On Friday, November 10, 1775, the Continental Congress approved a resolution for the organization of the Corps, creating what would become the hallowed few, the proud--the Marines. Since then, the men and women of the United States Marine Corps have created the finest traditions of service and honor, and supplied a pantheon of heroes who have upheld them. In The Greatest U.S. Marine Stories Ever Told, editor Iain Martin has accumulated these marines' most amazing true tales of service and sacrifice, from the Halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli, to the conflicts where they serve...

Under the fiery leadership of Merritt -Red Mike- Edson, the 1st Marine Raider Battalion provided the vanguard of a strategic experiment with seaborne commando units in the Pacific. From 1942 to 1943 Edson's Raiders fought seven critical battles in Tulagi, Guadalcanal, and New Georgia against some of Japan's most experienced jungle fighters. Twenty-four Raiders had ships named in their honor. Col. Joseph Alexander's book presents abundant first-person accounts of the conflicts, from Edson himself to such hard-nosed NCOs as Angus Goss, Walter Burak, and Anthony Palonis.

The Pacific War changed abruptly in November 1943 when Admiral Chester Nimitz unleashed a relentless 18-month, 4,000-mile offensive across the Central Pacific, spearheaded by fast carrier task forces and U.S. Marine and Army assault troops. The sudden American proclivity for amphibious frontal assaults against fortified islands astonished Japanese commanders, who called them -storm landings- because they differed so sharply from the limited landings of 1942-43.

This is the story of seven epic assaults from the sea against murderous enemy fire--Tarawa, Saipan, Guam, Tinian, Peleliu, Iwo...