The Raider Patch
The use of Marine Corps shoulder patches in World War II originated with the creation of the 1st Marine Division insignia following the Guadalcanal campaign. This was not a new practice for Marines, since members of the Fourth Marine Brigade wore the Star and Indian Head patch of the Army 2d Infantry Division in France during World War I.
The 1st Marine Division emblem consisted of the word “Guadalcanal” lettered in white on a red numeral “1” placed on a sky-blue diamond. The white stars of the Southern Cross surrounded the number. By July 1943, the I Marine Amphibious Corps had adopted a variation for its own patch—a white-bordered, red diamond, encircled by the white stars of the Southern Cross, on a five-sided blue background. Non-divisional corps units each had a specific symbol inside the red diamond. The emblem of the I MAC raider battalions was a skull. While the raider insignia may not have been the most artistic of Marine Corps shoulder patches in the war, it certainly was the most striking.
The skull device originated with the 2d Raider Battalion, which began using it not long after that unit came into existence. Carlson issued paper emblems, consisting of a skull-like face superimposed on crossed scimitars, to his raiders prior to the Makin raid. Each piece of paper was backed with glue and allegedly raiders were to use them to mark enemy dead for psychological effect, but they stuck together in the humid tropics and proved impractical. By the time Carlson’s battalion reached Guadalcanal, the emblem had evolved into a skull backed by a crossed “Gung Ho” knife and lightning bolt. It is not clear who selected the skull for the official raider patch, but that device readily conveyed the image the raiders effectively cultivated—that of an elite force trained to close with and destroy the enemy in commando-style operations.
Enogai
The 1st Raider Battalion and the raider regimental headquarters joined in on the New Georgia operation in the early hours of 5 July. They spearheaded the night landing of the Northern Group at Rice Anchorage, a spot selected because previous reconnaissance showed it to be undefended. Coastal guns from Enogai and the island of Kolombangara fired on the APDs during the landing, but their accuracy was poor in the driving rain. The only serious interference came from enemy destroyers; a long-range torpedo sunk one of the American transports. Nevertheless, the troops and most of their equipment and supplies made it ashore, and the amphibious group was able to withdraw before daylight left them vulnerable to further enemy counter-action.
From Rice Anchorage the 1st Raider Battalion was to advance overland to seize Dragons Peninsula and the enemy’s barge bases at Enogai and Bairoko. The Army’s 3d Battalion, 148th Infantry, would head deeper into the interior and establish a blocking position on the trail connecting Enogai-Bairoko with Munda. Another Army unit—3d Battalion, 145th Infantry—would divide itself, with half securing the beachhead and the remainder serving as the reserve force. Intelligence reports indicated 500 Japanese troops were in place on Dragons Peninsula. Liversedge and the regimental headquarters accompanied the 1st Raiders.
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 59009A
The 1st Raider Battalion captured this Japanese 140mm coastal defense gun after striking Enogai from the rear following the unopposed landing on 5 July 1943.
A reconnaissance patrol headed by raider Captain Clay A. Boyd had already been on the island for some time when the American force landed on 5 July. His small detachment, a coastwatcher, and the ever-present native scouts helped guide the initial waves of Marines to shore. The natives had also cut fresh trails leading to the Giza Giza River at the head of Enogai Inlet. With this advance preparation, the units covered the seven miles of rough terrain to the Giza Giza before nightfall. With darkness came heavy rain. There were no trails through the swamp on the far side of the Giza Giza, and the rain rendered the Tamoko River unfordable, so it took all of the next day for the force to move less than a mile and cross the Tamoko. There they halted and endured another night of rain.
DRAGONS PENINSULA
NORTHERN LANDING GROUP 5–19 JULY
Late in the morning on 7 July the raider advance guard met up with the enemy for the first time. In a brief fight it killed two men and captured the remaining five members of a small Japanese patrol near the village of Maranusa. From there the trail followed the steep sides of a coral ridge for a mile. In the village of Triri, at the western end of the ridge, the advance guard encountered a second patrol. The raiders killed 11 Japanese here, but lost three dead and four wounded. The attackers set up around Triri for the night and arranged ambushes along the trails entering the village. At dawn on 8 July a strong enemy force bumped into the platoon of raiders from Company D blocking the trail to Bairoko. The fight lasted all morning and the Japanese did not break off till Company C arrived on the scene. The enemy left behind 50 dead.
