by Daniel Wrinn
The course focused on individual skills and small unit tactics: scouting, patrolling, marksmanship, physical conditioning, and hand-to-hand combat.
Raiders Weapons and Equipment
Because raiders were given special priority early in the war, battalions had plenty of opportunities to experiment with new equipment and weapons. This resulted in an exciting collection of items unique to the raiders. The most famous of these were various models of knives. One was a heavy Bowie-type knife with a nine-inch-long blade. These were made exclusively for the 2nd Raiders and known as “Gung Ho” knives.
A lighter, stiletto-type knife molded on the British commandos fighting knife was also popular and issued to all four battalions.
Emphasis on rapid movement and mobility drove both Edson and Carlson to emphasize lighter weapons with heavy firepower. Both men agreed that the standard heavy machine guns and 81mm mortars carried by regular infantry were burdensome and adopted more lightweight models.
The 2nd Raiders were among the first Marine units to receive the semiautomatic .30-caliber rifle as standard issue. Most units, even the 1st Raiders, began the Guadalcanal campaign with the old bolt action Springfield M1903.
The BAR (Browning automatic rifle), Reising submachine gun, and Thompson submachine gun were preferred weapons (particularly by the 2nd Raiders where each team had a BAR and Thompson).
Perhaps the strangest weapon employed by the raiders was the Boys antitank rifle. A 35-pound goliath that fired a 55-caliber round. Edson adopted these Canadian weapons to provide his men with a light but functional capability against enemy armor. This rifle also saw use with other raider battalions. The heavy round was accurate at over a thousand yards. The 2nd Raiders used Boys antitank rifles on Makin Island to destroy a pair of Japanese seaplanes.
Raiders experimented with several odd equipment items as well—everything from a collapsible bicycle to belly bands. Carlson introduced a cloth rectangle that could be wrapped around the torso, which supposedly prevented intestinal disorders. The 2nd Raiders also had a hunting jacket that doubled as a pack—of course called the “Gung Ho” jacket.
Edson’s men used portable, individual field stoves, toggle ropes, and other innovative items. The eight-foot toggle ropes had a peg at one end and a loop at the other and were helpful in scaling cliffs. Raiders also pioneered camouflage patterns on their uniforms using burlap strips to break up their distinctive helmet outline.
The Raider Patch
The 1st Marine Division insignia was the first use of Marine Corps shoulder patches in World War II after the Guadalcanal campaign.
This was not a new practice for the Marines. Members of the 4th Marine Brigade wore the Indian head and the Star patch of the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division in France in World War I.
The 1st Marine Division’s emblem was the word “Guadalcanal” on a white and red number 1 placed on a blue diamond. The white stars of the Southern Cross surrounded the numeral. By July 1943, the I Marine Amphibious Corps adopted a variation for its patch—a red diamond with a white border circled by the white stars of the Southern Cross on a five-sided blue background.
Non-divisional units each had a specific symbol inside the red diamond. The emblem of the I MAC raider battalions was a skull. While not the most artistic of Marine Corps shoulder patches—it was the most noticeable.
The skull emblem originated with the 2nd Raiders after they came into existence. Carlson issued paper emblems with a skull-like face on top of crossed scimitars before the Makin Island raid. Each piece of paper was backed with glue.
Carlson wanted his raiders to use them to mark enemy dead for psychological effects (but they stuck together in the humid tropics and became impractical). By the time Carlson’s Raiders reached Guadalcanal, the emblem had evolved into a skull backed by a crossed “Gung Ho” knife and lightning bolt.
It is still unclear who selected the skull for the official raider patch. Still, that patch conveyed the image that the raiders successfully developed—an elite force trained to eliminate the enemy in commando-style operations.
General Evans Carlson
Evans Carlson was a maverick from a young age. He ran away from his home in Vermont at fourteen. Two years later, he lied about his age and enlisted in the Army.
When the United States entered World War I in April of 1917, Carlson had five years of service under his belt. He soon earned a commission but arrived at the front too late to see combat.
After the war, he attempted to make it as a salesman but gave up in 1922 and enlisted in the Marine Corps. In a few months, he earned a commission again. Other than a failed attempt at flight school, his several years as a Marine lieutenant were unremarkable.
Carlson deployed to Shanghai with the 4th Marines in 1927. He became the regimental intelligence officer and developed a deep interest in China, which shaped the rest of his life.
Three years later, he commanded an outpost of the Guardia National in Nicaragua and had his first brush with guerrilla warfare. This became the second guiding star of his career. In his only battle, he engaged and dispatched an enemy unit during a daring night attack. Following that, he was assigned to the Legation Guard in Peking and had a stint as an executive officer of the presidential guard detachment at Warm Springs, Georgia. This is where he came to know FDR.
Captain Carlson arrived in Shanghai in July 1937 for his third China tour. Much like Edson, he watched the Japanese seize control of the city. While detailed to duty as an observer, Carlson sought and received permission to accompany the Chinese Communist’s 8th Route Army, which fought the Japanese.
