News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: WW II Raiders Not Forgotten

Date: February 23, 2002

"Former Marine seeks peace for nine WWII Raiders executed on Kwajalein
By Rick Chernitzer, Stars and StripesStripes Sunday magazine, February 10, 2002

KWAJALEIN, Republic of the Marshall Islands — If Ben Carson gets his wish, nine of his fellow warriors will finally come home.

The former Marine, once a member of an elite group known as the Raiders, is searching for the remains of nine Marine Raiders who were executed on this tiny island in the central Pacific.

A vacant lot across the street from a Japanese cemetery might contain their burial site. The pit where they could have been interred is no longer there, possibly covered by years of construction. But during World War II, it appears likely this spot was a place where death was meted out.

Based on testimony and information from a variety of sources, the men were executed a few feet from where Carson, 80, stood. Carson, along with his friend Lou Zamperini, a celebrated World War II prisoner of war, came to Kwajalein recently to watch the U.S. Army’s Central Identification Laboratory scour a tiny field for the Marines’ remains.

Carson’s journey to this day started decades ago, when he first learned that the nine had been stranded on Butaritari, the main island of Makin Atoll following a raid there in August 1942.

‘Some nutty major’

The Raiders were an experiment. Their leader, Lt. Col. Evans Carlson, was looking for a new way to fight a war.

Based on years of observing the Chinese during the country’s revolutionary wars of the 1930s, Carlson reasoned that guerrilla tactics were the key to beating the Japanese.

Carson had been in the Marine Corps mere weeks. He signed up five days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, leaving his home in Mora, Minn.

After a shortened boot camp, he found himself guarding empty garbage cans. Then, he heard about Carlson.

"Somebody say there was this nutty major who was going to offer everybody a chance to go to war right now. And he’ll probably attack Japan right off.

"In our tent, you were considered an idiot if you joined this outfit."

Carson volunteered.

He was accepted and shipped to a farm near San Diego for five months of intense training. The training focused heavily on hand-to-hand combat, long hikes and weapons proficiency.

Carlson’s training techniques were unconventional. For one, officers had to forgo their traditional privileges, having to sleep, eat and assimilate with the enlisted ranks. Carlson also wouldn’t allow his troops any liberty during their training.

"Everything we were being taught was … unorthodox," he said. "None of this standing up in formation … we were just a bunch of pirates."

First blood

As Carlson was training his troops, Adm. Chester Nimitz was conducting his famous battle for the island of Guadalcanal.

He ordered Carlson’s Raiders to target Makin Atoll in the Gilbert Islands. Their mission was to infiltrate enemy defenses, wreak havoc among the troops, gain whatever intelligence they could find, and destroy enemy installations.

But their biggest purpose, Carson said, was to distract the Japanese attention from Guadalcanal. Makin Atoll is more than 1,000 miles to the northeast.

Their uniforms dyed coal black to blend into the night, the Raiders left Pearl Harbor Aug. 7, 1942. Companies A and B of the 2nd Raiders Battalion, 222 Marines, embarked aboard two converted submarines, the Argonaut and the Nautilus, and headed across the South Pacific to Butaritari, the largest island of the atoll.

The plan was to get to shore on rubber boats for a sneak assault. It was about 4:30 a.m., and the sea was rough — one of many things that didn’t go right for the Raiders that day.

Many of the poorly designed outboard motors failed in the surf. The Raiders had to paddle against tremendous waves, often falling out of the rafts and being pushed along by the waves to shore.

"All we wanted to do was find land," Carson said.

Eventually, most of the Raiders made it to the beach undetected. One boat couldn’t stay with the group and ended up on the other side of the beach, behind the enemy.

Carson was directed to his primary target: a British hut near the beach called the Government House. Intelligence reports suggested it was officers’ quarters. It turned out to be empty.

Then the Raiders’ advantage was lost when a Marine accidentally discharged a weapon while trying to load it. Japanese snipers — tied to the tops of palm trees — rained a hail of bullets on the troops moving across the beach.

"They took a toll on our guys, took a lot of our guys before we found out where they were," he said.

By midmorning, the Raiders and the Japanese defenders were caught in a horrific firefight. Eighteen Raiders were killed, including Marine reservist Sgt. Clyde Thomason, who died while exposing himself to the enemy to help direct his platoon’s fire. He became the first enlisted Marine to earn the Medal of Honor in World War II. Dozens more were wounded and evacuated to the Government House near the beach.

Despite strafing runs from Japanese Zeros and seaplanes landing in the lagoon with fresh enemy troops, the Raiders kept pushing the fight.

Carlson, not sure how big a force he was facing, eventually decided to withdraw his forces to the submarines.

He paid a Makin Islander $50 to bury the 18 casualties and then ordered retreat. A 20-man force had been left ashore to provide cover. Carson was among them. The burial site for the 18 was discovered in 1999. They were finally buried on American soil last August.

At first the withdrawal went smoothly, but the waves started to work against them and, with flooded-out engines, the boats were unable to take the ocean’s pounding. As the boats capsized, Marines began washing up ashore without weapons or medical supplies.

"He was losing weapons; the wounded were being dumped in the surf. We were losing the paddles, we were losing everything. The outboard motors were already gone … He must have thought this was the low point of the raid," Carson said.

