, he moved to Guadalcanal to take command of Marine Aircraft Group 14 and all the search, bombing and torpedo planes based there, remaining until April 1943, when he departed for New Zealand with the group. Brice returned to the Solomons with MAG-14