Replies

SUCH specialists as clerks and radiomen were pressed into service as mule-drivers with the Marauders to make up for a shortage of experienced animal men. Leading, feeding, watering and grooming the mules turned out to be one of the toughest jobs in the raider outfit.

Passing through the pick-line after a day's march Brig.-Gen. Frank D Merrill came across a sweating grimy-faced mule-driver tenderly combing a mule's back.

"You certainly seem to take good care of your animal," remarked General Merrill. "Had much experience with mules in the states?"
The soldier, Pfc. Casey Turiello, turned his weary face. "No, sir," he said. "But I did see a mule once--on an ice wagon back home in Brooklyn."

ANOTHER mule-driver was having trouble with his animal. It balked at the bottom of a very rugged Burma hill. The driver had to coax, cajole, cuss and tug at his animal constantly. Finally on one hill the mule stopped dead and layed down. This was the last straw.

"Get up, you sonuvabitch," cracked the driver, who had answered President Roosevelt's call to join the volunteer Marauders.
"You volunteered for this mission too."

To somebody who knows something about the Burma war. How did the US Merrill Marauders stack up against the British units fighting in Burma, the Chindits?

You don't hear that much about the Marauders, mostly the Chindits in write-ups. Of course, the fact that the write-ups I read were written by the British might have something to do with it.

Good Morning Foxhole

Here's to another excellent thread . . .

There are all kinds of pack mules . . .

But nothing like Merrill's Marauders of WW2

"It’s been written that Merrill’s Marauders are the most overlooked group of soldiers from World War II.
The company that started with 3,000 volunteers in October of 1943, marched 700 miles through the jungles of Burma. They cleared Japanese soldiers out of the way for American troops to help the Allied Forces get a stronger hold in southeastern Asia. By the time they reached and took over the Myitkyina Airfield and then a town by the same name about seven miles away, only 300 of the original Merrill’s Marauders were alive." - John Gunther - Merrill's Marauders