author
Edwin North McClellan
1881–1971
A Marine Corps officer turned historian, he helped shape how the Corps recorded and told its own story. His writing draws on firsthand military experience and a deep commitment to preserving the history of the Marines.
1 Audiobook
The United States Marine Corps in the World War
by Edwin North McClellan, United States. Marine Corps
About the author
Born in Philadelphia on December 5, 1881, he became a United States Marine Corps officer after studying at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Over the course of his service, he held a range of assignments typical of early 20th-century Marine officers and later became known not only as a career Marine, but also as an author and historian.
He is especially remembered as the first director of the Historical Section at Headquarters Marine Corps, the organization that later became the Marine Corps History Division. That role made him an important figure in preserving official Marine Corps history, and it fit naturally with his work as a writer on military subjects.
For readers today, his appeal lies in that combination of practitioner and chronicler: he wrote with the perspective of someone who had served, researched, and helped build the historical record himself. He died on July 25, 1971.