Evening Star Newspaper, September 14, 1930, Page 103

DN, D. C, SEPTEMBER 14, 1930. DINO and How He Fights General’s Own Story he United States as ogales, Soldier of ded a Division of he Germans During Vo Was With San- d During His Exile /. e Nogales. At Las Flores the Nicaraguans made the bad mistake of entrenching themselves and waiting for the enemy to attack—a mistake that was made worse by the fact that they neglected to cover their flanks. The engagement ended in a complete rout and the serious loss to San- dino of about 60 men. The Las Flores engagement was one of a number near El Chipote that took place be- tween November and the middle of December in 1927. When Sandino noticed that his am- munition was running short and that the Americans were closing in on him, he had sev- eral hundred straw dummies made and placed in the firing line to deceive the enemy while he quietly retreated with all his men to San Ra- fael del Norte, over jungle trails they had pre- viously cut in preparation for the move. It was here that he met the American journalist in Nicaragua. He is shown here with ht) in Puerto Cabezas. . Carlton Beals, whose articles created such a stir in certain American circles. After that retreat he stuck to his jungle trails, set traps for the Americans wherever possible, and took the offensive, AGA!NST that kind of warfare, conducted in jungle country by men who know their jungles and who travel light and fast, Europe- an tactics are practically useless, The Americans realized perfectly the short- comings of their methods, but it was impos- sible for them to use amy other. Napoleon dis- covered in Spain that guerilla warfare is pos- sible only in a country where the population is friendly. Neither the Boers in South Africa nor Abd-el-Krim in Moroceo could have had the slightest measure of success if they had not been in their own native Jande. Reminiscent of France. This was no comic-opera warfare, for the whole front of the Marines’ headquarters at Ocotal, is shown here peppered with machine gun and rifle fire. It is possible to travel light and move fast, in small bands, when every farm, every ranch, is a potential source of shelter and military aid, as they were to Sandino. When the reverse is true, as it was to the Marines, large commis- saries and large camps have to be transported, independent and cumbersome systems of liaison and hospital treatment have to be maintained. The U. S. Marines, rightfully distrustful of the civil population, made matters worse through their strict methods. Again and again they harassed the peasants, hoping to get a “bandit” or two. At the present writing, with trouble begin- ning faintly to stir again in Nicaragua, reports are being published that President Moncada has ordered all the inhabitants of the affected districts to concentrate at certain points, with the announcement that everybody found out- side of those points after a given date would be regarded with suspicion. The order, to me, demonstrates the insecurity that Moncada feels in his position. The same mwove was made by the Marines on several occasions during the last Sandino trouble. In general it may be regarded .as a military necessity, used by Kitchener in South Africa, by the French in the Abd-el-Krim cam- paign and by the Spanish in Cuba in the cdays before "98. UT it has also a highly undesirable effect from a military point of view. A hunted man is apt to feel the uncertainty of his position and even become an active ene- my. In Nicaragua it alienated friends, made enemies out of neutrals and increased enor- mously Sandino’s popularity through the sim- ple example of conirast with his methods. I talk here not as a crusader or a propa- gandist against the United States. Few men know better than I what brutalities are inci- dent to any war—and those of the Americans were more than equaled, in time of battle, by the reprisals of the Sandinistas. When I arrived in Matagalpa, Nicaragua, in 1927, after a hazardous three months’ trip across the swampy jungles of the Mosquito Coast and Central Nicaragua, I warned the Ma- rines to try to reach an agreement with San- dino rather than embark on a war that had no ‘end in sight and that would make the United States more hated than ever in all of Latin America. They treated me with the ut- most courtesy and friendliness, but even if they had wanted to heed my advice they had their orders and no choice in the matter. $ Sandino’s methods of waging warfare are Interesting to study. In his country he can skirmish indefinitely against almost any num- ber of men. But his methods, while eminently suited to his purpose, have their darker side. They allow for no quarter to prisoners or wounded. Often he is hard enough put to feed his own men, and a prison camp in his rear, or a hospital for Americans when his own wounded often die for lack of proper medical care, would be a physical impossibility. Sandino has also to reckon with the abso- lutely essential good will of the civil popula- tion., Every soldier knows that the non-com- batants, the people behind the lines, are always far more fierce and intolerant in their hatred of the enemy than the fighters themselves. The civil population is perfectly willing to support Sandino and his men--is willing to support many times their number—especially when gold “Indios” pay the way. SANDINO is not afMlicted with blood-lust, But he cannot jeopardize his standing with those on whose help he must depend, and, even if he could, he could not spare the men to guard prisoners and enemy wounded against fanatical non-combatants. The rebel’'s hemmed-in position, his difficul- ties in getting ammunition, etc., produced that terrible hand-to-hand” fighting with machetes that Central America is famous for. Often, no doubt, the Matines found their rifles and their machine guns useless in jungle rkirmishes, again and-again the machefes did their terrible work, flashing red in the semi-darkness of the wropical forest. Capt. Paredes, Sandino’s aide de camp, has told me of that cry of the wounded, “Shoot me, but machetes, no!” Shoot? Ammunition is scarce and must be preserved. Machetes, knives, daggers must take their place whenever possible. Often, when there was dynamite on hand after a raid on some mine, the men used homemade grenades, leather sacks filled with explosives, nails, slugs, bolts, empty shells, anything that would in- flict damage and stampede the mules of the enemy. In a jungle campaign of this sort, where the Sandino forces assemble, attack in a wilderness and melt away after the battle, it is particularly difficult to secure accurate facts about the fighting. Naturally enough, Sandino’s accounts of his batiles are widely at variance with accounts of the same battles as compilgd by the United States Marine Corps and the American Gov- ernment. 