Today in Manhunting History -- January 26, 1928: The Fall of El Chipote

Before there was Tora Bora, there was El Chipote.

While Marine aircraft pounded El Chipote, a force of more than 300 Marines massed at San Albino for the final assault on Sandino’s stronghold. The detachment’s commander, Major Archibald Young, had been briefed by brigade intelligence that “there is practically no doubt that Sandino has planned to make a determined stand at Chipote.” Young chose to exercise caution, advancing slowly and using mortars, rifle grenades, and Lewis guns to fire upon every suspected ambush site in his path. Consequently, it took the Marine battalion six days to cover the three miles from the base of El Chipote on the Murra River to its summit. On January 26 a patrol reached the crest, and appeared to have just barely missed the enemy garrison. One officer reported: “A freshly butchered beef was found hanging near the house said to have been the headquarters of General Salgado and a chicken still limp and undressed was on the floor of the quarters near the fireplace.” Yet aside from some food stores, the Marines found the earthworks occupied by nothing but straw-filled dummies.

Although Marine patrols continued to comb the area around El Chipote through the remainder of January, they found no trace of Sandino. On February 4, Marine headquarters announced Sandino was still alive but fleeing southward. On February 5 Sandino was reported active in the department of Matagalpa, and on the 6th he was spotted far to the north. On February 9 he was again reported in Matagalpa, and two weeks later the Associated Press had him in position to strike port cities on the Atlantic Coast. As New York Times correspondent Harold Denny observed, “The wily Sandino is a maddening problem for the Marines because of his swift shifting, and many officers declare earnestly they would give a year’s pay only once to come to grips with him.” Despite an official Navy Department pronouncement that Sandino was “finished, and is simply trying to escape,” Lejeune agreed with the Marine commanders’ request for reinforcements in order to continue the hunt for Sandino, and early in 1928 ordered the 11th Regiment back to Nicaragua.

Like Osama bin Laden after the fall of Tora Bora, Augusto Sandino evaded U.S. forces and surivived the seige of his mountain fortress El Chipote.

More Manhunting History . . .

I've belatedly posted the anniversaries of Marine 1LT Christian F. Schilt earning the Medal of Honor during the Sandino manhunt (January 6) and the account of how Geronimo barely escaped during the Battle at the Devil's Backbone in 1886 (January 10).

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



Today in Manhunting History -- January 6, 1928: The Extraordinary Heroism of Christian Schilt

Sixty-five years before Mogadishu and Delta Snipers Shugart and Gordon, there was Quilali and Marine First Lieutenant Christian F. Schilt.

After the Battle of Las Cruces the approximately 400-man Sandinista force laid siege to Quilali, the Marines were in a difficult situation. They were low on ammunition and supplies, and of 174 officers and men, eight were dead, and 31 wounded – including every surviving officer. The Marines and Guardia quickly constructed an airfield in the middle of Quilali, an overgrown and abandoned hamlet that was little more than “an aggregation of shacks” near the Jicaro River. Flying a Vought 02U-1 “Corsair” biplane, First Lieutenant Christian F. Schilt made 10 landings and takeoffs on Quilali’s main street from January 6-8. Under heavy enemy fire, Schilt delivered 1,400 pounds of medicine and supplies and evacuated 18 wounded. Each time Schilt’s Corsair touched down Marines had to run out and grab the wings in order to slow the brakeless plane down and keep it from smashing off the end of the abbreviated runway.

Although Schilt was awarded the Medal of Honor for these daring flights, the offensive was a failure. By January 10, Richal and Livingston’s columns were en route back to San Albino.

1LT Christian Schilt, Medal of Honor winner for his heroism during the seige of Quilali

Today in Manhunting History -- January 1, 1928: The Battle of Las Cruces

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.*

	http://www.sandinorebellion.com/PCDocs/1928a/PC280104b-Brown.html

http://www.sandinorebellion.com/PCDocs/1928a/PC280104b-Brown.html

GO TO HELL, A MARINE NEVER SURRENDERS!!!

Although an Army vet myself, I'd like to offer our brothers-in-arms from the United States Marine Corps a Happy 236th Birthday!!!

