Samuel Blair Griffith II (May 31, 1906 – March 27, 1983) was a brigadier general in the United States Marine Corps, a decorated combat veteran, and a distinguished scholar of Chinese military history.Ban, Peter Y. Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, USMC: Marine Translator and Interpreter of Chinese Military Thought. Master of Military Studies Research Paper, Marine Corps University, Command and Staff College, Quantico, VA, 2 May 2012. Available online at: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA600767.pdf, 1, 25. Griffith is known for his translations of The Art of War by Sun Tzu and On Guerrilla Warfare by Mao Zedong, as well as his combat service.Lorge, Peter. Sun Tzu in the West: The Anglo-American Art of War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108902687, 1, 2, 7. He fought in the Battle of Guadalcanal during World War II, suffered wounds, and became Executive Officer of the 1st Marine Raider Battalion.Ban, Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, pp. 28, 24. For his valor on the battlefield, Griffith earned the Navy Cross, the Distinguished Service Cross, and the Purple Heart. After his retirement, he earned a PhD in Chinese Military History from the University of Oxford in 1961.Samuel B. Griffith Collection: Finding Aid. Quantico, VA: Archives Branch, Marine Corps History Center, U.S. Marine Corps, 2009, 1.
His academic work is recognized for pioneering Western strategic studies and advancing the understanding of Chinese military thought, with his translations widely disseminated in the required and recommended reading lists of U.S. military staff colleges.Lorge, Sun Tzu in the West, 2023, p. 7 His personal papers are regarded by the Marine Corps as valuable primary sources on the history of the branch, the Pacific War, and U.S.-China relations.United States Marine Corps. MCDP 1: Warfighting. Washington, DC: Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1997.
Available online at: https://www.marines.mil/portals/1/publications/mcdp%201%20warfighting.pdf, 99.
Griffith died on March 27, 1983, in Newport, Rhode Island.Lorge, Sun Tzu in the West, 2023, p. 177.
Early life and education Samuel Blair Griffith II was born on May 31, 1906, in Lewistown, Pennsylvania. He spent most of his youth in a suburb of Pittsburgh, where his father was a senior executive officer with the Westinghouse Electric Corporation.Frank, Benis M., interviewer. Oral History Transcript: Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith, II, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired). History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Washington, DC, 1976, 1-2. His family had a background in law, with his grandfather and great-grandfather being Harvard-educated lawyers. Initially destined for Harvard himself, Griffith became interested in a military career after meeting personnel from the U.S. Naval Academy.Frank, Oral History Transcript: Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, p. 3.
He attended public schools in Pittsburgh and preparatory schools in Pittsburgh and Ilchester, Maryland, before receiving an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy in 1925. At the academy, he found mathematics to be his "bête noire" while showing aptitude for English, history, and languages. He played on the plebe soccer and lacrosse teams.Frank, Oral History Transcript: Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, pp. 3-4. Upon his graduation on June 6, 1929, with a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps.Ban, Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, p. 25. Part of his motivation for joining the Marines was to avoid the mandatory two years at sea required of Navy ensigns, having fallen in love with a girl from Kentucky.Frank, Oral History Transcript: Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, pp. 5- 6.
Military career
Pre-World War II Service After a brief and unsuccessful attempt at flight training, Griffith attended The Basic School (TBS), a foundational training program for newly commissioned Marine Corps officers, at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in June 1929.Frank, Oral History Transcript: Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, pp. 6, 7, 11. Finding his time there "an absolute waste of time," he nevertheless met his tactics instructor, Capt. Merritt A. Edson, under whom he would later serve in combat.Frank, Oral History Transcript: Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, pp. 10. He also married Belle Gordon Nelson from Hopkinsville, Kentucky.Ban, Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, p. 25.
From March 1931 to January 1933, after finishing The Basic School, he was assigned to duty with the Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua during the Second Nicaraguan Campaign. Griffith cited how, before being transferred from Quantico to Nicaragua, he managed to get his orders delayed by 10 months after his wife gave birth to his first child.Frank, Oral History Transcript: Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, p. 19. In Nicaragua, Griffith participated in operations against nationalist rebels (or bandidos).Frank, Oral History Transcript: Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, p. 23. With his penchant for languages, he attained sufficient proficiency in Spanish to read Mexican novels, poetry, and Cervantes’ Don Quixote in the original language.Frank, Oral History Transcript: Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, p. 26. Griffith later reflected that many of the tactical lessons from Nicaragua, such as the value of roving or long-range combat patrols, could have been applied "very early" in Vietnam.Frank, Oral History Transcript: Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, p. 25
In July 1935, following his promotion to first lieutenant in November 1934, Griffith was posted to the American Embassy in Peiping (now Beijing) as a language officer, where he spent three years studying Mandarin Chinese.Ban, Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II p. 24. For the first two years, he received no other official responsibilities aside from receiving six hours of daily Mandarin instruction. Griffith felt that he had first grasped Mandarin after 15 months of instruction.Frank, Oral History Transcript: Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, p. 41. During his time there, he developed a deep appreciation for Chinese culture, citing the people—particularly their "capacity for happiness"—as the most enjoyable part of his experience.Frank, Oral History Transcript: Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, pp. 42-43.
