Guadalcanal campaign

On 4 and 5 November 1942 (D+90) the 8th Marines (1st, 2nd, 3rd BN's) led by Colonel Richard H. Jeschke arrived from American Samoa, landing as reinforcements on Guadalcanal.

On 12 January, the Marines began their advance with the 8th Marines along the shore and 2d Marines inland. All along the front of the advancing assault companies the going was rough. The Japanese, remnants of the Sendai Division, were dug into the sides of a series of cross compartments and their fire took the Marines in the flank as they advanced. Progress was slow despite massive artillery support and naval gunfire from four destroyers offshore. In two days of heavy fighting, flamethrowers were employed for the first time and tanks were brought into play.

The 2d Marines was now relieved and the 6th Marines moved into the attack along the coast while the 8th Marines took up the advance inland. Naval gunfire support, spotted by naval officers ashore, improved measurably. On the 15th, the Americans, both Army and Marine, reached the initial corps objective. In the Marine attack zone, 600 Japanese were dead. The 8th Marines was essentially pinched out of the front lines by a narrowing attack corridor as the inland mountains and hills pressed closer to the coastal trail.

On 31 January, the 2d Marines and the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, boarded ship to leave Guadalcanal. 1st Battalion 8th Marines headed for Wellington, New Zealand. The 8th Marine Regiment losses on Guadalcanal were 115 killed, 451 wounded, and 9 missing.

Battle of Tarawa

1st Battalion 8th Marines departed the USS Sheridan (APA-51) via LVT's, and waited at the line of departure. Watching the battle unfold from sea as the division reserve, the battalion was ordered ashore after several hours.^[2] Unfortunately, there was quite a bit of confusion and the word didn't reach the commander for some time. After 18 hours out at sea, 1/8 landed on Red Beach 2 at 06:15 on November 21, 1943 (D+1).^[3]

As soon as 1/8 began coming ashore, the murderous onslaught started. The LVTs didn't fare any better than the D-Day landings and were quickly bogged down by the reef. The men of 1/8 landed on the far right of Red 2 after wading over 500 yards ashore. The battalion commanding officer, Major Lawrence C. Hays reported to Colonel David M. Shoup, the newly promoted commander of the 2nd Marine Regiment, at 08:00 with about half his landing team. 1/8 had suffered more than 300 casualties just getting ashore; others were scattered all along the beach and the pier. Worse, the unit had lost all its flamethrowers, demolitions, and heavy weapons.^[4]

Col. Shoup directed Major Hays to attack westward, but both men knew that small arms and courage alone would not prevail against fortified positions. The Marines of 1/8 fought hard all day. Despite the slow progress, Col. Shoup ended his 16:00 hours message to General Smith with the line, "Casualties: many. Percentage dead: unknown. Combat efficiency: We are winning."

Col. Edson issued his attack orders for D+1 at 04:00 hours. 1/8, attached to 2nd Marines was to attack at daylight to the west along north beach to eliminate Japanese pockets of resistance between Beaches Red 1 and 2. On Red Beach Two, Major Hays launched his attack promptly at 07:00, attacking westward on a three-company front. Engineers with satchel charges and bangalore torpedoes helped neutralize several inland Japanese positions, but the strongpoints along the re-entrant were still dangerous. Marine light tanks made frontal attacks against the fortifications, even firing their 37mm guns point blank into the embrasures, but they were inadequate for the task. One was lost to enemy fire, and the other two were withdrawn.

Hays called for a section of 75mm halftracks. One was lost almost immediately, but the other used its heavier gun to considerable advantage. The center and left flank companies managed to curve around behind the main complexes, effectively cutting the Japanese off from the rest of the island. Along the beach, however, progress was measured in yards. The bright spot of the day for 1/8 came late in the afternoon when a small party of Japanese tried a sortie from the strongpoints against the Marine lines. Hays' men, finally given real targets in the open, cut down the attackers in short order.

The toughest fight of the fourth day (D+3) occurred on the Red Beach One/Two border where Colonel Shoup directed the combined forces of Hays' 1/8 and Schoettel's 3/2 against the "re-entrant strongpoints. The Japanese defenders in these positions were clearly the most disciplined—and the deadliest—on the island. From these bunkers, Japanese antiboat gunners had thoroughly disrupted the landings of four different battalions, and they had very nearly killed General Smith the day before. The seaward approaches to these strongpoints were littered with wrecked LVTs and bloated bodies.

