At 8:44 a.m. on June 15th, 1944, the Pacific looked like it was boiling.

First Lieutenant Frank Tachsky crouched low in a Higgins boat about 300 yards off Saipan’s southern beaches while Japanese artillery shells punched into the surf around him. Each blast threw up white water and black sand, spraying the boat like a storm made of shrapnel. The smell was salt, cordite, and diesel—sharp enough to cut through fear, but not enough to soften it.

Tachsky was 29, a Marine officer from New Brighton, Pennsylvania, with a face that still looked too young for the job he’d been assigned. Behind him, packed into the same bouncing boat, were forty men—and not the kind of men Marine Corps propaganda liked to photograph.

Every single one of them had been selected from the brig or from punishment details. They were the winners of fights, not the losers. The ones who didn’t know how to keep their mouths shut, didn’t know how to follow orders cleanly, didn’t know how to behave. The Marine Corps called them troublemakers, thieves, brawlers—sometimes outright criminals.

Tachsky called them something else.

Survivors.

Because the mission waiting for them required a particular kind of man. A man who could work alone behind enemy lines for days at a time, make decisions without permission, kill without hesitation, and return with information that could save hundreds of Marines who would otherwise walk straight into a kill zone.

Saipan was not another island. Saipan was Japanese territory—not occupied land, not a far-off colony, but part of the empire itself. Intelligence estimated 30,000 Japanese troops on the island—Imperial Army and Navy units, plus thousands of armed civilians. Saipan was only 14 miles long and 5 miles wide, but it was packed with concrete pillboxes, trenches, bunkers, and caves. In the center, Mount Tapochau rose 1,500 feet, giving the Japanese observation over beaches and valleys like a god watching a sacrifice.

Marine planners had run the numbers and delivered them with the coldness of math. Casualties in the Pacific were expected to exceed 50%. And for scout sniper units, the average casualty rate was even worse—73%.

Tachsky’s platoon—this strange gang of forty men riding into the surf—represented the Marine Corps’ second experiment in elite reconnaissance.

And the Marines already knew what happened to experiments in war.

They died first.

The idea that started it all

Seven months earlier, at the battle of Tarowa, the Marine Corps had been cut open and left bleeding in plain view of the world.

In just 76 hours, the Marines had lost 994 men—a number so heavy it stopped being abstract and became a smell. It became the sight of bodies in surf. The sound of men screaming for corpsmen who couldn’t reach them. The helpless rage of watching your platoon disappear against a reef and a wall of machine-gun fire.

After Tarowa, Colonel James Rizley of the Sixth Marine Regiment looked at the reports and decided something had to change. Not the courage, not the discipline—Marines already had those. What they didn’t have, Rizley believed, was enough intelligence. Too many men were being fed into fortifications they didn’t understand, charging blind into positions the Japanese had prepared for months.

Rizley wanted something different: a unit that could go ahead of the main force, slip into the enemy’s skin, and bring back the truth of what waited inland.

He needed men who could kill silently, map enemy positions, read Japanese documents, call in naval gunfire, and survive without support. Men who could operate like shadows—because on islands like Saipan, sunlight and noise got you killed.

Standard Marine training produced excellent riflemen and assault troops. But Rizley wasn’t asking for standard men.

He was asking for the kind of men who didn’t belong in standard formations.

Men who could think for themselves.

Men who could ignore rules.

Men who fought dirty.

So Rizley asked permission to form a specialized scout sniper platoon, and Tachsky was given the job of building it.

That’s when he went hunting— not in forests, not in firing ranges, but in the places the Marine Corps hid its problems.

Punishment details.

The brig.

The men nobody trusted.

Tachsky’s recruiting rule

Frank Tachsky had a specific recruiting criterion that became his legend inside the regiment:

“When two Marines get into a fight,” he told officers, “the winner goes to the brig and the loser goes to the infirmary.”

Tachsky wanted the winner.

A man with a disciplinary record for brawling had proven at least one thing: he could handle himself when it got close. When it got ugly. When it got personal.

The Marine Corps saw those men as liabilities. Tachsky saw them as tools.

