They were pulled from the brig. Forty Marines no officer in the regiment wanted — fistfighters, thieves, discipline cases. One lieutenant saw something no one else did.
June 1944. Saipan. Thirty thousand Japanese troops dug into caves, ridges, and tunnels across an island the US had to take. First Lieutenant Frank Tachovsky walked into the stockade at Camp Tarawa, Hawaii, and handpicked forty of the worst-behaved Marines in the 6th Regiment. He trained them to kill in silence, move behind enemy lines for days without support, and steal every weapon the Corps wouldn't give them. Other officers called them trash. The Japanese never saw them coming.
What a platoon of teenage misfits armed with stolen bazookas and bolt-action Springfields accomplished on Saipan was buried for sixty-seven years — until a son opened his father's footlocker and found a story no one had ever been told.
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June 1944. Saipan. Thirty thousand Japanese troops dug into caves, ridges, and tunnels across an island the US had to take. First Lieutenant Frank Tachovsky walked into the stockade at Camp Tarawa, Hawaii, and handpicked forty of the worst-behaved Marines in the 6th Regiment. He trained them to kill in silence, move behind enemy lines for days without support, and steal every weapon the Corps wouldn't give them. Other officers called them trash. The Japanese never saw them coming.
What a platoon of teenage misfits armed with stolen bazookas and bolt-action Springfields accomplished on Saipan was buried for sixty-seven years — until a son opened his father's footlocker and found a story no one had ever been told.
Subscribe for forgotten WW2 stories ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@ww2dispatchh
Like if you think this story deserves to be remembered.
Comment below — where are you watching from?
#worldwar2 #ww2 #militaryhistory #ww2stories #ww2dispatch
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LearningTranscript
00:00At 0630 on June 15, 1944, 1st Lieutenant Frank Tachopsky's Higgins boat was closing on Saipan,
00:07when Japanese shore batteries found the range and the ocean erupted. He was 29,
00:12a Pennsylvania steelworker who had entered the Corps as a buck private,
00:16and earned his commission through Guadalcanal and Tarawa. 30,000 Japanese troops had dug into every
00:22cave, ridge, and tunnel on the island. American intelligence estimated 15,000. They were wrong
00:28by half. The United States Marine Corps was the poorest equipped branch of the American military.
00:34When Marines landed on Guadalcanal in 1942 for their first ground offensive against Japan,
00:40they carried rations, uniforms, and weapons left over from the First World War. Bolt-action Springfield
00:46rifles with six-round clips against an enemy that had conquered half the Pacific in six months.
00:52The Marines won that campaign, but winning with leftover gear cost lives that better equipment
00:57might have saved. On Saipan, that price became clear within hours. By nightfall on June 15,
01:03more than 2,000 Marines lay dead or wounded across the invasion beaches. Japanese artillery positioned
01:09on the central heights overlooked every landing zone. Machine gun nests hidden in cliff faces cut
01:15down men wading through chest-deep water toward shore. A two-day naval bombardment of 165,000 shells from 15
01:23battleships had missed most of the fortified positions entirely. Over the following days,
01:28the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions pushed inland, but the Japanese had turned Saipan into a fortress.
01:3432,000 defenders fought from interconnected cave systems and camouflaged sniper nests across volcanic
01:40terrain. They ambushed advancing columns and vanished into tunnels before counterattacks arrived. They
01:46placed wounded Americans in open ground as bait, waiting for corpsmen to approach before opening fire.
01:52The advance was measured in yards per day. The casualty lists grew with each one.
01:56Four months before the landings, Colonel James Risley, commander of the 6th Marine Regiment,
02:02had seen enough. After Tarawa, where over 3,000 Marines fell in 76 hours,
02:08Risley ordered the creation of a scout sniper platoon. 40 men, hand-picked, trained to operate
02:14behind enemy lines for days at a time. Their job would be reconnaissance, silent elimination of
02:20Japanese positions, and mapping enemy fortifications to guide the advance of line companies.
