Combat· World War II
Carlson's Long Patrol
This was a month-long sweep behind Japanese lines by the 2d Raider Battalion under Colonel Evans Carlson.
After the enemy's failed October offensive, beaten Japanese units were trying to retreat west across the island to rejoin their main force. Carlson's raiders, landed at a bay east of the perimeter, were turned loose to hunt down and destroy any enemy they found along the way. Guided by native scouts, the raiders fought a long series of small actions as they tracked the retreating Japanese through jungled ridges. They harried the enemy column for weeks, fighting more than a dozen skirmishes and covering many miles of rough country before finally coming down into the perimeter. They killed hundreds of Japanese and captured an enemy field gun that had been shelling the airfield, all at a light cost to themselves.
Podcast episodes on World War II
Record no. 121