W.e.b. Griffin - The Corps II - CALL TO ARMS

The Marine "Raiders" of World War II were an elite force of a few thousand then formed soon after the war began. Like British Commandos, their role was to operate behind enemy lines, attacking him where he was most vulnerable. They accomplished this job with no little success, most conspicuously on Guadalcanal later on in the war. Success being no guarantee of permanence, however, the Raiders were disbanded during 1944. Nevertheless, for the short period of their existence these brave and daring then wrote yet another magnificent chapter in the proud history of the United States Marine Corps.

This novel deals in part with the birth and early growth of the Marine Raiders and, specifically, with their first combat operation, an attack shortly after the start of the war on a more or less out-of-the-way and insignificant piece of Pacific real estate called Makin Island.

A novel, of course, is fiction, but a novel based on historical events requires some research. Brigadier General E. L. Simmons, USMC, Retired, the distinguished historian who is Director of Marine Corps History and Museums, was most helpful, providing me with a wealth of material about the Raiders generally and the Makin Operation specifically.

And then, truth being stranger than fiction, 1 learned over a glass of beer in my kitchen that my crony of twenty years, Rudolph G. Rosenquist, had not only been a Raider but serves on the Board of Directors of the Marine Raiders Association. And from Rudy I learned that another crony of twenty years, Glenn Lewis, had been a Raider officer.

I knew, of course, that both of them had been Marines, but neither had ever talked of having been a Raider. Like most then who have seen extensive combat, Raiders are notoriously closemouthed about their exploits and generally unwilling to talk to writers.

In this case, twenty years of friendship made my friends abandon that Standing Operating Procedure.

Soon after my incredible good fortune in turning up in my (population 7,000) hometown two Raiders willing to give me details of Raider life I couldn't hope to get otherwise, I was talking to another Marine friend, this one a retired senior officer, who asked me what I had managed to dig up about "the politics behind the Raiders." When I confessed I had heard nothing about that, he suggested I should look into it; I would probably find it fascinating.

Shortly afterward, I received through the mail from a party or parties unknown, a thick stack of photocopies of once TOP SECRET and SECRET, now declassified, letters, documents, and memoranda prepared at the highest levels of the government, the Navy, and the Marine Corps during the opening days of World War II.

And these were indeed fascinating: the players; what they wrote; and what lies between the lines. The Marine Corps is itself an elite body of fighting men; and the Raiders were conceived as an elite within the elite. A number of very powerful people felt strongly that an elite within an elite was a logical contradiction and that one elite was all that was necessary. These people did what they could to make sure that their view prevailed.

Since it is germane to my story, it seemed to me that some of this factual material belonged in this book.

The first document in the stack, chronologically, was Memorandum No. 94, dated 6 PM, December 22, 1941, addressed to Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States, from Colonel William J. Donovan, Coordinator of Information. It was originally classified TOP SECRET.

Donovan was a most interesting man. In World War I he had won the Medal of Honor as commander of the 169th "Fighting Irish" Infantry Regiment in France. And between the wars, he had been a successful-and highly paid-Wall Street lawyer and a very powerful political figure. Donovan's power was in no small way enhanced because he and Franklin Delano Roosevelt were friends. They had been Columbia Law School classmates together, and they had maintained and developed their relationship afterwards. In December 1941, for one dollar a year, Donovan was operating as "Coordinator of Information" out of offices in the National Institute of Health Building in Washington, D.C. The job was not, as its title might suggest, about either public relations or public information; it was about spying.

Donovan had been appointed to the position by President Roosevelt, and answered only to him. Roosevelt, using "discretionary" funds, had established the COI to serve as a clearinghouse for intelligence gathered by all military and governmental agencies. COI was to evolve later into the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and ultimately into the Central Intelligence Agency.

Donovan had unlimited private access to the President, and when he dealt with British intelligence authorities, he spoke with the authority of the President. Thus, when Donovan wrote his memorandum of December 22 to the President, he could be sure that the President would pay attention to it. The memorandum was a philosophical discussion of guerrilla warfare, a form of warfare very close to Donovan's heart; he adored anything that was clandestine.

"The principle laid down," he wrote, "is that the whole art of guerrilla warfare lies in striking the enemy where he least expects it and yet where he is the most vulnerable."

He made two specific suggestions for implementing this principle. The first dealt with the Azores and North Africa, where he recommended that "the aid of native chiefs be obtained; the loyalty of the inhabitants be cultivated; Fifth columnists organized and placed, demolition material cached; and guerrilla bands of bold and daring then organized and installed."

The second suggestion dealt with American military forces. He asked:

2. That there be organized now, in the United States, a guerrilla corps independent and separate from the Army and Navy, and imbued with a maximum of the offensive and imaginative spirit. This force should, of course, be created along disciplined military lines, analogous to the British Commando principle, a statement of which I sent you recently.

Just over two weeks later, on January 8, 1942, Admiral Ernest J. King, the senior officer of the Navy, to which service the Marine Corps is subordinate, sent a SECRET memorandum to the Major General Commandant (The traditional title of the senior officer of the Marine Corps, Major General Commandant, was in its last days. Holcomb shortly became the first Lieutenant General of the Marine Corps, and assumed the simple title of Commandant) of the Marine Corps, Major General Thomas Holcomb.

The subject was "Use of 'Commandos' in Pacific Fleet Area":

1. The Secretary, [the Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox, a

close and longtime friend of Colonel Donovan] told me that

the President is much interested in the development and use of

the equivalent of British 'commandos'.

2. The Secretary told the President that you have such

groups in training.

3. The President proposed the use of 'commandos' as

essential parts of raiding expeditions which attack (destroy)

enemy advanced (seaplane) bases in the Pacific Fleet area.

4. Please let me have your views-and proposals-as to

such use.

Five days after this, on 13 January 1942, a reserve captain of the Marine Corps stationed at Camp Elliott near San Diego, California, addressed a letter to the Major General Commandant of the Marine Corps. The subject of the letter was "Development within the Marine Corps of a unit for purposes similar to the British Commandos and the Chinese Guerrillas."

It was not common then, nor is it now, for lowly captains of the reserve to write letters to the Commandant of the Marine Corps setting out in detail how they think the Commandant should wage war.