Chesty Puller, also known as Lewis Burwell Puller, was an American Marine Corps officer, who fought guerrillas in Haiti and Nicaragua, served with distinction in World War II and the Korean War.
Background
Ethnicity:
Lewis Puller was of English ancestry, as his earliest ancestors who came to America emigrated to the colony of Virginia from Bedfordshire, England in 1621.
Chesty Puller was born on June 26, 1898, in West Point, Virginia, United States. He was the son of Matthew Puller and Martha Leigh. Puller also had a sister and a brother.
Education
After attending a public school in his hometown, Chesty Puller entered Virginia Military Institute in 1917. Eager to participate in World War I, he dropped out of school in 1918. He later studied at Officer Candidates School in Quantico, Virginia. On June 16, 1919, he graduated and was designated as a second lieutenant in the reserves. In 1931, Puller interrupted his Nicaraguan tour briefly to complete the Company Officers Course at the Army Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia. Puller studied history, especially military history.
After his father's death in 1905, Chesty Puller was employed for a time in a pulp mill and worked other odd jobs to help support the family. In 1918 he enlisted as a private in the United States Marine Corps. Instead of shipping Puller overseas, however, officials in the corps, seeing his ability, selected him to help train troops in boot camp in Parris Island. When he graduated from the Officer Candidates School he became a lieutenant in the Marine Corps Reserve. With the postwar reduction in military forces, Puller was placed on the inactive list.
Chesty Puller enlisted again in the corps as a corporal and went to Haiti in 1919 to serve for five years as an officer in the Gendarmerie d'Haiti, an army and police organization staffed by United States Marines and Haitians. Puller spent the next four years in the United States. Commissioned from the ranks, he, in 1924, once again became a second lieutenant serving at the Marine Barracks in Norfolk, Virginia. After completing training at the navy yard in Philadelphia in July 1925, Puller was assigned to the Tenth Marine Regiment in Quantico, Virginia. Under Puller's leadership, the marine drill detachment became the first marine winner of the national drill competition. In 1928, he went to Nicaragua as part of the Nicaraguan National Guard detachment. Between February 16 and August 19, 1930, Puller helmed five successive operations against the armed bandit forces that had superior numbers.
Chesty Puller went back to the United States for a year-long Company Officers Course at Fort Benning, Georgia in July 1931, before heading to Nicaragua again in September 1932. From September 1934 until the spring of 1936, he commanded the Marine detachment on the cruiser USS Augusta. Puller then trained recruits at the Basic School in Philadelphia for three years. In September 1939, he returned to Augusta before duty in Shanghai from May 1940 to August 1941 as executive officer on the Second Battalion, Fourth Marines. He returned to the United States in August 1941 and in October took command of the First Battalion, Seventh Marine Regiment, First Marine Division at New River. Puller insisted on training his men in jungle fighting and personal camouflage tactics. That training would prove invaluable in the Pacific campaigns of World War II. The troops under his command performed outstandingly under adverse conditions and Puller himself was wounded.
On February 1, 1944, Chesty Puller was made colonel and later was promoted as the commander of the 1st Marine Regiment. The Marine regiment fought the protracted battle on Peleliu. It was one of the bloodiest battles in the history of the US Marine Corps. They lost 1,749 out of about 3,000 men. Despite this, Puller ordered the Marines to commit to frontal assaults against a well-entrenched enemy. Following the end of the war, he was assigned to the post of the Director of the 8th Reserve District in New Orleans, and later helmed the Marine Barracks at Pearl Harbor. When the Korean War broke out, Puller returned to serve in the 1st Marine Regiment. He was present during the landing at Inchon on September 15, 1950.
He was appointed brigadier general in January 1951 and was designated to be the assistant division commander of the 1st Marine Division. When Major General O. P. Smith, his immediate superior, was hurriedly transferred to lead the IX Corps after the death of its commander, Puller temporarily took charge of the 1st Marine division in February 1951. By 1953, he had been promoted to major general. In July 1954, he took his final assignment at Camp LeJeune, first commanding the Second Marine Division and then serving as Deputy Camp Commander.
Puller was a religious man. He was an Episcopalian and parishioner of Christ Church Parish in Saluda.
Views
Lewis Burwell derided frills at training camps, arguing that the troops should be given beer and whiskey, not ice cream, candy, and dates. He defended Marine Corps training at a 1956 trial held after the death of six recruits during a night training march, arguing that Marines had to be more physically fit than the enemy, being able to march twenty-five miles if the enemy marched twenty miles. He also insisted that enlisted men eat first, followed by noncommissioned officers and then officers.
Quotations:
"I want to go where the guns are."
"I wish I had a flair for writing, as then I am certain this regiment would get the credit due them when the history of this operation is finally written. Now everyone knows, but in a few years what is written will govern. I will do a better job of getting the facts in my reports than I did in the past war. I will also claim everything due the regiment."
"I'll take care of my men first. Frozen troops can't fight. If we run out of ammunition, we'll go to the bayonet."
"We've been looking for the enemy for some time now. We've finally found him. We're surrounded. That simplifies things."
Personality
Lewis Burwell had a reputation as an outstanding tactical combat leader, especially for his personal fortitude in adverse and dangerous circumstances. He always attributed his success to his men. He always had a smoking pipe with him and was intensely loyal to his service and country. He despised weakness in men. Besides, he inspired loyalty in his subordinates unlike any other.
Connections
Lewis Burwell Puller married Virginia Montague Evans in Saluda, Middlesex County, Virginia on November 13, 1937. The marriage produced three children.
Father:
Matthew Puller
Mother:
Martha Leigh
Brother:
Samuel D. Puller
Sister:
Emily Puller
Wife:
Virginia Montague Evans
Son:
Lewis Burwell Puller Jr.
Daughter:
Virginia McCandlish Puller
Daughter:
Martha Puller
References
Chesty: The Story of Lieutenant General Lewis B. Puller, USMC
The Marine Corps is known for its heroes, and Lieutenant General Lewis B. Puller has long been considered the greatest of them all. His assignments and activities covered an extraordinary spectrum of warfare.