by Daniel Wrinn
Bloody Beaches
History of the Marine Raiders in the Pacific War
Daniel Wrinn
Contents
Get your FREE copy of WW2: Spies, Snipers and the World at War
Creating the Raiders
Gung Ho!
Ready to Fight
Little Makin Island
Stranded on Tulagi
The Tokyo Express
Battle of Bloody Ridge
Defeat on the Matanikau
Carlson’s Long Patrol
1st Raider Regiment
Operation Cleanslate
Russell Islands Assault
Dragons Peninsula
Attack on Bairoko
D-Day on Bougainville
APD Destroyer Transports
Raider Training Center
Raiders Weapons and Equipment
The Raider Patch
General Evans Carlson
General Merritt Edson
References
Also By Daniel Wrinn
About the Author
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Creating the Raiders
In February 1942, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Holcomb, ordered the formation of a new unit that would be known as the 1st Marine Raider Battalion.
This elite fighting force and its three sister battalions went on to gain immense fame for their fighting prowess in World War II. But there was more to the story than simple tales of combat heroics. The growth, inception, and sudden end of the raiders revealed a great deal about the conduct and development of amphibious operations during the war.
The Marine Corps faced a considerable challenge of expanding its forces from 19,000 to 450,000 men at the beginning of World War II. The Marine Raiders attracted more than their share of strong leaders. This resulted in the combination of courage, organization, and personalities that made one of the most exciting chapters in the history of the Marine Corps.
There were two independent forces responsible for the creation of the raiders in early 1942. Historians have traced one of these to the friendship developed between FDR and Evans Carlson. Because of his experiences in China, Evans Carlson was convinced that guerrilla warfare was the wave of the future.
Captain James Roosevelt, the president’s son, also believed in the strategic value of guerrilla warfare. Presidential confidant William Donovan also pushed a similar theme. Donovan had been an Army hero in World War I and now worked as a senior advisor on intelligence matters. He wanted to create a guerrilla fighting force to infiltrate occupied enemy territory and assist resistance fighters. Donovan made a proposal to FDR in December 1941. In January, the younger Roosevelt wrote to the Commandant of the Marine Corps. He recommended creating “a unit for purposes similar to the British commandos and the Chinese guerrillas.”
Major James Roosevelt
In early 1942, the war was going badly for the Allies. The Germans had forced the British off the continent of Europe. The Japanese had swept the United States and Britain from the majority of the Pacific. The Allies were too weak to slug it out in conventional battles with the Axis powers. Guerrilla warfare and quick raids seemed to be viable alternatives. British commandos had already conducted numerous forays against the European coastline, and Winston Churchill wholeheartedly supported this concept to FDR.
While Marine Commandant General Holcomb believed that any properly trained Marine unit could perform amphibious raids—he ultimately yielded to the high-level pressure and organized the raider battalions.
Two other men were responsible for the formation of the raiders. General Holland M. Smith had created the first manual on amphibious operations in 1935. During the early days of World War II, General Smith faced the difficult task of trying to convert that paper doctrine into a fighting reality. As a Brigadier General, Smith took command of the 1st Marine Brigade in fleet landing exercises in early 1940 in the Caribbean.
He realized that a lack of adequate landing craft made it impossible to quickly build up combat power on a hostile shore. The initial assault elements would be vulnerable to counterattack and defeat, while most amphibious forces remained on board their transports.
To solve this problem, General Smith decided to employ the newly developed high-speed destroyer transports or APD (AP for transport and D for destroyer). He outlined a plan to land a company of the 5th Marines via rubber boats at H-3 hours “before dawn” at a point away from the primary assault beach. This force would then advance inland and seize key terrain on the beachhead. This would protect his main landing force from a counterattack.
One year later, General Smith had three APD high-speed destroyer transports. He designated three companies of the 7th Marines embarked on the ships as his Mobile Landing Group. During this exercise, these units made night landings protecting the main assault or executed diversionary attacks.
General Smith proposed future assaults with three distinct waves. The first wave would be composed of fast-moving forces seizing critical terrain before the main assault. The first element would be a parachute regiment, an air infantry regiment, and a light tank battalion with at least one high-speed destroyer transport. Once the beachhead was secured, the more bulky combat units of the assault force would follow ashore. The third wave would consist of the reserve force and service units.
In the summer of 1941, General Smith was able to put these ideas into action. He now commanded the AFAF (Amphibious Force Atlantic Fleet), consisting of the 1st Marine Division and the Army’s 1st Infantry Division. During maneuvers at the Marine base in New River, North Carolina, General Smith embarked the 1/5 Marines in six APDs, making them an independent command reporting directly to his headquarters.
