HARRISBURG, Pa. — The reputed final member of the famed American jungle preventing unit in World Warfare II nicknamed the Merrill’s Marauders has died.
Russell Hamler, 99, died on Tuesday, his son Jeffrey stated. He didn’t give a reason behind demise.
Hamler was the final residing Marauder, in line with a biography printed by the U.S. Division of Veterans Affairs in January.
Hamler had been residing within the Pittsburgh space, the place he was born in 1924, and enlisted within the Army at 18, in line with the division’s biography.
In 2022, the Marauders acquired the Congressional Gold Medal, Congress’ highest honor. The Marauders impressed a 1962 film referred to as “Merrill’s Marauders,” and dozens of Marauders had been awarded particular person decorations after the warfare, from the Distinguished Service Cross to the Silver Star. The Army additionally awarded the Bronze Star to each soldier within the unit.
The troopers spent months behind enemy strains, marching a whole lot of miles by means of the tangled jungles and steep mountains of Burma to seize a Japanese-held airfield and open an Allied provide route between India and China.
They battled starvation and illness between firefights with Japanese forces throughout their secret mission, a grueling journey of roughly 1,000 miles (1,610 kilometers) on foot that killed nearly all of them.
In 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed to have the Army assemble a floor unit, the 5307th Composite Unit Provisional, for a long-range mission behind enemy strains into Japanese-occupied Burma, now Myanmar. Seasoned soldiers and newly enlisted troopers alike volunteered for the mission, deemed so secret they weren’t instructed the place they had been going.
Merrill’s Marauders — nicknamed for the unit’s commander, Brig. Gen. Frank Merrill — had been tasked with slicing off Japanese communications and provide strains alongside their lengthy march to the airfield on the occupied city of Myitkyina. Usually outnumbered, they efficiently fought Japanese troops in 5 main engagements, plus 30 minor ones, between February and August 1944, in line with the division.
Beginning with 3,000 troopers, the Marauders accomplished their mission 5 months later with barely 200 males nonetheless within the struggle.
Hamler was wounded within the hip by a mortar fragment in the course of the battle often called Nhpum Ga, the division’s biography stated. The damage immobilized Hamler in his foxhole for greater than 10 days till rescuers arrived and evacuated him to a hospital in India.
Marauders spent most days slicing their manner by means of dense jungle, with solely mules to assist carry gear and provisions. They slept on the bottom and barely modified garments. Provides dropped from planes had been their solely technique of replenishing rations and ammunition. Malnutrition and the moist local weather left the troopers susceptible to malaria, dysentery and different ailments.
The Marauders finally captured the Myitkyina airfield, the one all-weather strip in northern Burma, their key goal, in line with the U.S. Army Middle of Army Historical past. The unit was disbanded afterward.
Hamler was awarded a Bronze Star and a Purple Coronary heart. He grew to become an plane mechanic for Trans World Airways and retired from it in 1985, the division stated.
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