02:26Risley chose Tachopsky to build and lead the unit. The Mustang lieutenant's method of selecting his 40 men
02:32shocked every officer in the regiment. He did not request volunteers with top marksmanship scores or
02:38spotless service records. He went to the brig. At Camp Tarawa, on Hawaii's Parker Ranch,
02:43he reviewed the case of every Marine locked up for fighting. He wanted the ones who had won. A man
02:49who put another Marine in the infirmary and ended up behind bars had proved he could handle himself
02:54when everything fell apart. A man with a black mark for disobedience had proved he could think without
03:00waiting for orders. By March of 1944, Tachopsky had selected his 40. Other officers in the regiment called
03:07them trash. Discipline problems. The worst Marines in the sixth. Tachopsky saw something different.
03:14These were men aged 18 to 20 who had already survived some of the bloodiest fighting in the Pacific.
03:19Most of them had lived a lifetime by the age of 19, and they reported to no one but their
03:24lieutenant,
03:25who answered directly to the regimental commander. Tachopsky's about to send 40 brig rats behind 30,000
03:31Japanese. Please like this video if you want to see what happens next. It helps more people find these
03:37stories. Subscribe. Back to Tachopsky. On May 30, 1944, the 40 thieves boarded the USS Bolivar at Parker
03:46Ranch. They carried Springfield rifles fitted with eight-power Unertal telescopic sights, knives,
03:52and a collection of weapons stolen from every army and navy depot on Hawaii. In 16 days, they would land
03:58on an island where firing a single round behind enemy lines meant instant discovery and death. Every kill
04:05would have to be silent. From January through May of 1944, the 40 thieves trained in the jungles and
04:13volcanic slopes of Hawaii's Parker Ranch in ways no standard marine unit practiced. Every man learned to
04:20kill without making a sound. Knives. Garots fashioned from piano wire. Bare hands. They practiced stalking
04:27sentries from behind in total darkness, covering ground through dense vegetation without radio contact or
04:33compass bearings. Stealth was the foundation of everything. On Saipan, a single noise behind
04:39Japanese lines would mean the difference between completing a mission and never coming back.
04:44The platoon's primary weapon was the M1903 Springfield rifle, fitted with an eight-power
04:50Unertal telescopic sight. The Springfield was a bolt-action design from before the First World War,
04:56largely replaced in standard infantry by the semi-automatic M1 Garand. But for precision shooting at
05:02distance, nothing in the marine arsenal matched it. The Unertal scope added nearly two pounds and
05:08several inches of length, making the rifle impractical for close-quarters combat. From a
05:14concealed position on high ground, however, it could place a round into a man-sized target beyond 800 yards.
05:20Every man in the platoon qualified as a sniper. Their training demanded accuracy at ranges where the
05:25target could not hear the shot that killed him. But sniping was only part of what set the platoon apart.
05:31The forty thieves operated on a simple principle. The Marine Corps would not give them everything
05:36they needed, so they would acquire it through other means. Their methods were not subtle. They stole
05:41a captain's jeep from an army motor pool and drove it until the engine failed. They raided army and navy
05:47storage depots for ammunition, rations, and medical supplies that appeared on no requisition form.
05:53They took a pig from a Hawaiian rancher for an unauthorized roast. In their most audacious move,
05:58they convinced two army privates to go absent without leave and brought them along to Saipan
06:04as unofficial members of the platoon. The name Forty Thieves spread through the 6th Regiment
06:09with a mix of admiration and disbelief. But behind the reputation was a platoon preparing for the most
06:15dangerous type of warfare in the Pacific. Operating behind enemy lines meant no artillery support,
06:22no reinforcements, and no medical evacuation. If a man was wounded beyond the Japanese forward positions,
06:29his platoon mates carried him out, or he died where he fell. If the platoon was discovered,
06:34they fought their way back through enemy-held jungle, or they did not return at all.
