The unit's history dates back to World War II where it fought in numerous campaigns in the Pacific including Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Tinian and Okinawa.

The Japanese, remnants of the Sendai Division, were dug into the sides of a series of cross compartments and their fire took the Marines in the flank as they advanced.

The 8th Marines was essentially pinched out of the front lines by a narrowing attack corridor as the inland mountains and hills pressed closer to the coastal trail.

[4] Col. Shoup directed Major Hays to attack westward, but both men knew that small arms and courage alone would not prevail against fortified positions.

Engineers with satchel charges and bangalore torpedoes helped neutralize several inland Japanese positions, but the strongpoints along the re-entrant were still dangerous.

Marine light tanks made frontal attacks against the fortifications, even firing their 37mm guns point blank into the embrasures, but they were inadequate for the task.

The toughest fight of the fourth day (D+3) occurred on the Red Beach One/Two border where Colonel Shoup directed the combined forces of Hays' 1/8 and Schoettel's 3/2 against the "re-entrant strongpoints.

Major Hays finally got some flamethrowers (from Crowe's engineers when LT 2/8 was ordered to stand down), and the attack of 1/8 from the east made steady, if painstaking, progress.

To complete the circle, Shoup ordered a platoon of infantry and a pair of 75mm halftracks out to the reef to keep the defenders pinned down from the lagoon.

Along the way, with filthy uniforms, stiff with sweat and dirt after over two weeks of fierce fighting, the Marines joyfully dipped their heads and hands into the cool ocean waters.

At 17:05 on July 24, (Jig Day), 1/8 disembarked from the USS Calvert (APA-32) coming ashore at White Beach 1 at the request of the 4th Marine Division commander.

Using the same tactics employed along the beach by the 24th Marines on Jig-Day, 1/8 supported by armored amphibians afloat and tanks ashore, inched slowly through the gnarled coastal terrain and snare-like undergrowth.

The rugged terrain around the strong-point forbade effective use of supporting tanks, and the armored amphibians, because of the shore's configuration, could not hit the area.

Since most of the Japanese troops originally assigned to this area had expended themselves against the 1st Battalion, 24th Marines, on the night of Jig-Day, they could oppose this attack only with occasional, ineffective small-arms fire.

Tinian had a strategic significance not fully apparent to the Marines who captured it in July 1944: slightly over a year later, 6 August 1945, the island provided the Army Air Forces a site from which the B-29 Enola Gay carried out the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

The 2nd Marine Division (including 1/8) remained as an amphibious reserve from 1–10 April 1945, when it was sent back to Saipan to minimize casualties from Kamikaze attacks off the coast of Okinawa.

At 09:00, 18 July, the third battalion (2/2 and 3/6 being the first two) of the 2d Provisional Marine Force, BLT 1/8 under Lieutenant Colonel John H. Brickley, landed at Yellow Beach, four miles north of Beirut, where they remained and reinforced their positions.

1/8 suffered two casualties (WIA) due to a friendly fire incident on 7 November while a sentry was investigating a telephone silence at Outpost Sneezy.

[7] On 4 May 1965, upon orders from RLT-6, the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines was transported by helicopters from San Isidro into LZ-4 where it established its Command Post in the Belle Vista Golf House located next to the Embajador Hotel.

For the next three days the battalion's and attached units' vehicles moved through the newly opened LOC with all the landing teams equipment and supplies.

1/8 embarked on board the USS Monrovia (APA-31) and the ship departed the area for Morehead City, North Carolina, arriving on 6 June.

On February 24, 1991, at 06:15, 1/8, which was designated as one of three assault battalions leading the way for the 2nd Marine Division, reported to be at the edge of the obstacle belt in lanes Green 5 and 6.

Company A had the mission of guarding the battalion's flank in this area; accordingly, the 3d Platoon was ordered to secure a building, surrounded by a chain-link fence, located 800 meters to the east.

Apparently maneuvering to hit the regiment's logistics trains, a battalion-sized Iraqi unit of tanks and mechanized infantry collided with 1st Battalion 8th Marines.

In the crucial first minutes of this attack, Sergeant Scott A. Dotson led his vehicle-mounted TOW section up to positions from which it could most effectively engage the enemy armor.

This attack may have been a part of a brigade-sized counterattack; its disruption caused die hard enemy survivors to move into prepared positions, where they would be encountered the next day.

During combat operations in Iraq, 1/8 suffered 1 Marine wounded in action (WIA) on 21 April 2003 from Weapons Company 81mm Mortar Platoon during a night-time probing attack on the Mosul Airport.

In September 2007, the battalion deployed a fourth time to Ar-Ramadi in Al Anbar Province in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Following port visits to Rota, Spain and Lisbon, Portugal where Marines and sailors of the 26th MEU manned the rails, the battalion finally returned to Camp Lejeune, NC on the 20th anniversary of the Beirut barracks bombing on 23 October 2003.

While serving as a rapid ready force, 1/8 was called upon to help provide security and perform humanitarian operations in New Orleans following the devastation of the Category 5 storm.