Major Hays finally got some flamethrowers (from Crowe's engineers when LT 2/8 was ordered to stand down), and the attack of 1/8 from the east made steady, if painstaking, progress. Major Schoettel, anxious to atone for what some perceived to be a lackluster effort on D-Day, pressed the assault of 3/2 from the west and south. To complete the circle, Shoup ordered a platoon of infantry and a pair of 75mm halftracks out to the reef to keep the defenders pinned down from the lagoon. Some of the Japanese committed hara-kiri; the remainder, exhausted, fought to the end.

Hays' Marines had been attacking this complex ever since their landing on the morning of D+1. In those 48 hours, 1/8 fired 54,450 rounds of .30-caliber rifle ammunition. But the real damage was done by the special weapons of the engineers and the direct fire of the halftracks. Capture of the largest position, a concrete pillbox near the beach, enabled easier approaches to the remaining bunkers. By 13:00, it was all over. At the Red 1/Red 2 pocket there was no accurate count of Japanese dead.

There were an estimated 1,000 Japanese alive and fighting on the night of D+2, 500 on the morning of D+3 and only 50-100 left when the island was declared secure at 13:30 D+3. 2nd Marine Division suffered 894 killed in action, 48 officers and 846 enlisted men, with another 84 of the survivors later succumbing to their wounds.

Following the battle 1/8 along with the 2nd Marine Division was shipped to the big island of Hawaii. 1/8 remained in Hawaii for six months, refitting and training, until called upon for its next major amphibious landing, the Battle of Saipan in the Marianas in June 1944.

Battle of Saipan

1st Battalion 8th Marines landed on Green Beach on 15 June 1944. Confusion on the beaches, particularly in the 2d Marine Division area, was compounded by the strength of a northerly current flow which caused the assault battalions of the 6th and 8th Marines to land about 400 yards too far north. This caused a gap to widen between the 2d and 4th Marine Divisions.

On D+1 8th Marines moved east into the swamps around Lake Susupe. On 20 June the 8th Marines wheeled from facing east to attack northward into the foothills leading to Mount Tapotchau. The following day saw the Marines attack all along the line. The 8th Marines worked its painful way into the maze of ridges and gullies that formed the foothills of Mount Tapotchau.

On the west side of Saipan, the 2d Marine Division had a memorable day on 25 June. In a series of brilliant tactical maneuvers, with a battalion of the 8th Marines clawing up the eastern slope, a battalion of the 29th Marines (then attached to the 8th Marines) was able to infiltrate around the right flank in single file behind a screen of smoke and gain the dominating peak without the loss of a single man. Over the next several days the 8th Marines encountered four small hills strongly defended by the enemy. Because of their size in comparison with Mount Tapotchau, they were called "pimples." Each was named after a battalion commander. Painfully, one by one, they were assaulted and taken over the next few days.

Bypassing the town, the 2d Marine Division drove towards Flores Point, halfway to Tanapag. Along the way, with filthy uniforms, stiff with sweat and dirt after over two weeks of fierce fighting, the Marines joyfully dipped their heads and hands into the cool ocean waters. By 4 July 1/8 and the 2nd Division were moved into the reserve force in order to prepare for the attack on Tinian.

Battle of Tinian

At 17:05 on July 24, (Jig Day), 1/8 disembarked from the USS Calvert (APA-32) coming ashore at White Beach 1 at the request of the 4th Marine Division commander. The battalion was requested at 15:15 hours, however due to communication delays it didn't arrive until that evening. 1/8 was assigned as the 4th Marine Division reserve and was ordered to support the 24th Marine Regiment. Once ashore the battalion dug in at a place on the line near 2nd Battalion, 24th Marines.^[5]

On July 25 (Jig+1), Lieutenant Colonel Hays' 1st Battalion, 8th Marines began the day under the tactical control of the 24th Regiment. The battalion received orders to relieve the 1st Battalion, 24th Marines, along the coast on the extreme left flank of the beachhead.^[6] This shift was accomplished at 09:20, almost the same moment that Hays' unit reverted to its parent regiment, the newly landed 8th Marines. The latter, now attached to the 4th Division, assumed the northernmost sector of the front with 2 medium and 2 light (flamethrower) tanks from the 2nd Tank Battalion attached. 8th Regiment then began to struggle northward toward Ushi Point.

