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Marines have fought and died for the United States since the Revolutionary War. "There is a fellowship of valor that links all U.S. Marines, past, present, and future," observes Joseph Alexander, through more than two centuries of battles in the air, on land, and at sea, from their inauspicious genesis as an unimpressive gang of seagoing musketeers to their present standing as the deadliest amphibious force in the world. This common virtue of uncommon valor links proud generations of warriors who have earned the right to wear the eagle, globe, and anchor on their collars and over their hearts: from Captain Samuel Nicholas, the first senior officer of the Continental marines, to Captain Randolph Guzman, killed in the terrorist bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City; from Lieutenant Alfred A. Cunningham, the first marine aviator, to Opha Johnson, the first "Lady Leatherneck."
As Brigadier General Edwin H. Simmons writes in his foreword, "Marines are not noted for their modesty." The same sentiment was also phrased in less diplomatic terms by President Harry S. Truman: "They have a propaganda machine that is almost equal to Stalin's," the commander in chief remarked during the Korean War. Marines are smug about their collective accomplishments, to be sure: esprit de corps, they call it. They are quick to educate the ignorant that the history of the United States would be much different if not for the United States Marine Corps. Alexander, a 28-year veteran of the corps, is no exception. The retired colonel takes obvious and unapologetic pride in the legendary mystique of "the Few and the Proud." His narrative is not a dry textbook compilation of footnoted factoids so much as a gung ho war story--drenched in blood and sweat and delivered with swagger for the transcendent glory of the corps--whose chapters read like a night of beers at the local VFW. Though incurably biased, the award-winning military historian has created a thoroughly researched and meticulously detailed account of the battles fought by those who are proud to claim the title of United States Marine. --Tim Hogan
"Alexander vividly chronicles the heroic part played by the Marines during turbulent periods of U.S. history."
Book Description
The Battle History of the U.S. Marines is the only single-volume, definitive combat history of the United States Marines, covering more than two centuries of battles in the air and on land and sea--literally "from the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli," from Suribachi to Somalia. It presents graphic narratives of such epic engagements as Belleau Wood, Wake Island, Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Peleliu, Saipan, Okinawa, the Chosin Reservoir, Khe Sanh, and many more. You will meet the Marine sharpshooters in the "fighting tops" of our young country's legendary frigates, as they took on the British navy during the American revolution; discover the exploits of Marine pilots in the "Banana Wars," in the skies over the Pacific during World War II, and later over Korea and Vietnam; and share the tension and terror of stalking the enemy on a Marine patrol in the jungles of the Pacific islands and Southeast Asia. An award-winning military historian and a retired Marine colonel, Joseph H. Alexander served two tours of duty in Vietnam. He tells the Marine combat story in a no-holds-barred narrative, with dozens of sidebars full of fascinating vignettes and Marine lore accompanied by nearly one hundred rare combat photographs and vivid sketches and numerous maps.
About the Author
Joseph H. Alexander was the Naval Institute's 1997 Author of the Year for his award-winning book, Utmost Savagery: Three Days of Tarawa.He is also the author Storm Landings: Epic Amphibious Battles of the Central Pacific. andcoauthor of Sea Soldiers inthe Cold War: Amphibious Warfare,, 1945-1991. Alexander served for twenty-eight years in the Marine Corps before retiring as a colonel and starting a writing career. He serves as the chief historian and scriptwriter of history TV documentaries for Lou Reda Productions that are aired on the History Channel of the Arts and Entertainment network.The late Don Horan was a military author and documentary producer and winner of two Emmy Awards. Norman C. Stahl lent his long expertise in editing and writing on Marine history.
Excerpted from The Battle History of the U.S. Marines : A Fellowship of Valor by Joseph H. Alexander, Don Horan, Norman Stahl. Copyright © 1999. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
U. S. Marines have appropriated the term esprit de corps as theirown--their esprit, their Corps.The personal ties between a Marine and his Corps are strong. Marines believe in their Corps. They also believe that they are the best. They insist that the "M" in "Marine" be capitalized.The highest accolade they can bestow on a member of another service is "Hewould make a good Marine." Part of that esprit, perhaps the very root, is that Marines are much aware of their history and traditions. In recruit training, enlisted Marines get a good dose of both in "boot camp" at Parris Island or San Diego. So do the new lieutenants, who after pursuing one of the several pathways to a Marine commission, go to The Basic School at Quantico. "TBS" is well titled; it is where the basics are taught, and history and traditions form a basic foundation for belief in the Corps. And injections of traditions and customs, even language, continue for the rest of their time in the Corps.
