Fightin' Marines #74

During the brutal Saipan campaign in 1944, a Marine named Mike and his outnumbered unit are caught off-guard by a massive Japanese banzai attack that leaves them pinned down with only four men fit to fight and eleven wounded. Trapped in a hilltop cave with limited ammunition, Mike makes a desperate solo raid on enemy positions and then risks everything to signal Allied aircraft to an even larger Japanese force massing for another assault. The odds are stacked impossibly against them, but Mike and his wounded buddies refuse to go down without a fight.

Sgt. Roland Buck and his men—Charlie Higgins, Phil Ross, and Roy Smith—are dug in at a scorching hot observation post on Guadalcanal when tension boils over: Higgins rails against the brass, convinced the officers sit safe while enlisted Marines bleed. When a General and Major suddenly arrive at their position under fire, Buck realizes the brass aren't as removed from danger as his men believe—and that Higgins' gripes about rank and risk might need some serious rethinking. As waves of Japanese soldiers press their assault, the officers make a calculated decision that will change how these leathernecks see the chain of command.

A green Marine replacement falls overboard during a beach assault and finds himself alone behind enemy lines for over three days, forced to survive through instinct and the fragments of his training while evading Japanese patrols. As P.F.C. Tripp discovers he's more resourceful than he believed, his desperate improvisation in the jungle—from disarming booby traps to taking strategic shots at the enemy—transforms raw fear into hard-won combat experience. When he finally fights his way back to his own outfit, a seasoned officer gives him an unexpected assessment of everything he's learned the hard way.