The Corps is a series of war novels written by W.E.B. Griffin about the United States Marine Corps before and during the years of World War II and the Korean War. The story features a tightly knit cast of characters in various positions within the Marine Corps, Navy, and upper levels of the United States Government.
List of books Book I, Semper Fi (1986) - Main action takes place between January 2, 1941 and January 17, 1942. Book II, Call to Arms (1987) - Main action takes place between December 18, 1941 and August 30, 1942. Book III, Counterattack (1990) - Main action takes place between December 7, 1941 and August 9, 1942. Book IV, Battleground (1991) - Main action takes place between June 4 and August 25, 1942. Book V, Line of Fire (1992) - Main action takes place between Spring and October 11, 1942. Book VI, Close Combat (1993) - Main action takes place between October 11 and November 19, 1942. Book VII, Behind the Lines (1996) - Main action takes place between April 7, 1942 and February 8, 1943. Book VIII, In Danger's Path (1999) - Main action takes place between November, 1941 and May 5, 1943. Book IX, Under Fire (2002) - Main action takes place between June 1 and September 29, 1950. Book X, Retreat, Hell! (2004) - Main action takes place between September 28 and November 3, 1950.
Primary characters
Major Kenneth R. "Killer" McCoy, USMCR First Appearance: Semper Fi
His name is Kenneth R. McCoy, the introductory character of the saga, a Marine Corporal stationed in Shanghai, China with the 4th Marines (the primary component of the China Marines) prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Ken has a great affinity for languages and in China learns Japanese, Wu, Mandarin, and Cantonese, which leads to his being assigned to intelligence-gathering convoys by Captain Edward Banning, USMC, the Fourth Marine Regiment's intelligence officer. His fellow Marines call him "Killer" for killing two Italian Marines in self-defense with a baby Fairbairn–Sykes knife (to his great embarrassment), and for having killed 18 Chinese bandits in the employ of the Kempetai with a Thompson submachine gun while on an intelligence mission.
Following the action in which he killed 18 "bandits," he is transferred back to the United States and is debriefed concerning Japanese techniques and plans by the head of Marine Corps Intelligence. Following this, McCoy is sent to Officer Candidate School to earn a commission as a second lieutenant. After graduating from OCS, he is assigned as an officer courier for intelligence in the Pacific while working for the Marine Corps Office of Management Analysis, a special, little known intelligence group run by Lieutenant Colonel (later Brigadier General) Fritz Rickabee.
While on a courier run just after Pearl Harbor, he manages to make it into the Philippines shortly before the Japanese invasion and reunites with Captain Ed Banning while assisting in the defence of a landing beach. Following an artillery barrage, McCoy carries the wounded Banning to a monastery for treatment. He makes it through enemy lines and is returned to the States. He is awarded a Purple Heart for wounds received and a Bronze Star for his performance under fire and his efforts to save Captain Banning.
McCoy is next assigned to evaluate Lieutenant Colonel Evans Carlson of the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion, whose unorthodox methods caused concern among his superiors. He trains for six months with the Marine Raiders in San Diego, and participates in the Raid on Makin Island.
He participates in several secret missions under Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, including landing on Japanese-controlled Mindanao; staging the rescue of two Marines manning a Coastwatcher station on the island of Buka; being sent on "Operation Windmill" by General Pickering to evaluate the sanity of General Wendell Fertig and the resistance potential of his U.S. Forces in the Philippines; and setting up a weather station in the Gobi Desert urgently needed by the Navy and the Army Air Force. During the course of the series he receives a Bronze Star, three Silver Stars, the Distinguished Service Medal, the British Victoria Cross, and the Purple Heart with five stars.Under Fire, W.e.b.Griffin, page 101, paperback, The Berkley Publishing Group, mass market edition, 2003, 978-0-151-13437-7 Following the success of Operation Gobi, McCoy is promoted to the rank of Major and is ordered to attend the U.S. Army Command and General Staff course, a desirable course which usually is reserved for officers destined for great things, by direction of President Roosevelt.Griffin, W.E.B. In Danger's Path (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons), 1998; page 548)
(Note: The Victoria Cross is an error on the part of the author. Only British and Commonwealth subjects serving in the armed forces were eligible for this medal, the highest award in the British honours system for combat valour. It seems more likely McCoy would have been awarded the Military Cross or the British Distinguished Service Cross.)
Following his return from establishing Station Nowhere in the Gobi Desert in May, 1943, he and Ernestine Sage were marriedGriffin, Under Fire, page 46. and McCoy attended and graduated from the "long course" at C&GS School.Griffin, Retreat, Hell!, page 89. Apart from that assignment, newly promoted Major McCoy continued to work for General Pickering in the OSS until the end of the war, though. After C&GS School the only other assignment specifically mentioned was his accompanying General Pickering on the first flight of Americans into Atsugi Air Base in August, 1945 prior to the formal Japanese surrender.Griffin, Under Fire, pages 31 - 33. During the period between his graduation and General Pickering's involvement in the Japanese surrender, Ken and Ernie were stationed at the Marine base at Quantico, VA, where his duties were not specified but it may be assumed he was an instructor of some sort, possibly teaching guerrilla operations behind the enemy lines.Griffin, Retreat, Hell!, page 89.
