Evans Fordyce Carlson

Evans Fordyce Carlson 1896-1947, U.S. marine officer, b. Delaware co., N.Y. Enlisting at 16 in the army, he served in the Philippines and Hawaii and in France during World War I. In the U.S. marine corps after 1922, he saw service in Cuba, Nicaragua, Japan, and especially China, where in 1937 he studied guerrilla warfare intensively. Angered by censorship of his reports, he resigned, but in 1941 he applied for recommissioning. During World War II he organized and commanded Carlson's Raiders, a guerrilla unit that achieved fame by its raids on Makin Island (Aug., 1942) and Guadalcanal (Nov., 1942). In 1946 he was promoted to brigadier general and retired from service. He wrote The Chinese Army (1940) and Twin Stars of China (1940).

Bibliography: See biography by M. Blankfort (1947).

Carlson, Evans Fordyce (1896–1947) army and Marine Corps officer and writer, born in Sidney, New York. As an adviser and patrol leader in Nicaragua he developed night-fighting tactics and was awarded the Navy Cross. As an intelligence officer in Shanghai, Peking, in the late 1930s, he observed Chinese Communist army operations, and accompanied guerrillas behind Japanese lines. In World War II, he commanded the “Carlson's Raiders” marine battalion, launching raids behind enemy lines in the Makin Atoll (conducted in rubber boats launched from submarines) and on Guadalcanal (1942).