Using the same tactics employed along the beach by the 24th Marines on Jig-Day, 1/8 supported by armored amphibians afloat and tanks ashore, inched slowly through the gnarled coastal terrain and snare-like undergrowth. Marines found the zone littered with bodies—Japanese counterattackers of the night before that required careful examination for suicidal survivors. At first there was no opposition, but as the unit pressed farther to the north resistance began to develop along the coast. There, survivors of the counterattack, holed up in the craggy coral, fired occasional challenging bursts at the Marines.

By 11:15 the advance had bogged to a virtual standstill in the face of an especially knotty core of opposition near the water's edge. The rugged terrain around the strong-point forbade effective use of supporting tanks, and the armored amphibians, because of the shore's configuration, could not hit the area. To relieve the deadlock, Lieutenant Colonel Hays ordered his battalion to pivot on the left and wheel in an arc to the beach. This maneuver, striking the enemy at right angles to the original direction of advance, was successful. Within 15 minutes a pocket of 20 to 25 well-concealed riflemen had been reduced.

As the 8th Marines advanced, their front expanded, and at 11:30 the commander, Colonel Wallace, ordered his 2d Battalion up on the 1st Battalion's right to attack eastward. This zone included the built-up area around Ushi Point Airfield as well as the strip itself. Since most of the Japanese troops originally assigned to this area had expended themselves against the 1st Battalion, 24th Marines, on the night of Jig-Day, they could oppose this attack only with occasional, ineffective small-arms fire. The advance swept rapidly through the area. The 1st Battalion, too, gained momentum after destroying the beach strong-point and pushed northeastward along the coast. By dark the 8th Marines, having pushed about 200 yards past Objective O-2, stopped and carefully tied in lines for the night.

At 06:30 on 26 July (Jig+2), 1/8 along with the 8th Regiment were ordered back to 2nd Marine Division Control in order to facilitate the day's attack. With the 8th Marines on the left, the 2nd Marine Division began pushing eastward. 8th Marines swept rapidly across the Ushi Point flats. The airfield had been abandoned, but the Marines carefully searched each position to make certain that none of the enemy were lying in wait. By noon Colonel Wallace, the 8th Marines' commander, reported his assault battalions (1st and 2nd BN) on the east coast. 8th Regiment, now designated division reserve, began searching for enemy stragglers west of Objective O-3. 2nd Division's successful 2,500-yard push to the east coast now made it possible for the landing force to attack in a single direction, south. 1/8 and the 8th Regiment remained the division reserve until 31 July.

The night of 31 July - 1 August turned out to be the busiest of 1/8 and the 8th Regiment. The entire division's success depended on the 8th Marines success of reaching the heights of Objective O-8A. The going was tough due to the steep climb, but by the afternoon a platoon from A Company followed by a platoon from C Company 1/8 made a breakthrough and reached the summit. That night the Japanese launched a vicious local counterattack against 1/8's left. The situation was touch and go for a short time, one section of the Marines' front was even forced back a few yards, but the attackers were too few for the task they had assumed, and the Marines overcame the assault. Japanese counterattacks continued throughout the night, probing at 1/8's gaps in the line. They solved the issue by stringing concertina wire between foxholes.

At 14:55 on 1 August, 8th Marines reached their final objective with only sporadic resistance. 1/8 was then assigned the lion's share of mop up operations. On 6 August the 8th Marines assumed responsibility for the entire 2d Division sector and continued mopping-up activities. The next day the regiment also took over the 4th Division area, relieving the 23d Marines, which had patrolled that sector since 4 August.

At noon, 10 August, the 8th Marines became part of the Tinian Island Command, but the mop-up operations continued. On 25 October 8th Marines left 1st Battalion 8th Marines on Tinian and moved back to Saipan. After five months' garrison duty, 1/8 left Tinian and moved back to Saipan on 1 January 1945. For the 8th Marine Regiment securing Tinian came at a cost of 36 KIA and 294 WIA, the highest casualties of the five regiments assigned to the 2nd Marine Division.

Tinian had a strategic significance not fully apparent to the Marines who captured it in July 1944: slightly over a year later, 6 August 1945, the island provided the Army Air Forces a site from which the B-29 Enola Gay carried out the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. From the same field three days later another B-29 carried a second bomb, which was dropped on Nagasaki.

Battle of Okinawa

The 2nd Marine Division (including 1/8) remained as an amphibious reserve from 1–10 April 1945, when it was sent back to Saipan to minimize casualties from Kamikaze attacks off the coast of Okinawa.

In late May, the 8th Marines of the 2nd Marine Division finally got a meaningful role in the closing weeks of the Okinawa campaign. Colonel Clarence R. Wallace and his 8th Marines, with Lt. Col Richard W. Hayward leading 1/8, arrived from Saipan, and were committed to the campaign.

