Forty Hours on Makin

The night of August 17, when the Marines landed on Makin Island, was dark and rainy. The surf was high. Captain James N. M. Davis of Evanston, Ill. lost his pants in the waves. Major James Roosevelt of Washington, second in command to Lieut. Colonel Evans F. Carlson, cut his left index finger on a piece of coral. But the Marines, their faces and hands daubed green to blend with the foliage, all got ashore.

First on the beach was Lieut. Wilfred S. Le-Franc,ois of Watertown, N.Y., with his assault detachment. He and his men had 20 quiet minutes on the island, while rain beat their faces and they edged through the tall palms. Then the Japs discovered them and let loose with a machine gun. Five bullets bore into Lieut. Le-Franc,ois' left shoulder. He and his men returned the fire and went on.

In the meantime Colonel Carlson had led the main group of Marines toward the heart of the island. They crept into several shacks, found them empty except for such things as a piano and a roll of sacred music (the Marines found no trace of several Catholic nuns who had been on the islands). The clatter of the Jap machine gun, firing at Lieut. Le-Franc,ois, first told Colonel Carlson that his landing had been detected. Then the Marines heard the hard chatter of truck and motorcycle engines, the flat crack of snipers' bullets from the palms. One by one the snipers were killed, but they did not fall from the trees. For many days, so the handsome and friendly Polynesians on the island told Colonel Carlson, the Japs had been strapped into the trees, occasionally receiving food and water from the unwilling natives.

Through the night and into the next morning the Japs met Carlson's men with rifles, machine guns and automatic grenade-throwers. Each machine gun and grenade nest had to be exterminated, to the last Jap. Corporal Edward R. Wygel of Milner, Idaho killed all but two Japs at a machine gun with a hand grenade. He then killed one of the two with a pistol, the other with his knife.

Lieut. Oscar Peatross of Raleigh, N.C. found his detachment in the Japs' rear. Three of his men were killed. Lieut. Peatross and the rest burned trucks, killed Jap couriers, destroyed a radio station, finally fought their way back to the beach and returned to their ship, wondering what had happened to Carlson and the main detachment.

Sergeant Jim Faulkner of Red Oak, Tex. got shot through the hand.

"Goddamit, they got me," Sergeant Faulkner cried, and went on fighting.

He was hit in the head.

"Goddamit, they got me again," Sergeant Faulkner yelped.

He was hit in the side. His howl rang through the palms.

"Goddamit, they got me!"

He was hit in the leg.

"Goddamit," Sergeant Faulkner announced, "they got me!"

Finally persuaded to return to the beach and his ship, he awoke after an hour and a half on the operating table and turned to the surgeon.

"Goddamit," said Sergeant Faulkner, "you are trying to starve me!"

He then sat up and had a bowl of soup.

They Wanted Prisoners. The chief of the islanders gave pantsless Captain Davis a sarong. Other natives ignored the Japanese fire, plied the Marines with coconuts and coconut juice, told them where the Japs were concentrated. Three times during the day Jap bombers came over, did more harm to their own forces than to the Marines. U.S. machine-gunners on the shore destroyed two planes which landed in Makin's still lagoon.

Lieut. Charles T. Lamb of Snow Hill, N.C. was wounded in the head and shoulder. After his wounds were dressed he returned to his men and decided to board a Jap sloop in the lagoon. A Jap marine fired through a porthole, missed. Lieut. Lamb tossed a grenade into the Japanese boat, clambered aboard and polished off the Jap.

Private James Hawkins of South Gate, Calif, has a fearsome red beard. He met eight Japs, killed three of them. They shot him in both sides of his chest. Supposedly dying, Private Hawkins was removed to a ship. Early next morning someone found him walking the decks. "I had a hunch that if I got up and took a walk I'd live," Private Hawkins explained. He was right.

Toward the end of the fighting, the natives told Colonel Carlson that only eight Japs were left alive. They were all snipers, strapped in the trees. Marines killed six, but never did find the other two. Colonel Carlson figured that he and his men had killed 198 of the 200 Jap marines on the island (plus 150 more who went down on two Japanese ships which U.S. warships sank in the harbor). Colonel Carlson found the body of the Japanese commander, took his sword (which was later presented to Admiral Nimitz in Honolulu). The Marines lost fewer than 20 dead. Said Colonel Carlson: "We wanted to take prisoners, but we couldn't find any."

The raiders destroyed three radio stations, 1,000 gallons of gasoline, many trucks and other military stores. They also found many a record of pre-war U.S. policy: the trucks had been made in the U.S., the gasoline containers bore the trade-mark of a U.S. refiner, the Jap garrison's corned beef had a U.S. label on the cans. Makin after the raid looked better to Colonel Carlson. Said he: "It was a sight to see. There were dead Japs all over the place."

They Sing for Themselves. After 40 hours on Makin Island Colonel Carlson, Major Roosevelt and their men returned to Honolulu last week with their naval escort.

"Did you kill any Japs?" reporters asked Major Roosevelt, who was nursing his finger in a bandage.

"Shot at a couple of snipers," he replied. "We got 'em."

Carlson began to train the battalion for kill-&-run work last December. He got his grounding in such warfare in China, where he campaigned with China's famed Communist Eighth Route Army. When the Navy Department tried to shush his outspoken praise of the Chinese he quit the Marine Corps. He returned to duty after Dec. 7.

To the tune of Ivan Skavinsky Skivar, one of his men wrote a song about "Carlson's Raiders." It is full of the kind of corn which helps men to fight:

They were gathered from near and were gathered from far They were picked from the best in the land.

A hell-raising crew that sailed the blue Was Carlson's raider band.

They will sing of the sailor and soldier I know And tell of the deeds that were done

But Carlson's raiders will sing for themselves And know how the battle was won.

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