06:39On the morning of June 15th, the thieves rode their landing craft through a wall of Japanese artillery fire
06:45toward the beach at Charon Kanoa on Saipan's southwest coast. The boat's ramp jammed on approach. Men climbed
06:52over the gunwales and dropped into chest-deep water, holding their springfields above their heads to
06:57keep the unertal scopes dry. They waded ashore under machine gun fire and pushed inland with the 6th Marine
07:03Regiment through the first chaotic hours of the invasion. For 48 hours, the scout sniper platoon fought as
07:10regular infantry alongside line companies, helping to secure and expand the beachhead. But on the
07:16evening of June 17th, Tchopsky received orders directly from Colonel Risley. Japanese defenders
07:22had dug into a ridge line north of the American perimeter. Advancing companies were taking casualties
07:27from positions they could not locate. Risley needed eyes behind those ridges. He needed to know what the
07:33enemy had built in the terrain ahead, and where their artillery observers were hidden. At 0200 on June 18th,
07:401944, the 40 thieves slipped past the forward American positions and moved into the darkness
07:46beyond the perimeter. No radio contact. No fire support. 40 men armed with bolt-action rifles,
07:53knives, and stolen ammunition, moving into jungle held by an enemy that outnumbered them 700 to 1.
08:00The first scout sniper patrol behind Japanese lines on Saipan had begun. No one in the regiment knew
08:06whether all 40 would come back. The 40 thieves moved through Japanese-held jungle north of the
08:13American perimeter for two days without being detected. They traveled at night in single file,
08:18communicated through hand signals, maintained absolute silence. During daylight hours, they observed
08:24from concealed positions on ridge lines and mapped everything they found. Japanese artillery batteries,
08:30command posts, supply routes running through ravines, troop concentrations, the locations of sniper
08:36nests that had been killing marines from positions no advancing company could identify. When the platoon
08:42returned to American lines on June 20th, Tachofsky delivered a detailed map of Japanese positions to
08:48Colonel Risley. The intelligence was specific and actionable. Three previously unidentified artillery
08:54batteries on the high ground north of the perimeter. Two command bunkers connected by underground tunnels
09:00beneath a sugarcane field. A network of camouflaged sniper nests built into volcanic rock along a ridge
09:06that advancing marines had been unable to pass. Within hours, Risley directed naval gunfire and artillery
09:13onto the positions the thieves had identified. Line companies that had been pinned down for three days
09:18advanced 300 yards in a single morning. Two Japanese artillery batteries that had killed dozens of
09:24marines were destroyed within minutes of receiving the coordinates. Ground that had cost heavy
09:29casualties to approach now fell with minimal losses. The scouts had shown the regiment exactly where the
09:35enemy was hiding, but the platoon's value extended beyond intelligence gathering. Tachofsky's men
09:40eliminated threats that artillery could not reach. Bypassed Japanese positions, individual snipers, machine gun nests
09:48and cave mouths, forward observers directing enemy fire, required men on the ground with precise
09:54rifles and the patience to wait for a single clean shot. The first major test of the platoon's sniping capability
10:00came on the slopes of Mount Tipo Pale, the highest point on Saipan. Japanese troops used the northern
10:07face of the mountain as a resupply route, sending soldiers down steep trails on bicycles loaded with
10:12ammunition and food. The route was beyond effective range of American infantry positions. Standard patrols could
10:19not reach it without crossing open terrain under direct enemy observation. Tachofsky positioned his
10:24snipers on concealed high ground overlooking the trails. From ranges beyond 600 yards, the thieves picked
10:31off Japanese cyclists one by one. Within days, resupply along the Tipo Pale route slowed to a fraction of
10:38what it had been. Soldiers who had moved freely on the mountain now refused to descend in daylight. A single
10:44platoon
10:44with bolt-action rifles had shut down an enemy supply line without firing a shell that could be traced to
10:50its origin. The effect reached beyond the 6th Regiment. As the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions ground forward
10:56through the island's interior, every advancing unit encountered the same problems. Japanese positions
11:01that could not be mapped by conventional means. Snipers killing from invisible locations. Tunnels connecting
11:07defensive lines in ways that intelligence had not predicted. Commanders across Saipan needed exactly what
11:14Risely's scout sniper platoon was providing. By the third week of June, Risely was sending the thieves
11:19on continuous rotations. One team returned, while another deployed. Each patrol lasted two to three
11:25days behind Japanese lines, moving through terrain that line companies would not reach for another week.