For a year, he spent his time in the front lines of the temporary Chinese capital of Hangkow. Here, he developed his theories on guerrilla warfare and ethical indoctrination. When a senior naval officer censured him for granting newspaper interviews, Carlson returned to the states and resigned to advocate about the situation in China. He passionately believed the United States should have done more to help the Chinese in their war with Japan.
For the next two years, Carlson spoke and wrote widely on the subject. He published two books (Twin Stars of China and The Chinese Army) and returned to China. When war loomed on the horizon for the United States, he sought to rejoin the Marine Corps. In April 1941, General Holcomb granted his request and made him a major in the reserves—and brought him on active duty. Ten months later, Carlson had created the 2nd Raiders.
After he departed the 2nd Raiders in 1943, Carlson served as an operations officer in the 4th Marine Division. He made the Tarawa landings as an observer and took part in the assaults on Saipan and Kwajalein. On Saipan, he was injured in the arm and leg trying to pull his wounded radio operator out of the line of fire from an enemy machine gun.
Carlson retired from the Marine Corps and made a brief run in 1946 for the California Senate before a heart attack forced him out of the campaign.
He died in May 1947 at only fifty-one years of age.
General Merritt Edson
In the fall of 1915, Edson enlisted in the 1st Vermont Infantry (a National Guard unit). In 1916, he served in the Mexican border campaign. When the United States entered World War I, he earned a commission as a Marine officer but did not arrive in France until just before the armistice.
He eventually made up for missing out on the Great War. In 1921, he began his long career of competitive shooting as part of a 10-man team, winning the national rifle team trophy for the Marine Corps.
He earned his pilot wings in 1922 and flew for five years before poor depth perception forced him to return to the infantry. In 1927, he took command of the Marine detachment on board the Denver. He became involved in the effort to rid Nicaragua of Augusto Sandino and spent fourteen months in the deep interior of the country. Edson earned a reputation as an aggressive and savvy small unit leader.
He defeated Sandino’s forces over a dozen times and was awarded the Navy Cross for valor—earning his nickname “Red Mike” because of the colorful beard he kept in
the field.
In the early 1930s, Edson was a tactics instructor at the Basic School for new lieutenants. Then, as an ordinance officer at the Philadelphia Depot of Supplies. Despite his impaired depth perception he continued to shoot competitively—and captained the rifle team to two consecutive national championships in 1935 in 1936.
In the summer of 1937, Edson was transferred to Shanghai to become the operations officer for the 4th Marines. He arrived just in time for a ringside seat to the Sino-Japanese war raging in Shanghai. This experience gave him plenty of opportunities to witness Japanese combat techniques at close range. In June 1941, Edson assumed command of the first 1/5 Marines at Quantico.
After his time with the 1st Raiders and 5th Marines at Guadalcanal, Edson remained in the Pacific. He served as Chief of Staff of the 2nd Marine Division on Tarawa and assistant division commander on Saipan and Tinian.
During each of these campaigns, he distinguished himself. The Marine Corps realized that Edson’s bravery under fire was only matched by his skill as a staff officer. Edson spent nine months as Chief of Staff for the Fleet Marine Force Pacific and ended the war in charge of the Service Command.
After the war, Edson headed the effort to preserve the Marine Corps in the face of Truman’s drive to unify the services. He waged fierce campaigns in the halls of Congress, the media, and public appearances across the nation. He eventually resigned his commission and was ordered to testify publicly before committees in both houses of Congress.
His efforts played a crucial role in preserving the Marine Corps.
After a stint as a Commissioner of Public Safety in Vermont and Executive Director of the National Rifle Association, Edson died in August 1955.
* * *
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References
Alexander, Joseph H. Edson’s Raiders: The 1st Marine Raider Battalion in World War II. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2000.
Gill, Lars E. “Carlson's Raid On Makin Island - the True Story of the Raid On Butaritari Island,” September 16, 2016.
McCormick, John. The Right Kind of War. Onyx, 1994.
Rottman, Gordon. US Marine Corps Pacific Theater of Operations 1944–45. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2005.
Rottman, Gordon L. U.S. Marine Corps World War II Order of Battle – Ground and Air Units in the Pacific War, 1939–1945. Greenwood Press, 2002.
Smith, George W. (2001). Carlson's Raid: The Daring Marine Assault on Makin. Novato, California: Presidio Press, 2001.
Updegraph, Charles L., Jr. (1972). U.S. Marine Corps Special Units of World War II. Washington, D.C.: Historical Division, Headquarters, United States Marine Corps. PCN 190 002596 00, 1972.
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About the Author
Daniel Wrinn writes Military History & War Stories. A US Navy veteran and avid history buff, Daniel lives in the Utah Wasatch Mountains. He writes every day with a view of the snow capped peaks of Park City to keep him c
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