3BadgeMarine
12-24-02, 07:18 PM
Ten days after a cutting out raid by Capt Halliday RM,the USMC and Royal Marines were engaged in another sortie.On the 3rd of July 1900 the senior American Marine Officer,Captain John Twigg Myers,led another combined force-thirty US Marines,and twenty six British Royal Marines in an equally daring raid against the Chinese,the first real offensive operation since the siege had begun.Capt Myers was badly wounded by a Chinese spear,but the attack succeeded complelety.It proved a turning point in the siege,and the legations held out untill relief arrived.This was not the first time British and American Marines had fought side by side.they had hardly ceased fighting against each other,in the war of 1812,when they went into action together to clear pirates out of the Caribbean.Later common had led them to fight side by side against the Chinese at Shangai and against the Egyptians at Alexandria.but they had never face death together so starkley (untill Korea 1950) as at Peking,and the American Marines'admiration for Captain Halliday RM, was matched only by British admiration of the Heroism Of Captain Myers USMC. A bronze bas-relief in the Mall,in London commemorating the Royal Marines' Deeds at Peking,recongnizes this in a way unique in National Memorials: American Marines are shown with their British comrades in the place of Honour,and the figure of Captain Myers USMC,is conspicuously at their head.A memorial service is held each year to commemorate this event,with a senior Officer of the USMC in attendence. Aye JR