Half of my platoon at the Field Artillery Officer Basic Course were Marines, as was my father-in-law, so I have great respect for the Corps.  To commemorate the occasion, I'm revisiting my favorite Marine Corps episode from my research on strategic manhunts.  In late June/early July I began telling the story of the Marines' five-year campaign to kill or capture Nicaraguan insurgent leader Augusto Sandino, beginning with Captain Gilbert Hatfield's unusual correspondence with Sandino and the decision to deploy a patrol under Major Oliver Floyd on July 2nd to kill or capture Sandion.  But for reasons I can't recall now, I stopped the story on July 2, 1927.

On July 11, 1927, Captain Hatfield made a final peace offering to Sandino. “In spite of your insolent replies in the past,” he wrote, “I am giving you another opportunity to surrender with honor.” Hatfield urged Sandino to follow the example of Emilio Aguinaldo, who had given up his resistance to become “a splendid friend of the United States.” Alternatively, Hatfield said, the Marines were prepared to hunt Sandino to his stronghold and destroy him. He gave Sandino two days to consider his offer, saying he would expect the general “in Ocotal at eight o’clock in the morning of July 14, 1927. Please advise me of your intentions in one word, either yes or no.”

In response to Hatfield’s ultimatum, Sandino declared: “Your threats seem very pale to me. . . . I shall have the honor of sprinkling the soil of my native country with the blood of traitors and invaders.”

At 1:15AM, July 16, a Marine sentry on post in front of Ocotal city hall noticed a “suspicious movement” and went to investigate. Suddenly, a thundering fusillade shattered the stillness of the black night. About 60 regulars and 500 partisans had infiltrated the village since the previous dusk, with Sandino “reportedly offering his men freedom to loot and agreeing to join them in drinking yankee blood.” Firing on the town from all directions, the Sandinistas swept into town and rushed to gain vantage points for a final assault against the Marine barracks and headquarters at city hall.

Within three minutes of the first shot, however, the Marines and guardia were at their “battle stations . . . receiving fire from all directions, and from well located snipers.” The street in front of the barracks was swept by a Sandinista machine gun firing from an elevated position at the end of the street, and individual Sandinistas charged forward to throw dynamite bombs through the barracks windows, shouting “Death to the Yankees!” and “Viva Sandino!” While the Marines and Guardia were pinned down in their headquarters, the Sandinistas began looting Ocotal. At about 4AM the guerrillas advanced into the tree-studded plaza in front of city hall. For four hours, the attackers vainly threw themselves towards the adobe walls of city hall in a series of frontal assaults. But from their fortifications, the Marine rifles and automatic weapons took a heavy toll on the Sandinistas, and the attack fizzled.

At dawn several rebels emerged under a flag of truce and delivered a note from Sandino. Renewing his correspondence, Sandino complimented Hatfield’s “brave fight,” but requested the garrison’s surrender. He promised that if the defenders threw their weapons into the street within an hour they would not be harmed.

“Go to hell,” Hatfield told Sandino. “A Marine never surrenders. We remain here until we die or are captured.”

"GO TO HELL, A MARINE NEVER SURRENDERS!!!"
Captain Gilbert Hatfield  and the Ocotal garrison, 1927

Under a tropical downpour, the battle continued. Although there were no further Sandinista charges, a machine gun placed in the church belfry raked city hall and snipers worked their way closer to the Marines.

