Few men have had more impact on Marine Corps history than Earl Hancock "Pete" Ellis - and none have been more controversial. Sometimes called the father of amphibious warfare, he left behind a legacy tainted by subterfuge and mystery, and his suspicious death in Micronesia in 1923 has gone unexplained for more than seventy years. This book - the result of decades of research worldwide - provides the answers, often disputing long-accepted but unsubstantiated accounts of his life and death.

Was Ellis poisoned by the Japanese secret police as many historians assert, or did he drink himself to death as islanders claim? What happened to his mission notes? Was the mission sanctioned by the top U.S. military officials? Did his plans and ideas help save the Marine Corps from extinction?

These and many other questions about this brilliant but troubled Marine are answered and substantiated for the first time, using family papers, fitness reports, Japanese sources, and eyewitness interviews never before available. As this biography chronicles a tragic human drama, it also records the corps's transition from naval infantry to (after Ellis's death) an amphibious assault force that was the key to one of the greatest naval campaigns in history.