When it became clear that air power alone would not force Nicaraguan insurgent leader Augusto Sandino out of his mountain fortress El Chipote, the Marines deployed two large combat patrols totaling nearly 200 men in a two-pronged assault. The columns, advancing from the south and west, would converge on Quilali and establish a base of operations there from which they would storm the fortress. The guerrillas ambushed both columns, however, striking first on December 30 just a mile outside Quilali. Four hundred Sandinistas ambushed a force of 114 Marines and Guardia under Captain Richard Livingston with “a perfect storm of fire.” After 80 minutes of heavy firing from a banana grove, five Marines and two Guardia were killed, and 23 Marines and two guardsmen were wounded. The column collected its dead and wounded and limped into Quilali.
Two days later, January 1, 1928, the Sandinistas struck the second patrol – 40 Marines and 20 Guardia under First Lieutenant Merton A. Richal – six miles north of Quilali. First Lieutenant Richard Bruce, who had recently written his mother promising to hold Sandino’s head in his hands or perish “like a dog,” was on point and was the first Marine killed in an avalanche of dynamite bombs and machine gun fire. Bruce’s assailants fell upon his lifeless body and savagely mutilated it with their machetes. The survivors of the initial assault rallied, but had to be rescued by a relief patrol from Quilali. Richal’s column fell back on the village and joined forces with Livingston’s patrol.
 |
| 1LT Richal's sketch of the battle on January 1, 1928.* |
No comments:
Post a Comment