About the Author

Colonel Joseph H. Alexander, USMC (Ret), served 29 years on active duty as an assault amphibian officer, including two tours in Vietnam and service as Chief of Staff, 3d Marine Division, in the Western Pacific. He is a distinguished graduate of the Naval War College and holds degrees in history from North Carolina, Jacksonville, and Georgetown.

Colonel Alexander, an independent historian in Asheville, North Carolina, wrote Closing In: Marines in the Seizure of Iwo Jima and Across the Reef: The Marine Assault on Tarawa in this series. His book, Utmost Savagery: The Three Days of Tarawa (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1995), won the 1995 General Wallace M. Greene Award of the Marine Corps Historical Foundation. He is also co-author (with Lieutenant Colonel Merrill L. Bartlett) of Sea Soldiers in the Cold War (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1983).

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 EMERITUS 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 1996 PCN 190 003135 00