Makin Island

Evans Carlson & America’s First Special Operations Team

By Duane Schultz

Major Evans Carlson stood on a rickety platform built from wooden crates, the kind their rations came in. Read more

Makin Island

The Makin Island Raid: What Really Happened to the Marines?

By Peter McQuarrie

In August 1942, the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion conducted the Makin Island raid in the Central Pacific. The purpose of the raid was to destroy Japanese installations on the island, gather intelligence, and to test the raiding tactics of the U.S. Read more

Makin Island

Carlson’s Long Patrol: Marine Raiders at Guadalcanal

By Christopher Miskimon

On the morning of November 6, 1942, a force of 267 Marines took its first steps into the jungle from a landing point at Aola Bay, roughly 30 miles east of the American perimeter on Guadalcanal. Read more

Makin Island

Evans Carlson Forms Carlson’s Raiders

By Michael D. Hull

One of America’s earliest heroes in World War II was the tall, soft-spoken son of a Connecticut Congregational minister who distinguished himself in some of the fiercest fighting in the South Pacific. Read more