The 5 Most Feared US Marines in WW2 D
From a man who held off 3,000 Japanese soldiers alone through an entire night to a Marine who shot down 28 enemy aircraft and kept fighting from inside a prison camp to the man who walked into Japanese machine gunfire on the bloodiest beach of the Pacific War and did not stop moving until every man behind him was safe.
These are the five feared United States Marines of World War II. Chapter one. John Baselone. John Baselone held off 3,000 Japanese soldiers at Guadal Canal with fewer than 50 men and saved the airfield that controlled the entire Pacific campaign. But what he did after that night is the part most people never hear about.
And it doesn’t end the way you’d expect. October the 24th, 1942. The jungle is absolute darkness. Japanese soldiers are coming through the perimeter in human waves. Machine gun positions are going silent one by one. Ammunition runs out. Men around Baselonia dying faster than anyone can count. He moves through the darkness under direct fire to resupply his own guns.
He repairs a jammed weapon with his bare hands while the enemy is still shooting. He holds a section of the line alone when everyone around him is gone. By dawn, 1,400 Japanese soldiers are dead in front of his position. America brought him home, gave him the Medal of Honor, sent him on a war bond tour, offered him a desk, a safe future.
Everything a man who had already done enough could reasonably ask for. He asked to go back instead. He landed on Eroima on February 19th, 1945, and was killed within hours of hitting the beach. He was 28 years old. John Basselone chose the beach over the desk every time. But what Baselone did with a machine gun in the dark was nothing compared to what the next Marine did in the chapter 2. Gregory Papy Boyington.
Gregory Boington shot down 28 enemy aircraft, making him one of the leading Marine aces of the entire war while commanding a squadron that nobody else wanted. Before we get to the mission that ended with him in a Japanese prison camp, you need to understand what kind of man keeps flying combat missions after his own military has already written him off.
Boyington had washed out of the Marines once. He had problems that made senior officers deeply uncomfortable. He went to China and flew with the Flying Tigers before America officially entered the war. He came back, got reinstated, and took command of replacement pilots with no unit identity and no combat experience. He called them the Black Sheep Squadron.
Over Rabol in January 1944, he engages a Japanese fighter force that significantly outnumbers his squadron. He pushes his plane past its limit. His aircraft goes down over the water. He survives the crash. A Japanese submarine captures him. He spends the next 20 months in prisoner of war camps, enduring conditions that killed the men around him.
He comes home after the war to find the Marine Corps has awarded him the Medal of Honor, assuming he died in combat. He is one of the few men in American history to receive it while still alive after being listed as killed in action. 28 kills, 20 months as a prisoner, a Medal of Honor waiting when he came home.
But Boyington fought his war in the sky. The next marine on this list fought his on the ground. And what he did in 48 hours on the most contested island of the Pacific is still studied in military classrooms today. If you haven’t subscribed yet, do it now. The final two Marines on this list did things that historians still argue about. You don’t want to miss them.
Chapter 3. Chesty Puller. Chesty Puller arrived at Guadal Canal already holding three Navy crosses, more than almost any marine alive, and left with a fourth. But the night that earned that fourth cross is the one that nobody who was there ever forgot. October 24th, 1942. The same night Balone is holding his machine guns 200 yd away.
Puller is moving through his entire battalion’s position in the darkness, completely exposed, directing fire, calling artillery strikes so close they shake his own men off their feet, finding the weakest point in the line and standing there himself. The Japanese attack again. He repositions. They attack again.
He moves again. The position holds. He grew up in West Point, Virginia. dropped out of the Virginia Military Institute and enlisted as a private because he wanted to learn war from the ground up. Spent years before World War II fighting in Haiti and Nicaragua, earning Navy Cross. After Navy Cross in conflicts America had already forgotten, four Navy crosses at this point.
Korea, where he would earn his fifth, was still years away. The enemy didn’t fear Puller because of his decorations. They feared him because he never once moved in the direction they expected. But Puller’s war was about holding ground. The next Marine on this list took ground that seemed impossible to take.
And he did it while wounded badly enough that any other man would have accepted evacuation hours earlier. Chapter 4. Robert Hugo Dunlap. Robert Dunlap single-handedly destroyed multiple enemy positions at Ioima over two consecutive days while severely wounded and refused evacuation until every man behind him was safe. Before we get to what he actually did, you need to understand what Ewoima looked like when he landed.
Because the numbers make what he did even harder to believe. 21,000 Japanese soldiers underground, miles of tunnels, every inch of beach covered by interlocking fire. The Marines, who stepped off their landing craft on February 19th, 1945, walked into the most concentrated defensive fire in the history of Pacific warfare.
Dunlap’s company cannot advance. Japanese positions on the high ground are covering every route forward. He moves toward those positions alone. Over two days, despite serious wounds that get worse with every hour, he personally closes with enemy gun positions that no one else can reach.
He directs fire while exposed. He refuses the corpsemen who come to treat him. He tells them to take care of the men who need it more. His men advance. The position falls. Two days, three wounds, one Medal of Honor. He grew up in Abington, Illinois, an ordinary town that produced an extraordinary man when an extraordinary situation demanded it.
It doesn’t stop there because the last Marine on this list didn’t fight on a beach. He fought on a plateau all night against 13 separate attacks and he led every single counterattack personally. Chapter 5. Lewis Wilson. Lewis Wilson held a perimeter on Guam against Japanese forces that attacked his position 13 separate times in a single night and led the counterattack every single time.
There is one detail about that night that Wilson almost never talked about publicly. We’ll get to it. July 25th, 1944. Wilson commands a company on the Fonte Plateau, high ground the Japanese need to retake if they have any chance of slowing the American advance. They attack through the night in force again and again.
Each time Wilson does not wait for them to reach his lines. He goes to meet them. He leads counterattack after counterattack in the darkness. Moving toward Japanese fire rather than away from it. Closing to hand-to-hand range in the black. Pushing his men forward when staying put was the easier and safer option. He is wounded three times during the night.
He refuses to leave his position each time. By morning, his company has turned back 13 attacks. The detail Wilson never talked about. In the middle of one of those counterattacks, he ran out of ammunition. What he did next was documented by the men around him and ended up in his Medal of Honor citation. He kept moving forward anyway.
Louisie Wilson went on to become the 26th common dant of the United States Marine Corps, the highest position in the entire branch. The man who led counterattacks in the dark on Guam eventually led the entire core. He never talked much about that night. The men who were there did enough talking for him.
Five marines, five different battles, one thing connecting all of them. Not one of them moved away from the problem when moving away was the option that made sense. Baselone ran toward the guns. Boington kept flying when he should have landed. Puller found the weakest point and stood there himself. Dunlap refused evacuation for 2 days.
Wilson led the counterattack 13 times in a single night. That is what made them the most feared Marines of World War II. Next week, the commanders whose decisions didn’t save lives. They cost millions of them. Subscribe. That story is darker than anything on this list.
