Colonel Joseph H. Alexander, USMC (Ret), served 29 years on active duty in the Marine Corps as an assault amphibian officer, including two tours in Vietnam. He is a distinguished graduate of the Naval War College and holds degrees in history from North Carolina, Georgetown, and Jacksonville. He is a life member of both the Marine Corps Historical Foundation and the Naval Institute, a member of the Society for Military History, the Military Order of the World Wars, and the North Carolina Writers’ Workshop. Colonel Alexander, an independent historian, wrote _Across the Reef: The Marine Assault on Tarawa_ in this series. He is co-author (with Lieutenant Colonel Merrill L. Bartlett) of _Sea Soldiers in the Cold War_ (Naval Institute Press, 1994) and the author of “Utmost Savagery: the Amphibious Seizure of Tarawa” (Naval Institute Press, pending). He has also written numerous feature essays published in _Marine Corps Gazette_, _Naval Institute Proceedings_, _Naval History_, _Leatherneck_, _Amphibious Warfare Review_, _World War Two_, and _Florida Historical Quarterly_. [Illustration] THIS PAMPHLET HISTORY, one in a series devoted to U.S. Marines in the World War II era, is published for the education and training of Marines by the History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Washington, D.C., as a part of the U.S. Department of Defense observance of the 50th anniversary of victory in that war. Editorial costs of preparing this pamphlet have been defrayed in part by a grant from the Marine Corps Historical Foundation. WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES _DIRECTOR OF MARINE CORPS HISTORY AND MUSEUMS_ =Brigadier General Edwin H. Simmons, USMC (Ret)= _GENERAL EDITOR, WORLD WAR II COMMEMORATIVE SERIES_ =Benis M. Frank= _CARTOGRAPHIC CONSULTANT_ =George C. MacGillivray= _EDITING AND DESIGN SECTION, HISTORY AND MUSEUMS DIVISION_ =Robert E. Struder=, Senior Editor; =W. Stephen Hill=, Visual Information Specialist =Catherine A. Kerns=, Composition Services Technician Marine Corps Historical Center Building 58, Washington Navy Yard Washington, D.C. 20374-5040 1994 PCN 190 003131 00 [Illustration] Transcriber’s Notes Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. Simple typographical errors and unbalanced quotation marks were corrected.