United States Marine Corps
Just before dawn, the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise turned into the wind to launch her planes. Nervous and excited pilots roared into the darkness of the vast Pacific toward the unsuspecting Japanese. Read more
United States Marine Corps
Most Americans can recite the second line of the immortal “Marine Hymn” by memory, but few actually know what it means. Read more
United States Marine Corps
December 7, 1950 dawned bitter cold in the remote mountains of North Korea. More than 14,000 U.N. Read more
United States Marine Corps
Late in the evening of June 25, 1950 U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson was at his Maryland farmhouse reading when a call arrived to inform him of a serious situation in the Far East. Read more
United States Marine Corps
One of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s longtime interests was the hidden world of espionage. In the months before the United States entered World War II, the commander-in-chief was dabbling in the covert world of intelligence-gathering, using a number of trusted personal friends as his own private eyes and ears around the globe. Read more
United States Marine Corps
Peering through his binoculars, Vice Adm. Chuichi Nagumo was in awe of the nearly 800 ships from Vice Adm. Read more
United States Marine Corps
Crouched in their foxholes along Edson’s Ridge on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, the Marines formed a critical but thin defense line between strategic Henderson Field and seasoned Japanese infantry lurking in the jungle. Read more
United States Marine Corps
On a moonless night in January 1944, in the Haute Savoie region of southeast France, the drone from the engine of a RAF bomber could be heard in the distance. Read more
United States Marine Corps
He stood six foot five in his leather jumping boots and weighed close to two hundred and thirty pounds,” wrote the actor Sterling Hayden in his 1963 autobiography Wanderer. Read more
United States Marine Corps
In March 1942, General Douglas MacArthur was ordered out of the doomed Philippines by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to organize the defense of Australia. Read more
United States Marine Corps
The Pearl Harbor aftermath presented the U.S. Navy with a sobering question: how to recover? More than 2,000 men had died. Read more
United States Marine Corps
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
United States Marine Corps
Since its first inception as “Decoration Day” in 1868, Memorial Day has served as an important reminder regarding those who died in service to their country. Read more
United States Marine Corps
Following the exploits of John Paul Jones and the Continental Navy during the American Revolutionary War, the U.S. Read more
United States Marine Corps
Until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, America had maintained a popular non-interventionist position with World War 2. Read more
United States Marine Corps
On February 19, 1945, thousands of American Marines hit the beaches on the Volcano Islands in the Pacific, starting what we call today the Battle of Iwo Jima. Read more
United States Marine Corps
The siege of the Alamo is one of the most celebrated military confrontations in American history. There have been other instances of American soldiers fighting against the odds, from Custer’s Last Stand in 1876 to the embattled Marines defending Wake Island against the Japanese in 1941. Read more
United States Marine Corps
Many vestiges of World War II in the Pacific linger, denying the ravages of time.
The battleship USS Missouri, where the war ended nearly 70 years ago, remains as a floating monument and museum at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Read more
United States Marine Corps
The Battle of Okinawa raged not only on the island itself but in the skies overhead. Japanese aircraft attacked the invading Americans not only through conventional bombing attacks but also by using the dreaded Kamikaze—suicide pilots who turned their planes into guided missiles to inflict more damage. Read more
United States Marine Corps
Above all, the island was defendable.
From Ritidian Point in the north to the extreme southern coastline, Guam is 34 miles long, made in an irregular shape covering 228 square miles, the largest of all Pacific islands between Japan and New Guinea. Read more
