The successes of these first two units were such that the 3rd Raider Battalion was activated at Samoa on Sept. 20, 1942, and the 4th Raider Battalion on Oct. 23, 1942, at Camp Pendleton, Calif. Then, on March 15, 1943, the four USMC Raider battalions were organized into the 1st Marine Raider Regiment at Espiritu Santo, with Col. Harry B. Liversedge as commander and Carlson as the executive officer. In December 1943, command of the 1st Raider Regiment passed to Lt. Col. Samuel D. Puller, younger brother of the legendary “Chesty” Puller. The regiment left New Caledonia on Jan. 21 and landed on Guadalcanal three days later, ready to deploy for combat. Through the end of 1943, the Raiders took part in the grueling Solomons campaign, fighting on and around the islands of New Georgia and Bougainville.

Marine Raiders were issued an Americanized version of the British Commandos’ Fairbairn-Sykes stiletto, designed for silent killing. Its fragile point and corrosive zinc-alloy handle made it unpopular, and most Raider Marines preferred commercial “Bowie” knives, or durable, short jungle machetes. Weapons platoons carried the air-cooled M1919A4 .30-caliber machine guns and light 60 mm mortars.

Other weapons listed in the 1942 Table of Equipment for the 1st Raider Battalion included 14 British .55-caliber bolt-action Boys anti-tank rifles, 66 M1911 .45-caliber pistols, and 40 M1903 Springfield .30-06-caliber sniper rifles. Raiders also received some of the first U.S. reversible camouflage uniforms, with jungle pattern camouflage on one side and sand color on the other.

The Marine Raiders experimented with a wide variety and combinations of weapons and small unit organizations, such as a three-man fire team equipped with a Browning Automatic Rifle, a Thompson submachine gun, and an M1 Garand rifle. Some carried new Reising submachine guns, weapons rushed into mass-production in 1940. The Reising fired the same .45-caliber ACP cartridge as the Thompson, but was much more likely to jam in combat due to its delayed blow-back action being easily fouled by dirt. Edson reportedly had Reisings issued to his unit dumped into the Lunga River on Guadalcanal.

In 1972, an official Marine historian wrote, “… by early 1944 the face of the Pacific war had changed and the demand for Raider units was not sufficient to justify maintaining special units for the purpose. Senior Marine officers had never really taken to the concept of separate ‘elite of the elite’ units, and as the requirement for such units came into question, this opposition became more effective.”

Therefore, early in 1944, the Raider battalions were disbanded. Their Marines were mostly transferred to the new 4th and 5th Marine divisions. During the war, 8,078 men, including 7,710 Marines and 368 sailors, served in Raider units. Raiders received seven Medals of Honor, 136 Navy Crosses, and 2,406 Purple Hearts. Including those who died of wounds or were MIA, 892 Raiders gave their lives.

Although the Raiders were disbanded in 1944 and the Marines seemed firmly wedded to the concept of heavy infantry as part of a Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTAF) for Marine amphibious assault, the idea of elite “light” infantry for special missions persisted. As early as the 1930s, Scout Sniper platoons had been attached to Marine regiments to provide standoff fire and reconnaissance. Highly skilled in field craft and marksmanship, snipers delivered long-range precision fire on selected targets from concealed positions. During the war, Marine amphibious reconnaissance units had been formed in the Atlantic and Pacific regions, and the 2nd Amphibious Recon Battalion was revived in December 1950 at Camp Lejeune, N.C. No great amphibious assaults were attempted after Inchon, but there were continuing small wars, guerrilla wars, irregular wars, and covert wars demanding precisely the tactics, techniques and procedures that Marines practiced around the world for two centuries, and that the Raiders had honed to a sharp edge over the course of just a few months.