While the Army companies held Triri, the raider battalion moved out in the afternoon for Enogai. That trail entered yet another swamp along the southern edge of the inlet. This one was so bad that Griffith decided to return to Triri and try a new route the next day. It was just as well, for the Japanese had renewed their counterattack on the Bairoko trail and were pressing hard on the soldiers. A raider platoon from Company B slipped around the enemy flank and soon caused the Japanese to withdraw again.
On the morning of 9 July the 1st Raider Battalion headed down a different trail toward Enogai. It crossed the swamp by an easier route and led onto the high ground that dominated the objective. At 1500 Company C made contact with the Japanese defenses. Company A went into line on the left of Company C, anchoring its left flank on Leland Lagoon. Company B took the right flank. Thick jungle canopy prevented the use of mortars, but the lack of light also kept undergrowth to a minimum, leaving good fields of fire for small arms. Companies A and C were soon pinned down, though Company B reported no contact to its front. As night fell the firing slacked off.
Early the next morning Company B patrols moved forward and discovered their portion of the front unoccupied. Griffith then ordered his right flank to attack through the open terrain near the inlet. Mortars provided valuable support and Company B advanced quickly. With their flank turned, the Japanese began to pull out and cross to the spit of land on the north side of Leland Lagoon. Company A’s machine guns turned that into a bloody retreat, but its infantry platoons still could not crack the tough resistance in their immediate front. By evening, however, the raiders had surrounded these final holdouts. At first light the following day (11 July), Company D attacked with hand grenades and cleaned out the area.
American losses in the campaign against Enogai were 54 dead and 91 wounded. But the Marines and soldiers had killed 350 Japanese and seized 23 machine guns and four 140mm coastal defense guns. These results were remarkable given the handicaps which the American forces faced. The rough terrain had made it impossible for the troops to carry all the rations and ammunition they needed. (The 1st Raiders had gone without food for more than a day when supplies air-dropped to Triri finally reached them on the front lines at Enogai the evening of 10 July.) With the exception of one air strike, fire support had come entirely from the raiders’ handful of 60mm mortars.
There was also no way to quickly evacuate wounded to adequate hospitals until the Marines had taken Enogai. Then, on July 11, three PBYs flew in to carry the casualties to the rear. That mission almost had an unhappy ending when two Japanese planes appeared and strafed the PBYs as they sat on the water boarding the wounded. Luckily damage was slight and the amphibian planes were able to take off after the attack. When the PBYs departed they carried two of Liversedge’s staff officers with a plea for better aerial resupply and for the 4th Raider Battalion.
Bairoko
Things were worse for the 3d Battalion, 148th Infantry. After breaking off from the line of march of the 1st Raiders on 6 July, the soldiers had moved over equally difficult terrain to assume their blocking position on the Munda-Bairoko Trail on 8 July. After initial success against surprised Japanese patrols, the Army battalion fought a bloody action against an enemy force of similar strength that pushed the American soldiers off high ground and away from the important trail. Heavy jungle and poor maps prevented aerial resupply of their position, while illness and casualties sapped manpower. Liversedge led a reinforcing company from the 3d Battalion, 145th Infantry, to the scene on 13 July. Disappointed at the results of this portion of the operation, and unable to reinforce or resupply this outpost adequately, the raider colonel decided to withdraw the force to Triri. There the soldiers would recuperate for the upcoming move on Bairoko and disrupt enemy movement on the Munda-Bairoko Trail with occasional patrols.
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 54650
A raider 60mm mortar crew goes into action on New Georgia. Because the raiders had no heavier weapons, their initial efforts at Bairoko were mostly unsuccessful.
Prior to dawn on 18 July four APDs brought the 4th Raider Battalion and fresh supplies to Enogai. Most of the Rice Anchorage garrison had also moved up to join the main force. This gave Liversedge four battalions, but all of them were significantly understrength due to losses already suffered in the New Georgia campaign. The 4th Raider Battalion was short more than 200 men. The 1st Raiders reorganized into two full companies (B and D), with A and C becoming skeleton units. A detachment of the 3d Battalion, 145th Infantry, remained at Rice Anchorage. More important, the enemy at Bairoko was now aware of the threat to its position. Marine patrols in mid-July noted that the Japanese were busily fortifying the landward approaches to their last harbor on the north coast of the island.