3 Sandino has at times, for instance, given out optimistic estimates of the United States forces which he has defied, as being anywhere from 25,000 to as many as 40,000. UT as the entire United States Marine Corps has had a strength of only about 20,000 during the years since the war, it is evident that Sandino's enthusiasm may have carried him away in some of his statements. To contrast the accounts of some of the principal battles in Nicaragua as given by Sandino and the official reports of the same battles as compiled by Marine officers, however, is interesting. For instance, Sandino described to me as follows the fight at Ocotal: He attacked Ocotal at the head of 60 men on May 16, 1927. Several hundred peasants of the neighborhood sacked the Diaz-Moncada partisans’ shops while Sandino and his men kept blazing away with their eight machine guns at the garrison of Ocotal, composed of about 200 or 300 Marines and a handful of Nicaraguan gendarmes, who had been pressed into service. Sandino said: “The enemy finally intrenched themselves in a city block where we kept them surrounded and peppered them liberally with our machine guns from the neighboring heights. We could have dynamited the provisory bar- racks of the Americanas and the whole town if we had wanted to. But we desisted because we did not want to hurt the town people who were not responsible. “During the 15 hours which the fight lasted the Americans did not try a single sortie. They continued firing until dawn, wasting lots of good ammunition. After sunrise their fire re- lented considerably, probably becausé they were running short of ammunition. That must have been also the reason why they did not try a sortie that morning. “At 10 am. two American airplanes arrived. They bombed and machine-gunned mercilessly the surrounding houses and city blocks, caus- ing many casualties among the defenseless civil population.” Sandino’s losses, according to Capt. de Paredes, amounted to seven men—three dead (among these Col. Rufo Marin) and four wounded. Two of Sandino’s men wha got drunk and fell into the hands of the enemy were exchanged afterward for two American Marines whom the Sandinistas captured near Achoapa. CONTRABT the above with Marine accounts: The Marines report that the garrison at Ocotal consisted of 40 Marines and 48 Guardia, and that no American Marines were ever ex- changed for bandits. Sandino’'s force was given by the Marines as 300. In the campaign against El Chipote again there is great disparity between Sandino’s ac- count and that of the Marines. Capt. De Paredes describes the engagement as follows: “An American column, proceeding from Telpaneca reached the outskirts of Quilali, Sandino .xdered - his * lieutenant, Francisco Estrada, #. ambush his forces at Las Trin- cheras. 'On Wioeraber ¢ the Awericans fell Capt. Richard Livingston, U. S. M. C. His body was found among 60 American dead, Sandino told Nogales. But here is the Marine captain at the Naval Hos- pital in Washington, very much alive, though wounded, and there were 5 dead, not 60. into the trap. They were swept by rifle and machine gun fire at 15 yards. Of the 309 Marines, 60 perished—the Sandinistas having killed also the wounded who had fallen into their hands. “Ten loaded packmules, three of them carry- ing ammunition, were captured by the Nica- raguans. The American column retreated in confusion, taking along 18 of their wounded. Half a mile away the Marines intrenched them- selves, waiting for reinforcements, probably. Among the dead was found the body of Capt. Livingston, the leader of the column.” So much for Paredes’ version of the affair, BUT the Marines report that Capt. Livingston is alive and doing very nicely, thank you, though he was wounded in the fight. Five, not 60, Marines were killed, the records at Wash- ington show. But one of the broadest variations is found in Sandino’s story of the battle on the Cocos River, the last major fight the Marines have bad in Nicaragua. Here is Sandino’s version: “A column of 500 Marines was coming up the river in five large barges. “After several airplanes had passed over the Sandinistas without noticing them, the five barges fell into an ambuscade. This happened on August 7, 1928. Of the second barge, which was allotted to Capt. de Paredes, only five or six Marines escaped alive by clinging to the op- posite side of the barge. “The rest of the Marines and native rowers were swept clean off the barge by Paredes’ machine guns. Some of the Marines had jumped overboard and tried to drag the berge ashore, firing at the same time at Paredes and his men. But it was of all no avail. They were mowed down to a man. “Parades saw the first barge drift by, rudder- less. It had been also swept clear of its hun- dred-odd Marines. The third barge had suf- fered a similar fate. The fourth and fifth barges had suffered only a few losses because they had managed to land most of their men before they had been properly submitted to the machine gun fire of the Sandinistas. “The Marines of those two barges, after jumping ashore, intrenched themselves hurried=- ly in & nearby ranch house which had been occupied only a few minutes before by San- dinc himself. The Sandinistas, in the general melee, tried, naturally, to concentrate upstream while the Marines—that is, those who remained alive—assembled downstream. The Sandinistas lost four dead and three wounded; the latter died shortly afterward for Jack of proper med- ical attention. The Marines lost 130 men.” NE Marine officer said of this account that “it would be less laughable if it were more accurate.” Marine records indicate that Capt. Merritt A. Edson was in command of this en- gagement of 47 enlisted men and one officer. It was a definite and complete defeat for the outlaws, the Marines maintain, and Capt. BEd- son's officlal report of his entire loss in the skirmish was one dead an7j three wounded. In fact, the official U. S. éfarine Corps figures for casualties during the entire Nicaraguan oc- cupation gave 25 dead, only 21 of these as the result of conflict with foress led by Sandine or his subordinates. Other sharp contrasts like the above are to be found by comparing reports of the two sides. And while there is expedience In Sandino’s type of warfare, there is no hope of military 4% victory. If he starts again, he and his men, with enormo®s reserves of man power to draw upon, can keep on fighting and harassing any sized foree indefinitely. (Copyright, 1994b