At about 10:15AM the skies cleared, and two Marine patrol planes on a regular reconnaissance flight from Managua appeared over Ocotal. The pilots saw the village under siege, and as soon as Hatfield heard the engines, his Marines laid out coded panels in the city hall compound with the message: “Being attacked by Sandino.” The planes strafed the Sandinistas’ positions before returning to Managua. At 2:35PM a flight of five DeHavilands appeared over Ocotal, each carrying four 25-pound bombs beneath their wings and 1,200 rounds of machine gun ammunition. Led by Major Ross E. Rowell, the Marine biplanes spotted a concentration of Sandinistas in the open and began their attack. One after another, the planes dived at the guerrillas from 1,500 feet, opening fire with the fixed machine guns in the front and at the end of the dive – sometimes dropping as low as 300 feet – releasing a bomb. As the planes climbed away the observers fired the free guns at the Sandinistas as they scrambled for cover. Rowell recalled, “I never saw such a wild rout, and probably never will. As soon as they broke we closed in and worked at close range to make every bomb count.”
By the second pass the Sandinistas were in a panic, and although the air strike only lasted 45 minutes, it effectively ended the Sandinista attack. The guerrillas began withdrawing, and by 5:25PM were all gone. Based upon the number of bodies found, funerals held, and the increased size of Ocotal’s cemetery, Hatfield estimated at least 300 Sandinistas had been killed. The Marine losses were one dead and one wounded; while the Guardia lost three wounded and four captured. Ocotal was a decisive victory for the Marines, who assumed they had destroyed the last armed challenge to the occupation. Ambassador Charles Eberhardt cabled the State Department: “It is not supposed that Sandino will offer much further resistance.”

Today in Manhunting History -- July 2, 1927: "The Sandino Affair" Begins

Initially, U.S. officials did not perceive Sandino to be a significant threat. Sandino had not attempted to stop the occupation of Jinotega, San Rafael, and Ocotal as the Marines restored civil government throughout Nicaragua. Combined with his requests for an American military governor, U.S. officials believed persuasion could still work on Sandino. Even if persuasion failed, General Feland viewed Sandino’s band as only one of several groups of “bandits operating near the Honduran border, none of which were seen as a substantial barrier to peace and the elections of 1928. Moreover, since Tititapa, desertions had left Sandino with less than 30 men under arms, and Feland was confident the rebel’s force would eventually disintegrate altogether

On May 31, 50 Marines under Major Harold Pierce left Managua to establish control over Nueva Segovia and to “peaceably disarm everybody.” Yet there was no desire “to make heroes out of a copule of cattle thieves by chasing them through the jungles with a squad of Marines.” Thus, Feland instructed Pierce to “secure information that will facilitate the coming supervision of elections, but do not fire a shot inless imperatively necessary; and conciliate with firmness, tranquilize without force of arms, avoid combat.” There were no immediate plans for military action against Sandino, and even Captain Hatfield confined his garrison’s activities to disarming cooperative Nicaraguans and collecting information on Sandino.

U.S. Marine Corps Brigadier General Logan Feland and staff in 1928

During this period of Marine restraint, however, Sandino began plundering mines and kidnapping Europeans for ransom, attracting new recruits in the process. On June 30 word came to Managua that Sandino had seized his old workplace, the American-owned San Albino gold mine. On July 2 Rear Admiral Julian Latimer – commander of the Special Service Squadron in Nicaragua – ordered General Feland to commence operations to disarm Sandino as soon as possible. Feland subsequently detailed Major Oliver Floyd to command a force of 75 Marines and 150 Nicaraguan volunteers with the mission of disarming Sandino.

Today in Manhunting History -- June 29, 1927: "If words were bullets . . ."

U.S. Marine Captain Gilbert Hatfield waited two days until June 27 to renew his correspondence with Sandino. “Dear General,” Hatfield wrote:

Since there seems to be no opportunity to meet you on the field of battle, it has occurred to me that . . . you might be willing to come in and talk with me, Your safety both coming and leaving us is guaranteed, and you may bring a reasonable number of men as a bodyguard, say 25, to insure your safety while on the road. . . . Hoping that you are a patriot and not a robber, and that you will talk to me soon, I am,

G.D. HATFIELD, Capt., USMC.

Sandino replied on the 29th, again escalating the war of words. He said he would not come in for a conference and fall like a dove deceived by “a few grains of rice at the door of a trap.” Instead, he invited the Marines to come and get him. “I will allow you to come for the conference that you want, and I will also allow you to come with a guard of 500 men.” But when “you come to my mountains,” Sandino warned, “make your wills beforehand.” Until then, the Nicaraguan concluded, “I remain your most obedient servant, who ardently desires to put you in a handsome tomb with beautiful bouquets of flowers.”

“If words were bullets and phrases were soldiers,” Hatfield replied, “you would be a field marshal instead of a mule thief.” He suggested Sandino wire him again “when you have something more than the ravings of a conceited maniac.”

