![]() Beans suffered heavy casualties during their more than two months ashore on Bougainville, as they fought beside Army and Marine Corps troops. ![]() Bairoko Harbor, New Georgia, in August 1943, was the final action for these men as members of the 1st and 4th Raider Battalions.īougainville, the largest of the Solomon Islands at nearly 30 miles wide and 125 miles long, was the assignment of the 2d and 3d Raider Battalions as they led the way for the 1 November 1943 invasion. For two months the 4th Raider Battalion and their colleagues from the 1st Raider Battalion joined with other Marine and Army units to fight a series of actions in the defense jungle and deep swamps. Currin, slipped ashore on New Georgia in late June 1943. Moving up the Solomon Islands chain after the capture of Guadalcanal, the 4th Raider Battalion, led by LtCol Michael S. Refitted, rested and rearmed, LtCol Carlson’s 2d Raider Battalion landed on a remote Guadalcanal beach and conducted their famous “Thirty Days Behind the Lines” operation from 4 November to 4 December. The intense and vicious close quarters fight is known as the Battle of Edson’s Ridge, or Bloody Ridge, and resulted in LtCol Edson being awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions. Lieutenant Colonel Edson and his Raiders, in conjunction with the Marine Corps’ 1st Parachute Battalion, left their mark on the Guadalcanal campaign during the night of 13-14 September. The raid inflicted heavy damage and forced the Japanese to divert troops from reinforcing Guadalcanal. Carlson, landed from two submarines on Butaritari Island, Makin Atoll. Ten days later a force of 221 men from the 2d Raider Battalion, nicknamed “Carlson’s Raiders” for its commanding officer, LtCol Evans F. Tested first during the 7 August 1942 Guadalcanal landing, Edson’s Raiders, the 1st Raider Battalion, struck at Tulagi, an island across the channel from the main landing force. Organized in January 1942 and disbanded just two years later, the Raider Battalions were developed as a Marine Corps special missions force, based on the success of the British commandos and Chinese guerrillas operating in northern China.įrom Guadalcanal and the Makin Atoll to Bougainville and New Georgia, lightly armed and intensely trained Raiders had a three-fold mission: spearhead larger amphibious landings on beaches thought to be inaccessible, conduct raids requiring surprise and high speed, and operate as guerilla units for lengthy periods behind enemy lines. Edson and almost 5,000 Marine Corps Raiders of World War II were legend in the South Pacific.
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