[Illustration]
Colonel Joseph H. Alexander, USMC (Ret), served 29 years on active duty
as an assault amphibian officer, including two tours in Vietnam and
service as Chief of Staff, 3d Marine Division, in the Western Pacific.
He is a distinguished graduate of the Naval War College and holds
degrees in history from North Carolina, Jacksonville, and Georgetown.
Colonel Alexander, an independent historian in Asheville, North
Carolina, wrote _Closing In: Marines in the Seizure of Iwo Jima_ and
_Across the Reef: The Marine Assault on Tarawa_ in this series. His
book, _Utmost Savagery: The Three Days of Tarawa_ (Annapolis: Naval
Institute Press, 1995), won the 1995 General Wallace M. Greene Award
of the Marine Corps Historical Foundation. He is also co-author (with
Lieutenant Colonel Merrill L. Bartlett) of _Sea Soldiers in the Cold
War_ (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1983).
[Illustration]
THIS PAMPHLET HISTORY, one in a series devoted to U.S. Marines in
the World War II era, is published for the education and training of
Marines by the History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine
Corps, Washington, D.C., as a part of the U.S. Department of Defense
observance of the 50th anniversary of victory in that war.
Editorial costs of preparing this pamphlet have been defrayed in part
by a grant from the Marine Corps Historical Foundation.