This operational plan attached the Marine division’s only company of tanks and its single company of parachutists to the APD battalion. With all his aviation assets working in direct support, the mobile force could swiftly move inland to surprise and destroy enemy reserves while also taking control of critical communication lines. General Smith called this: “a spearhead thrust from around a hostile flank.”
Smith did not randomly select the 1/5 Marines for this role. In June 1941, he chose Colonel Merritt “Red Mike” Edson to command this battalion. Smith referred to Edson’s outfit as the “light battalion” or the “APD battalion.”
When the 5th Marines and other elements of the 1st Marine Division moved to New River that fall, the 1st Battalion stayed behind in Quantico with Force headquarters. The battalion was placed in a category separate from the rest of the division, which it was still technically a part of. Colonel Gerald Thomas, the division operations officer, referred to the battalion as the headquarters’ plaything.
Edson’s unit was unique in many ways. In an August 1941 report, Edson evaluated the organization and missions of his unit. He believed his battalion would focus mainly on raids, reconnaissance, and other special operations. He envisioned his battalion as a waterborne version of the parachutists. His battalion would depend on mobility and speed—not firepower.
Since APDs could neither embark nor offload vehicles, the battalion had to become entirely foot mobile once ashore—jus
t like the parachutists. Edson recommended a new organizational table that made his force lighter than other infantry battalions to achieve this rapid mobility. He wanted to trade his 81mm mortars and heavy machine guns for more lightweight models. With fewer of these weapons, they’d have larger crews to carry ammunition. Given the limitations of the high-speed transports, each company would be smaller than their standard counterparts. There would now be four rifle companies, a headquarters company, a weapons company, and a large demolitions platoon. Their main assault craft would be 10-man rubber boats.
The only thing preventing General Smith from formally removing the 1/5 Marines from the 1st Marine Division was a lack of troops to make the regiment whole again. Many units of the division only existed on paper in the fall of 1941. During the beginning of 1942, the US was now at war, and recruits surged into the Marine Corps. Smith wrote to General Holcomb and asked him to re-designate the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines. Edson received word on January 7 that he now led the 1st Separate Battalion.
On January 20, Marine Commandant General Holcomb wrote that: “the APD battalion is organized, trained, and equipped for duty, including the use of rubber boats for night landings.”
General Holcomb expressed his desire for the Navy to make APD destroyer transports available on the west coast to support a second APD battalion there. Holcomb intended to use General Smith’s new force as a convenient means to channel outside interference toward useful ends.
On January 23, Navy leadership, probably in response to political pressure, directed the Pacific Fleet to put together a commando-type unit. The 2nd Separate Battalion was officially formed on February 4. Ensuring this new battalion developed along proper lines, General Holcomb ordered Edson to transfer one-third of his unit to California as a nucleus for the 2nd Separate Battalion.
Headquarters adopted Edson’s recommended tables of organization for both battalions. The only change was the addition of an 81mm mortar platoon (but there wasn’t room on the high speed APD transports to accommodate this increase).
General Holcomb initially offered to transfer Edson to the 2nd Separate Battalion. But the Marine Commandant allowed the commanding general of the 2nd Marine Division, General Charles Price, to place Major Evans Carlson in charge with Captain James Roosevelt as executive officer of the unit. On February 16, General Holcomb re-designated these units as the Marine Raider Battalions. Edson’s group became the 1st Marine Raider Battalion, and three days later, Evans Carlson’s outfit became the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion.
Gung Ho!
The new raider battalions were given priority in the Marine Corps for equipment and men. Carlson and Edson combed the ranks of their divisions, siphoning off many of the best men streaming in from the recruit depots. There was no difficulty attracting volunteers with the promise that they would be the first to fight the Japanese.
Carlson’s expectations were more demanding than those for Edson’s battalion. Both raider battalions were a cause of resentment from fellow officers who struggled to flush out the rapidly advancing divisions from a skimpy selection of experienced Marines. The raiders also had carte blanche to obtain any equipment they’d deemed necessary—even if it wasn’t standard issue in the Marine Corps.
Carlson soon broke the shackles that General Holcomb attempted to impose on them. They rejected most of the men Edson had sent them, and they adjusted the organization of their battalions to suit their purposes. They taught their battalion an unconventional military philosophy of Chinese culture, communist egalitarianism and even spiced it up a bit with a New England town hall democracy. Every man could say what he thought. Their battle cry would be “Gung Ho!” (Chinese for work together.)
The raider officers would have no greater privileges than the enlisted men. They would lead by consensus rather than rank. There would also be an “ethical indoctrination,” which Carlson later described as “conviction through persuasion.” This process ensured each Marine knew what he was fighting for and why.
