Merrill, Frank Dow

▪ United States Army officer

born Dec. 4, 1903, Hopkinton, Mass., U.S.

died Dec. 11, 1955, Fernandina Beach, Fla.

      U.S. Army officer during World War II who led specially trained jungle fighters called “Merrill's Marauders” in successful operations against Japanese positions in Burma (1944).

      Graduating from the United States Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., in 1929, Merrill was assigned to the U.S. embassy in Tokyo (1938) and came to be acknowledged as an outstanding authority on the Japanese military mind and system. Before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he was sent (1941) to the China-Burma-India theatre, eventually becoming operations officer under Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell (Stilwell, Joseph W.). To retake northern Burma from Japanese forces, Merrill organized and led a regimental-sized group of U.S. volunteers brought to India for training in guerrilla tactics. The “Marauders” left Ledo, in Assam (February 1944), and marched several hundred miles through mountainous Burmese jungles to outflank the enemy, harass his lines of communication, and defeat him in a series of sharp engagements. Undernourished, fever-ridden, and near exhaustion, the “Marauders” climaxed their campaign in May by capturing, with the aid of Chinese reinforcements, the Myitkyina airfield. The city fell in August, making possible the extension of the Stilwell (formerly Ledo) road from India to a juncture with the Burma Road into China, thereby providing an overland supply route to supplement the air route over the Himalayas known as the “Hump.”

      After duty as deputy commander of U.S. forces in the India-Burma theatre, Merrill served (1945) as chief of staff of the 10th Army, Okinawa. Two years later he was with the U.S. military adviser group to the Republic of the Philippines. He retired in 1948 with the rank of major general.

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