Liversedge issued his order for the attack. It would commence the morning of 20 July with two companies of the 1st Raider Battalion and all of the 4th advancing from Enogai while the 3d Battalion, 148th Infantry, moved out along the Triri-Bairoko Trail. The American forces would converge on the Japanese from two directions. The remaining Army battalion guarded Triri; Companies A and C of the raiders defended Enogai. These units also served as the reserve. Liversedge requested an air-strike on Bairoko timed to coincide with the attack, but it never materialized.
SEIZURE OF VIRU HARBOR
4th MARINE RAIDER BATTALION
(Less Companies N and Q)
28 JUNE–1 JULY 1943
The movement toward Bairoko kicked off at 0800 and the 1st Raider Battalion made contact with enemy outposts two hours later. Companies B and D deployed into line and pushed through a series of Japanese outguards. By noon Griffith’s men had reached the main defenses, which consisted of four fortified lines on parallel coral ridges just a few hundred yards from the harbor. The bunkers were mutually supporting and well protected by coconut logs and coral. Each held a machine gun or automatic weapon. Here the 1st Battalion’s attack ground to a halt. Liversedge, accompanying the northern prong of his offensive, committed the 4th Battalion in an attempt to turn the enemy flank, but it met the same heavy resistance. The raider companies slowly worked their way forward, and by late afternoon they had seized the first two enemy lines. However, throughout this advance enemy 90mm mortar fire swept the Marine units and inflicted numerous casualties.
THE ATTACK ON BAIROKO
NORTHERN LANDING GROUP 20 JULY
The southern prong of the attack was faring less well. The Army battalion made its first contact with the enemy just 1,000 yards from Bairoko, but the Japanese held a vital piece of high ground that blocked the trail. With the lagoon on one side and a deep swamp on the other, there was no room for the soldiers to maneuver to the flanks of the enemy position. With the approval of the executive officer of the raider regiment, the commander of the Army battalion pulled back his lead units and used his two 81mm mortars to soften the defenses.
When news of the halt in the southern attack made it to Liversedge at 1600, he asked the commanders of the raider battalions for their input. Griffith and Currin checked their lines. They were running out of water and ammunition, casualties had been heavy, and there was no friendly fire support. Neither battalion had any fresh reserves to commit to the fight. Moreover, a large number of men would be needed to hand-carry the many wounded to the rear, The 4th Raiders alone had 90 litter cases. From their current positions on high ground the Marine commanders could see the harbor just a few hundred yards away, but continued attacks against a well-entrenched enemy with fire superiority seemed wasteful. Not long after 1700 Liversedge issued orders for all battalions to pull back into defensive positions for the night in preparation for a withdrawal to Enogai and Triri the next day. He requested air strikes to cover the latter movement.
The move back across Dragons Peninsula on 21 July went smoothly from a tactical point of view. After failing to provide air support for the attack, higher echelons sent 250 sorties against Bairoko to cover the withdrawal. The Japanese did not pursue, but even so it was tough going on the ground. Water was in short supply and everyone had to take turns carrying litters. The column moved slowly and halted every few hundred yards. In the afternoon rubber boats picked up most of the wounded and ferried them to the rear. By that evening the entire force was back in its enclaves at Enogai and Triri. PBYs made another trip to evacuate wounded, though this time two Zero fighters damaged one of the amphibian planes after take-off and forced it to return to Enogai Inlet. Total American casualties were 49 killed, 200 wounded, and two missing—the vast majority of them suffered by the raider battalions.
The failure to seize the objective and the severe American losses were plainly the result of poor logistics and a lack of firepower. A Joint Chiefs of Staff post mortem on the operation noted that “lightly armed troops cannot be expected to attack fixed positions defended by heavy automatic weapons, mortars, and heavy artillery.” Another factor of significance, however, was the absence of surprise. The raiders had taken Enogai against similar odds because the enemy had not expected an attack from anywhere but the sea. Victory at Enogai provided ample warning to the garrison at Bairoko, and the Japanese there made themselves ready for an overland assault. The raiders might still have won with a suicidal effort, but Bairoko was not worth it.
The 1st Raider Regiment and its assorted battalions settled into defensive positions for the rest of July. The sole action consisted of patrols toward Bairoko and nuisance raids from Japanese aircraft. In early August elements of the force took up new blocking positions on the Munda-Bairoko Trail. On 9 August they made contact with Army troops from the Southern Landing Group. (Munda Airfield had fallen four days earlier.) Later in the month two Army battalions moved cautiously against Bairoko and found their way barred by only an occasional small outpost. The main enemy force had escaped by sea and the soldiers took control of the harbor on 24 August.
