The Marine Raiders

by Edwin P. Hoyt

The 1st and 2nd Marine Raider Battalions were a tough, hand-picked volunteer force, trained in jungle warfare. They became the forerunners of the Army's Green Berets and the Marine Force Recon Units but only saw action from 1941 to 1942. Here is their story--and the story of their guts and glory.

255 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 1, 1989

About the author

Edwin P. Hoyt was a prolific American writer who specialized in military history. He was born in Portland, Oregon to the publisher Edwin Palmer Hoyt (1897–1979) and his wife, the former Cecile DeVore (1901–1970). A younger brother, Charles Richard, was born in 1928. Hoyt attended the University of Oregon from 1940 to 1943.

In 1943, Hoyt's father, then the editor and publisher of The Oregonian, was appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt as the director of the Domestic Branch, Office of War Information. The younger Hoyt served with the Office of War Information during World War II, from 1943 to 1945. In 1945 and 1946, he served as a foreign correspondent for The Denver Post (of which his father became editor and publisher in 1946) and the United Press, reporting from locations in China, Thailand, Burma, India, the Middle East, Europe, North Africa, and Korea.

Edwin Hoyt subsequently worked as an ABC broadcaster, covering the 1948 revolution in Czechoslovakia and the Arab-Israeli conflict. From 1949 to 1951, he was the editor of the editorial page at The Denver Post. He was the editor and publisher of the Colorado Springs Free Press from 1951 to 1955, and an associate editor of Collier's Weekly in New York from 1955 to 1956. In 1957 he was a television producer and writer-director at CBS, and in 1958 he was an assistant publisher of American Heritage magazine in New York.

Starting in 1958, Hoyt became a writer full-time, and for a few years (1976 to 1980) served as a part-time lecturer at the University of Hawaii. In the 40 years since his first publication in 1960, he produced nearly 200 published works.

While Hoyt wrote about 20 novels (many published under pseudonyms Christopher Martin and Cabot L. Forbes) the vast majority of his works are biographies and other forms of non-fiction, with a heavy emphasis on World War II military history.

Hoyt died in Tokyo, Japan on July 29, 2005, after a prolonged illness. He was survived by his wife Hiroko, of Tokyo, and three children, Diana, Helga, and Christopher, all residing in the U.S.

Reviews

[Bill Wagner · Rating 3 out of 5]

I might even go as low as a 2.5 for this book. This was a difficult book to rate. I feel there is interesting and valuable information in this book. I never knew that FDR’s son was part of an elite Marine unit. For the president’s son to be in such an exposed and dangerous position is quite remarkable. And the number of patrols behind enemy lines the Raiders made was also surprising. As was the controversy over the forming of the Raiders. Many did not want such an elite unit in the Marine Corps.

But there were issues with this book. One is the many place names involved in the operations the Raiders undertook. Without maps it’s difficult to picture what was happening much of the time. Or the writing was a little confusing. Or both. And the editing was questionable. For example New Georgia and New Guinea were mixed up a number of times.

And the author felt the need to take a swipe at President Roosevelt. He blamed him for the loss of the Philippines thinking they should have been reinforced. But this was physically impossible for the United States to do at that time. Still, there valuable information in this book. If interested I would definitely give it a chance.

[Ted · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hoyt goes fairly easy on Marine Raider leader, Lt. Colonel Evans Carlson, who during raid on Makin Island on August 17-18, 1942 , became exhausted and dispirited to the point of dispatching a note to the Japanese commander offering to surrender. Hoyt makes no mention of this.