Silk Chutes and Hard Fighting: US. Marine Corps Parachute Units in World War II is a brief narrative of the development, deployment, and eventual demise of Marine parachute units during World War II. It is published to honor the veterans of these special units and for the information of those interested in Marine parachutists and the events in which they participated. This covers the Marine Corps' flirtation with airborne operations during World War II. The various offices of the Marine Corps Historical Center yielded additional primary materials. The Reference Section holds biographical data on most key individuals, as well as files on specific units. The Oral History Section has a number of pertinent interviews, the most significant being Lieutenant General Joseph C. Burger, Major General Marion L. Dawson, General Gerald C. Thomas, and Brigadier General Robert H. Williams. The Personal Papers Section has several collections pertaining to the parachute program. Among the most useful were the papers of Eldon C.Anderson, Eric Hammel, Nolen Marbrey, John C. McQueen, Peter Ortiz, and George R. Stallings. A number of secondary sources proved helpful. Marine Corps publications include Charles L. Updegraph, Jr's. U.S. Marine Corps Special Units of World War II, Major John L. Zimmerman's The Guadalcanal Campaign, Major John N. Rentz's Bougainville and the Northern Solomons, and Isolation of Rabaul by Henry I.Shaw, Jr. and Major DouglasT. Kane. A valuable work on the overall American parachute program during the war is William B. Breuer's Geronimo! The Marine Corps Gazette and Leatherneck contain a number of articles describing the parachute units and their campaigns. Ken Haney's An Annotated Bibliography of USMC Paratroopers in World War II provides a detailed listing of sources, to include Haney's own extensive list of publications on the subject. Many Marine parachutists graciously provided interviews, news clippings, photographs, and other sources for this work. Colonel Dave E. Severance, secretary/treasurer of the Association of Survivors, was especially obliging in culling material from his extensive files.
Includes more than 75 photos, maps and plans This particular book is about Marines during the first stage of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). It spans the period from 11 September 2001 to March and April 2003, when the Coalition removed Saddam Hussein from power, and concludes in November 2003 when the Marines left Kuwait to return to their home bases in the U.S.. While many then believed that the “kinetic” phase of the fighting in Iraq was largely over, as we now know, it was only a prelude to a longer but just as deadly phase of operations where Marines would be redeployed to Iraq in 2004 to combat insurgents (both foreign and domestic) who had filtered back into the country. However, this phase of the fighting would be very different from the one the Marines and U.S. Army had fought in the spring of 2003 in the march up to take Baghdad. The primary focus of the book is I Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF)-the run-up to the war in 2002 and early 2003, especially the development of “the plan,” with its many changes, the exhaustive rehearsals, and other preparations, and then the conduct of decisive combat operations and the immediate postwar period, mostly under the control of the U.S. Central Command’s Coalition Forces Land Component Command. The book also touches upon other Marine activities in the Military Coordination and Liaison Command in northern Iraq and with the British in the south. Nonetheless, the primary focus remains on I Marine Expeditionary Force and the interactions of its constituent elements. Other forthcoming History Division publications will soon offer detailed narratives on Marines in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan and II MEF operations inside Iraq.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.