Better: he saw them as men already shaped by consequences. Men who didn’t need fear explained to them. Men who had already been punished, already been confined, already been told they were worthless.

The kind of men who, when offered one last chance, didn’t hesitate.

Over two months at Camp Tarowa—and in other accounts, Camp Terowa in Hawaii, the names blurring the way wartime memory blurs—Tachsky assembled forty-two Marines from punishment details across the Second Marine Division.

The youngest was 17.

The oldest was 34.

Most had criminal records before they ever wore the uniform. Some had been arrested for theft. Some for assault. Some for fighting so often their names had become familiar to MPs. One had been a professional boxer. Another had worked as a bodyguard for a Chicago gangster, the kind of man who didn’t flinch when someone reached into a coat pocket.

The Marine Corps gave them a choice:

Military prison.

Or combat duty.

They chose combat.

Not because they were noble. Not because they were patriots in a storybook.

They chose combat because prison was a slow death, and these men preferred their deaths fast or their lives loud.

Other Marines began calling them the “40 Thieves.”

The name stuck.

Training the men the Corps didn’t want

What Tachsky taught them wasn’t normal Marine training. It wasn’t parade ground discipline or textbook maneuver. It was the work of people who weren’t expected to come back.

They trained for silent killing—knife work, bare hands, how to approach a sentry from behind and end his life without sound. How to move through jungle terrain without disturbing vegetation, because the jungle itself could betray you. How to read Japanese maps and documents. How to call in naval gunfire and artillery strikes with precision, because a wrong coordinate wasn’t a mistake—it was friendly dead.

They practiced with M1903 Springfield rifles fitted with eight-power Unertl scopes, learning to shoot from 600 yards and hit a man-sized target. They trained with bazookas—not because they were expected to fight tanks as a platoon, but because on islands you never knew what waited behind a tree line, and the Japanese loved to hide steel where you couldn’t imagine it.

They studied Japanese fortification patterns and the way the enemy built defenses: pillboxes angled for interlocking fire, trenches that led to hidden bunkers, caves that opened into tunnel systems. They studied aerial photographs of Saipan until they could close their eyes and see ridges and valleys like scars.

And then Tachsky taught them something Marines were already infamous for:

How to steal.

In 1944, the Marine Corps was the poorest equipped branch of the American military. Marines received surplus weapons from World War I, outdated gear, inadequate rations. To survive, they stole from better-supplied Army and Navy units.

Tachsky’s men excelled at theft like it was a sport.

They raided Army depots for food. Navy warehouses for equipment. They stole jeeps and trucks. They didn’t do it for fun. They did it because a scout unit behind enemy lines couldn’t afford to run out of anything.

If your canteen went dry, you died.

If your knife was dull, you died.

If you didn’t have the right wire cutters, you died.

So they stole. And they got good at it.

By June 1944, the “40 Thieves” had completed training. They knew how to fight, hide, kill silently, and vanish. They had memorized Saipan’s fortification patterns and their mission was clear:

Land with the first assault wave.

Push inland ahead of the main force.

Locate Japanese positions.

Radio coordinates back to artillery and naval gunfire.

Then disappear into the jungle and keep mapping.

Days behind enemy lines.

No support.

No rescue.

No mercy if captured.

And then, at 8:44 a.m., Tachsky’s Higgins boat rolled forward.

First contact: 300 yards of hell

At 8:47 a.m., the ramp dropped into chest-deep water.

Machine-gun fire kicked up spray around them. Japanese mortars began landing among assault waves. Men died in surf, in sand, at the seawall—killed before their boots ever found stable ground.

Tachsky pushed forward anyway.

The “40 Thieves” moved fast, because speed was survival and hesitation was a grave. Their orders were simple: Keep moving. Find the Japanese. Radio their positions. Stay alive.

By 9:30 a.m., they had pushed 300 yards inland—farther than any other Marine unit on the beach. That meant something terrifying:

They were alone.

They stood in enemy territory with 30,000 Japanese soldiers somewhere ahead in the jungle.

Night would fall in nine hours.

