Journey into Hazard: Marines on Mission

By Marc Parrott

Journey into Hazard: Marines on Mission, 1805-1945, first published in 1962 as Hazard: Marines on Mission, is a recounting of some of the most notable personalities and events in the history of the U.S. Marine Corps: from its humble beginnings in the early 1800s and the fight in the North African Barbary Wars, to the “ideal Marine” Lou Diamond, to the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima and the sad fate of Pima Indian Ira Hayes. While not a book of combat, Journey into Hazard provides insight into a number of nearly forgotten incidents that shaped both the Marines and the United States. Included are 10 pages of maps and illustrations. Author Marc Parrott served in the Marines during World War II.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Burtyrki Books
• Release date: Jan 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781839742552

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Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

JOURNEY INTO HAZARD

Marines on Mission, 1804-1945

By

MARC PARROTT

Introduction by General Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr., USMC (Ret.)

Journey into Hazard: Marines on Mission, 1804-1945 was originally published in 1962 as Hazard: Marines on Mission by Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York.

* * *

To J.C.P.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

APOLOGIA: In the Form of an Author’s Preface 5

INTRODUCTION 8

A CAPTIVE MARINE AND HIS RESCUERS: Ray, Eaton, and O’Bannon in Tripoli 10

A NEW JERSEY SINBAD: John Gamble’s Essex Cruise 31

GILLESPIE AND THE GOLDEN SHORE 50

MANHUNTER 63

ENIGMA: The Quest of Colonel Ellis 74

LOU DIAMOND: The Myth and the Marine 83

IN MEMORY OF IRA HAMILTON HAYES (1923-55) 92

A Note on Sources 102

Chapter 1: O’BANNON 102

Chapter 2: GAMBLE 103

Chapter 3: GILLESPIE 103

Chapter 4: HANNEKEN 104

Chapter 5: ELLIS 104

Chapter 6: DIAMOND 105

Chapter 7: HAYES 105

A Note on Marine Corps Books of General Interest 106

ILLUSTRATIONS 107

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 117

APOLOGIA: In the Form of an Author’s Preface

Any book making a pretense to decency has to be its own excuse, but it will perhaps help the reader if he understands that this one represents the more or less chance coupling of two ideas.

For a long time now I have thought about doing a book on men on journeys into hazard, because of the several themes this, possibly, requires the least apologetics. The greatest of all treatments of the topic, Homer’s, starts from the commonplace, basic but still gutsy, journey = life. It must have been well established in the human mind long before Odysseus first appears in comfortable durance at Calypso’s version of a villa in Antibes.

What was contemplated originally was a book of the more uncommon American travels. There seemed to be room for such a work in an age when, for instance, a younger friend of mine, a straight A history graduate from a leading Western university, had never even heard the phrase The Message to Garcia, and schoolboys no longer know anything about Sheridan twenty miles away, or Boone’s escape from the Shawnees. A prospectus of such a book was submitted to an editor; it happened to contain the incidents worked up here into the chapters on Sergeants Hanneken and Diamond, and the final form the book assumed stems from his suggestion that unity was to be obtained by narrowing, so far as possible, my cast to Marines. This triggered some old-school-tie loyalties and memories of brief but interesting years when this writer, though nearly qualifying for the Order of the N.L.D., or Never Left Desk, traveled with the club from Parris Island to Peking by way of Peleliu, a tour that cannot be laid on, today, by the most resourceful travel agent.

There are both meretricious and valid approaches to a book on Marines, and writers have produced examples of both. There is, for instance, what might be termed the battle, bar, and bedroom book about the USMC, and bad as it generally is, it goes back to a reality, the recruiting-poster myth, which a sociologist might call a useful myth in that it probably enlists X number of boobs and suckers per year, some of whom turn out well. This literary convention, too, actually produced one good work, the play What Price Glory? written by Maxwell Anderson and Laurence Stallings, the latter an ex-Marine who got some of the marvelous snow-jobs into his dialogue—and the quality, too, of the myth underlying the snow-jobs, to which Sergeant Quirt finds himself responding as he leaves the hard-won cantinière and follows Flagg offstage with the imperishable curtain line: Hey, Captain! Wait for baby.

But the battle, barroom, etc., approach is not that elected here, for the astonishing and potentially disillusioning thing about Marines might as well be faced: they are the same as other people; at least, they start out that way. That old saw of athletic coaches, speaking of dreaded opponents to their squads, is operative here: they put their pants on one leg at a time—just like you.

