Marines fought Axis forces in Operation Torch in North Africa, landed on D-Day, parachuted behind enemy lines in France, made commando raids in Italy, and attacked German submarines in the Caribbean. Compiled from years of research from the National Archives, databases, and private collections, this is a new look at USMC in WW2.
I have known about some of the USMCs activities in theaters other than the Pacific for quite some time. I look forward to this release so I can substantially expand that knowledge.
Accounts of the Marines on D day and how they just ran through machine gun fire like it was nothing.. damn the wounded damn the dead just keep moving twords the enemy.. they German’s were rattled by the fierce advance. There was never much more of a mention of the Marines during the period of D-Day or operations in Italy I never heard of any of that the Caribbean yeah cuz they were attached with the US Navy. But there’s never anything mentioned of them. I’m glad somebody decided to give the crayon eaters there due.
I was schooled many years ago by a very well studied Marine officer that the Army never hit any beach first in WWII. There were always Marines in front of them. Finally the stories are told.
I had no idea. Over the years I would occasionally search for information if Marines participated in the ETO and never found anything outside of their Iceland activities. What little mention they received made it sound like they were part of a ship’s compliment that went ashore is a guard for some VIP. I will acquire this book because I want to know if that’s because of inter-service rivalry suppressing USMC by the Army. Which seems really strange considering how famous the Marines are from the First World War.
Yes, it was rivalry. To a certain extent it was warranted as the news media hyped the Marines and misreported the US Army deeds during WWI. This was the minds of Army generals during the landing when Marines might have landed to support the Rangers at Point Du Hoc.
Nope. At Okinawa, the Marine divisions fought under US 10th Army command direction, General Buckner. In Korea 1st Marine Division was assigned to US Army X Corps for the 1950 battles.
Geiger taking command speaks volumes to his perceived command abilities at Okinawa. It’s been awhile since I’ve read up on that battle, but I vaguely remember that was outside the pre designated chain of command.
In the 1941/42 Philippine campaign, I believe the Marines had been withdrawn from China in late 1941 and added to US Army forces there as part of that doomed endeavor.
I was in USMC’s 2nd Light Armored Infantry in the Gulf War. We got attached to US ARMY 2nd Armored Division’s Tiger Brigade. Abrams tanks (Marines only had M60A5s at least where I was) and Hot chow TWICE a day, not once. Woo Hoo!
I could be wrong, but I WAS an armor and military vehicle buff even then, able to ID models and countries of origin most times that we came across them. I can now only recall that they had 105s and reactive armor.