And that’s when their real mission began.

They advanced 50 yards apart, maintaining visual contact through hand signals Tachsky had developed during training. Standard Marine tactics demanded formation, cohesion, constant radio contact with command.

Tachsky’s platoon operated differently.

They had authority to make their own tactical decisions.

No other Marine unit on Saipan had that freedom.

And freedom in war is both gift and curse, because it means no one saves you from your mistakes.

The first pillbox: the decision in 30 seconds

At 10:15 a.m., Sergeant Bill Canuple spotted the first Japanese position.

A concrete pillbox built into the side of a ridge, camouflaged with vegetation, positioned so it couldn’t be seen from the beach. Inside was a Type 92 heavy machine gun with a crew of seven. Its interlocking fields of fire covered the valley below—the valley where Marine units would advance later that afternoon.

Tachsky’s map showed three possible routes for the Marine advance.

The machine gun covered all three.

That pillbox wasn’t just a threat. It was a planned slaughter.

Taking it out could save dozens, maybe hundreds, of Marines.

But attacking it would reveal the 40 Thieves’ presence and compromise their reconnaissance.

Tachsky made the decision in thirty seconds.

They had carried a bazooka for exactly this.

Private Marvin Strombo positioned himself 80 yards from the pillbox while the rest of the platoon provided security. At 10:32 a.m., Strombo fired one round.

The rocket struck the firing slit and detonated inside.

The crew died instantly.

Before the smoke cleared, Tachsky’s platoon had already moved 300 yards deeper into the jungle.

They left no trace—except the destroyed pillbox.

Four hours later, when Marine units advanced through the valley, they encountered no machine-gun fire from that ridge.

They never knew why.

But dozens of Marines lived because forty “criminals” had decided a secret kill was worth the risk.

Saipan revealed: 17 positions by noon

By noon, the 40 Thieves had identified and mapped 17 Japanese positions:

Eight machine-gun nests.

Four mortar pits.

Three artillery observation posts.

Two ammunition storage areas.

Tachsky radioed coordinates back using encoded protocols. Within 20 minutes, naval gunfire from destroyers offshore began hitting targets.

From concealed positions, the 40 Thieves watched five-inch shells demolish fortifications they had marked half an hour earlier.

This was their mission: find the enemy, mark them for destruction, move on before the Japanese realized someone was cutting the island’s nervous system.

By early afternoon, they were two miles inland, ahead of every other American unit. They moved through terrain Marines wouldn’t reach for three more days.

And every hundred yards, new Japanese positions appeared. More fortifications than intelligence had predicted. Tachsky counted over 200 enemy soldiers in one valley alone, dug into positions that would take days to capture by frontal assault.

But accurate coordinates could turn days into minutes.

The 40 Thieves weren’t just scouts.

They were changing how the Marine Corps fought.

37 tanks: the math that almost got them killed

At 3:40 p.m., they discovered something no one expected:

A Japanese tank battalion staging area.

Under camouflage netting, in a grove north of Chalan Kanoa, sat 37 Type 97 medium tanks.

Marine intelligence had estimated maybe a dozen tanks on Saipan.

The 40 Thieves had found three times that number in one location.

Those tanks were a serious threat. Japanese doctrine favored mass tank attacks at night, when American naval gunfire would be less effective. If those 37 tanks hit the beach after dark, they could smash supply dumps, artillery positions, command posts—turn the invasion into a nightmare.

Tachsky radioed the coordinates.

Headquarters responded in eight minutes:

Naval gunfire was engaged elsewhere.

Air strikes were committed.

Artillery was still unloading.

No assets could hit the tank battalion for at least four hours.

By then, it would be dark.

The tanks would likely move.

Tachsky looked at the staging area and did the math:

Six bazookas.

Six rounds per bazooka.

36 rockets total.

37 tanks.

The math was almost perfect in a way that felt like fate teasing them.

And Tachsky made the kind of decision that revealed what he had truly recruited.

A 40-man unit does not attack a tank battalion.

But Tachsky hadn’t recruited men who followed principles.

He’d recruited men who fought dirty and survived.

