In the Quebec Conference (QUADRANT) of August 1943, Allied leaders decided to form a U.S. deep penetration unit that would attack Japanese troops in Burma.

The Caribbean Defense Command provided 960 jungle-trained officers and men, 970 jungle-trained officers and men came from Army Ground Forces (based in the Continental United States) and a further 674 "battle-tested" jungle troops from the South Pacific Command[1] (Army veterans of the Guadalcanal and Solomon Islands campaigns),[2] with all troops to assemble at Nouméa, New Caledonia.

General Douglas MacArthur was also directed to transfer 274 Army combat-experienced volunteers from the Southwest Pacific Command, veterans of the New Guinea and Bougainville campaigns.

Officers and men were equipped with U.S. Herringbone Twill (HBT) uniform cotton OD uniforms, M-1943 fatigues, Type II field shoes (with or without canvas leggings), jungle boots, canvas load-bearing equipment, blanket (one-half tent or "shelter-half" per man), poncho, and a machete or kukri for brush clearing.

[5] Mules were used to haul radios, ammunition, and heavier support weapons, including the 2.36-inch M1A1 bazooka and the U.S. 60 mm M2 Mortar;[6] the latter was often employed without its bipod in order to speed deployment.

At Deolali, 200 km (125 miles) outside Bombay, the troops endured both physical conditioning and close-order drill, before entraining for Deogarh, Madhya Pradesh.

All officers and men received instruction in scouting and patrolling, stream crossings, weapons, navigation, demolitions, camouflage, small-unit attacks on entrenchments, evacuation of wounded personnel, and the then-novel technique of supply by airdrop.

[9] In early 1944, the Marauders were organized as a light infantry assault unit, with mule transport for their 60 mm mortars, bazookas, ammunition, communications gear, and supplies.

Its combat-experienced officers had carefully integrated light mortar and machine gun fires, and virtually every man was armed with a self-loading or automatic weapon in which he had trained to a high level of marksmanship.

Informed by the British that the situation in Imphal was under control, Stilwell wanted to launch a final assault to capture the Japanese airfield at Myitkyina.

Always guarded against the potential for interference by the British, General Stilwell did not coordinate his plans with Admiral Mountbatten, instead transmitting separate orders to his Chinese forces and the Marauders.

The men took a brief rest at Shikau Gau, a jungle village clearing where they bartered with the native inhabitants for fresh eggs and chickens with an issue of 10-in-one and C rations.

In April, the Marauders were ordered by General Stilwell to take up a blocking position at Nhpum Ga and hold it against Japanese attacks, a conventional defensive action for which the unit had not been equipped.

At times surrounded, the Marauders coordinated their own battalions in mutual support to break the siege after a series of fierce assaults by Japanese forces.

[32] Racked with bloody dysentery and fevers, sleeping in the mud, Marauders alternately assaulted, then defended in a seesaw series of brutal conventional infantry engagements with Japanese forces.

In their final mission, the Marauders suffered 272 killed, 955 wounded, and 980 evacuated for illness and disease; some men later died from cerebral malaria, amoebic dysentery, and/or scrub typhus.

[35] Somewhat ironically, Marauders evacuated from the front lines were given jungle hammocks with protective sandfly netting and rain covers in which to sleep, equipment which might have prevented various diseases and illnesses had they been issued earlier in the campaign.

[40] In slightly more than five months of combat, the Marauders had advanced 750 miles (1,210 km) through some of the harshest jungle terrain in the world, fought in five major engagements (Walawbum, Shaduzup, Inkangahtawng, Nhpum Ga, and Myitkyina) and engaged in combat with the Japanese Army on thirty-two separate occasions, including two conventional defensive battles with enemy forces for which the force had not been intended or equipped.

Battling Japanese soldiers, hunger, fevers, and disease, they had traversed more jungle terrain on their long-range missions than any other U.S. Army formation during World War II.

The commander of the 2nd Battalion of the Marauders, Colonel George A. McGee, was inducted into the Ranger Hall of Fame (1992) for extraordinary valor and exemplary service.

Roy H. Matsumoto (1993), Henry Gosho (1997), and Grant Hirabayashi (2004), Japanese-American interpreters for the Marauders were also inducted into the Ranger Hall of Fame.