Between 3–9 June, 1/8 and the 8th Marines conducted amphibious landings to capture two outlying islands, Iheya Shima and Aguni Shima. The purpose of the mission was to provide more early warning radar sites against the kamikazes devastating the naval fleet offshore. No enemy contact was made on the operation.

Following the missions at Iheya Shima and Aguni Shima, General Roy Geiger assigned the 8th Marines, 1/8 included, to the 1st Marine Division, and by 18 June they had relieved the 7th Marines and were sweeping southeastward for the final overland assaults in the south.

Army Lt. General Simon Buckner, commander of the Okinawa operation, took an interest in observing the 8th Marines as this was their first time in action on Okinawa since the regiment entered the lines in the drive to the south. Buckner went to a forward observation post on 18 June, watching the 8th Marines advance along the valley floor. Japanese gunners on the opposite ridge saw the official party and opened up. Shells struck the nearby coral outcrop, driving a lethal splinter into the general's chest. He died in 10 minutes, one of the few senior U.S. officers to be killed in action throughout World War II. Marine General Geiger took over, declaring organized resistance on the island over on 21 June. The first battalion 8th Marine regiment suffered its last combat death of World War II the next day on 22 June 1945.

1/8 and the 8th Marines, attached to the 1st Marine Division, received the Presidential Unit Citation for their part in the Okinawa campaign. They would return to Saipan, until called upon for occupation duty in Japan

Occupation of Japan

1/8 deployed during September 1945 to Nagasaki, Japan, and participated in the occupation of Japan from September 1945 – June 1946. By 18 October, all units of the 8th Marines had established themselves in and around Kumamoto and begun the by-now familiar process of inventory and disposition.

On 29 October, a motor convoy carrying the major part of 1/8 moved from Kumamoto to Kagoshima city to assume control of western Kagoshima. The battalion had to start anew the routine of reconnaissance, inspection, inventory, and disposition that had occupied it twice before.

By early 1946, 2nd Marine Division began taking over areas once occupied by soon to be deactivated Army units; 8th Marines were moved to Kumamoto and Kagoshima. They relocated during June–July 1946 to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and were deactivated November 18, 1947.

Iraq War

• April–May 2003

On 5 March 2003 Battalion Landing Team (BLT) 1/8 departed Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) on board the USS Iwo Jima (LHD-7), USS Nashville (LPD-13), and USS Carter-Hall (LSD-50). The 26th MEU sailed directly to the eastern Mediterranean Sea in order to prepare for the potential invasion of Iraq. Following the Turkish government's denial of the usage of their country for a northern invasion, BLT 1/8 was forced to deploy from Crete and fly nearly 1,100 miles via U.S. Marine C-130 transport aircraft and 440 miles from the far Eastern Mediterranean Sea via CH-53 and CH-46 helicopters into Northern Iraq. On 12 April, the battalion began combat operations in Irbil and Mosul, Iraq as part of Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force - North (TF - Viking) for Operation Iraqi Freedom. During combat operations in Iraq, 1/8 suffered 1 Marine wounded in action (WIA) on 21 April 2003 from Weapons Company 81mm Mortar Platoon during a night-time probing attack on the Mosul Airport. By 1 May 2003, the battalion was relieved by the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division. The battalion withdrew from Mosul, Iraq and returned to the Iwo Jima ARG waiting in the Mediterranean Sea.

• June 2004-January 2005

The battalion deployed in June 2004 to Iraq as a part of Regimental Combat Team 1 and later RCT-7, 1st Marine Division (Reinforced). From June 2004 to January 2005, 1/8 conducted combat operations in Al Anbar Province in Area of Operations (AO) Denver and later AO Raleigh, including operations in Rawa, Anah, Little Anah, Haditha, Baghdadi, Barwana, Abu Buyatt, ASP Wolf, Hit, Al Asad, Haqlanyih, Karmah, Naser Wa Saleem, Abu Ghuraib, and Fallujah.

U.S. Marines prepare to step off on a patrol through the city of Fallujah, Iraq, to clear the city of insurgent activity and weapons caches as part of Operation al Fajr (New Dawn) on Nov. 26, 2004.

