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First time I heard about LL Bean boots, but I also read that their officers took whatever heavy winter civilian coats were available in Charleston when they shipped out.
Dad came home with a big furry Marine green and brown fur winter hat that was worn by the China Marines. He always wore it shoveling snow in the 50's.
Bob
When the Rangers were trapped at Pointe du Hoc (they accomplished their mission, but were cut off from the main US forces at Omaha Beach for 2-3 days) one Marine officer afloat wanted to reinforce them with the shipboard detachment of USS Texas.
Omar Bradley, personally, shot it down; he didn't want to see any headlines reading "US Army rescued by Marines!"
No Marines were put ashore on D-Day, and I think few thereafter.
The tale about the Marine behind enemy lines sounds like Peter Ortiz. "Wild Bill" Donovan's OSS was a law unto itself (seeing as how Donovan was an old classmate and friend of some guy working out of a wheelchair in an Oval Office) and had free rein to pick anyone it chose. It got a few Marines. Peter Ortiz was, apparently, a good operative and USMC Captain; he did drop behind enemy lines and was captured by the Germans, surviving months not in a PoW camp but concentration camp. [Hitler had decreed that all "commandos" and similar special operatives be executed on capture; the German officers in the field decided that sending them to a concentration & labor camp was the most efficient way to do so. A fair number of British captured operatives survived such ordeals.]