Rangers, SEALs, now Raiders: Marines resurrect historic name

Yahoo News ^ | June 19, 2015 | By Jonathan Drew

[sean327]

In the Marine Corps our history and traditions are everything to us. Renaming Recon and MARSOC Raiders is a nod to that history. It’s a Marine thing, you wouldn’t understand! Semper Fi

[hinckley buzzard]

http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/usmcraid.html

Some history of the Raiders and their role in the Pacific

[Lumper20]

I believe you misread what I wrote.

[Terry L Smith]

It’s about time!

The Marine Raiders of WW2 share a unique knife with the Canadian-American force nicknamed ‘The Devil’s Brigade’.

It is the Case v-42. This knife was not issued to any other American or Canadian outfit for the duration of the war.

See this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Raider_stiletto

[bert]

Pvt kenneth "killer" M c Coy gutted three iItalian marines on the streets of Shanghi after they assaulted him. he used a baby fairbain he strapped to his wrist. he later served as a Raider in the Makin Island Raid

To follow his career read W.E.B griffin's excellent series "The Corps"

the first volume is "Semper Fi"

[Cap'n Crunch]

How long til the standards are lowered to allow women Raiders?

[minnesota_bound]

#13 From wiki
He went back to China for the third time in 1937 as an official student of the Chinese language and as a military observer with Chinese forces. There he was afforded the opportunity to learn the tactics of the Japanese soldier.

He met Edgar Snow in China and read Snow’s Red Star Over China. This encounter led him to visit the Chinese communist troop headquarters in northern China, where he met Chinese Communist leaders such as Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping. Traveling thousands of miles through the interior of China with the communist guerrillas, often on foot and horseback over the most hazardous terrain, he lived under the same primitive conditions. He was impressed by the tactics used by Chinese Communist guerrillas to fight Japanese troops.

Carlson often had liberal political views, prompting General David M. Shoup to say of him, “He may be red, but he’s not yellow.”[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evans_Carlson

[archy]

The Marine Raiders of WW2 share a unique knife with the Canadian-American force nicknamed ‘The Devil’s Brigade’. It is the Case v-42. This knife was not issued to any other American or Canadian outfit for the duration of the war.

Not quite. The *Devil's Brigade* dagger was a bit different, with a *thumbprint* recess in front of the blade guard to remind the user of the proper positioning of the thumb when gripped, and with a pointed *skullcrusher* pommel on the bottomside of the grip, accompanied by a sheath/scabbard that had a particularly long *drop* from the belt, positioning the point of the blade at or just below the knee; this was due to the original role of the 1SSF as a cold-weather unit requiring the probable wear of a heavy long parka rather than the more usual ETO field jacket or *Ike Jacket*

And a lot of the Marine Raiders preferred the V44 Bowie-type fighting knife rather than the dagger/stiletto. I asked the crabby old former Marine Raider who was my longtime teacher and adviser in the 1960s which he preferred as I was making my own decision about a boot knife.

The dagger blades break, he told me. A week later I was the recipient of a V44 Marine Raider Bowie, brand new unissued and unused, in the original wrap, and I carried and used it daily during my first tour as an enlisted tanker- Army, not Marine. I still have it, though I'm more usually carry a Nepalese khukuri when I figure the use of a serious blade might be required.

[RinaseaofDs]

Can’t believe they got away with this.

[archy]

In the Marine Corps our history and traditions are everything to us.

Ever heard any of the circa-1950s *Stories of the Marine Corps* radio programs from the pre-television days? There were some mighty tales told on those programs.

[US_MilitaryRules]

Should have named them “The Crusaders”.

[archy]

That bottom picture reminds me of the old college era joke about the marine mine detector. Except they need their hands over their ears.

When I was a civilian Navy employee at Naval Support Weapons Center Crane in the early 1980s, I had the very good fortune of working with some outstanding young Marines, including a Gunnery Sergeant who received a promotion not to the next enlisted rank, but as a Warrant Officer instead, which the Marines refer to as a *Gunner.* From *Gunny* to *Gunner* was not much of a stretch, and as part of his promotion party festivities, I presented him with a *USMC digital computer.* It was a section of scrapped-out printed circuit board painted Marine Green with four holes for the fingers, marked *One, Two, Three and Four.* There was also attached by a lanyard a double-edged razor blade, labeled *erase.*

[Terry L Smith]

The knives made for the Marine Raiders, that I have seen, were of the Case design. I did read that the Marine version did have a different casting, using zinc, which when used in the Pacific, did suffer metallurgical fatigue, not available for testing in the U.S.

I have been told that some of the Marines did have the Fairbairn-Sykes design, which is similar to the Case knife, but is built along the lines of an earlier Fairbairn design, from Hong Kong police days.