The Raider: A New England Runaway, the Chinese Communists, and the Birth of U.S. Marine Special Forces in World War II

An innovative military leader who tried to bring communist ideals to the U.S. Marine Corps is spotlighted in this rousing biography. Historian Platt (Imperial Twilight) recaps the life of Evans Carlson (1896–1947), a Marine colonel who spearheaded the 1942 creation of Marine “Raider” battalions, designed to fight guerrilla-style behind enemy lines. He modeled the battalions on his impressions, made in the 1930s as a military observer, of the Chinese Communist Party’s Eighth Route Army, which was composed of small, highly mobile formations that could maneuver easily around larger Japanese units. Carlson also drew on the CCP’s egalitarian military structure, under which officers would share their men’s hardships, motivate them by reason rather than pulling rank, and inspire them with political zeal. He popularized the Chinese-derived term “gung ho” to express his philosophy that soldiers must have “full and complete trust” in one another. After leading the raiders on the daring 1942 “Long Patrol,” a blood-soaked 29-day march behind Japanese lines on Guadalcanal, Carlson became a war hero (the 1944 movie Gung Ho! immortalized his exploits). He was later ousted from command, however, by Marine brass suspicious of his challenges to military hierarchy. Platt’s narrative delivers plenty of blood and guts action while serving as a revealing exploration of the ardent attraction many Westerners felt toward Chinese communism. The result is a gripping, complex study of a military romantic who mixed ruthlessness with idealism. (May)