Today in Manhunting History -- June 25, 1927: Gilbert Hatfield's New Pen Pal

Ocotal, the capital of Nicaragua’s Nueva Segoiva department, sits 2,000 feet up a broad valley, less than 20 miles from the Honduran border. In the summer of 1927 it was the northernmost outpost for the U.S. forces deployed on the peacekeeping mission to the tiny Central American republic. Although such an isolated garrison could be a lonely place, Captain Gilbert D. Hatfield, United States Marines Corps, had a pen pal. Although he had only recently occupied the Nicaraguan garrison town of Ocotal with 40 Marines and 60 Nicaraguan guardsmen, Hatfield had attracted the attention of the most prominent local citizen: General Augusto C. Sandino.

On June 25 Sandino wired Hatfield that he had arrived in nearby San Fernando with his insurgent forces, and asked: “Shall I wait here for you or shall I go to you?”

Hatfield wrote back the same day. “I am giving you the idea of coming here, assuring you that we shall not run away. . . . I thank you for your letter, and trusting that you will soon come and salute me personally. I am yours respectfully, G.D. Hatfield, Capt., USMC.”
Sandino replied by sending Hatfield a crudely drawn cartoon of a guerrilla brandishing a machete over the neck of a prostate marine.

Thus began one of the more remarkable correspondences in U.S. military history.

Captain Gilbert Hatfield and his Marines at Ocotal, July 1927

Today in Manhunting History -- May 21, 1927: Sandino and the USA

Despite Sandino’s refusal to accept the Tititapa Accords that ended the Nicaraguan Civil War (see May 12 below), he initially accepted the U.S. peacekeeping mission. On May 21 he wired the Marine commander, Brigadier General Logan Feland. “For peace to be durable,” Sandino wrote, “we propose that the two parties leave the affairs of the Republic in the hands of [an] American governor, until absolutely free elections have been held.”

Ironically, Sandino would eventually establish his international reputation (especially amongst anti-American leftists) by opposing the U.S. presence in Nicaragua.  Yet he only adopted this stance after the United States rebuffed his proposal to appoint a military governor to Nicaragua, and despite his pro-democracy rhetoric, Sandino would violently oppose what were Nicaragua's freest elections to date.

Today in Manhunting History -- May 12, 1927: The Peace of Tititapa

By May 1927, Nicaragua's perpetually feuding Conservative and Liberal factions had been fighting a bloody civil war for nearly year.  In February, the heart of Chinandega was blasted out in street-to-street and house-to-house fighting.  Hundreds were killed on each side, and one observer noted the bones of some bodies had been picked clean by vultures, while others had "only their abdominal cavities scooped out by the ravaging beaks of turkey buzzards who gorge themselves to a nauseating stupor."

In an attempt to end the strife, President Calvin Coolidge sent former Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson to Nicaragua as his personal representative.  Stimson subsequently negotiated an agreement in which the Conservative President Diaz would remain in office until new presidential elections supervised by Americans could be held in 1928.  In the meantime, Diaz would reappoint the Liberal congressmen and judges removed by his coup and appoint Liberal civil governors in Nicaragua's six Liberal-dominated provinces.  Both parties would disband their armies and surrender their arms for bounties.  These forces, including the regular army, would be replaced before the 1928 election by a new, nonpartisan Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua, which would be trained, officered, and supported by the United States Marines. 

While today such a mission would be considered a model peacekeeping operation, in 1927 it was an unprecedented form of intervention by U.S. forces in Latin America. 

Although his Liberal forces held the upper hand, Liberal General Jose Marie Moncada admitted to Stimson during their May 11 meeting under a blackthorn tree just outside the village of Tititapa "that neither he nor the Government could pacify the country without the help of the United States."  Consequently, on May 12 Moncada informed the Americans that each of his twelve generals had signed the Tititapa agreement and begun to disarm.

All of his commanders, that is, except for one.

That lone holdout, Augusto C. Sandino, would become the target of what was the longest strategic manhunt in U.S. military history until the recently concluded hunt for bin Laden.