By the summer of 1944 the tide had turned in the Pacific War against the Japanese. The war was not nearly over, however, and the U.S. Marines had their heaviest season of combat awaiting them. Here for the first time is a detailed photographic history for the Fighting Leathernecks' fierce combat for[...]

On November 20, 1943, the 2d Marine Division hit the beach on tiny Betio Island, Tarawa Atoll, expecting that its defenses has been "pounded into coral dust" by naval and air bombardment. They found instead that the Japanese had survived and held largely intact defenses. Three days of intense fighti[...]

During the brutally cold winter of 1950, it seemed the Korean conflict was all but over, then in November a force of Chinese volunteer fighters - armed with little more than rice flails and scythes - poured over the Yalu river, encircling the 30,000 UN troops at the Chosin Reservoir, including royal[...]