Merrill's Marauders: James Richardson

In September of 2020 the U.S. Government finally got around to recognizing an elite unit that were assigned the unimaginable task of capturing an airfield in Japanese-occupied Burma during World War II.  The 530th Unit, known as Merrill's Marauders trekked 1,000 miles behind enemy lines.  While traveling across Burma the unit endured many hardships.  First, the soldiers fought a determined Japanese enemy.  Second, the long journey led them through miles of jungles and over the rigid Himalayan foothills.  And last the unit was riddled with dysentery, fever and malaria. The combination of war, sickness, unique terrain, and lack of supplies made for a hellish combat.  The success of the Burma campaign was achieved on May 17th 1944, but it came with an enormous death toll.  Among the 3,000 U.S. soldiers deployed for this special operations mission only two hundred survived.  One of the last surviving members of the World War II jungle fighting unit known as Merrill's Marauders just died at the age of 99.