SEIZURE OF WICKHAM ANCHORAGE
30 JUNE–3 JULY 1943
The raider headquarters and both Marine battalions embarked in transports on 28 August and sailed for Guadalcanal. The New Georgia campaign had been a costly one. Each raider battalion had suffered battle casualties of more than 25 percent. In addition, sickness had claimed an even greater number. The 1st Raiders now had just 245 effectives; the 4th Raiders only 154.
Bougainville
In the immediate aftermath of the fall of New Georgia, the Allies seized other islands in the vicinity, to include Arundel, Vella Lavella, and Kolombangara. Thereafter the South Pacific command turned its attention to the next major step in the encirclement of Rabaul. There were several options, but the final choice was a landing on Bougainville, the largest island in the Solomons group. A month later MacArthur’s command would assault Cape Gloucester on the western end of New Britain. Rabaul would then be within range of Allied land-based fighter aircraft coming from two directions. Air power thus could neutralize the Japanese bastion and allow it to be by-passed. The scheduled D-day for Bougainville was 1 November 1943.
Cape Torokina on Bougainville is seen after the Allies built an airstrip. Threatening Puruata Island, assaulted by the 3d Raider Battalion on 1 November 1943, is in the foreground. Tiny Torokina Island lies in between Puruata and the Cape.
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 68047
Several factors dictated Halsey’s scheme of maneuver for the offensive. First, he had too few transports and Marines to make a direct assault on the heavily defended enemy airfields located on the northern and southern ends of the island. Another consideration was the range of land-based fighters from bases in the Central Solomons—they could only effectively cover a landing in the southern half of Bougainville. The planners settled on the Empress Augusta Bay-Cape Torokina region on the western side of the island. Defenses were negligible there, and Bougainville’s difficult terrain would prevent any rapid reaction from enemy ground forces located elsewhere on the island. Once ashore, the invasion force would seize a defensible perimeter, build an airfield, and eventually neutralize the remainder of the island from this enclave. A patrol landed by submarine in late September discovered that the areas back of the landing beaches were swampy. Aerial reconnaissance in October also discovered the construction of new defenses. Neither of these facts changed the plan, however.
I MARINE AMPHIBIOUS CORPS
1 NOVEMBER 1943
For this operation, the 2d and 3d Raider Battalions were organized as the 2d Raider Regiment, with Shapley in command. Lieutenant Colonel Joseph P. McCaffery took over the 2d Raider Battalion. Because of insufficient shipping, the initial landing consisted of just two regiments of the 3d Marine Division, reinforced by the raiders and the 3d Defense Battalion. The remainder of the Marines and the Army’s 37th Division would follow at a later time.
On 1 November, the 3d and 9th Marines, assisted by the 2d Raider Battalion, seized a swath of the coast from Cape Torokina to the northwest. At the same time, the 3d Raider Battalion (less Company M) assaulted Puruata Island off Cape Torokina. Japanese defenses in the landing area consisted of a single company supported by a 75mm gun. One platoon occupied Puruata and a squad held Torokina Island, while the rest of the Japanese infantry and the gun were dug in on the cape itself.
The small Japanese force gave a good account of itself. The 75mm gun enfiladed the eastern landing beaches, while machine guns on the two small islands and the cape placed the approaches to this area in a crossfire. The result was havoc among the initial right flank assault waves, which landed in considerable disorder. The 75mm gun destroyed four landing craft and damaged 10 others before Sergeant Robert A. Owens of the 1st Battalion, 3d Marines silenced it. (He received a posthumous Medal of Honor for his single-handed charge against the key position.)
The 2d Raider Battalion, landing just to the left of Owens’ battalion, suffered from the gun, and from mortar and machine gun fire raking the beach. McCaffery succeeded in reorganizing his force on the beach and launching an attack that swept away the enemy defenses, but he fell mortally wounded in the process. Other battalions farther to the west met little or no resistance, except from high surf that caused many landing craft to broach. Company M, 3d Raiders, temporarily attached to the 2d Raider Battalion, moved out at noon and occupied a blocking position 1,500 yards up the Piva Trail, the main avenue of approach into the beachhead. The 3d Raiders silenced the machine guns on Puruata on D-day, and destroyed the last defenders on that island by late afternoon on 2 November. Total raider casualties to this point were three killed and 15 wounded.