At 4:15 p.m., he gave the order to prepare for assault.

The 40 Thieves would attack the tank battalion themselves.

If they succeeded, they might prevent disaster.

If they failed, forty men would disappear into jungle and no one would ever know what happened.

Bazooka teams formed a semicircle, spaced 40 yards apart. Each team had a shooter and a loader. Plan: hit as many tanks as possible in the first thirty seconds, then vanish into jungle before infantry could respond.

They didn’t expect to destroy all 37.

Even disabling ten or fifteen could change the night.

Then, at 4:25 p.m., the jungle changed.

The tanks started their engines.

All at once.

Thirty-seven diesel engines roaring to life echoed like thunder under the canopy. Tank crews emerged from dugouts. Officers shouted. Infantry formed up alongside the tanks—about 1,000 soldiers.

This wasn’t repositioning.

This was preparation for attack.

Tachsky checked his watch.

4:28 p.m.

Sunset at 7:12.

The Japanese were preparing for a dusk assault, earlier than expected.

The window for surprise had closed.

Tachsky made a new decision: shadow the tank battalion, report its movements. Attacking now would accomplish nothing but death.

He radioed:

Enemy tank battalion mobilizing for attack. Estimated arrival at American lines between 7 and 8 p.m.

Headquarters responded immediately:

Maintain observation. Do not engage. Continue reporting.

The tanks moved at 5:07 p.m., advancing in two columns toward the coast, infantry alongside. A major assault, not a probe. If they broke through, the invasion could collapse in one evening.

The 40 Thieves followed at 200 yards to the flank, hidden in jungle cover. Every ten minutes Tachsky radioed updated coordinates. Marines near the beach repositioned. Bazookas distributed. Shermans moved forward. Artillery adjusted.

At 6:15 p.m., one mile from the beach, the Japanese halted. Officers gathered and argued, pointing at maps and directions.

Eleven minutes later, the formation changed direction—turning north.

That surprised Tachsky. Intelligence maps showed nothing valuable there. But the Japanese had a purpose. They advanced another mile north, then turned west toward the coast.

By 7:05 p.m., as the sun touched the horizon, Tachsky understood:

They weren’t attacking the main beachhead.

They were targeting the gap between the Second and Fourth Marine Divisions.

A breakthrough there would split American forces in half.

Tachsky radioed the warning—too late for comfort.

Dusk was falling. Frequencies shifted for night ops. Artillery resupply was underway. Shermans refueled. That gap was held by just two Marine companies, about 340 men, against 37 tanks and 1,000 infantry.

At 7:23 p.m., the attack began.

Bazooka fire erupted. The first three tanks exploded.

But 34 more kept coming.

Infantry charged behind tanks, screaming and firing.

Marines fell back.

The breakthrough began to succeed.

Within fifteen minutes, tanks could reach the beach.

And then Tachsky saw the detail that would change everything:

One tank separated from the main formation, heading directly toward the Sixth Marine Regiment’s command post, where Colonel Rizley coordinated the response.

The Type 97 moved at about 15 mph through a ravine leading straight to the command post. The Japanese commander had spotted a weakness—an anti-tank gap where jungle prevented proper placement.

If that tank reached the command post, it could destroy radios, kill officers, paralyze regimental response.

Rizley and staff were 400 yards away, unaware.

Tachsky had maybe three minutes.

He grabbed Private Herbert Hajes, the best bazooka shooter in the platoon. Hajes had destroyed six training targets without missing. But training targets didn’t move or shoot back. And the Type 97’s armor could deflect a poor shot.

They sprinted down slope and reached a firing position 30 yards from the tank’s path at 7:31 p.m.

Hajes dropped prone, bazooka aimed.

The tank emerged twenty seconds later, turret rotating, commander scanning with binoculars.

Hajes waited.

The tank rolled closer: 25 yards, 20, 15…

Then it stopped.

The commander checked a map.

At 7:32 p.m., Hajes fired.

The rocket struck the left side just below the turret ring—where armor was thinnest.

The shaped charge penetrated and detonated inside.

All four crew members died instantly.