11:31The platoon covered ground no other American unit had entered, sometimes operating miles from the nearest
11:37friendly position near Chiron, Kanoa. They moved by night, observed by day, and killed only when a target
11:43presented itself without risk of detection. On June 25th, Risely called Tachofsky to the regimental command
11:50post. The American advance had reached the outskirts of Garapan, Saipan's capital city. Naval bombardment
11:56had leveled most of it, but no American had set foot inside the ruins. Japanese strength in the city was
12:02completely unknown. Risely needed a reconnaissance patrol into Garapan before line companies moved in.
12:08The thieves would be the first Americans to enter the capital of an island, defended by an enemy that
12:14had sworn to die rather than surrender. And that enemy had been fortifying the rubble for weeks.
12:21The Garapan reconnaissance patrol lasted 36 hours. Tachofsky took a small squad through the shattered
12:27streets of Saipan's capital, while the rest of the platoon held concealed positions on the outskirts.
12:33What they found surprised them. Naval bombardment had flattened most of the city. Entire blocks had
12:39been reduced to rubble and ash. But the Japanese had not abandoned the ruins. Defensive positions had
12:44been constructed from collapsed concrete, and sniper nests were hidden in the shells of buildings that
12:50still had partial walls standing. The thieves mapped every position they identified, and returned to
12:56American lines with intelligence that allowed the 6th Regiment to plan its approach into the city.
13:01They also returned with something unexpected. In the wreckage of what had once been Garapan's
13:06commercial district, the patrol had found a general store partially intact. They filled their
13:11packs with fabric, canned food, and drinks. Even in a destroyed city on a contested island,
13:17the 40 thieves could not pass up an opportunity to acquire supplies through marine methods. The Garapan
13:23reconnaissance marked a turning point in how the platoon was perceived beyond the 6th Regiment.
13:28When line companies advanced into the city using intelligence from Tachovsky's patrol,
13:33they encountered far less resistance than expected. Commanders who had been skeptical of a platoon
13:39built from brig fighters began asking Risely how his scouts operated. Word of the thieves spread up the
13:45chain of command through daily situation reports and officer briefings. A Marine Corps combat correspondent
13:51named Vic Kalman had been following the 6th Regiment through the campaign. He spent time with the
13:57scout sniper platoon and began documenting their operations. Kalman would later publish an article
14:03in the December 1944 issue of Leatherneck magazine describing the platoon as the craziest, fiercest,
14:10and most lovable Marines on Saipan. He wrote that Tachovsky's terrors had wreaked havoc in, around,
14:16and mostly behind enemy lines, but that their unofficial exploits were becoming Marine Corps
14:22legends faster than their official record could keep up. The platoon's reputation grew within the
14:27regiment through results that other units could measure directly. When the thieves identified a
14:32position, it was destroyed. When they reported a route clear, it was clear. When they marked a tunnel
14:38entrance, the follow-up assault team knew exactly where to place demolition charges. Line company commanders
14:44began requesting specific scout sniper support for their sectors. Risley found himself managing a
14:50resource that every unit on his front wanted. But as the thieves became more effective, the Japanese
14:55began to adapt. Enemy commanders noticed that their concealed positions were being located and
15:00destroyed with a precision that standard American reconnaissance could not explain. Defensive lines that
15:06had been invisible to frontal observation were suddenly being hit by accurate artillery fire from
15:12coordinates that could only have come from behind their own positions. Japanese patrols behind the
15:17front lines increased. Sentries were doubled on supply routes where soldiers had been disappearing.
15:22Ambush tactics evolved. The enemy began placing wounded American Marines in visible positions in open
15:28terrain, then building concealed firing positions around them. When scout teams or corpsmen moved toward the
15:34wounded, Japanese marksmen opened fire from multiple angles. It was a tactic designed to exploit the one
15:40instinct that American troops could not override, the impulse to rescue their own. By late June, the
15:46thieves were no longer just hunters. They were also being hunted. Japanese units behind the forward lines were
15:52actively searching for the Americans who moved through their territory at night. Patrol routes that had been
15:57safe a week earlier now carried the risk of walking into a prepared ambush. On June 27th, the platoon was
16:04moving along the northern slopes of Mount Tipo Pale when a Japanese concussion grenade detonated without warning.
16:10The blast killed PFC Daniel Kenny instantly. The rest of the patrol froze in elephant grass as Japanese soldiers
16:17closed in from three sides. The thieves had walked into exactly the kind of trap they had been trained to
16:23set for others.
16:26The ambush on Mount Tipo Pale cost the platoon one of its best. The surviving thieves fought their way
16:32out of the trap through elephant grass in near total darkness, dragging Kenny's body with them. They reached
16:38American lines before dawn on June 28th. It was the first time the platoon had lost a man on patrol.
16:44Tchopsky adjusted immediately. Patrol routes that retraced earlier paths were abandoned. Each new mission
16:51took a different approach through different terrain. Departure times shifted. Instead of moving at fixed
16:57intervals, patrols launched at irregular hours to prevent the Japanese from predicting their rhythm.
17:02The platoon began moving in smaller elements, splitting into teams of eight to ten men that could cover
17:08more ground while presenting smaller targets. If one team walked into a trap, the others could maneuver
17:14to support or withdraw independently. The adaptation worked. Over the following week, the thieves
17:21continued their rotations behind Japanese lines without another casualty. They mapped enemy positions
17:27as the American advance pushed north through Saipan's interior. The 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions,
17:32supported by the Army's 27th Infantry Division, fought through terrain that grew more difficult with
17:38every mile. Volcanic ridges gave way to dense jungle. Sugarcane fields provided
17:43concealment for Japanese defenders who waited until American troops were within grenade range before
17:49opening fire. Mount Tapachau, the island's highest peak at 1,550 feet, dominated the central highlands
17:57and served as a natural fortress. By late June, the Japanese defensive strategy was shifting.
18:03General Yoshitsugu Saito had abandoned hope of holding fixed positions against the sustained American
18:09advance. His forces were being compressed northward, supply lines were severed, ammunition reserves were
18:15dwindling. But Saito still commanded thousands of troops, and he was not retreating without inflicting
18:21maximum damage. Japanese tanks became a growing threat. Type 97 medium tanks, each weighing 15 tons with
18:29a 47mm main gun, began probing American positions at night. The attacks came without warning. Individual tanks,
18:36or small groups crashing through perimeter lines in the darkness, firing into foxholes and supply points
18:43before American anti-tank weapons could be brought to bear. The standard defense against a tank required
18:49a coordinated response, with bazookas, anti-tank guns, or artillery. But at night, on unfamiliar ground,
18:56coordination broke down. In the first days of July, a Japanese tank broke through the forward defensive line,
19:02and drove directly toward the 6th Marine Regiment's command post. The tank's 47mm gun could destroy the
19:09command post and kill every officer inside. Tachovsky was near the perimeter when the tank appeared.
19:15He grabbed a bazooka. The weapon had not come through official supply channels. Like most of the platoon's
19:21heavy equipment, it had been acquired through marine methods from an army depot weeks earlier. Tachovsky moved to a
19:27firing position and put a rocket into the tank at close range. The vehicle stopped. The threat to the
19:33command post was eliminated. It was the kind of action that earned a silver star. And it did. But the
19:39tank attack was a symptom of something larger. Japanese forces across Saipan were running out of
19:44options. Compressed into the northern third of the island, cut off from resupply and reinforcement,
19:50Saito's troops had no path to victory through conventional defense. The American advance could
19:55not be stopped by fixed positions or piecemeal counter-attacks. The only question was what the
20:00Japanese would do when they had nothing left. The thieves found the answer on their patrols in the
20:05first week of July. Behind Japanese lines in the north, they observed something that no American unit
20:10had seen before on this scale. Thousands of Japanese soldiers were gathering, not in defensive
20:16positions, not behind fortified lines. They were assembling in the open, in formation, collecting
20:22every weapon available. Wounded men wrapped in bandages joined the ranks alongside officers carrying
20:27samurai swords. On the evening of July 6th, Tachovsky reported to Risley that the largest concentration of
20:33enemy troops the platoon had ever observed was massing north of Tanapag. Whatever was coming would
20:39not be a probe or a counter-attack. It would be everything the Japanese had left.
