Merrill’s Marauders: The Untold Story of Unit Galahad and the Toughest Special Forces Mission of World War II

In August 1943, the U.S. War Department called for 3,000 volunteer soldiers for a "hazardous and dangerous mission" behind enemy lines in Burma. Recruits were expected to be expendable, with an anticipated casualty rate of 85 percent. The volunteers were largely soldiers with troubled records and reputations, described by one war reporter as "Dead End Kids." By the end of their five-month campaign, the survivors became known as Merrill's Marauders, the special forces unit originally codenamed "Galahad." In 1944, the unit fought through 700 miles of jungle terrain in Burma, which Winston Churchill called "the most forbidding fighting country imaginable." Their objective was to disrupt Japanese supply lines and communications. Though the mission succeeded and helped enable the Allied conquest of Burma, the cost was severe. When the Marauders captured the airfield at Myitkyina in May 1944, only 200 of the original 3,000 men remained; the rest were dead, wounded, or diseased. Gavin Mortimer's account presents the definitive nonfiction narrative of this American special forces unit from World War II.