Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here obedient to their laws we lie.

Semper Fidelis has always been more than just a hollow slogan to Marines. These two simple Latin words, meaning “always faithful,” are the motto of the Marine Corps. They can be found embroidered of the Corps’ battle flags, tattooed on arms, backs and other body parts, and painted on signs, rocks, buildings and vehicles at every Marine Corps post and station. Most importantly, the motto embodies the spirit that Marines have carried into battle since the founding of the Corps on 10 November 1775. 

In the classic motion picture Sands of Iwo Jima, the battle-hardened leader Sgt. John M. Stryker told his young squad members, “You joined the Marines because you wanted to fight. Well, you’re gonna get your chance.” Men flocked to the Marine Corps expecting to be part of an elite force that was the first to land. And the Corps lived up to their expectations. Fully 98% of the men who joined the Corps served in the Pacific. None of the other armed forces approached this level of efficiency in manpower during World War II.

The drill instructor served as the gatekeeper into a unique fraternity. With a compressed time frame, his mission was to turn men of every shape, size and background into basically trained Marines. When new recruits arrived in boot camp aboard the Marine bases in either San Diego or Parris Island, they were stripped of every vestige from their previous existence.

By the numbers

Formed into platoons of 50 to 75 privates, new boots embarked on the unforgiving journey of recruit training. From dawn until dusk, and far into the night, the drill instructors taught their new charges. Learning by the numbers, recruits absorbed a thousand lessons large and small. They attended classes, learned to swim, ran the obstacle course. Slowly, they learned how to walk, talk and act like Marines. For many of the new privates, this was their first time away from home. Their only contact with the outside world was through cherished letters from their friends and families. 

Lessons were hammered in through repetition. Hour after hour, the platoons marched across the huge parade deck. They practiced snapping in and then qualified with their rifles. Entwined through it all was the Corps’ bedrock; discipline. The Rocks and Shoals of Naval Regulations were taught to the recruits. They found out that venereal disease was just as dangerous as getting a combat wound, and maybe more painful.

Mistakes were corrected on the spot through repetitive practice. Calling his rifle a gun might earn the recruit a night spent sleeping with it. Dropping it on the deck; a cardinal sin, could result in several laps around the parade deck with the rifle held up over his head. Serious lapses, such as calling the drill instructor anything other than “sir,” could end with the recruit marching around the area with his bucket on his head. Officers, seldom seen in boot camp, were lesser gods to be avoided at all costs. 

Although most of them would never own a set of dress blues, every World War II recruit knew what the blood stripe on officers’ and NCOs’ blue trousers meant. It wasn’t called blood stripe for nothing. In the class on Marine Corps history, they learned about the legendary Gunnery Sgt. Dan Daly and his famous battle cry in World War I, “Come on you sons-of-bitches, do you want to live forever!”

Somewhere along the way, recruits discovered that they were becoming Marines, a special breed of man with one foot in the sea and the other on land. The forest green uniform wasn’t just a suit of clothes, but a mark of distinction. And the Marine Corps Emblem – the eagle, globe and anchor – was much more than a badge. It was a way of life. Even the unofficial nicknames for Marines sounded tough. Soldiers might be called “dogface” or “G. I.” and sailors were “swabbies.” But Marines were leathernecks, and gyrenes. Anyone dumb enough to call a Marine “seagoing bellhop” or “jarhead” risked a broken nose or worse. 

Gyrene – commonly used nickname for a Marine. The term dated at least from the 1920s. Usage: “Hey gyrene, you looked good in the inspection.”

Marines didn’t just serve on land. They were soldiers of the sea. During the Revolution and the War of 1812, Marines sailed aboard ships with legendary names such as Bonhomme Richard, Constitution, and Constellation. High in the rigging of the fighting tops, they scoured the enemy’s decks with volleys of aimed fire. These early leathernecks began a tradition that went down in history: “Every Marine a rifleman.” After the age of sail passed into history, Marines continued to serve aboard battle wagons, cruisers and aircraft carriers. And of course, countless World War II gyrenes went across vast oceans to war in transport ships of all kinds.

Exotic locales were part and parcel of the Corps’ tradition of small wars. Fighting “to the shores of Tripoli” and “the halls of Montezuma” small units of Marines prevailed against much larger enemy forces. China, Africa, Nicaragua, and the Caribbean – these far-off places were all familiar to old salts who might boast, “Hell, I’ve worn out more seabags than you’ve worn out socks.” To men like this, defeat was unthinkable. 