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 63165
Demolition men of the 3d Raider Battalion landed on Torokina Island on 3 November, but found that supporting arms had already killed or driven off all Japanese.
Over the next several days the Marines advanced inland to extend their perimeter. There were occasional engagements with small enemy patrols, but the greatest resistance during this period came from the terrain, which consisted largely of swampland and dense jungle once one moved beyond the beach. The thing most Marines would remember about Bougainville would be the deep, sucking mud that seemed to cover everything not already underwater. On 4 November another unit relieved the 2d Raider Battalion on the line, and both battalions of the raider regiment were attached to the 9th Marines. The raiders maintained responsibility for the roadblock, and companies rotated out to the position every couple of days.
Raiders pose during a lull in the battle next to one of the Japanese dugouts they cleared on Cape Torokina on 1 November.
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 68117
Two small attacks hit Company E at the roadblock the night of 5 November, and a larger one struck Company H there two days later. Company G came forward in support and the enemy withdrew, but the Japanese kept up a rain of mortar shells all that night. On the morning of 8 November Companies H and M occupied the post and received yet another assault, this one the heaviest yet. In midafternoon Companies E and F conducted a passage of lines, counterattacked the enemy, and withdrew after two hours.
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 70785A
Raiders move up the muddy Piva Trail to safeguard the flank of the beachhead.
The next morning Companies I and M held the roadblock as L and F conducted another counterattack preceded by a half-hour artillery preparation. Japanese resistance was stubborn and elements of Companies I and M, and the 9th Marines eventually moved forward to assist. Shortly after noon the enemy retired from the scene. Patrols soon discovered the abandoned bivouac site of the Japanese 23d Infantry Regiment just a few hundred yards up the trail. In the midst of this action PFC Henry Gurke of Company M covered an enemy grenade with his body to protect another Marine. He received a posthumous Medal of Honor for his heroic act of self-sacrifice.
The raider regiment celebrated the Marine Corps’ birthday on 10 November by moving off the front lines and into division reserve. Other than occasional patrols and short stints on the line, the next two weeks were relatively quiet for the raiders. The Army’s 37th Division began arriving at this time to reinforce the perimeter. On 23 November the 1st Parachute Battalion came ashore and temporarily joined the raiders, now acting as corps reserve. Two days later the 2d Raider Battalion participated in an attack extending the perimeter several hundred yards to the east, but it met little opposition.
On 29 November Company M of the 3d Raider Battalion reinforced the parachutists for a predawn amphibious landing at Koiari several miles southeast of the perimeter. This operation could have been a repeat of the successful Tasimboko Raid, since the Marine force unexpectedly came ashore on the edge of a large Japanese supply dump. However, the enemy reacted quickly and pinned the Marines to the beach with heavy fire. Landing craft attempting to extract the force were twice driven off. It was not until evening that artillery, air, and naval gunfire support sufficiently silenced opposition that the parachutists and raiders could get back out to sea.
Army troops continued to pour into the enlarging perimeter. On 15 December control of the landing force passed from the I Marine Amphibious Corps to the Army’s XIV Corps. The Americal Division gradually replaced the 3d Marine Division, which had borne the brunt of the fighting. For much of the month the 2d Raider Regiment served as corps reserve, but these highly trained assault troops spent most of their time on working parties at the airfield or carrying supplies to the front lines. On 21 December the raiders, reinforced by the 1st Parachute Battalion and a battalion of the 145th Infantry, assumed the position formerly occupied by the 3d Marines. The regiment remained there until 11 January, when an Army outfit relieved it. The raiders boarded transports the next day and sailed to Guadalcanal.
The Raider Legacy
While the 2d Raider Regiment had been fighting on Bougainville, the raiders who had participated in the New Georgia campaign had been recuperating and training in the rear. Both the 1st and 4th Battalions enjoyed a month of leave in New Zealand, after which they returned to their base camps in New Caledonia. Just after Christmas 1943 Colonel Liversedge detached and passed command of the 1st Raider Regiment to Lieutenant Colonel Samuel D. Puller (the younger brother of “Chesty” Puller). The regiment embarked on 21 January and arrived at Guadalcanal three days later. In short order the 2d Raider Regiment disbanded and folded into the 1st, with Shapley taking command of the combined unit and Puller becoming the executive officer.