Six seconds later, ammunition cooked off and the tank erupted in flame.

The fireball lit the jungle for 300 yards.

Japanese infantry saw the explosion and assumed they’d encountered a major Marine defense.

They redirected their assault away from the command post.

In one shot, Tachsky’s team did more than destroy a tank.

They misdirected an infantry battalion away from the most vulnerable point in Marine defenses.

The command post remained secure.

Rizley kept coordinating.

But the muzzle flash had betrayed the 40 Thieves’ position. Machine-gun fire raked their area. Mortars fell. The platoon had to withdraw or be overrun.

The night withdrawal: 23 men, 17 missing

Withdrawal through jungle at night under fire tested everything they trained for. Standard procedure demanded staying together. The jungle didn’t allow it.

They split into teams of four or five, moving independently to rally points.

Japanese patrols hunted them. Several times teams lay within yards of enemy soldiers, relying on silence rather than gunfire. One firefight could bring overwhelming response.

At 8:05 p.m., Strombo’s team encountered a Japanese patrol—seven soldiers searching with flashlights. Strombo and three Marines lay motionless as the patrol passed within ten feet. One Japanese soldier stopped and stared into darkness where Strombo hid.

For 43 seconds, the Marine held his breath.

Then the soldier moved on.

At 9:00 p.m., about half the platoon reached the primary rally point—a clearing 600 yards behind Marine lines.

Tachsky counted.

23 men.

17 missing.

Standard procedure said wait two hours. But the rally point was too close; Japanese patrols searched nearby. Tachsky decided to move the assembled group back to lines and send rescue teams at dawn.

They approached Marine lines cautiously—nervous sentries shot anything moving. Tachsky used the recognition signal: three short whistles, two long. They gave password. They crossed into friendly territory at 9:41 p.m.

Still: 17 men missing.

The Japanese tank attack continued until 3:14 a.m. Americans destroyed tanks—bazookas, Shermans, artillery—by dawn 27 of 37 tanks were gone. The attack failed, but it cost the Marines.

At first light, Tachsky sent search teams.

The cost of being “criminals” in a place without mercy

Search teams moved at 6:30 a.m., retracing routes. They found the first body at 7:05 a.m.—Private Donald Evans, shot twice in chest, dead instantly. Dog tags missing, taken as trophy.

They buried him in a shallow grave, marked with rifle and helmet.

At 8:20 a.m., another team found three more bodies.

These Marines had been captured alive.

Executed.

Hands tied behind backs.

Bayonetted.

Japanese forces on Saipan rarely took prisoners. Surrender was dishonor, and they extended contempt to enemies who surrendered.

But these Marines hadn’t surrendered.

They’d been wounded, captured, murdered.

By 10:00 a.m., search teams located six missing Marines alive—separated in withdrawal, evaded patrols, reached lines elsewhere.

Count rose to 29 accounted.

At 11:15 a.m., another team found five Marines hiding in cave system a mile behind Japanese lines. Alive but pinned down by patrols. Could not move.

Tachsky faced another decision: call artillery diversion—safer but slower—or send rescue now—fast but risky.

He chose speed.

At 11:47 a.m., he led a six-man rescue team. They reached cave system at 12:33 p.m. The trapped five were exhausted, dehydrated, uninjured. One had malaria, fever 103. Another had dysentery, barely able to walk.

Extraction required moving one mile through Japanese territory in daylight.

Night movement was doctrine—but the sick wouldn’t survive.

So Tachsky moved immediately.

After about 400 yards, they encountered a Japanese patrol—20 soldiers in search formation.

Hide and hope? Risk discovery.

Ambush? Risk drawing attention.

Tachsky chose ambush: kill them fast, leave no survivor, no radio.

They formed L-shaped ambush: eight along the line, three to catch escape.

At 1:23 p.m., the patrol entered kill zone.

Tachsky signaled.

Eleven Marines opened fire simultaneously.

The patrol was destroyed in seven seconds.

Twenty dead.

No survivors.

But gunfire carried for half a mile. Japanese units would converge soon.

They ran—abandoning stealth for speed.

