The First Battalion, 24th Marines

Nearly 3,000 Marines and Navy corpsmen served with this heroic battalion, from training as the First Separate Battalion (Reinforced) at New River; as part of the Fourth Marine Division at Camp Pendleton and Camp Maui; in combat at Roi-Namur, Saipan, Tinian, and Iwo Jima; and at their final mustering out in October, 1945.

“One Twenty-Four” and its contingent companies – HQ, Able, Baker, Charlie, and the short-lived Dog – was an ordinary battalion of ordinary Marines. Their achievements are infrequently mentioned in history books; few of them were recognized as heroes by the public. Their experience of the war, however, is timeless for this very reason. Most were citizen warriors in their teens or early twenties who put their lives on the line for ideals, for adventure, for pride, or because they were told they must. They came home proud and modest of their accomplishments, matured or shattered by what they saw and did, changed forever in the span of a few months or years. They shaped generations by their experience – or, if they never came home, by their absence.

This is a battalion of everymen, where every man has a story worth telling and remembering.