About the Author
Reading edition
Colonel Joseph H. Alexander, USMC (Ret), served 29 years on active duty as an assault amphibian officer, including two tours in Vietnam. He earned an undergraduate degree in history from the University of North Carolina and masters’ degrees in history and government from Georgetown and Jacksonville. He is a distinguished graduate of the Naval War College, a member of the Society for Military History, and a life member of the Marine Corps Historical Foundation.
Colonel Alexander, an independent historian, is the author of military essays published in Marine Corps Gazette, Naval Institute Proceedings, Naval History, Leatherneck, Amphibious Warfare Review, and Florida Historical Quarterly. He is co-author (with Lieutenant Colonel Merrill L. Bartlett) of “Sea Soldiers in the Cold War” (Naval Institute Press, accepted).
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.
Printing costs for this pamphlet have been defrayed in part by the Defense Department World War II Commemoration Committee. Editorial costs of preparing this pamphlet have been defrayed in part by a bequest from the estate of Emilie H. Watts, in memory of her late husband, Thomas M. Watts, who served as a Marine and was the recipient of a Purple Heart.
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. 20374-0580 1993 PCN 190 003120 00
