(2 of 3)
They Wanted Prisoners. The chief of the islanders gave pantsless Captain Davis a sarong. Other natives ignored the Japanese fire, plied the Marines with coconuts and coconut juice, told them where the Japs were concentrated. Three times during the day Jap bombers came over, did more harm to their own forces than to the Marines. U.S. machine-gunners on the shore destroyed two planes which landed in Makin's still lagoon.
Lieut. Charles T. Lamb of Snow Hill, N.C. was wounded in the head and shoulder. After his wounds were dressed he returned to his men and decided to board a Jap sloop in the lagoon. A Jap marine fired through a porthole, missed. Lieut. Lamb tossed a grenade into the Japanese boat, clambered aboard and polished off the Jap.
Private James Hawkins of South Gate, Calif, has a fearsome red beard. He met eight Japs, killed three of them. They shot him in both sides of his chest. Supposedly dying, Private Hawkins was removed to a ship. Early next morning someone found him walking the decks. "I had a hunch that if I got up and took a walk I'd live," Private Hawkins explained. He was right.
Toward the end of the fighting, the natives told Colonel Carlson that only eight Japs were left alive. They were all snipers, strapped in the trees. Marines killed six, but never did find the other two. Colonel Carlson figured that he and his men had killed 198 of the 200 Jap marines on the island (plus 150 more who went down on two Japanese ships which U.S. warships sank in the harbor). Colonel Carlson found the body of the Japanese commander, took his sword (which was later presented to Admiral Nimitz in Honolulu). The Marines lost fewer than 20 dead. Said Colonel Carlson: "We wanted to take prisoners, but we couldn't find any."
The raiders destroyed three radio stations, 1,000 gallons of gasoline, many trucks and other military stores. They also found many a record of pre-war U.S. policy: the trucks had been made in the U.S., the gasoline containers bore the trade-mark of a U.S. refiner, the Jap garrison's corned beef had a U.S. label on the cans. Makin after the raid looked better to Colonel Carlson. Said he: "It was a sight to see. There were dead Japs all over the place."
They Sing for Themselves. After 40 hours on Makin Island Colonel Carlson, Major Roosevelt and their men returned to Honolulu last week with their naval escort.
"Did you kill any Japs?" reporters asked Major Roosevelt, who was nursing his finger in a bandage.
"Shot at a couple of snipers," he replied. "We got 'em."
Carlson began to train the battalion for kill-&-run work last December. He got his grounding in such warfare in China, where he campaigned with China's famed Communist Eighth Route Army. When the Navy Department tried to shush his outspoken praise of the Chinese he quit the Marine Corps. He returned to duty after Dec. 7.
To the tune of Ivan Skavinsky Skivar, one of his men wrote a song about "Carlson's Raiders." It is full of the kind of corn which helps men to fight:
They were gathered from near and were gathered from far They were picked from the best in the land.
A hell-raising crew that sailed the blue Was Carlson's raider band.
They will sing of the sailor and soldier I know And tell of the deeds that were done