The 2nd Raiders set up their pup tents in the hills of Camp Elliott, isolated from civilization. Carlson rarely granted liberty and sometimes held musters in the middle of the night to catch anyone who slipped away for an evening on the town. He tried to convince his men to forgo leave, but he did not altogether prohibit it.
Raider training focused on weapons practice, demolitions, physical conditioning, hand-to-hand fighting, and long hikes. As the Marines grew tougher and developed their new field skills, the focus shifted to more night work. Carlson implemented changes to the raider table of organization sent from Washington.
Instead of using an eight-man squad, he created a ten-man unit comprised of a squad leader and three fire teams of three men. Each fire team had a BAR (Browning automatic rifle), a Thompson submachine gun, and one of the brand-new Garand M-1 semiautomatic rifles. Keeping his manpower within the constraints of the carrying capacity of an APD, each rifle company had two rifle platoons along with a weapons platoon. Carlson’s system of organizing and training was designed to create a stealthy force that used unexpected and unorthodox methods. Carlson was on his way to developing the guerrilla unit he had envisioned.
Edson’s battalion had retained the table of organization. It was based on an eight-man squad, two BAR men, a rifleman armed with an M-1903 Springfield bolt-operated rifle, and a sniper carrying a Springfield mounted with a telescopic sight. (Later in the war, Edson became an advocate of a four-man fire team which became the standard for all Marine infantry.) With smaller squads, the 1st Raider Battalion had three rifle platoons and a weapons platoon. Edson’s weapons company provided additional light machine guns and 60mm mortars.
Their training was like that of the 2nd Raiders except for more rubber boat work because of their convenient location on the Potomac River. The 1st Raiders attempted to reach a pace of seven mph on hikes, twice the average speed of infantry. They did so by alternating periods of double timing with fast walking. Although Edson emphasized light infantry tactics, his men were not guerrillas. He envisioned a highly trained battalion prepared for special operations as well as conventional warfare.
Edson’s leadership style contrasted with Carlson’s. He encouraged his subordinates to take the initiative, but rank carried authority and responsibility for decision-making. Edson was a quiet man who impressed his troops with his ability on the firing range, on long marches, and not with speeches. His raiders received regular liberty and he organized battalion dances attended by busloads of secretaries from nearby Washington.
The two raider battalions had the same name, but they were in stark contrast. What they did have in common was exceptional training and a desire to excel in combat.
Ready to Fight
It didn’t take long for the raiders to get into the fight. In April 1942, most of the 1st Raiders boarded trains and headed for the west coast. They would embark on the Zeilin and arrive in Samoa near the end of the month to join the Marine brigade’s garrison at that outpost.
Company D, with an 81mm mortar platoon and a headquarters and weapons company, stayed behind in Quantico. This rear echelon was under the command of Major Sam Griffith, the battalion XO. (He recently joined the raiders after spending several months in England observing the British commandos.) His small force would maintain raider capability on the east coast but also worked as a nucleus for an expected third raider battalion.
The 2nd Raiders spent the month of April on board ship learning how to do rubber boat techniques. The Navy had transferred three of its APDs to the west coast, and Carlson’s raiders used them for practice landings on San Clemente Island. On May 2, Carlson’s Raiders sailed for Hawaii, arriving at Pearl Harbor on May 17.
The 2nd Raiders had barely set foot in Hawaii when Admiral Nimitz ordered two of their rifle companies to Midway to reinforce the garrison preparing for an expected Japanese attack. They arrived on May 25. Company C took up defensive positions on Sand Island and Company D moved to Eastern Island. The raiders had trained to fight a
guerrilla campaign of infiltration and stealth, but now the raiders had to conduct a static defense of a small area.
During the Battle of Midway, Marine and naval aircraft turned back the Japanese invading force in one of the greatest naval victories of the war. Marine ground combat consisted of a single large enemy air attack on the morning of June 4. The Japanese inflicted considerable damage on several installations, but the raiders suffered no casualties. Not long after that battle, the two raider companies joined the rest of the battalion back in Hawaii.
Little Makin Island
In summer 1942, Admiral Nimitz decided to employ the 2nd Raiders for its designated purpose. Makin Atoll in the Gilbert Islands was selected as the target. They had two large mine-laying submarines available, the Argonaut and the Nautilus. Each would carry a company of raiders. This force would make a predawn landing on Butaritari Island and destroy the forty-five man garrison. They would then withdraw in the evening and land the next day on Little Makin Island.
Companies A and B boarded the submarines on August 8. D-Day was August 17, ten days after the 1st Marine Division and 1st Raiders assaulted the lower Solomon Islands. The objectives were to take prisoners, destroy installations, gain intelligence on the area, and divert Japanese attention and reinforcements from Tulagi and Guadalcanal.
