laststandonzombieisland

The U.S. Army’s 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional), was not a big organization.

Grouped into three battalions each of 963 men and 139 horses/mules plus a K9 platoon, its all-up TOE was just 2,997 officers and men– basically that of an understrength light infantry brigade. Its largest artillery was 81mm mortars. 

Code-named “Galahad” and led by Brig. Gen. Frank D. Merrill, they became the larger-than-life “Merrill’s Marauders” as they cut a swath across occupied Burma in 1944, marching 1,000 miles in six months (four of those in combat) from India to seize the Japanese-held airfield in the city of Myitkyina.

Now, the last of the Marauders, Russell Hamler, who began the war as a horse soldier in the 27th Cavalry before he volunteered for what would become the 5307th, has passed at age 99, closing a chapter in military history.

The lineage of the Mauraders passed to the 75th Ranger Regiment, which keeps the memory alive.