Tachsky estimated five minutes before being surrounded. The nearest Marine defense was 800 yards across open ground. Carrying two sick men would take twelve minutes.

The math was brutal.

Then terrain dropped into steep ravine—40 feet deep.

Going around added fifteen minutes. Staying on ridge meant contact. Tachsky chose ravine.

They slid and climbed down, supporting the sick. At 1:33 p.m., they reached bottom.

Japanese soldiers appeared on ridge above 60 seconds later and fired down. Bullets ricocheted. Grenade exploded. One Marine hit in leg.

The ravine channeled them—only forward.

At 1:38 p.m., they found the problem: ravine ended in box canyon.

No exit.

They were trapped.

Japanese began descending into ravine from multiple points. Tachsky counted at least 40 visible, more arriving.

Eleven Marines, about 200 rounds total. Two sick couldn’t fight.

Artillery support impossible. Air strikes too risky. They were alone.

Then Tachsky noticed something: vegetation at rear wall suggested water seepage—meaning crack, fissure.

He sent two men to check.

At 1:44 p.m., they reported a narrow opening behind vegetation—barely wide enough to squeeze through. Beyond, fissure widened into passage leading upward.

They pushed the sick men through first, packs removed, dragged behind. The passage was tight and dark; they moved by touch. Behind them, Japanese entered canyon, calling and searching—confused as Americans vanished.

At 2:07 p.m., the passage emerged opposite side of ridge, 400 yards from entry.

They were still behind Japanese lines, but enemy focused on ravine below.

They moved fast. Crossed final 600 yards in eight minutes. Used recognition signals.

At 2:23 p.m., all eleven reached safety.

That brought total accounted to 34.

Three more later found alive.

Two more bodies discovered.

By nightfall June 16th, three still missing—listed MIA.

In first 48 hours, the 40 Thieves lost at least six killed; three missing presumed dead. A 22% casualty rate—still, mission accomplished.

They had identified over 200 Japanese positions, called fire that demolished fortifications, prevented tank from reaching command post, and delivered critical intelligence.

Rizley sent message: one night rest, resupply, integrate replacements.

At dawn June 17th, they would go back out—deeper.

Japanese garrison still about 29,000.

40 Thieves now 37.

Deeper into the island: guns inside caves

At 0530 hours on June 17th, they moved out in complete darkness. Objective: ridge system three miles inland where intelligence believed Japanese artillery was hidden—guns shelling Marines for two days, killing men, disrupting supplies.

Aerial reconnaissance couldn’t locate guns; Japanese camouflaged them in caves.

Only ground reconnaissance could find them.

The platoon moved in silence using hand signals. First mile in 47 minutes. Second mile slower—steep slopes, dense vegetation, rocky ground.

They reached target ridge at 0815 and began systematic recon. The ridge stretched two miles, rose 600 feet. Japanese positions were everywhere. Tachsky counted eight cave entrances large enough for artillery. Caves connected by tunnels, allowing guns to fire then move before counterfire.

That explained why Marine artillery had failed—shooting at positions already abandoned.

Finding guns wasn’t enough. They needed to map tunnel system for future assault.

Mapping meant entering.

At 0940, Corporal Rosco Mullins and Private Strombo volunteered to penetrate cave while rest provided security.

They entered with shielded flashlights. The cave extended 200 feet before branching. Japanese voices echoed deeper. Water dripped. Air smelled of gunpowder and human waste.

At 1012, they found first gun: Type 91 105mm howitzer 30 feet inside side passage, ammo stored in recesses. Crew absent.

They marked location and continued, found two more guns, a command post, ammo magazine with 2,000 rounds, sleeping quarters for at least 60 soldiers. The tunnel system was more extensive than expected.

At 11:03, they heard Japanese soldiers approaching. Fifteen seconds to hide. They pressed into alcove as a dozen enemy walked past within three feet, undetected.

At 11:27, they exited and rejoined platoon. Tachsky studied map: eight entrances connected, at least six guns.

Standard assault tactics would fail: machine guns covered entrances, artillery ineffective, caves too deep.