Talk of surrender

Carson said a private told him, "We’re all on our own; the colonel’s going to surrender."

"That was the worst message I had ever received in my life," he said. "Eight months in the service, minimum training, and now we’re going to quit. And why? We had been taught to probe the enemy … you never accept what the enemy is doing. And then all of sudden, here we are, we were going to quit."

Carson sent another private to ask permission to leave their weapons with the Raiders and try to get to one of the submarines. They were told to go for it.

"We organized a rubber boat we found in the surf, upside down, stuck the paddles under the seats, and we swore to each other that nobody was getting into that boat until we were through the surf."

All but 30 members of the Raiders team made it back to the subs, which made their way to Pearl Harbor.

The reception the Raiders received when they returned to Pearl Harbor caught Carson by surprise. Nimitz was on hand to personally congratulate them. The press wrote glowing, and somewhat fictional, accounts of their exploits. Hollywood sealed the myth for posterity with the 1943 movie, "Gung Ho!" starring Robert Mitchum and Randolph Scott, who portrayed Carlson.

"That movie was a load of crap," Carson proclaimed. "At the premiere, I started to walk out, but my sergeant put his hand on my shoulder, and pushed me back into my seat. ‘You’re going to sit and watch this,’ he told me."

Many participants were highly decorated for the mission, including Carlson, who received the Navy Cross. But Carson said he could never understand why.

"To me, it was the most screwed-up thing I ever got involved in. And all of these other people are saying something else, I must be nuts or something."

The search was on

It wasn’t until 1958 that Carson discovered anyone had been left behind on Butaritari. He left the Marines as a corporal in January 1946 and went to college. He became a ranger with the National Park Service in Michigan.

One night while gossiping on the radio with another ranger, he heard about a magazine "noting all of the Marine Corps screw-ups, and your Makin raid is right on top of the list."

"It said we left nine guys behind there and they were taken to Kwajalein and beheaded. It hit me hard."

He wrote the Marine Corps commandant, but only got "a sanitized version" of what happened. The Marines admitted that men were left behind and dropped it at that. Over the years, as he kept up his insistence that their status needed to be resolved, he found even some of his former buddies began to line up against him.

Carson said he thinks some people want to drop this search because it could prove embarrassing to them and to the medals they received.

"They ask me why do I want to tear down an icon" like Carlson, "but it’s just that I want to straighten out history. I want the truth to be out there. And a lot of people can’t swallow that."

Carson started writing political leaders and military officials, trying to find out what he could about the missing Marines.

Then came Lou Zamperini.

Zamperini had been an Army Air Forces captain, part of a B-24 crew that developed engine trouble over the Pacific while on a search-and-rescue mission in 1943. After spending 47 days adrift on a life raft, fighting off dehydration, exposure, sharks and the occasional Japanese dive bomber, Zamperini was spotted and brought aboard a Japanese ship, and eventually taken to Kwajalein.

While being held on the island for 43 days, Zamperini said he noticed an engraved message on a cell wall, stating nine Marines were "marooned" on Makin on Aug. 18, 1942. It then listed their names. When Zamperini asked a guard what happened to the men, the guard replied by gesturing with his finger sliding across his neck, indicating they were beheaded.

Zamperini had been a member of the 1936 U.S. Olympic Track Team, and had gained fame even in Japan, which he believes is the reason why he wasn’t executed on Kwajalein. He eventually was taken to Japan, where he was held until the end of the war.

But the names of those nine Marines haunted him for years. In 1998, Zamperini was invited to help carry the Olympic Torch in Nagano, as part of the Winter Games. He was interviewed on the television news program "48 Hours."

Carson heard Zamperini’s story and contacted him.

"I felt vindicated because here was a guy that was there and he saw it," he said.

"I was so thrilled to see him … somebody who had the answers on the other side and I had the answers on this side."

The pair met for the first time when they boarded a plane together to come to Kwajalein.

Retracing their steps

At the excavation site, the identification lab’s team — augmented with volunteers and paid Marshallese laborers — happily greeted the pair.

Team leader Dr. Greg Fox talked with the men, explaining the difficulties involved with the search, such as the coral lying beneath the soil. Moisture had caused the crushed coral to harden like cement.

Using detailed maps and drawings, Fox showed Carson where the doomed men might have been held prior to being marched out to the field. Carson had asked to retrace their steps.

"What an awful feeling. It was the worst," Carson said, "because it could have been me."

Both men walked around the site, talking to the team members, thanking them for their efforts, and admiring some of the items found so far, including artillery shell casings and pieces of Japanese pottery.

"You boys sure drank a lot of Coke back in those days," Fox said jokingly, referring to the 1940s-era Coca-Cola bottles found during the dig.

The lab’s team is expected to stay until the middle of February. They arrived here Jan. 8, after months of preparation and negotiations with the Marshallese government.

"I’m really appreciative of what they had to do to get permission from the government," Carson said. "I sure really appreciate their effort to push this.

"I never thought it would happen," Carson said as he watched the work. "All I ever ran into was, ‘It’s too difficult.’"

After a morning under the bright sun, the two men found a couple chairs in the shade of a palm tree.

"Whole lot of coral out there, Lou."

"Yeah, looks like we won World War II."

"Good," Carson replied. "It went on long enough.""