Bougainville, however, was the last combat action for any raider unit. Events had conspired to sound the death knell of the raiders. The main factor was the unprecedented expansion of the Corps. In late 1943 there were four divisions, with another two on the drawing boards. Even though there were now nearly half a million Marines, there never seemed to be enough men to create the new battalions needed for the 5th and 6th Divisions. In addition to the usual drains like training and transients, the Corps had committed large numbers to specialty units: defense battalions, parachute battalions, raider battalions, barrage balloon detachments, and many others. Since there was no prospect of increasing the Corps beyond 500,000 men, the only way to add combat divisions was to delete other organizations.
Another factor was the changing nature of the Pacific war. In the desperate early days of 1942 there was a potential need for commando-type units that could strike deep in enemy territory and keep the Japanese off balance while the United States caught its breath. However, there had been only one such operation and it had not been a complete success. The development of the amphibian tractor and improved fire support also had removed the need for the light assault units envisioned by Holland Smith at the beginning of the war. Since then the raiders generally had performed the same missions as any infantry battalion. Sometimes this meant that their training and talent were wasted, as happened on Bougainville and Pavuvu. In other cases, the quick but lightly armed raiders suffered because they lacked the firepower of a line outfit. The failure at Bairoko could be partially traced to that fact. With many large-scale amphibious assaults to come against well-defended islands, there was no foreseeable requirement for the particular strengths of the raiders.
Weary members of the 2d Raider Battalion catch a few moments of rest in the miserable, unrelieved wetness that was the hallmark that all troops experienced as soon as they advanced inland from the beach in the Bougainville operation.
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 70777
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 59036
Marine raider Pvt Roy Grier examines the Nambu pistol he liberated from an enemy officer of the Special Landing Force in an encounter on Bairoko.
Finally, there was institutional opposition to the existence of an elite force within the already elite Corps. The personnel and equipment priorities given to the first two raider battalions at a time of general scarcity had further fueled enmity toward these units. Now that the war was progressing toward victory, there was less interest on the part of outsiders in meddling in the details of Marine Corps organization. Just as important, two senior officers who had keenly felt pain at the birth of the raiders—Vandegrift and Thomas—were now coming into positions where they could do something about it. On 1 January 1944 Vandegrift became Commandant of the Marine Corps and he made Thomas the Director of Plans and Policies.
In mid-December 1943 Thomas’ predecessor at HQMC had already set the wheels in motion to disband the raiders and the parachutists. Among the reasons cited in his study was that such “handpicked outfits ... are detrimental to morale of other troops.” A week later, a Marine officer on the Chief of Naval Operation’s staff forwarded a memorandum through the Navy chain of command noting that the Corps “feels that any operation so far carried out by raiders could have been performed equally well by a standard organization specially trained for that specific mission.” The CNO concurred in the suggestion to disband the special units, and Vandegrift gladly promulgated the change on 8 January 1944. This gave Thomas everything he wanted—fresh manpower from the deleted units and their stateside training establishments, as well as simplified supply requirements due to increased uniformity.
The raiders did not entirely disappear. On 1 February the 1st Raider Regiment was redesignated the 4th Marines, thus assuming the lineage of the regiment that had garrisoned Shanghai in the interwar years and fought so gallantly on Bataan and Corrigedor. The 1st, 3d, and 4th Raider Battalions became respectively the 1st, 3d, and 2d Battalions of the 4th Marines. The 2d Raider Battalion filled out the regimental weapons company. Personnel in the Raider Training Center transferred to the newly formed 5th Marine Division. Leavened with new men, the 4th Marines went on to earn additional distinctions in the assaults on Guam and Okinawa. At the close of the war, the regiment joined the occupation forces in Japan and participated in the release from POW compounds of the remaining members of the old 4th Marines.
The commanders in the Pacific Theater may not have properly used the raiders, but the few thousand men of those elite units bequeathed a legacy of courage and competence not surpassed by any other Marine battalion. The spirit of the raiders lives on today in the Marine Corps’ Special Operations Capable battalions. These infantry units, specifically trained for many of the same missions as the raiders, routinely deploy with amphibious ready groups around the globe.
Seabee Chief Earl J. Cobb and Marine raider Cpl Charles L. Marshall shake hands at the site of a sign erected near Bougainville’s travelled “Marine Drive Hi-Way.”
So when we reach the “Isle of Japan”
With our caps at a Jaunty tilt
We’ll enter the city of Tokyo
On the roads the Seabees Built.
