"Merrill's Marauders" is the popular name given to the U.S. Army's 5307th Composite Unit (provisional) (also known by its code name Galahad), a regiment-sized unit organized and trained for long-range penetration behind enemy lines in Japanese-held Burma in World War II. The 5307th had a short history. Recruitment for the unit began on 1 September 1943, and it was disbanded on 10 August 1944. The unit did not reach India until 31 October 1943 and was only in combat in Burma from the end of February 1944 to the first days of August. But during that period, the 5307th established an impressive record. In fighting against Japanese forces and in its constant struggle against disease, leeches, insects, harsh terrain, and the weather, the "Marauders" earned the following Distinguished Unit Citation:

 

 

The accomplishments of the 5307th, however, were achieved at a tremendous human cost. The total strength of the unit at the beginning of its operations was 2,997 officers and men. Because some of the men received rear-echelon assignments such as parachute riggers and "kickers" (i.e., men who kicked bundles of supplies out of transport aircraft during air drops), the actual number of men who set out on the first mission on 24 February was 2,750. After this operation ended with the capture of Walawbum on 7 March about 2,500 remained to carry on. The unit's second mission, from 12 March to 9 April, resulted in 67 men killed and 379 evacuated because of wounds or illness. Thereby reduced to about 2,000 men, the 5307th was augmented by Chinese and native Kachin soldiers for its third mission, the operation to take the Myitkyina airfield, which began on 28 April.

Only 1,310 Americans reached this objective, and between 17 May and 1 June, the large majority of these men, most of whom were suffering from disease, were evacuated by air to rear-area hospitals. By the time the town of Myitkyina was taken, only about 200 of the original Galahad force was present. A week after Myitkyina fell, on 10 August 1944, the 5307th, utterly worn out and depleted, was disbanded.

Why did the 5307th end up this way? Why was the first U.S. combat unit to fight on the Asian continent driven until it suffered over 80 percent casualties and experienced what an inspector general's report described as "an almost complete breakdown of morale in the major portion of the unit"?5 Colonel Charles N. Hunter, the second ranking (and sometime ranking) officer of the unit during its existence, expected heavy casualties from the start. In briefings at the War Department in September 1943, he was told that casualties were projected to reach 85 percent.  But at the end of the 5307th's campaign, he still felt that the unit had been badly misused and had suffered unnecessarily. Years later, in a book about the 5307th titled Galahad, he placed the blame for what happened to the unit squarely on the personality and personal ambition of the campaign's commander, Lieutenant General Joseph W. Stilwell: