Colonel Richard D. Camp, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired), served 26 years in the Marine Corps before retiring in 1988. He is the author of numerous books on Marine history, including Last Man Standing: The 1st Marine Regiment on Peleliu (2009) and Devil Dogs at Belleau Wood: U.S. Marines in World War I (2008), both published by Zenith Press.

Articles by Richard D. Camp

Memories of Khe Sanh

By Colonel R. D. Camp Jr., U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)
February 2004
Sacrifice and valor emerged from the bunkers and trenches dug by the U.S. Marines during the three-month North Vietnamese siege of the Khe Sanh combat base in 1968.
Battle of Guam 1941

War Comes to Paradise

By Colonel Richard D. Camp, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)
April 2022
Numerous firsthand accounts provide a gripping, you-are-there narrative of the attack on Guam, December 1941.
An F4F-3 Wildcat of Marine Fighting Squadron (VMF) 211 circles around to attack a Japanese G3M2 bomber, in Marcus W. Stewart Jr.’s painting Cat and Mouse over Wake.

Wake’s Valiant Aviators

By Colonel Richard D. Camp, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.), with Suzanne Pool
December 2020
A stirring account of Marine Fighting Squadron 211’s toothand-claw defense of Wake Island in the face of the relentless December 1941 Japanese onslaught.
Marines Call It the 2,000 Yard Stare by Tom Lea

Eight Days in Hell

By Colonel Richard D. Camp, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)
October 2019
As soon as the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, hit the beach at Peleliu in 1944, it found itself in the thick of a fierce—and costly—struggle.
Frederick C. Yohn, "The Last Night of the War"

The War's Final Night

By Colonel Richard D. Camp, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)
December 2018
World War I was about to end, but that was not going to stop the U.S. Marines fighting their way across the Meuse River.
Camp

Eyewitness to Revolution

By Colonel Richard D. Camp, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)
November 2018
A joint U.S. team was sent to help the Shah reorganize his armed forces, but unrest was brewing in Iran.

'Shot to Pieces in the Champagne'

By Colonel Richard D. Camp, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)
October 2018
In northern France’s Champagne region, the battle-hardened Leathernecks of the 4th Marine Brigade faced one of their most daunting Great War tasks: storming heavily defended Blanc Mont Ridge.

The Corps' Day of Destiny

By Colonel Richard D. Camp, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)
June 2018
At Belleau Wood on 6 June 1918, the Marine Corps commenced fighting its first large-scale battle and sustained casualties that exceeded its total losses suffered in all previous combat.
Kelly Oaks

The Cactus Air Force's Humble Home

By Colonel Richard Camp, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)
August 2017
Henderson Field was located in a cleared area near the north coast of Guadalcanal, just east of the Lunga River and west of the Ilu River, nicknamed “Alligator Creek.” When ...