Through the pages of The Battle History of the U. S. Marines : A Fellowship of Valor march most of the somewhat larger-than-lifesize heroes of the Corps, among them Presley O'Bannon, Archibald Henderson, Tony Waller, "Handsome Jack" Myers, Smedley Butler, John Lejeune, Dan Daly, Herman Hanneken, Chesty Puller, Lem Shepherd, Cliff Cates, Brute Krulak, Manila John Basilone, Lou Wilson, Lew Wait, Bob Barrow, the several General Smiths, including Howlin' Mad, and many more.
Marines should be forgiven if they assert a bit too aggressively that Washington might not have succeeded at Princeton if it had not been for a small battalion of Continental Marines. Or that the great frigate duels of the War of 1812 might have ended differently if it were not for the Marine sharp-shooters and grenadiers in the fighting tops of such as Old Ironsides. Marines can talk sagely about their forerunners chasing Indians through Georgia and Florida in the Seminole Wars with their Commandant of the time, Archibald Henderson, leading the regiment. They believe quite sincerely that Winfield Scott would not have taken Mexico City in 1847 except for the work of his Marine Battalion at Chapultepec and San Cosme Gate. They are apt to be silent about the Civil War. Fratricide is not to their taste. They prefer to do their fighting on foreign shores.There are fond tribal memories of expeditionary duty in such places as China, Panama, Cuba, Nicaragua, Santo Domingo, and Haiti. When Marines on guard at Guantanamo look across the wire into Castro's Cuba they know that other Marines have been on post there for a hundred years.Then there are the big wars. Marines know that other Marines went to France in the First World War. They will tell you that the Marine Brigade stopped the German army on the road to Paris with aimed fire from their Springfield rifles, then counterattacked through Belleau Wood, went forward to Soissons, and pushed on until they had cracked the Hindenburg Line.They will tell you that the Second World War, as fought in the Pacific, was particularly well suited to Marine Corps ship-to-shore talents. From their grandfathers (the tendency to join the Marines is remarkably hereditary) they have heard of such epic battles as Guadalcanal,Tarawa, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.They have been told of that bitter war in Korea where the fire-brigade defense of Pusan, MacArthur's master stroke at Inchon, and the glory of the stubborn fallback from the subzero Cbosin Reservoir faded into a War of the Outposts, while the wrangling went on over an armistice at Panmunjom.There are still Marines on active duty who were in the northern five provinces of South Vietnam. They fought in the big scraps such as Hue City and Khe Sanh and in thousands (yes, there were thousands) of nasty little fights in the rice paddies and the mountains to the west.The Marine Corps bought more than its share of that war.Marines know the importance of the Marine air-ground team. A quarter or more of today's Marines are in Marine aviation. Marines can tell you that Marine aviation got its start early, in 1912, that four squadrons were sent to France in the First World War, that the Banana Wars gave opportunities for experimentation in close air support and dive-bombing. They like to talk of the World War 11 aces, among them Joe Foss, Marion Carl, John Smith, and Pappy Boyington.They know that Marines did as much as anyone to make helicopter flight practical and that Marine helicopter pilots still fly the President of the United States and his entourage.They know also of the Harrier, a remarkable aircraft that can take off and land vertically, which the Marines brought into the U.S. Armed Forces.There are plenty of Marines around, Regulars and Reserves alike, who went to the Persian Gulf. They can tell you that General Schwarzkopf gave the Marines the task of attacking frontally against the forbidding Saddam Hussein line, while U.S. Army and Allied mechanized and armored forces made that great swinging attack around the Iraqi right flank. They will go on to say that the Marines cracked the line so deftly that the schedule for the flanking attack was advanced a day. Before and since the Persian Gulf there have been other expeditions and interventions, most of which were "humanitarian," among them: Lebanon, Panama, northern Iraq, Bangladesh, Liberia, Somalia, and a bit of Bosnia.These adventures get rehashed wherever Marines gather in the evening. Marines are not noted for their modesty. Tales get more brightly colored as they are told and retold. History becomes legend and legends can become myths, but threaded through it all is that business of esprit.
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