Marine Raiders

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

Marine Raiders

Coast Watchers in the Solomons

by John Brown

Two weeks after Pearl Harbor, coast watcher Cornelius Page, a plantation manager on Tabar Island 20 miles north of New Ireland in the South Pacific, reported by teleradio that Japanese planes were making reconnaissance flights over New Ireland and New Britain. Read more

Marine Raiders

Battling for Bougainville

By Jon Diamond

Key Allied victories in the Pacific have been singled out as seminal turning points against the Japanese. The American Navy’s sinking of four enemy carriers at Midway crippled future Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) initiatives on the scale mounted during the war’s initial six months. Read more

Marine Raiders

Battle of Makin: Amphibious Assault on the Gilbert Islands

By Patrick J. Chaisson

Makin should have been a pushover. On November 20, 1943, a force of 3,500 highly trained American soldiers invaded this Central Pacific atoll located 2,000 miles southwest of Hawaii in the Gilbert Islands. Read more

Marine Raiders

What Made the Dreaded Type 89 Knee Mortar So Damaging

By Robert Cashner

When it came to weapons production, the Imperial Japanese Army’s requirements often came in second to the needs of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Read more

Marine Raiders

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

Marine Raiders

Taking Tinian: Crucial Airfield in the Marianas

By Nathan N. Prefer

The Marines were tired, eager for a rest and the opportunity to get themselves and their equipment back into battle condition. Read more

Marine Raiders

First Hell in the Pacific: The Battle for Tulagi

By Arnold Blumberg

The strategic defeats suffered in the Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway checked Japan’s advance in the Pacific. Read more

Marine Raiders

A Defiant Stand During the Battle at Bloody Ridge

By Al Hemingway

Scanning over the maps unfolded before him in the division operations room, Colonel Gerald C. Thomas, 1st Marine Division G-3 officer, turned and muttered: “They’re coming.” Read more

Marine Raiders

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