1st Battalion 8th Marines was one of the lead battalions during Operation Phantom Fury from 8 November to 9 December 2004 leading the assault into Fallujah. During combat operations in Iraq from June 2004-January 2005, 1st Battalion 8th Marines (Reinforced) suffered 21 Marines killed in action (KIA) and nearly 150 Marines wounded in action (WIA) with 17 KIA's and 102 WIA's coming in three weeks in Fallujah in November 2004. 1/8 conducted a relief in place with their sister battalion 3/8 and returned to Camp Lejeune by 1 February 2005.

Two Marines attempting to recover a fellow wounded 1/8 Marine. During Operation Phantom Fury, November 2004.

• August–November 2006

From 6 June - 6 December 2006, 1/8 was the Battalion Landing Team of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit. Various elements of 1/8 conducted combat operations in Iraq. One Marine from 1/8 Scout Sniper Platoon was killed in action and several other 1/8 Marines and a Corpsman were wounded on 1 November 2006, while conducting operations in Haditha, Iraq.

• September 2007 – April 2008

In September 2007, the battalion deployed a fourth time to Ar-Ramadi in Al Anbar Province in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Battalion suffered one Marine killed in action and numerous others wounded during combat operations. The battalion was instrumental in denying the enemy freedom of movement and as a result violence in the war ravaged city declined.

• March–September 2009

In 2009, 1/8 returned to Iraq for its fifth and final rotation to Al-Taqaddum in Al Anbar Province in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. In June, the battalion lost a Marine due to a non-hostile incident.

AFGHANISTAN CAMPAIGN

• August 2010–March 2011

In August 2010, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines deployed to Musa'Qaleh and Now Zad, Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom 10–2, Regimental Combat Team 2, First Marine Division (Forward), I Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward) Afghanistan as part of the International Security Assistance Force. The unit's performance in counter-insurgency operations in the two districts were integral in the stabilization of the region and development of Afghan National Security Forces. 1/8 suffered the loss of five Marines and one Navy Hospital Corpsman that were killed in action and numerous others wounded in action during their deployment to Helmand Province.

• January 2012-August 2012

From January to August 2012, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines deployed to Afghanistan again to conduct counter-insurgency operations in Northern Helmand Province. 1/8 suffered three Marines and one Navy Hospital Corpsman killed in action during their second deployment to Helmand Province.

Marines take a look at their targets following marksmanship training

ADDITIONAL OPERATIONS

HORN OF AFRICA

• June–July 2003

After leaving Mosul in May 2003, 1/8 took part in a training exercises in Albania, received port calls to Crete, Malta, and Italy, and conducted training and counter-terrorism operations in Djibouti, as well as remaining in the Persian Gulf on board ship as a reserve force for the U.S. Central Command. While in the Persian Gulf, the MEU received a port call to the United Arab Emerites.

LIBERIA

• July–September 2003

As the situation began to rapidly deteriorate, 1/8 and the 26th MEU were ordered to Liberia. The MEU left the coast of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, sailed back through the Suez Canal and took up a position off the coast of the west African nation. In an impressive show of force, the U.S.S. Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group sailed in-line roughly 3 miles off the coast of Liberia. On 14 August 2003, elements of the battalion eventually inserted into Roberts International Airport and at the Freeport of Monrovia on Bushrod Island outside of Monrovia, Liberia as part of Operation Sheltering Sky. A rifle company from 1/8 and supporting units from the 26th MEU conducted airfield security operations as part of Joint Task Force Liberia in an effort to facilitate the transition of governmental operations from the regime of Charles Taylor to a democratically elected government.

Following port visits to Rota, Spain and Lisbon, Portugal where Marines and sailors of the 26th MEU manned the rails, the battalion finally returned to Camp Lejeune, NC on the 20th anniversary of the Beirut barracks bombing on 23 October 2003.

LOUISIANA

• Hurricane Katrina 2005

While serving as a rapid ready force, 1/8 was called upon to help provide security and perform humanitarian operations in New Orleans following the devastation of the Category 5 storm. A small contingent of Alpha Company Marines were allowed to travel to Alabama in order to repair storm damage of fallen A Co. 1/8 Marine Bradley Faircloth's mother's home.

LEBANON

• July 2006

On 6 June 2006 1st Battalion 8th Marines deployed as the ground combat element of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit. On 18 July 2006, it was announced that the 24th MEU, along with the Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group, would be directed to Lebanon, to assist in the evacuation of almost 15,000 U.S. nationals who had become trapped in Lebanon, following a series of Israeli strikes which made the Beirut International Airport nonoperational, and similarly destroyed a number of major roads out of the country. This would become known as the largest evacuation of American citizens from a foreign country since the Vietnam War.