Colonel Joseph H. Alexander,
USMC (ret.) served in the Marine Corps for twenty-eight years and fought in Vietnam. He is the author of the award winning
Utmost Savagery: The Three Days of Tarawa and six other books. He has helped produce twenty-five military documentaries for
cable television and was chief historian on the exhibit design team for the National Museum of the Marine Corps.
Joseph Alexander is the author of Utmost Savagery: The Three Days of Tarawa; Edson's Raiders: The 1st
Marine Raider Battalion in World War II; Storm Landings: Epic Amphibious Battles in the Central Pacific; Closing in: Marines
in the Seizure of Iwo Jima; Battle of the Barricades: U.S. Marines in the Recapture of Seoul; The Final Campaign: Marines
in the Victory on Okinawa; and, Across the Reef: The Marine Assault of Tarawa. Colonel Alexander
is also the co-author of Through the Wheat: The U.S. Marines in World War I; The Battle History of the U.S. Marines:
A Fellowship of Valor; and, Sea Soliders in the Cold War: Amphibious Warfare, 1945-1991. Of Utmost Savagery:
The Three Days of Tarawa, Publisher’s Weekly said, “Alexander, a retired Marine officer and established
scholar, uses a broad spectrum of fresh Japanese and American sources to present a gripping narrative of one of the bloodiest
battles of WWII in the Pacific theater. At Tarawa in the Kiribati (formerly Gilbert) islands, "uncommon valor was a common
virtue" on both sides. But this account is more than battle history. Alexander interprets Tarawa as a military test bed,
a validation of the concept of amphibious assault against defended positions. The Marines and the Navy made mistakes but learned
from them. Without the experience gained at Tarawa, America's path across the central Pacific would have been longer and
bloodier, according to the author. Tarawa was a psychological landmark as well. The savage, close-quarters fighting and high
casualties helped solidify the grim determination in the U.S. to prevail over the Japanese.” According to the book description of
Through the Wheat: The U.S. Marines in World War I, “U.S. Marine participation in World War
I is known as a defining moment in the Marine Corps' great history. It is a story of exceptional heroism and significant
operational achievements, along with lessons learned the hard way. The Marines entered World War I as a small force of seagoing
light infantry that had rarely faced a well-armed enemy. On a single June day, in their initial assault 'through the wheat'
on Belleau Wood against German machine-guns and poison gas shells, the Marines suffered more casualties than they had experienced
in all their previous 142 years. Yet at Belleau Wood, Soissons, Blanc Mont, St. Mihiel, and the Meuse-Argonne the Marines
proved themselves to be hard-nosed diehards with an affinity for close combat. Nearly a century later Belleau Wood still resonates
as a touchstone battle of the Corps. Two retired Marines, well known for their achievements both in uniform and with the pen, have recorded
this rich history in a way that only insiders can. Brig. Gen. Edwin H. Simmons and Col. Joseph H. Alexander recount events
and colorful personalities in telling detail, capturing the spirit that earned the 4th Marine Brigade three awards of the
French Croix de Guerre and launched the first pioneering detachments of 'Flying Leathernecks.' Here, hand-to-hand
combat seen through the lenses of a gas mask is accompanied by thought-provoking assessments of the war's impact on the
Marine Corps.”
According to the book description Storm
Landings: Epic Amphibious Battles in the Central Pacific, “The Pacific War changed abruptly in November
1943 when Adm. Chester W. Nimitz unleashed his Central Pacific drive, spearheaded by U.S. Marines. The sudden American proclivity
for bold amphibious assaults into the teeth of prepared defenses astonished Japanese commanders, who called them "storm
landings" because they differed sharply from earlier campaigns. This is the story of seven now-epic long-range assaults
executed against murderous enemy fire at Tarawa, Saipan, Guam, Tinian, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa - and a potential eighth,
Kyushu. The author describes each clash as demonstrating a growing U.S. ability to concentrate an overwhelming naval force
against a distant strategic objective and literally kick down the front door. The battles were violent, thoroughly decisive,
and always bloody, with the landing force never relinquishing the offensive. The cost of storming these seven fortified islands
was great: 74,805 combat casualties for the Marines and their Navy comrades. Losses among participating Army and offshore
Navy units spiked the total to 100,000 dead and wounded. Award-winning historian Joseph Alexander relates this extraordinary
story with an easy narrative style bolstered by years of research in original battle accounts, new Japanese translations,
and fresh interviews with survivors. Richly illustrated and abounding with human-interest anecdotes about colorful "web-footed
amphibians," Storm Landings vividly portrays the sheer drama of these three-dimensional battles whose magnitude and ferocity
may never again be seen in this world.”
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According to the book description
of Edson's Raiders: The 1st Marine Raider Battalion in World War II, “This is the story
of the remarkable men of 1st Marine Raider Battalion, known by the name of its founding commander, the legendary jungle fighter
Merritt A. "Red Mike" Edson. Edson's Raiders provided the vanguard of a U.S. Marine Corps experiment with special
lightly-armed, mobile "commando" units in the Pacific. From 1942 to 1943, these highly trained volunteers fought
seven critical battles in the Solomon Islands--with names like Tulagi, Tasimboko, the Matanikau River and the Dragon's
Peninsula. They were desperate, bloody affairs fought against some of the most experienced jungle fighters in the Japanese
empire. Twenty-four Raiders fought with such valor that they had ships named in their honor, all but one posthumously. Joseph
Alexander provides an abundance of first-person accounts from Edson to such hard-nosed NCOs as Angus Goss, Walter Burak, and
Anthony Palonis. His portrayal of the Raiders' defense of Guadalcanal's Henderson Field along an elevation known ever
since as Edson's Ridge, shows why that three-day conflict became an indisputable touchstone of Marine Corps history.” Tim Hogan of Amazon.com said of The
Battle History of the U.S. Marines: A Fellowship of Valor, “Marines have fought and died for the United
States since the Revolutionary War. "There is a fellowship of valor that links all U.S. Marines, past, present, and future,"
observes Joseph Alexander, through more than two centuries of battles in the air, on land, and at sea, from their inauspicious
genesis as an unimpressive gang of seagoing musketeers to their present standing as the deadliest amphibious force in the
world. This common virtue of uncommon valor links proud generations of warriors who have earned the right to wear the eagle,
globe, and anchor on their collars and over their hearts: from Captain Samuel Nicholas, the first senior officer of the Continental
marines, to Captain Randolph Guzman, killed in the terrorist bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma
City; from Lieutenant Alfred A. Cunningham, the first marine aviator, to Opha Johnson, the first Lady Leatherneck. As Brigadier General Edwin H. Simmons writes in
his foreword, "Marines are not noted for their modesty." The same sentiment was also phrased in less diplomatic
terms by President Harry S. Truman: "They have a propaganda machine that is almost equal to Stalin's," the commander
in chief remarked during the Korean War. Marines are smug about their collective accomplishments, to be sure: esprit de corps,
they call it. They are quick to educate the ignorant that the history of the United States would be much different if not
for the United States Marine Corps. Alexander, a 28-year veteran of the corps, is no exception. The retired colonel takes
obvious and unapologetic pride in the legendary mystique of "the Few and the Proud." His narrative is not a dry
textbook compilation of footnoted factoids so much as a gung ho war story--drenched in blood and sweat and delivered with
swagger for the transcendent glory of the corps--whose chapters read like a night of beers at the local VFW. Though incurably
biased, the award-winning military historian has created a thoroughly researched and meticulously detailed account of the
battles fought by those who are proud to claim the title of United States Marine.”
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