Based on the fact that when the story picks up in June, 1950 McCoy is once again a captain, it is clear he was caught up in the reduction-in-force that happened to the armed services after World War II. Due to his lack of a college degree, at some point after World War II ended he was reduced in rank to captain despite having graduated from the Command and General Staff School and having more than enough time in grade to make his promotion permanent. He observed that "The Corps had a – maybe unwritten – policy that if you were reduced in grade, you were transferred ...", which saw the McCoys sent to Japan.Griffin, Retreat, Hell!, page 89.
Between the end of World War II and the start of the Korean War, McCoy is assigned to Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers, General MacArthur's headquarters in Japan as part of its naval element, still working in Intelligence and specializing in Korea. He learns to speak and read Korean, and develops his own network of intelligence sources. Following his submission of a report that directly contradicts General Charles Willoughby's report to MacArthur that all is quiet in Korea, Willoughby attempts to run McCoy out of the Marine Corps. Feeling he has nothing to lose, he contacts his former boss, Fleming Pickering, and asks him to get his report (which, never having been entered into the intelligence filing system by Willoughby, he was able to spirit out of SCAP HQ without anyone noticing) into the hands of the CIA. The report comes to the attention of President Harry Truman and McCoy is retained on active duty.
After the Korean War breaks out, he is co-opted into the CIA by General Pickering, who has been recalled to active duty in the Marine Corps by the President as the CIA Deputy Director for Asia. Once again, Pickering uses McCoy as his eyes and ears on the ground and gives him his head. This results in McCoy setting up an intelligence operation generally similar to that of Mac MacMillan in The Brotherhood of War series. Among other things, McCoy conceives and with the approval of General Pickering carries out the seizure of islands in the Flying Fish Channel in the Inchon approaches without tipping off the North Koreans that enables Douglas MacArthur to successfully land two divisions there. As a result, he is promoted to Major by General MacArthur, and decorated with the Silver Star.
McCoy successfully rescues Pick Pickering three months after Pick was shot down while shooting up an enemy train and evaded capture by the North Koreans,Griffin, Retreat, Hell!, page 247. and continues his intelligence operations in Korea. While this is happening, his wife Ernestine successfully gives birth to a son in Japan after having suffered repeated miscarriages.Griffin, W.E.B. Retreat, Hell! (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons), 2004, page 491.
As The Corps' final book to date (Retreat, Hell!) ends with the Korean War still raging, we know nothing of McCoy's post-Korean War life or assignments.
Colonel Edward C. Banning, USMC First Appearance: Semper Fi
Introduced as the S-2 (intelligence) officer of the 4th Marines in China, and assigned as McCoy's legal advisor after Ken's killing of the two Italian marines. Initially he wants to plead McCoy guilty, but McCoy refuses, and to the chagrin of the prosecutor McCoy comes up with members of William E. Fairbairn's "Flying Squad" of the Shanghai Police as witnesses.
Banning quickly becomes an integral part of the book as McCoy is slowly indoctrinated into the world of intelligence gathering. After charges are dismissed, Banning sends McCoy on convoys to "get him out of sight", and discovers McCoy has great talent as an observer and evaluator of Japanese military readiness. Also a China Marine, his relationship with McCoy changes from superior officer to peer as the story progresses. Unlike the majority of pre-World War II regular Marine Corps officers, Banning is a graduate of The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina.
When orders come down transferring the Fourth Marines to the Philippines, Banning marries his longtime lover Ludmilla Zhvikov, a stateless person (a genuine White Russian countess and daughter of a Tsarist general) traveling on a Nansen passport. But for the impending war, this would have destroyed his career; as it is, his superiors barely take note of it. He is forced to leave Milla behind when the regiment sails, as a subordinate of his, Sergeant Ernest Zimmerman, also had to do with his Chinese wife, Mae Su.
After the 4th Marines are moved from Shanghai to the Philippines, he finds himself defending the beaches of Lingayen Gulf (Luzon) during the Japanese invasion. He is temporarily blinded and transferred off Corregidor by submarine with other seriously wounded US servicemen; fortunately, his sight returns before reaching port.
Banning subsequently serves in the Office of Management Analysis and under Brigadier General Pickering in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II, finishing up the war on the staff of General Joseph Stilwell as an analyst and special cryptographer in charge of the ultra-secret MAGIC Special Channel. Killer McCoy arranges for Ludmilla to be brought out of China as part of Operation Gobi, and Banning reunites with her — and with his son, Edward Edwardovich Banning, whom he had never seen.
At the beginning of the Korean War in Under Fire, he is a colonel in charge of Marine Barracks in Charleston, South Carolina, near retirement, and contemplating a future in real estate development on islands his wealthy family own. Like Ken McCoy, he is co-opted into the CIA by General Pickering, serving on his personal staff until the General, following a meeting with Director Walter Bedell Smith, the new head of the CIA, reassigns him as the CIA's Tokyo station chief.Griffin, Retreat, Hell!, page 372.