20:46General Saito issued his final order on the evening of July 6th. Every Japanese soldier still alive on
20:52Saipan would attack the American lines at dawn. There would be no retreat, no surrender. The order called
20:59for Giyokusai, a suicidal charge in which each man was expected to die for the emperor and kill seven
21:06Americans before falling. Wounded soldiers who could not walk would crawl. Those who could not crawl would
21:13hold a grenade and wait for the enemy to pass. Officers would lead from the front, carrying samurai
21:18swords. The entire remaining garrison would move south in a single wave across the Tanapag plain
21:24toward the American perimeter. Tachovsky's intelligence report from the evening before
21:29had reached Risley and moved up the chain of command. The scouts had identified the concentration
21:34area near Makunsha village, north of Tanapag. But the sheer scale of what was forming exceeded
21:40anything American commanders on Saipan had prepared for. This was not a company-sized counterattack,
21:46or a probing action. It was the largest bonsai charge of the entire Pacific War.
21:52At dawn on July 7, approximately 3,000 Japanese soldiers surged south across the Tanapag plain.
22:00Wounded men in blood-stained bandages ran alongside officers waving swords. Soldiers armed with nothing
22:06but sharpened bamboo spears charged into automatic weapons fire. The first wave struck the army's 1st
22:13and 2nd battalions of the 105th Infantry Regiment, 27th Infantry Division. The impact was catastrophic.
22:20The Japanese overran forward positions within minutes, pouring through gaps in the perimeter and driving
22:26deep into the American rear. The 105th Infantry suffered devastating losses. Both battalions were
22:33nearly destroyed as a fighting force. Lieutenant Colonel William O'Brien, commanding the 1st Battalion,
22:39was killed fighting at close range. He would receive the Medal of Honor posthumously. Across the Tanapag plain,
22:45the charge dissolved into hundreds of individual close-quarters engagements, where the lines between
22:50attacker and defender ceased to exist. The 6th Marine Regiment was positioned south of the army units.
22:57When the bonsai wave crashed through the 105th's lines, elements of the charge swept into sectors held
23:03by the marines. The 40 thieves found themselves directly in the path of the oncoming assault. This was
23:09not a sniper engagement at 800 yards. This was hand-to-hand range against an enemy that had no
23:15intention of surviving the morning. The platoon fought with everything available. Their springfields
23:20were accurate at distance, but slow to reload in a close-quarters fight. When Japanese tanks rolled
23:25through alongside the infantry wave, the thieves reached for the weapons they had stockpiled through
23:30months of marine methods. Molotov cocktails. Glass bottles filled with gasoline, sealed with fabric wicks,
23:37ignited and thrown at engine decks and exhaust vents. It was improvisational anti-tank warfare at its most
23:43primitive. And it worked. Burning fuel poured into engine compartments. Crews who survived the initial
23:49flames were caught in the open when they abandoned their vehicles. The bonsai charge spent itself over
23:55the course of 12 hours. By nightfall on July 7, approximately 4,300 Japanese soldiers lay dead across the
24:03Tanapag plain and surrounding terrain. The charge had inflicted severe casualties on the American
24:09forces it struck, but it had also destroyed what remained of Japan's organized fighting strength on
24:14Saipan. General Saito did not live to see the result. He had taken his own life before the attack began,
24:21following the tradition of a commander who had failed to hold his position. On July 9, 1944, American
24:28command declared Saipan secured. 25 days of fighting had killed nearly 3,000 Americans and over 29,000
24:35Japanese troops. Only 931 Japanese soldiers surrendered. The rest had fought until they were
24:41killed or had taken their own lives. But for the 40 thieves, the official end of the battle did not
24:47mean
24:47the end of their war on the island. Risley had one more task, and it was the kind that only
24:52his scout
24:53is what snipers could handle. After Saipan was declared secured, the killing did not stop.