The Great War in France

The Marine Corps lived up to its fighting reputation, and the modern Corps was born in the meat grinder of the Western Front. On the first day of the American attack at Belleau Wood in June 1918, the Marine Brigade lost 1,087 men killed or wounded. This was more casualties than the Marine Corps had suffered in its entire history to that date. A company commander, when advised by a French officer to retreat, was reputed to have replied, “Retreat hell, we just got here.” 

But after almost three weeks of grueling combat against elite German stormtroopers, the woods were firmly in American hands. On 26 June 1918, after beating off early morning counterattacks, a major on the Marine Brigade staff sent the signal, “Woods now entirely – US Marine Corps.” The Germans, never given to overstatement, were reputedly astounded at the fighting ability of the American Marines.

A German officer whose unit fought against the Brigade in Belleau Wood was rumored to have reported to his commander, “Sie kaempfen wie Teufelhunde.” (They fight like hounds from Hell.) The name stuck and ever since, Marines have proudly worn the nickname, “Devil Dogs.” Although likely apochryphal, the story came to have powerful symbolism, both to Marines and for the American public.

Into the Pacific fire

In the opening weeks of World War II, the Japanese struck at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and launched a major offensive all across the Pacific. One of their objectives was the American base at Wake Island, defended by a brave but completely outnumbered Marine and Navy garrison. Holding out for two weeks against the major Japanese seaborne assault, the defenders of Wake sank two enemy destroyers and repulsed the first landing attempt. In the final run, the garrison never had a chance against the enemy’s overwhelming invasion force. The survivors endured years of brutal captivity by the Japanese.

Americans hung on the gallant deeds of Wake Island’s defenders. After fending off the first Japanese attack, the garrison commander transmitted a long radio message to Pacific headquarters requesting reinforcements and supplies. The radioman inserted several passages of filler text at the end of the message before encoding it. In the text was the phrase, “Send more Japs.” Widely reported in the press, the message became part of the wartime lore of the Marine Corps.

“Don’t give me that bull about quitting. That’s all I ever hear you boots whining about. At Wake they said, ‘Send us more Japs.’ But you guys say, ‘When do we go home?’ “

Helmet for my Pillow by Robert Leckie

During the war, the Corps grew to a size never equaled before or since. Nonetheless, it remained the smallest of the armed services and was small enough that Marines had buddies all over the world. Every one knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that he was in an elite fighting force. Their mission of assault from the sea against heavily defended islands only strengthened this belief. Again and again, they proved the old axiom, “The Marines have landed and the situation is well in hand.”

Hell was an ocean away

Each time that Marines climbed down the nets off the coast of a Japanese-held island, or strapped themselves into their aircraft for a dangerous combat mission, they were engaged in a high-risk business, and they knew it. Fighting off hordes of fanatical enemy troops under terrible conditions, Marines faced the worst battlefield conditions. This only solidified the hard-won belief that they were the best. To cite but one example, during the desperate battle for Tarawa in November 1943, Col. David M. Shoup sent the following message to Second Marine Division headquarters: “Casualties many. Percentage dead not known. Combat efficiency – we are winning.” 

At the end of every Pacific campaign, survivors looked out across a blasted landscape littered with the wreckage of combat. The destruction of lives and resources was horrendous and beyond comprehension to anyone who had not experienced it. Often immense, The death toll was terribly painful for those who were still standing. Filthy, exhausted, with the stench of battle in their nostrils, young men were glad to be alive, but mourned the loss of so many friends and comrades.

In open route formation, Fox moved past us, led by the skipper, the exec and the first sergeant. … Their raw, gaunt muscles leaned them forward to catch the cadence of the march. They were young men, these riflemen, boys of eighteen, nineteen, and twenty. They were the Marines of the Second World War.

Battle Cry by Leon Uris

A legacy for the ages

In the end, the Marine Corps was a mirror of the way America saw itself. Forged into warriors, formed into well-trained and equipped teams, the World War II gyrenes faced and overcame an implacable foe. They lived up to the very highest traditions of those that went before them. Landing again and again into the teeth of withering defenses with the cold sea at their backs, those wartime Marines won their own battle laurels, and in the doing, achieved a standard of courage and honor that became a benchmark for generations of future Marines and a mark of honor for all time.

There is nothing particularly glorious about sweaty fellows, laden with killing tools, going along to fight. … All that is behind those men is in that column, too: the old battles, long forgotten, that secured our nation — traditions of things endured, and things accomplished such as regiments hand down forever.

Fix Bayonets! by Capt. John W. Thomason Jr., U.S.M.C.