Only solution: seal entrances, trap Japanese inside, then destroy sealed positions with demolitions—but engineers were days away.

At 12:15, the platoon moved to secondary objective: determine Japanese presence in Garapan, Saipan’s administrative capital. Crossing four miles of enemy territory in daylight was risky, but they’d operated undetected for 30 hours. Tachsky believed they could do one more mission.

They approached Garapan from east at 1540. Town was bombed and shelled; buildings shattered. Yet Japanese soldiers moved through ruins—enemy still present.

Tachsky needed closer recon.

At 1605, he made decision that became legend: five Marines would enter Garapan in broad daylight.

Virtually suicidal.

Exactly what they were built for.

He selected Strombo, Mullins, Corporal Irazi, Private Dawn Evans—and himself.

They stripped noisy gear: canteens, extra ammo, grenades. Carried only rifles, knives, sidearms.

At 1623, they moved toward eastern edge. Ruins offered cover but concealed Japanese positions. Every pile of rubble could hide death.

They entered at 1641, moving through back streets, staying in shadow. Japanese everywhere. They counted at least 200 visible in town center, likely hundreds more nearby.

They realized Japanese weren’t defending Garapan as a static fortress. They were using it as staging area for counterattacks—important distinction for Marine commanders.

At 1708, Irazi spotted five bicycles leaning against a destroyed building—Japanese military bicycles used by officers.

An idea formed instantly.

Five bicycles. Five Marines.

In the chaos, five men riding through town like Japanese soldiers moving between positions would attract less attention than five men creeping on foot.

The plan violated procedure.

Tachsky approved instantly.

At 1715, they rode through Garapan—casual, not hiding, just five soldiers on bicycles navigating ruins.

Japanese troops ignored them. Some waved. Others shouted greetings. The Marines acknowledged with gestures.

For 43 minutes, they rode through enemy capital mapping positions, counting troops, identifying supply dumps, passing within yards of Japanese officers who never suspected them.

At 1758, they exited town and rode another mile before abandoning bicycles and slipping back into jungle.

They reached Marine lines at 1932, after 14 hours behind enemy lines, deeper than any other American unit.

And that was only the beginning.

What the “40 Thieves” became

Over the next three weeks, the 40 Thieves ran similar missions: mapping interior positions, calling artillery and naval strikes, ambushing patrols, providing intelligence that saved countless Marine lives.

They saw atrocities: civilians forced to jump from cliffs rather than surrender, wounded Marines used as bait, prisoners executed. They operated in small teams for days without contact. They battled malaria, dysentery, heat exhaustion, disease.

They ran out of food and stole from Japanese dumps. Ran out of water and drank from contaminated streams. By July 9th, when Saipan was declared secure, they had lost 12 killed and 9 wounded—a 56% casualty rate, below the 73% average but still devastating.

Survivors were physically and mentally wrecked—30 to 40 pounds lost, malaria fevers, haunted eyes. But their commanders estimated their work reduced Marine casualties by at least 15%, potentially saving 2,000 lives.

After the war, many struggled with what would later be called PTSD. Nightmares. Alcohol. Broken work and relationships. The psychological cost wasn’t officially recognized.

Tachsky returned to civilian life and became mayor of Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. He didn’t speak about the war. His son, Joseph, learned the story only after finding his father’s footlocker after his death in 2011.

For 66 years, the story stayed mostly unknown.

But the Marine Corps remembered the lesson even if it didn’t tell the story loudly: small, independent teams operating deep behind enemy lines—collecting intelligence, striking surgically, surviving by initiative—could change how wars were fought.

Those tactics would influence modern special operations: Marine Force Recon, and later, units that became part of the lineage of what people now recognize as Navy SEAL-style work—deep reconnaissance, independent action, and missions where the map ends and the decisions are yours alone.

Forty men recruited from punishment details became one of the most effective combat units in the Pacific.

The Marines who called them criminals were wrong.

They were warriors.

And on Saipan, in June 1944, they proved something the Marine Corps would never forget:

Sometimes the men who don’t fit inside the rules are the only ones who can survive outside them.