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Forgotten Raiders of '42: The Fate of the Marines Left Behind on Makin (Military Controversies)

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I'm of two minds about this book. On one hand it fills a huge gap in the subject matter, and adds some necessary details and information not found elsewhere. As such, it's invaluable. On the other hand, because of the subject matter he is writing about, information is very thin indeed. For example the author lays the blame for the 9 marine raiders left behind on Carlson's doorstep, on his poor decisions, indecisiveness, his mental fixation on facing superior numbers when that was not the case, on his decision to attempt to surrender when the initial escape from the island went bad, and so on. That may very well be the case, but rather than nail it down, he nowhere explains just how this mindset led to the raiders being abandoned, he just says that it's the direct cause. Did the marines fail to get the word? Were they isolated from the rest? Were they actually part of the raiding party or the rescue party sent out from the sub to assist in the withdrawal through the surf? And how is this Carlson's doing? How is it that all the other raiders managed to get the word and escape while these few didn't? Were they cut off somehere from the rest? If so, by whom, when there were almost no Japanese left? It's unlikely they attempted to get through the surf with the others and were forced back, because not one surviving raider recalls seeing any of the missing men the entire last day on the island, either before, during, or after the escape. Where were they?

Nowhere does he explain exactly what happened or how exactly it was Carlson's fault because, frankly, no one knows. Any explanation has to be largely made up conjecture and supposition. He links their abandonment to Carlson's poor leadership and judgement, but doesn't exactly explain how the one led to the other.

My other biggest problem is he leaves off the story at one point during wartime by examining many of the initial reports on the raid, and how the Navy knew it wasn't the huge success the media made out, and these have never been made public before, to my knowledge. Then he jumps ahead half a century on the current search for raider remains, and uses as background details from the war crimes trials held shortly after the war. What happened to the missing 5 decades? What was Carlson's reactions when the news became known at the end of the war about the 9 stranded marines and their executions? What did the Navy have to say when they learned the truth? How did the media report this fact? What about reaction to some of the subsequent books and memoirs criticizing the raid using details from actual participants, and how was it defended? What did the raider veteran groups have to say?

Nowhere does he follow the logical chronological unfolding of the story but glosses over 50 years worth of time with a 2 page summary of Carlson's career after the war, and who ceases to be a player in the story at that point. When the facts first came out in 1945 and 46, what did the Navy do? How did the fellow raiders feel about this revelation? How was it reported in the press, especially the home towns of the missing men? You won't find any such answers here. He spends the last 40-50 pages describing how he tried tracking down documents and searching for witnesses (I first looked in this file, then that collection, then tried calling this person with no luck, so I tried this guy, but couldn't find a number... and on and on...) probably because there wasn't any real information he had available to write about.

All in all it's a good little book, with a riveting description of the raid (for all of 10 pages), but it could have been so much more. Rather than being the last word on the subject, it fills a badly needed niche until something better comes along. It asks a lot of questions, but does not do its best to answer any of them.

Tripp Wiles has written a very good book about the fate of the nine Raiders who did not make off Makin Island and were subsequently captured and beheaded by the Japanese. This is a difficult subject because of all the time that has passed and the secrecy of the Japanese and the lack of clear records and data.

The book's shortcomings are that it contains very little about the raid and only a small amount about Lt. Colonel Carlson before or after the raid. It also has virtually no information about the lives of the nine unfortunate raiders. It would have really improved the book to have had a chapter devoted only to their lives before the war: Were they married? Had they been to college? What were their postwar plans? It would really helped the reader to get involved with the men if something were known about them.

Wiles succeeds in accounting for every single raider that did not return from the mission. That positively identifies which of the missing men were the ones that were captured. However, when Wiles tells of POW Lt. Lou Zamperini seeing the nine Raider names scratched on the wall of a prison cell on Kwajelein, and how Zamperini painstakingly memorized each name, he fails to tell the reader that by the time the war ended and Zamperini was liberated, years of maltreatment had affected his memory and Zamperini was unable to remember the names that he had seen, only that there were nine of them.

This 2007 book does not speculate how the nine raiders were left behind. However, John Wukovits' 2009 book, "American Commando: Evans Carlson, His WWII Marine Raiders, and America's First Special Forces Mission" seems to solve the mystery. On the second night, Carlson had two rubber boats and two native outriggers lashed together with two motors to run this "ship." As they set out in the dark, the 8-10 men in the outside boat asked if they could separate and try to make for the submarine on their own. Carlson at first refused, but then relented, and the men in the boat paddled off into the darkness and were never seen again. When Carlson's boat finally reached the waiting Nautilus, they assumed that the missing men had paddled to the other sub, the Argonaut. Radio silence was in effect and there was no way to tell if they actually got there until both subs got back to Hawaii. Those men in that missing boat had to be the nine men who were captured. That is the only way to account for them as nobody ever made it to the Argonaut that night.

Wiles did enormous research for this book and should be commended for telling a story of true heroes that has been ignored for over 60 years. I would recommend that those interested in this subject read "American Commando" first and then read "Forgotten Raiders of 42." Both books truly demonstrate the sacrifices that Americans were willing to make to defend our way of life.

First off, the author pulls away the charade of the Makin raid. The Navy tried to make it sound like a surprise glorious attack on the Japanese. The Japanese were indeed surprised but they didn't weaken theur threat against Guadacanal because of this. That was one of the objectives of the Makin raid. Secondly, the Japanese had a surrender note and nine Marine captives to disprove of the glorious nature of the victory. Carlson was not the mightly conqueror he was, but a military commander who almost lost it on a surprise raid.

The author could have expanded his scope and portrayed the nine who lost their freedom and ultimately their lives when they were captured. He could have expanded his narrative of the battle. However, this book sheds light on a little known raid of WWII.

Thanks to Mr. Wiles and his book, I was able to solve a nearly 70 year family mystery. My Uncle died in WWII but that is all I knew. My mother passed in 2009 thinking her brother died at sea on August 18, 1942. Through Tripp, I was able to find that Uncle Billl (William Pallesen) was captured and imprisoned on Kwajalein and actually died some two months later. Bill and 8 of his fellow Marine Raiders were ultimately beheaded in October 1942. Tripp Wiles along with Louis Zamperini (subject of the best seller "Unbroken") changed history for my family and I was able to tell my last remaining uncle what really happened to his brother.

Some of the reviews on Amazon are critical of Mr. Wiles' book, but it is what it is. Mr. Wiles was heavily involved in the search for the remains of the nine Raiders while employed by the Central Identification Lab in Hawaii (CILH) and had full access to records not easily accessible by others.

Many are very defensive of Lt. Col. Evans Carlson and I suspect that may be the reason for some of the negative reviews and comments. Carlson was a great man and leader who was well respected by his men. However, there were many blunders associated with the Makin Raid. Sadly, the buck has to stop with the man in charge.

This book is a great read and I highly recommend it.