25:00Thousands of Japanese soldiers remained hidden in cave systems, tunnels, and jungle across the island.
25:06Some had not received the order for the bonsai charge. Others had survived it and retreated
25:11into the volcanic interior. They emerged at night to raid American supply points, attack sentries,
25:17and kill Marines who believed the battle was over. Organized resistance had ended on paper.
25:22In practice, Saipan was still a combat zone. Risley assigned the 40 thieves to the mop-up operation.
25:29The work was considered among the most dangerous in the Marine Corps. Clearing bypassed enemy positions
25:35meant approaching cave mouths and tunnel entrances, where desperate men with nothing to lose
25:40waited in darkness. There was no front line to mark where safety ended and danger began. A Japanese
25:46soldier with a rifle could be hiding behind any rock formation, inside any destroyed building,
25:51beneath any section of collapsed trench. The thieves moved through this terrain methodically,
25:57identifying occupied positions and eliminating them one at a time. It was slow, exhausting work
26:03that continued for weeks after the official end of the battle. But it was precisely the type of
26:09mission the platoon had been created for. Small unit operations in contested terrain, requiring stealth,
26:15precision shooting, and the ability to function independently, without support.
26:20By the time the mop-up was declared complete, the 40 thieves had been in continuous operations on
26:25Saipan for over a month. The platoon did not rest for long. Within weeks, the 6th Marine Regiment was
26:31ordered to Tinian, the island immediately south of Saipan. The invasion of Tinian launched on July 24th,
26:38just 15 days after Saipan was secured. The thieves crossed to the neighboring island and resumed scout
26:44sniper operations against another Japanese garrison dug into another volcanic landscape. The skills they
26:51had developed on Saipan translated directly. Reconnaissance behind enemy lines, silent elimination of
26:57defensive positions, mapping fortifications for advancing line companies. Tinian fell in nine days,
27:03a fraction of the time Saipan had required. The results the 40 thieves achieved across both
27:08campaigns drew attention from command levels far above the regiment. First Lieutenant Frank Tachovsky
27:14received the Silver Star, presented personally by Admiral Chester Nimitz, for his actions during the
27:19Battle of Saipan. The citation recognized his leadership of the scout sniper platoon behind enemy lines,
27:25and his destruction of the enemy tank that had threatened the regimental command post.
27:30Tachovsky had entered the Marine Corps as a buck private. He had risen through the enlisted ranks,
27:36earned a commission, survived three major campaigns, built an elite unit from men the
27:41corps considered expendable, and received one of the military's highest decorations for valor
27:45from the commander of all Pacific naval forces. The significance of what the 40 thieves had
27:51demonstrated on Saipan extended beyond one regiment. They were among the first organized scout sniper
27:57platoons in Marine Corps history. The concept had been born out of necessity after Tarawa,
28:02when Colonel Risley recognized that conventional reconnaissance could not meet the demands of
28:07Pacific Island warfare. On Saipan, the concept had been proven under the most extreme conditions.
28:12A 40-man platoon operating behind enemy lines had provided intelligence that saved hundreds of lives,
28:18shut down supply routes, eliminated positions that artillery could not reach, and fought through
28:24the largest bonsai charge of the war. Senior Marine commanders took note. The scout sniper platoon
28:30model that Risley and Tachovsky had built would influence how the corps structured its elite
28:35reconnaissance and sniping capabilities for decades. Every modern Marine scout sniper can trace the
28:41lineage of their role to units like the 40 thieves. But the men who had lived through Saipan and
28:46Tachovsky carried something home that no decoration or official recognition could address. They had
28:51entered combat as teenagers. Most were 18 or 19 years old when they landed on Saipan. By the time they
28:58returned to the United States, they had killed at close range, watched friends die, and spent weeks
29:04behind enemy lines, where every hour carried the possibility of a death no one would witness.
