United States Marine Corps

“The War Between the Smiths”: High Command Feud at Saipan

By David Lippman

The ferocious battle for the island of Saipan in the Marianas was won by U.S. Marines and U.S. Read more

United States Marine Corps

An American Invasion in New Zealand

By Bruce M. Petty

Early in the 20th century, the population of New Zealand was just under a million. According to official sources, 20 percent of New Zealand’s eligible manpower served in uniform during World War I. Read more

United States Marine Corps

Mission to Madagascar: British Assault on Diego Suarez Port

By Cleve C. Barkley

In early 1942 things could have hardly looked bleaker for the Allies. In Europe, Hitler’s war machine had steamrolled across the entire continent and was now battling before the gates of Moscow. Read more

United States Marine Corps

The National Museum of the Marine Corps

By Al Hemingway

Twenty miles outside Washington, D.C., at Quantico, Virginia, motorists traveling on Interstate 95 will come upon an unusual building that is clearly visible, day or night. Read more

United States Marine Corps

John Freeman Mackie: First Marine Medal of Honor Recipient

By Melanie Savage

On May 15, 1862, a five-ship Union Navy squadron that included the ironclad USS Galena, gunboats Aroostook, Port Royal, Naugatuck, and the famous Monitor neared a bend in the James River known as Drewry’s Bluff, where Confederate Fort Darling commanded the passage. Read more

United States Marine Corps

The Ill-Fated Goettge Patrol

By John Wukovits

The summer of 1942 had brought uplifting news for the United States in the Pacific Theater. After a numbing series of setbacks, including the December 1941 surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent fall of Guam and the Philippines, the nation’s Navy had husbanded its depleted forces and, with the crucial aid of naval intelligence, halted the Japanese in the May 1942 Battle of the Coral Sea and the June Battle of Midway. Read more

United States Marine Corps

Prelude to Iwo Jima: The Japanese Assault On B-29 Base On Marianas

By Michael P. Slater

From an altitude of 30,000 feet, the swift Japanese reconnaissance aircraft flew high over Saipan and Tinian, photographing the brisk and extensive engineering effort under way on the American airfields far below. Read more

United States Marine Corps

The Battle Of Midway: Turning the Tide in the South Pacific

By John Wukovits

Rarely in the history of warfare had one nation absorbed such numbing losses in so rapid a time as did the United States in the Pacific War’s first five months. Read more

United States Marine Corps

Marine Stand on Guadalcanal

By David Alan Johnson

At about 2:30 on the morning of August 21, 1942, U.S. Marine units east of Henderson Field on the embattled island of Guadalcanal were awakened by several bursts of machinegun fire. Read more

United States Marine Corps

Hero to the End: Airman William “Ed” Dyess on the Philippines

By Sam McGowan

Lieutenant Colonel William Edwin Dyess, a U.S. Army Air Corps pilot and squadron commander, was considered a hero by men who served under him in the Philippines and who felt they owed their own lives to Ed’s sacrifice. Read more

United States Marine Corps

U.S. Involvement in WWII: How (and How Much) the Military Grew

By Allyn Vannoy

U.S. involvement in WWII grew to be about 16,000,000 military personnel by the war’s end: approximately 11,200,000 in the Army, 4,200,000 in the Navy, and 660,000 in the Marine Corps. Read more

United States Marine Corps

Bloody Encounter at Hell’s Point: The Story of Al Schmid

By Al Hemingway

As the light of a sickly green flare shot skyward, three Marines from the 11th Machine Gun Squad, H Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment crouched in the hole awaiting the Japanese onslaught on Guadalcanal. Read more

United States Marine Corps

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

United States Marine Corps

Fighting Coast Guard at Iwo Jima

By Rod Carlson

Standing on an ugly carbuncle of volcanic rock 500 feet above the Pacific Ocean, the Associated Press photographer swung a cumbersome news camera toward six men holding a pipe with a flag tied to it and pressed the shutter release. Read more

United States Marine Corps

The Rafael Trujillo Assassination: Why Did the CIA Follow Through?

By Peter Kross

From 1959 to 1961, the United States turned its focus to two of the most charismatic, ruthless, and despotic rulers in the Caribbean region, Fidel Castro of Cuba and Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic. Read more

United States Marine Corps

Bloody Tarawa: Betio’s Lagoon

By John Wukovits

Colonel Merritt A. Edson, the 2nd Marine Division’s chief of staff, and Colonel David M. Shoup designed a simple plan to seize Betio—land along its northern beaches, drive straight across the narrow island, and kill the defenders. Read more

United States Marine Corps

Terrible Tide at Tarawa: Interview with Stan Bowen

By John Wukovits

Stan Bowen spent the entire war in the U.S. Navy as a pharmacist’s mate, first in the operation at Tarawa, then Saipan and Tinian. Read more

United States Marine Corps

Eleanor Roosevelt: American Ambassador to the South Pacific

by Glenn Barnett

On Sunday December 7, 1941, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt hosted a luncheon for 31 people at the White House. Read more

United States Marine Corps

Hot Chow on the Frontlines

By Kevin M. Hymel

From the training grounds to the battlefront, soldiers and Marines usually dined on C and K rations. Read more

United States Marine Corps

OSS in Germany

By John Mancini

By the autumn of 1944, most of Nazi-occupied Europe had been liberated by Allied forces. The conquering armies now faced the invasion of the German homeland. Read more