When the U.S. Marine Corps established its special operations component in 2006, the new Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command, or MARSOC, immediately wanted to create a link between itself and the Marine Raiders, a storied, specialized commando force from World War II. But military forces are, as a general rule, steeped in history and lore with complex and often pedantic rules and regulations to uphold those traditions and the honors that come along with them and new documents show the service's own historians were vehemently opposed to the idea. In August 2014, then Commandant of the Marine Corps General James Amos announced he had finally approved the decision to rename all of the units under Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command, or MARSOC, as Marine Raiders. The Marine Special Operations Battalions became Marine Raider Battalions, for example, while the Marine Special Operations Regiment turned into the Marine Raider Regiment. The original Marine Raiders came into existence in 1942 to support operations against the Japanese during World War II, before becoming the 4th Marine Regiment in 1944.

“MARSOC is the modern-day embodiment of the Marine Raiders of World War II,” U.S. Marine Corps Captain Barry Morris, then a spokesman for the command, said in a statement at the time, according to Marine Corps Times. “We feel we owe it to those Marine Raiders still alive and their families to make every attempt” to maintain their legacy. Behind closed, doors, however, at least two official Marine Corps historians – including one from MARSOC’s own history office – had been apoplectic about the name change. They registered their complaints in writing, which we at The War Zone only recently obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request that dates back to 2015. Censors redacted both individuals’ names for privacy reasons.

USAF A Marine Raider, at left, together with other U.S. and foreign special operators forces during a demonstration as part of the annual Special Operations Forces Industry Conference in May 2018.

“MARSOC claims to the Raider title are based on a perceived legacy that is largely mythological,” the command’s historian wrote in an information paper dated June 2, 2014. “MARSOC has no claim to the Raiders’ lineage and honors, which are currently held by organizations that were formed directly from the original Raider battalions.” To rewind quickly, the World War II-era Marine Raiders themselves have almost as much claim to controversy as combat achievements. Formed just over two months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt had personally ordered the Marines to create the specialized units over the service’s not inconsequential protests.

USMC A Marine Raider in a dive tank gestures to a civilian wearing a Raider-themed t-shirt during a public demonstration.

U.S. Army Colonel William “Wild Bill” Donovan, then in charge of the clandestine Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and who became the chief post-war architect of the Central Intelligence Agency, and U.S. Marine Corps Major Evans Carlson, were both instrumental in the Raider proposal. Carlson was a veteran of the "Punitive Expedition" to kill or capture Mexican rebel Pancho Villa and one of the numerous American interventions in Nicaragua. He had gone on to serve in China, where he closely studied the tactics of Communist forces fighting the Japanese in the 1930s. Donovan and Carlson strongly believed there was a unique value in crafting small raiding parties to harass the enemy behind the front lines, forcing them to divert resources to handle the incursions and protect key locations. U.S. Navy Admiral Chester Nimitz, who became head of the Pacific Fleet immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack, was also eager to get “commando” units to attack lightly defended Japanese island outposts.

USMC U.S. Marine Corps Major Evans Carlson.

Between 1942 and 1944, the Marine Raiders, which eventually consisted of four full battalions organized into a single regiment, were a key part of operations, particularly during the island-hopping campaigns across the Central Pacific. They also became well known for experimenting with new fighting doctrine and tactics, as well as weapons and equipment, including camouflage uniforms. But despite the success of the Raiders, Carlson proved to be a divisive figure within the Marine Corps. He had active connections with Communist and Leftist groups, which he had established to solicit aid for China in its fight against the Japanese.

NARA Marine Raiders at Bougainville in the Solomon Islands in January 1944, shortly before the Marines renamed the units as elements of the 4th Marine Regiment.

The Marine Corps Major had brought the service’s now widely known mantra “Gung Ho” back from China, where Communist insurgents rallied under the slogan “gōnghé,” which literally translates to “work together.” He espoused lessons inspired in no small part by what he had seen in his travels with Mao Tse Tung and Zhou Enlai. The Marine officer also imparted a concept of “ethical indoctrination” on units under his command, which emphasized the role of non-commissioned officers in helping commissioned officers. The Marine Corps saw this in part as encouraging lower ranking personnel to question superiors and their orders. For the service’s senior leadership, the Raiders represented an organization within an organization, which they found almost completely antithetical to their own experience.

USMC/Wikimedia The insignia of the modern day Marine Raider Regiment, at left, which features the Chinese characters for "gōnghé," and the original World War II insignia, at right.

“The Marine Corps has always felt that its infantry elements are essentially raiders and that the Pacific conditions are different from the European which resulted in the establishment of commandos,” the Pacific Section of the War Plans Division within the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations explained in a memo in 1943. “It would like to end its raider program so as to make all infantry organizations uniform and to avoid setting up some organizations as elite or selected troops.” In 1944, the service won out, transforming the Raiders into the 4th Marine Regiment. Carlson died in 1947, escaping what would almost certainly have been serious post-war scrutiny over his leftist activities. Though the Marine Raiders have become a fixture in popular culture since World War II, the Marine Corps’ mixture of ambivalence and open hostility to the organization never really went away. The Marines rejected MARSOC’s request to use the name in 2006 and again in 2011. Before then, the service had fought against the idea of sending personnel off to form its own dedicated special operations entity for decades, arguing that its units were already “special operations capable,” essentially the same logic it had used to oppose the Raiders.

Patrick J. Rogers via USMC Members of Marine Corps Special Operations Command Detachment One, the predecessor to Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command, circa 2003.

“Your allegiance, your loyalty … is to the Marine Corps, based on the title you have on your uniform,” Amos reportedly told a gathering of other generals in 2011. “He made it clear that the tie, the connection to our past is absolutely important to him, but we're not going to name a unit by some naming convention – any unit in the Marine Corps – because we're Marines first,” Brigadier General David Berger, director of operations at Marine Corps headquarters, told Marine Corps Times after that event. MARSOC’s historian went so far as to cite the 1943 War Plans Division memo detailing opposition to the original Raiders in explaining their own reticence to the idea. They also reiterated that the Raider legacy already lived on in the Marine Corps, with the 4th Marine Regiment. “The Raider name went away, but these Marines fought on under the Fourth Marines’ colors,” they noted. “I have studied, taught, and written history for three decades, and while I am familiar with the battles they fought in, I have never encountered the glamorization of the Raiders that one encounters at MARSOC. Frankly, it is based on a misinterpretation of history that is so far-fetched it borders on fabrication.” “Discussions with younger Staff Noncommissioned Officers reveal that they believe the Raider tradition has been passed on to MARSOC through the Reconnaissance community,” they continued. “However, I can find nothing to substantiate this claim beyond word of mouth/social media examples.”

USMC Marine Raiders train with AK-type rifles during a foreign weapon familiarization course.