Before Marines stormed beaches in the Pacific, they had to prove they were worth keeping around. When steamships made close-quarters ship combat obsolete, the Marine Corps was nearly scrapped. Their old mission vanished overnight. This episode tells the story of how Samoa helped save the Corps. After Pearl Harbor, Samoa looked like Japan’s next logical target. The Marines were sent to hold the island at all costs.
Marines fortified beaches, built airfields, trained a Samoan reserve battalion, and turned the island into a launch point for operations across the South Pacific. Samoa never saw major combat, but it proved Marines could build and defend forward bases anywhere in the world.
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