Combat· Philippine-American War
March across Samar ('Bloody Christmas' march)
The disastrous expedition that became legendary in the Corps.
Late in December 1901, Major Littleton Waller led about fifty Marines and a body of Filipino bearers on an ordered reconnaissance across the rugged interior of Samar, from Lanang on the east coast toward Basey on the south, to find a route for a telegraph line. The march turned into a nightmare: the boats foundered, the provisions were lost, the trackless rainforest and mountains exhausted the men, and the column broke apart in the wet and the hunger. Ten Marines died of fever and exhaustion before the survivors struggled out; none fell to enemy action. In the bitter aftermath Waller ordered eleven of the bearers shot at Basey, an act for which he was court-martialed and acquitted. The ordeal entered Marine lore, remembered in the old toast, "Stand, gentlemen, he served on Samar."
Podcast episodes on Philippine-American War
Record no. 490