29:10Tachovsky himself never spoke a word about any of it. Not to his wife, not to his children, not to
29:16anyone, for the next 67 years. Frank Tachovsky came home from the Pacific and never spoke about what
29:24happened on Saipan. He returned to the Midwest, earned a degree at the University of Wisconsin in
29:30Madison, and settled in Sturgeon Bay, a small shipbuilding town in Door County, Wisconsin. He married
29:36Roxy, the woman he had written V-mail letters to from Parker Ranch. He raised a family. He became
29:42the mayor of Sturgeon Bay. He lived a quiet and respectable life that bore no visible trace of the
29:48lieutenant who had built an elite platoon from brig fighters and led them behind enemy lines on one of
29:53the bloodiest islands in the Pacific. His son Joseph grew up knowing only that his father had served as
29:58a Marine in the Pacific. Every question about the war was shut down immediately. Tachovsky refused to
30:04discuss combat with his family, his friends, or anyone else. The footlocker in the garage that
30:10held his military records, personal letters, photographs, and medals remained closed for decades.
30:17Whatever Saipan had done to him, he carried it alone. Tachovsky was not the only one who went silent.
30:23The surviving members of the 40 thieves scattered across the country after the war and spent their
30:28lives trying to forget what they had experienced by the age of 20. The images they carried—friends
30:34killed at close range, enemy soldiers who refused to surrender, the mass suicides of Japanese civilians
30:40at Marpy Point, where entire families leaped from cliffs rather than face capture—became nightmares
30:46that repeated for decades. Corporal Bob Smots, the Osage hunter from Oklahoma who had run point on
30:53patrols through the jungles of Saipan, described the same dream recurring every night for 70 years.
31:00He saw Kenny die. Then he chased the Japanese soldier through the elephant grass. Every night.
31:06For the rest of his life. Frank Tachovsky died in 2011 at the age of 96. At his funeral,
31:12a man who had known him at the University of Wisconsin told the story of how he first learned that
31:17the quiet,
31:17older student in his class had saved an entire platoon on Saipan by destroying a Japanese tank
31:24with a stolen bazooka. Joseph Tachovsky had never heard the story before. After the funeral, Joseph
31:30opened the Foot Locker. Inside were his father's platoon roster for the 6th Marine Regiment Scout Sniper
31:37Platoon—personal letters, photographs, and the Silver Star. It was, as he later described it, like time
31:44travel. He searched every name on the roster. Three members of the 40 Thieves were still alive—Bob Smots
31:51in Georgia, Roscoe Mullins, and Marvin Strombo in Montana. The seven surviving leathernecks he
31:58eventually located provided the oral histories that became the foundation of a book published in 2020,
32:04coinciding with the 75th anniversary of victory over Japan. One story captured the weight these men
32:10had carried. During the battle, Marvin Strombo had taken a flag and a saber from a dead Japanese
32:16officer. He kept them for over 70 years. Then, he wrote a note to the dead soldier's family. He told
32:23them the flag had never belonged to him. He prayed it would find its way home. It did. The men
32:28of the 40
32:29Thieves were teenagers who fought a war designed for men twice their age. They were called trash by
32:35officers who did not understand what Tachofsky had seen in them. They stole everything the Marine Corps
32:40would not give them. And they performed behind enemy lines with a courage that most of them refused to
32:46talk about for the rest of their lives.
32:49If it meant something to you, please take a moment to like this video. It really helps us find and
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32:57stories like the 40 thieves, stories that deserve to be remembered. Please subscribe and hit the bell
33:02so you do not miss the next one. Let us know in the comments where you are watching from today.
33:07Frank Tachofsky never told his own children what he did on Saipan. His 40 thieves spent their lives
33:13trying to forget. Somebody has to remember for them. That is why we tell these stories.