Today in Manhunting History -- January 14, 1928: Bombing El Chipote

With the failure of the ground assault on El Chipote and subsequent retreat from Quilali, the Marines once again changed tactics and laid aside the plan to assault El Chipote with a combined infantry-air assault. Instead, aggressive patrolling would force the enemy to concentrate in the mountain redoubt, Major Ross E. Rowell’s planes would destroy the fortress from the air, and the infantry would mop up the remaining resistance. This plan was feasible because the creaky old DeHavilands had been replaced by new Vought Corsairs and Curtiss Falcons, which had greater bomb-carrying capacities and were faster and more maneuverable. Rowell’s squadron subjected the shacks atop El Chipote to unrelenting bombardment.



A DeHaviland on a bombing run over El Chipote, January 1928

On January 14 the airmen flew northeast from Managua through heavy cumulus clouds, their planes laden with 50-pound demolition and 17-pound fragmentation bombs. Luckily, “there was a nice hole in the clouds right over the bandit mountain.” On Rowell’s signal, the planes hurtled towards El Chipote in almost vertical dives. “They saw us coming,” Rowell recalled. “The first thing I saw was a barrage of sky rockets. Eight or ten of them rose in the sector that I was after.”

In all, 2,800 rounds of machine-gun ammunition ripped into the hilltop, while four 50-pound and 18 17-pound bombs burst upon Sandino’s entrenchments. One of Rowell’s aviators scored a direct hit with a 50-pound bomb on a building. After the bomb burst, about 40 people ran from a nearby house and the plane dropped another bomb, making a direct hit in the center of the group. The aviators estimated that 45-50 bodies were scattered on the ground after the attack. Following the air assault, rumors of Sandino’s death received wide circulation. On January 19, Rowell flew over the mountain and saw nothing but “squadrons of vultures.”

Major Ross E. "Rusty" Rowell