Gen. Shepherd: Here’s the untold story of Colonel Carlson’s Makin Island raid

I was reading the official oral history interviews of former Marine Commandant Lemuel Shepherd, conducted in 1966 and 1967, and was surprised to see him dis the hell out of Marine raider leader Lt. Col. Evans Carlson in discussing one of the first U.S. combat operations of World War II, the Makin Island raid of August 1942. The raid was memorialized in the Randolph Scott/Robert Mitchum film Gung Ho! — which was made long before the public knew that nine Marines had been left behind and were later captured and beheaded by the Japanese.

Carlson received the Navy Cross (his second of three) for the Makin raid. But General Shepherd said there was more to it than was known:

I’ve got the inside story on the Makin raid. Carlson planned it and it turned out to be a flop. As I recall Carlson claimed to have been wounded and separated from his men. Jimmy Roosevelt [son of FDR] pulled the Raider battalion together and led them back to the beach where they safely embarked for their return aboard their submarine… That’s one of the chapters in the Marine Corps history that’s been glossed over… I think the less said about that, the better.

Hmm, that’s not the way the old movie went…