By Kevin Seabrooke

Evans Fordyce Carlson was a complex man with a heavily decorated and varied military career who is credited by many for developing the tactics and culture of what would become the special forces operations. He was also a secret confidant of Franklin Roosevelt and one of the most controversial officers ever to serve in the Marine Corps. He came out of retirement from the Marines to lead “Carlson’s Raiders” during World War II and earned a second Navy Cross in the Makin Raid on August 17, 1942. He would earn a third for extraordinary heroism and distinguished leadership in November and December 1942 for his actions at Guadalcanal. Even after he took on an advisory role, he landed with the Marines at Tarawa in November 1943. He earned a second Purple Heart during the Battle of Saipan in 1944.

Along with his years of research, Platt had access to newly discovered diaries and correspondence in English and Chinese that offer insight into Carlson’s idealism regarding Chinese Communists—something that proved ruinous in the McCarthy era.

The Raider: The Untold Story of a Renegade Marine and the Birth of U.S. Special Forces in World War II (Stephen R. Platt, Knopf, New York, NY, 2025, 544 pp., $35 HC)