Marine Raiders

Marine Raider insignia.

See also Makin Island raid

The Marine Raiders were elite units established by the United States Marine Corps during World War II to conduct amphibious light infantry warfare, particularly in landing in rubber boats and operating behind the lines. "Edson's" Raiders of 1st Marine Raiders Battalion and "Carlson's" Raiders of 2nd Marine Raiders Battalion are said to be the first United States Special Operations Forces to form and see combat in World War II.

However, most combat operations saw the Raiders employed as regular infantry, and combined with the resentment within the rest of the Marines that the Raiders were an "elite force within an elite force", led to the eventual abandonment of the experiment. The elite within an elite criticism was also held among some Marines when the Force Reconnaissance Companies were disbanded and integrated into the new Marine Special Operations Battalions to participate with sister services' units under the United States Special Operations Command.

Four Raider battalions served operationally but all were disbanded on 8 January 1944 when the Corps made the doctrinal decision that the Raiders had out-lived their original mission. The changing nature of the war in the Pacific, with many large-scale amphibious assaults to come against well-defended islands, negated the requirements for small light units that could strike deep into enemy territory. There was also the problem of manpower as the Corps struggled to fill new battalions needed to form the 5th and 6th Divisions. Beginning 1 February 1944, personnel from the Raider Battalions were used to reform the 4th Marines, who had been lost in the Battle of Corregidor early in the war, first as an independent unit, then as a component of the 6th Marine Division.

History

Creation

Lt Col Evans F. Carlson

The Raiders were created by an order from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, acting on proposals from Colonel William J. Donovan and Major Evans F. Carlson. Carlson had been a soldier in the Punitive Expedition to capture Pancho Villa in Mexico and World War I, became a Marine officer during the American occupation of Nicaragua, and served as a Intelligence Officer of the 4th Marines in China. He had seen the tactics and strategy of Communist Chinese irregulars, Zhū Dé and the Eighth Route Army in particular, as they fought the occupying Japanese and became enthralled with their version of guerrilla warfare. In 1933 Carlson had commanded the Marine Detachment at the Warm Springs, Georgia vacation retreat of President Roosevelt, where he formed a close friendship with both Franklin D. Roosevelt and his son James. Carlson resigned from the Marines to speak to American businessmen to warn them against providing materials to Japan. Carlson rejoined the Marines in April 1941, gaining a commission from the Commandant as a reserve major. Carlson still had the President's ear as well as FDR's son James Roosevelt, who was now a Marine Captain and was his friend and protégé.

With America thrust into the war, the President became interested in creating an American counterpart to the British Commandos and the Marine Corps was the natural place for this organization. Indeed, the commanding general of the 2nd Marine Division initially proposed the name "Marine Commandos". The Commandant of the Marine Corps, Major General Thomas Holcomb, was of the opinion, however, that "the term 'Marine' is sufficient to indicate a man ready for duty at any time, and the injection of a special name, such as 'Commando,' would be undesirable and superfluous." General Holcomb redesignated the 1st Battalion 5th Marines as the "1st Separate Battalion" and created the 2nd Separate Battalion to be commanded by Carlson in response to pressure from the President. (1/5 had been previously employed to practice experimental landing techniques using high speed transports and inflatable boats.)

The debate over the creation of these elite units came to a climax when the new commander of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral Chester Nimitz, requested "commando units" for raids against lightly defended Japanese-held islands. The commandant selected the term "Raiders" and created two battalions. The 1st Raider Battalion was activated on 16 February 1942, followed by the 2nd Raider Battalion on February 19. Carlson was given a promotion to Lieutenant Colonel and placed in command of the 2nd Raiders, and Lt. Col. (later, Major General) Merritt A. "Red Mike" Edson, command of the 1st.

The Raiders were given the best of the Marines' equipment, and were handpicked from available volunteers. The two units approached their common mission from different directions. Carlson utilized egalitarian and team-building methods learned from the Communists during his years in China: he treated officers and enlisted men with minimum regard to rank as leaders and fighters, gave his men "ethical indoctrination," describing for each man what he was fighting for and why, and used the Chinese phrase "Gung-ho!" as a motivational slogan. He also eschewed standard Marine Corps organization, forming six rifle companies of two platoons each, and innovating 3-man "fire teams" as its basic unit.^[1] Edson's battalion, however, more closely followed standard Marine Corps doctrine in training, organization, and discipline.

Combat in the Central Pacific and Solomons

Marine officers on Tulagi. Lt. Col. Edson is second from left in front row.