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 73151
Sources
The best primary documents are the relevant operational and administrative records of the Marine Corps held by the Washington National Records Center in Suitland, Maryland. Of particular note are the files of the Amphibious Force Atlantic Fleet, which detail the efforts of Edson and Holland Smith to create their version of the raiders. Another important source is the Edson personal papers collection at the Library of Congress Manuscript Division. The various offices of the Marine Corps Historical Center provide additional useful information. The Reference Section holds biographical data on most significant individuals. The Oral History Section has a number of interviews with senior raiders and other Marines, particularly Brigadier General Charles L. Banks, Brigadier General Fred D. Beans, Colonel Justice M. Chambers, Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, Major General Oscar F. Peatross, Lieutenant General Alan Shapley, and General Gerald C. Thomas. The Personal Papers Section holds numerous items pertaining to the raiders.
A number of secondary sources deal with the history of the raiders in some depth. The Marine Corps’ own World War II campaign monographs were based on interviews and other sources of information in addition to the service’s archives. Jeter Isely and Philip Crowl’s The U.S. Marines and Amphibious War, James Roosevelt’s Affectionately, F.D.R., Michael Blankfort’s Big Yankee, and Samuel Griffith’s Battle for Guadalcanal are valuable books. The Marine Corps Gazette and Leatherneck contain a number of articles describing the raiders and their campaigns. Of particular interest is Major General Peatross’ account of the Makin raid in the August and September 1992 issues of Leatherneck. Charles L. Updegraph, Jr.’s U.S. Marine Corps Special Units of World War II and Lieutenant Colonel R. L. Mattingly’s Herringbone Cloak—GI Dagger are two monographs specifically addressing the formation of the raiders. The publications of the two raider associations, The Raider Patch and The Dope Sheet, contain a number of first-person accounts written by former raiders.
About the Author
Major Jon T. Hoffman, USMCR, has spent more than 12 years on active duty as an infantry officer, an instructor at the Naval Academy, and a historian at Headquarters Marine Corps. Presently he is serving as a reserve field historian for the Marine Corps History and Museums Division. He has a master’s degree in military history from Ohio State University and a law degree from Duke University. In 1994 Presidio Press published his biography of Major General Edson, Once A Legend, which won the Marine Corps Historical Foundation’s Greene Award. He is the author of numerous articles in the Marine Corps Gazette, Naval Institute Proceedings, Naval History, Leatherneck, and Vermont History. His works have earned several writing prizes, including the Marine Corps Historical Foundation’s Heinl Awards for 1992, 1993, and 1994.
ERRATA
In the pamphlet, The Right to Fight: African-American Marines in World War II, in this series, among “Sources” listed on page 29 is Blacks and Whites Together Through Hell: U.S. Marines in World War II. The bibliographic listing misspells the name of one author and assigns a wrong World War II unit to the second. The volume is by Perry E. Fischer, a veteran of the 8th Marine Ammunition Company, and Brooks E. Gray, who was a member of the 51st Defense Battalion.
THIS PAMPHLET HISTORY, one in a series devoted to U.S. Marines in the World War II era, is published for the education and training of Marines by the History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Washington, D.C., as a part of the U.S. Department of Defense observance of the 50th anniversary of victory in that war.
WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES
DIRECTOR OF MARINE CORPS HISTORY AND MUSEUMS
Brigadier General Edwin H. Simmons, USMC (Ret)
GENERAL EDITOR,
WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES
Benis M. Frank
CARTOGRAPHIC CONSULTANT
George C. MacGillivray
EDITING AND DESIGN SECTION, HISTORY AND MUSEUMS DIVISION
Robert E. Struder, Senior Editor; W. Stephen Hill, Visual Information Specialist;
Catherine A. Kerns, Composition Services Technician
Marine Corps Historical Center
Building 58, Washington Navy Yard
Washington, D.C. 20374-5040
1995
PCN 190 003130 00
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced quotation marks retained.
To make this eBook easier to read, particularly on handheld devices, most images have been made relatively larger than in the original pamphlet, and centered, rather than offset to one side or the other; and some were placed a little earlier or later than in the original. Sidebars in the original have been repositioned between chapters and identified as “[Sidebar (page nn):”, where the page reference is to the original location in the source book. In the Plain Text version, the matching closing right bracket follows the last line of the Sidebar’s text and is on a separate line to make it more noticeable. In the HTML versions, that bracket follows the colon, and each Sidebar is displayed within a box.
Page [27]: “Consolidated” was printed as “Condolidated”; changed here.
Page [40]: “Corrigedor” was printed that way.