First in Burma

To the list of World War II specialists in close combat--Edson's and Carlson's Marine Raiders, British Brigadier Orde Charles Wingate's Raiders, Mountbatten's Commandos, U.S. Army Rangers--another was added last week. It was Merrill's Marauders, first U.S. foot soldiers to fight on the continent of Asia (see p. 29).

Frank Merrill of North Woodstock, N.H., knew no Congressman who would appoint him to West Point. He finally got to West Point the hard way--by competitive examination after three years as an enlisted man in the Engineer Corps. He finished in 1929, aged 25, went into the Cavalry.

Now 40, Frank Merrill is shy, studious, bespectacled. His duty tour as assistant military attache in Tokyo gave him an understanding of Japanese customs and language. At Pearl Harbor time he was on the way to Burma on a mission for Douglas MacArthur. Merrill stayed with Stilwell, became that old infantryman's right hand.

The Marauders. Merrill's troops are no novices to jungles, where novices are often less than useful. All joined up after a Presidential call for volunteers "for a dangerous and hazardous mission." From the jungle training bases of Trinidad and the Canal Zone, from Guadalcanal and New Georgia came many a veteran Regular Army man itching for action. Some old-timers like Sergeant John Russell of Hammond, La., ex-Marine who wears the Navy Cross he won in Nicaragua. Others were the young, unmarried zealots who usually make fine soldiers.

Merrill's Marauders arrived in India in October, soon got used to the Burma jungle. From Ledo last month they began their 100-mile circling march to the rear of the Japanese concentrations at Maingkwan, averaging 20 miles a day down crude trails Kachin tribes of Burmese had hacked many years ago. To avoid ambush, greatest terror of jungle warfare, intelligence and reconnaissance squads always patrolled the trails ahead of and behind their columns. Only once were they fooled by a grass dummy which was covered by a Jap machine gun-- two men were killed but the lesson was learned.

The Marauders got their food (mostly iron rations) from the air--it was dropped by Tenth Air Force planes. They slept on the ground, each man under two blankets and a poncho, pestered by continuous rains and leeches. Last week they were repaid for all their discomforts, all their meticulous training: the stunned Japs were completely surprised to find U.S. troops throwing a road block across their only supply line in the Hukawng Valley.

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