Both Raider battalions were put into action at roughly the same time. On August 7, 1942, Edson's 1st Raider Battalion, assigned to the 1st Marine Division, landed on Tulagi in the British Solomon Islands Protectorate as the opening phase of the Guadalcanal Campaign. After the capture of Tulagi, the Raiders were moved to Guadalcanal to defend Henderson Field. One of their most notable engagements was the "Battle of Edson's Ridge", where the 1st Raiders, remnants of the 1st Parachute Battalion, and the 2nd Battalion 5th Marines scored a major defensive victory over Imperial Japanese Army forces on the night of September 13-14. Out of the action both Edson and Major Kenneth D. Bailey were awarded the Medal of Honor, the latter posthumously.

Carlson's 2d Raider Battalion boarded the submarines Nautilus (SS-168, Cdr William H. Brockman, Jr.) and Argonaut (APS-1, Cdr John R. "Jack" Pierce) and raided Makin Island on August 17-18. During the raid, Sergeant Clyde A. Thomason was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor and was the first Marine recipient of this honor during World War II.^[2] Unfortunately, nine men were unintentionally left on the island when the Raiders returned to the submarines. These men were captured and later beheaded at Kwajalein.^[3]

After the Tulagi landings, the 2nd Marine Regiment that had been a reserve was ordered back to Espiritu Santo. Admiral Richmond K. Turner on his own volition decided to form them into a "2nd Provisional Raider Battalion" without the authorization of the Commandant of the Marine Corps.^[4] The unit was created on 29 August 1942 and was disbanded on 28 September 1942 under the orders of Admiral Robert L. Ghormley.^[5] Admiral Turner was not in favor of large Marine units over the size of a battalion and wished to turn all the Marines into Raider battalions similar to the current Royal Marine Commandos^[4] which may have influenced the Marine Corps to take a dim view of the entire Raider concept.

In the fall of 1942, two additional Raider battalions were created; the 3rd Raiders in Samoa, commanded by Lt. Col. Harry B. Liversedge, and the 4th Raiders at Camp Pendleton, California, commanded by now-Lt. Col. James Roosevelt. These battalions distinguished themselves in heavy combat alongside the 1st and 2d Raiders in the 1943 campaigns in the upper Solomons. On March 15, 1943, the four battalions were organized as the 1st Marine Raider Regiment at Espiritu Santo, with Liversedge as commander and Carlson as executive officer. Lt Col Alan Shapley was named commander of the 2nd Raiders a week later and immediately returned it to a standard organization.^[6]

The 1st Raider Regiment enforced a common organization among the battalions. Each had a weapons company, and four rifle companies composed of three rifle platoons and a weapons platoon. The result reflected a mixture of Edson's and Carlson's ideas. Carlson's 3-man fire team and 10-man squad organizations were adopted, first by the Raiders and then by the entire Marine Corps. Edson contributed the concept of a highly trained, lightly equipped force using conventional tactics to accomplish special missions or to fill in for a line battalion.^[6]

During the New Georgia Campaign, the 1st Marine Raider Regiment was reorganized, consisting of the 1st and 4th Raiders, and two battalions of the 37th Infantry Division, commanded by Liversedge.^[7] At the same time, the 2nd and 3rd Raider Battalions were organized as the 2nd Marine Raider Regiment (Provisional) under Shapley, for the invasion of Bougainville, the final combat action of the Raiders before their dissolution.^[8] PFC Henry Gurke of the 3rd Raider Battalion was awarded the Medal of Honor for actions of November 6, 1943, on Bougainville.

In December 1943 command of the 1st Raider Regiment passed to Lieutenant Colonel Samuel D. Puller. The regiment left New Caledonia on 21 January and landed on Guadalcanal three days later. The provisional 2d Raider Regiment disbanded and rejoined into the 1st, with the senior Shapley in command and Puller the executive officer.

Disbandment

In early 1944 the Corps had four divisions, with two more being formed. Even with nearly a half million Marines in service, the Corps had insufficient manpower to allocate to the new divisions, because of large numbers of men assigned to defense, parachute, raider, barrage balloon, amphibious tractor and other specialized units. With no further expansion of the Corps planned, the only way to add manpower to the new divisions was to obtain it from existing organizations.

