THE CORPS is respectfully dedicated to the memory of Second Lieutenant Drew James Barrett III, USMC Company K, 3d Battalion, 26th Marines. Born Denver, Colorado, 3
January 1945, Died Quang Nam Province, Republic of Vietnam, 27 February 1969 and Major Alfred Lee Butler 111, USMC Headquarters 22nd Marine Amphibious Unit. Born Washington, D.C., 4 September 1950, Died Beirut, Lebanon, 8 February 1984 “Semper Fi!”
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.