Why, then, have Marines remained box office, so to speak? The bulk of the present manuscript, in its way, aims to help elucidate this problem, and in an afterword the author cites some excellent writers who may shed further light. Overwhelmingly and obviously, I myself surmise, it has been their battle record and consequent fame—Army propaganda to the contrary it is not true that all Marines are assessed for the tab charged by their advertising agency (which happens to be J. Walter Thompson; one old-line firm aids another one). The Marines’ best propaganda has usually been the naked event. When historically minded citizens have totaled accounts, the Belleau Woods, Wakes, Guadalcanal, and Iwos have outweighed adverse entries like the Ribbon Creek disaster, the fact that one Commandant was an alcoholic and that, like the other United States forces on that field in 1814, the Marines made reasonably good time rearward from Bladensburg, Maryland. And the good word-of-mouth has generally muffled adverse voices, even those of five or six loud ill-wishers who happened to be Presidents of the United States. In the 1930s, the great first basemanmanager of the Giants, Bill Terry, had a stock answer to reporters when a vital series was coming up: I’ll lead with my ace, said he invariably. That was Carl Hubbell. So, in its altercations, large and small, the United States has treated its odd military stopper. In both World Wars there was substance to the First to Fight claim, and between big wars, after the Indian campaigns died out, Marines were virtually our only troops to fight at all.

Fascinating too, if less ponderable than the battle record, has been the hybrid, almost protean nature of the Marine, soldier and sailor, too, as Kipling called his British counterpart. For a long time his role was a symbiotic existence within the various navies of the age of sail. In battle he was a sniper. On ordinary days, commanders found it useful to have a body of men whose loyalties dependably lay aft in officers’ country rather than with the potentially mutinous forecastle of those dangerous times. (Bligh had no Marines on the Bounty, a mistake he corrected before he next went voyaging.) Gradually this connection with fleets has been almost lost, but more recently, United States Marines, though no others known to their historian, Robert Sherrod, took to the air, with results that may properly be called historic when at Guadalcanal the malarial and dysentery-ridden Cactus Air Force turned back the foe in America’s analogy to the Battle of Britain. Versatility has been expected of Marines. An outrageously boastful but luckily apocryphal yarn runs as follows: One day in the 1920s some bureaucrat or plantation owner in a banana republic telegraphed the Natives restless bit to the port city where there was a Marine contingent. In response, some time later, a solitary Marine got off the train at the trouble spot, whereupon the dialogue went like this:

BUREAUCRAT: ——I ask for help, and they send me one Marine!

MARINE: So? There wasn’t but one rising, was there?

For the Marine has had the repute of a Mr. Fix-it.

And the most controversial possible cause for public interest in the Corps has been everyone’s fascination with elites, a word popularized by the Italian egghead sociologist Pareto and of enduring interest to bidders at yearling sales, millions of straphangers devouring the social columns, and to Professor C. Wright Mills of Columbia University, who says the United States is steered by one. (There should be no automatic bristling of hackles at the word elite: the thing exists.) Now, this reputation, too, has commonly been borne by Marines, and borne with some complacency; a highly intelligent Marine officer I once knew, not given to bragging, used to put the Corps with the Legion Etrangere and the Guards Brigade as one of three unique military organizations in the Western world.

Such a claim supposes a long history and a special cachet. And indeed, the Marines were founded, in a Philadelphia saloon, as long ago as November 10, 1775, and on certain rather narrow technical grounds often claim to be the senior national service. As for flavor, they possess that in great measure, though it is by no means clear in my mind whether the Marine cachet was at all times exclusively theirs, or whether other services lost something like it with size and the passage of time. It has seemed to me that the Marines alone, perhaps, maintain something of the tone of the volunteer forces on which this country placed overwhelming military reliance down within the memory of living men—sanguine and brash, self-advertising and adaptable, in the tradition of Andrew Jackson’s militia, half-man, half-horse and half-alligator, and of the voluntary association known as the Army of Northern Virginia as glimpsed by a small boy who saw them near their noontide:

the dirtiest men I ever saw, a most ragged, lean and hungry set of wolves. But there was a dash about them that the Northern men lacked. They rode like circus riders...They were profane beyond belief and talked incessantly. [D. S. Freeman, R. E. Lee, II, p. 355, quoting Leighton Parks on the passage of the Potomac before the Sharpsburg campaign.]

Even this proud poverty is recognizable to anyone acquainted with how Marines were sometimes supplied and clothed in the Pacific vis-à-vis more generously endowed Army outfits.

Now, with a couple of terminal remarks, an end to explanation and apologia. In keeping with the kind of journey idea I visualized, Gamble and others were alone, actually or symbolically, much of the route. Thus the Marine increment in themselves was acquired elsewhere, at other times; at their supreme testing they lacked what Hemingway calls somewhere the comforting stench of comrades.

After doing a few of the chapters it occurred also that an unsought strand of tragedy was entering the pattern; Hayes, Gillespie, and Ellis, for instance, came to bad or obscure ends. But the writer would be most hesitant to draw a moral. All, even Hayes, lived very intensely before they died, in strange times and settings, amid and sometimes performing the prodigious.