The anticipated need for commando-type units had not materialized, and the development of the amphibian tractor and improved fire support had ended the need for light assault units. The Raiders had generally performed the same missions as line infantry battalions, either wasting their training and skills, or exposing the lightly armed Raiders to excessive casualties. There was also institutional opposition to the existence of an elite force within the already elite Corps. Two senior officers who had been opposed to the Raiders on this basis advanced to positions where they could abolish the units. On January 1, 1944, Gen. Alexander Vandegrift became Commandant of the Marine Corps, and Gen. Gerald C. Thomas became the Director of Plans and Policies.

The previous Director of Plans and Policies had already proposed to disband the Raiders and the Paramarines as "handpicked outfits...detrimental to morale of other troops." The Chief of Naval Operations concurred in the proposal, and Vandegrift ordered the change on January 8, 1944. Manpower from the deleted units and their stateside training establishments were redirected to the new divisions, and supply requirements were simplified by the increased uniformity. On February 1, the 1st Raider Regiment was redesignated the 4th Marine Regiment, and eventually became part of the 6th Marine Division. The 1st, 4th, and 3d Raider Battalions became respectively the 1st, 2d, and 3d Battalions, 4th Marines. The 2d Raider Battalion became the regimental weapons company. Personnel of the Raider Training Battalion at Camp Pendleton transferred to the 5th Marine Division.

Post World War II

According to the Marine Corps Times, the 20 June 2003 activation of the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command, which began with Detachment One, paid homage to the Marine Raiders. The Detachment's insignia, designed by Gunnery Sergeant Anthony Siciliano, incorporated the Raiders’ famous knife, a Fairbairn-Sykes stiletto, and the Raiders’ insignia as a tribute and link to the famed battalions, which existed for only two years after their 1942 inception. When they went into combat in Iraq, as part of a Navy SEAL task group, Detachment One called itself Task Unit Raider. However, use of the name has now ended; Marine Corps officials have decided that Marines and units in the new Marine Corps Special Operations Command, which was stood up in February 2006, won’t be called Raiders.^[9]

Marine Raiders in popular culture

Raiders with their war dogs at Bougainville.

Film

• Walter Wanger's Gung Ho! (1943 film) - is a depiction of the 2nd Raider Battalion's raid on Makin Island. Though Carlson and his executive officer James Roosevelt are not depicted in the film, Sam Levine plays Victor "Transport" Maghikian (who acted as an adviser on the film) and J. Carrol Naish plays a character based on Lieutenant John Apergis who was in the unit but not on Makin. Randolph Scott played the role of the battalion commander. Carlson acted as a technical advisor and several actual members of the Makin Island raid appear in the film.
• RKO's Marine Raiders (film) (1944) is a fictional account of the 1st Raider Battalion on Guadalcanal, on leave in Australia, then on Bougainville (where the 2nd and 3rd Raiders actually participated). Pat O'Brien played the fictional commander of the 1st Raider Battalion with Robert Ryan portraying a Paramarine captain.
• Baby Blue Marine (1976) features Jan Michael Vincent who fails to complete Marine basic training and is sent home wearing a baby blue uniform. He is mugged by a war weary Marine Raider played by Richard Gere for his uniform.

Video games

• Electronic Arts' Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault follows a squad of Marine Raiders from the Makin Raid to the Battle of Tarawa
• Activision's Call of Duty: World at War begins with the rescue of player character Private Miller by other Marine Raiders during the Makin Raid. The game then skips ahead two years to find Miller and his squadmates assigned to the 1st Marine Division during the Battle of Peleliu and, later, the Battle of Okinawa.

Books

• W.E.B. Griffin's novel Call To Arms, Book Two of The Corps series, focuses on the forming of the Marine Raiders and the raid on Makin Island, as told through the novel's protagonist, Lt. Kenneth 'Killer' McCoy.

• Bobby Shaftoe, one of the main characters in the portions of the Neal Stephenson novel Cryptonomicon set in World War II, is a Marine Raider.

Marine Raider Medal of Honor recipients

• Kenneth D. Bailey,
• "Red Mike" Edson
• Henry Gurke
• Clyde A. Thomason
• Richard E. Bush
• Justice M. Chambers
• William G. Walsh
• Smedley D. Butler

See also

United States Marine Corps portal

• List of United States Marine Corps battalions
• United States Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance
• U.S. Marine Raider Stiletto
• Former United States special operations units

Notes

References

Bibliography

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Marine Raiders

• Marine Raider Medal of Honor Recipients, MedalofHonor.com.
• US Marine Raiders Official Website
• Gung Ho! at the Internet Movie Database
• U.S. Marine Raiders - Roll of honor, awards and images.

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