In his final year, following the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, and after his promotion to the rank of Captain, he served as a military analyst for the naval attaché, where he observed both Japanese and Chinese forces.Frank, Oral History Transcript: Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, p. 48. He particularly remembered the one-week trip he made to visit Japanese forces in the Shansi province as an observer, was briefed on Japanese operations in Japanese headquarters, and spoke to Chinese prisoners.Frank, Oral History Transcript: Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, p. 49. He also recalled that Evans Carlson had been in China with the 8th Route Army close to where Griffith was stationed. Griffith expressed great admiration for Carlson.Frank, Oral History Transcript: Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, p. 50.
Following his three-year tour as a language student in China, Griffith returned to the United States in July 1938 to attend the Marine Corps Junior Course at Quantico.Frank, Oral History Transcript: Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, p. 57. Upon completion, he was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, participated in experimental boat landing exercises, and trained intensely.Frank, Oral History Transcript: Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, pp. 60-61. In April 1940, an opportunity to return to China as an assistant naval attaché in Chungking was abruptly canceled after Griffith gave a candid and pessimistic assessment of the Chinese Nationalist government's prospects to a senior admiral.Frank, Oral History Transcript: Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, pp. 63-64.
World War II In late 1941, Griffith, along with Captain Wallace M. Greene Jr., was sent to the United Kingdom as a special naval observer to study the training and methods of the British Commandos. He and Greene were in Inveraray, Scotland, when they learned of the attack on Pearl Harbor.Frank, Oral History Transcript: Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, p. 51.
Upon returning to the U.S. in the spring of 1942 as a Major, he was requested by Lieutenant Colonel Merritt A. Edson to serve as his executive officer of the newly formed 1st Marine Raider Battalion.Frank, Oral History Transcript: Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith, II, p. 51. Carlson, as the newly appointed commanding officer of the 2nd Raider Battalion, asked that Griffith conduct classes for officers on commando training methods.Frank, Oral History Transcript: Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, p. 52.
The Raiders were an elite unit created for commando-style operations with an organizational structure distinct from other units and the ability for unit command to select their own officers and enlisted personnel.Frank, Oral History Transcript: Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, p. 51. After participating in the selection process for the 1st Marine Raider Battalion, Griffith concluded that "the concept of a selected group, in the end [...] turned out probably unnecessary and undesirable. The Marine Corps simply couldn’t afford it; we were just taking the cream of too many outfits."Frank, Oral History Transcript: Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, p. 52.
Influenced by Carlson's time with the Chinese 8th Route Army, Griffith embraced the Gung Ho ethos, which means "work together," and implemented Carlson's "fire team" concept and structure within the 1st Raider Battalion. Carlson's conception of the "fire team" consisted of dividing ten-man squads into three fire teams of three men each commanded by a squad leader.Hoffman, Jon T. From Makin to Bougainville: Marine Raiders in the Pacific War. Project Gutenberg, released April 27, 2015. Available at: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/48811/pg48811-images.html. Griffith believed that squads living, training, and fighting as cohesive units improved morale, discipline, and tactical effectiveness.Frank, Oral History Transcript: Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, p. 54. After the Guadalcanal campaign in 1943, Griffith reorganized the 1st Battalion along those lines.Frank, Oral History Transcript: Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, p. 153.
Pacific Theater The 1st Raider Battalion's first combat operation was the assault on Tulagi in the Solomon Islands on August 7, 1942, which was secured after two days of encountering little Japanese resistance.Ban, Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, p. 27.Frank, Oral History Transcript: Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, p. 84. Griffith recalls being surprised by the tenacity of Japanese night attacks.Frank, Oral History Transcript: Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, p. 91. The battalion was then moved to Guadalcanal. On September 12–14, the Raiders defended Henderson Field at the Battle of Edson's Ridge. Following Edson's promotion to lead the 5th Marines, Griffith took command of the Raider Battalion on September 22, 1942.Ban, Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, p. 27. Griffith was promoted to lieutenant colonel in August 1942.Ban, Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith II, p. 24.