And that is much better than par for the course.

INTRODUCTION

Much has been written about the history and traditions of the United States Marine Corps, its amphibious operations and between-war accomplishments. Few writers, however, have recounted in detail the exploits of many of the Marine Corps’ illustrious heroes and well-known characters.

This series of stirring episodes vividly tells the story of the lives and deeds of a few of the Corps’ legendary figures whose names are familiar to the thousands of Marines who have proudly worn the globe and anchor. One might say the stories of these Marines form a collection of snapshots from the Corps’ historical album of those who are known today as The Old Breed.

Mr. Parrott, the author of this interesting book, served as a Marine for several years during World War II. In the Historical Section of the Marine Corps he had access to Navy and Marine records from which he compiled the background material included in his stories.

In his narrative Mr. Parrott has endeavored to avoid glamorizing his heroes and has not refrained from setting forth the personal weaknesses of his characters while telling a true story of their strength and courage.

In reading the author’s manuscript I have thoroughly enjoyed each chapter, beginning with the thrilling account of the leadership displayed by Lieutenant Presley Neville O’Bannon and his seven Marines who spearheaded our country’s first land offensive on the shores of Tripoli. Mr. Parrott’s episodes highlight some of the most colorful events in the history of the Marine Corps.

The last four chapters were especially interesting to me since I knew the Marines depicted in them and was familiar with their accomplishments.

Lieutenant-Colonel Pete Ellis’s reputation as a brilliant staff officer was well known to those who served with him in the Fourth Marine Brigade in France. Later as aide-de-camp to General Lejeune I learned of Ellis’s last mission to the Pacific and the regrettable circumstances under which he died.

Herman Hanneken, shortly after his return from Haiti, was assigned for duty with the company I commanded and related to me, in his modest manner, the exciting events which led up to the slaying of the Caco bandit Charlemagne.

Lou Diamond served for two years as a gunnery sergeant in my battalion where we became fast friends. He was truly one of the Corps’ unforgettable characters.

Ira Hayes’ participation in the Iwo Jima flag raising and his subsequent public relations difficulties became known to me while serving as Chief of Staff of the Marine Corps following World War II. Later as Commandant, I met and talked to Hayes at the dedication of the Marine Corps Memorial.

The stories of the individuals whose lives and exploits are so vividly portrayed in this book will prove profitable and enjoyable reading to all Marines and to the many citizens who are justifiably proud of their country’s elite corps of soldiers of the sea.

I trust that the accomplishments of these stouthearted Marines and their devotion to duty will provide an inspiration to future generations of young Americans who may have the honor to serve in the United States Marine Corps.

Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr.

General USMC (Ret.)

Twentieth Commandant

United States Marine Corps

A CAPTIVE MARINE AND HIS RESCUERS: Ray, Eaton, and O’Bannon in Tripoli

1804-5

USMC strength: 500

Major William Ward Burrows and Lieutenant-Colonel Franklin Wharton, Commandants

North Africa

I

WILLIAM RAY was a most odd Marine but an age-old type, the intellectual with a grievance. Fate and his own shiftless nature pushed him into the Corps, and then he fell into the hands of a gang of pirates. All sorts of consequences followed. Two people with whom we are concerned spearheaded the attempts to rescue Ray and some three hundred more of his countrymen; a Marine lieutenant and a self-created General whom the Marines would like to claim, and who perhaps would like to have been a Marine himself on the analogy of the old saying that just two races exist: Irish and want-to-be. As a result of all this the young United States dabbled in Mediterranean imperialism and the Marines came up with a ceremonial sword and the line in the Hymn that speaks of Tripoli.

The Barbary Wars are a good instance of the power of long-entrenched blackmailers to levy toll on peaceable folk. They became timely again at the end of the 1950s when it began to be said that Castro’s and Khrushchev’s twisting of Uncle’s beard was a thing unprecedented in our history. This is historically incorrect. A fairly ratty band of African sea raiders treated us with equal disrespect and made us pay heavily and directly for the privilege. The spectacle of our own low estate is not the only parallel between that far-off campaign and the near present; for the only time until Korea, the lives and safety of American prisoners of war became a factor in our diplomacy and war-making.

Before they were consigned to the books and Hollywood, the Barbary corsairs existed, all right, and cut a large figure in the world. In their great days, kings of France bid for their favor and discreetly ignored the thousands of Christians who miserably manned their galleys. The beautiful and noble Giulia Gonzaga escaped the lustful grasp of an expedition sent to take her from her house between Naples and Rome by sprinting for safety in her nightgown. Their happiest hunting ended after Don John of Austria’s victory at Lepanto and the coming of sail in place of oars in the seventeenth century, but even then the pirates raided as far as Iceland and made the famous