Oral Histories
of the 100 Hours
"Football War"

El Salvador - Honduras 1969

Battalion Commander of the 11th Bn TOO

by David E. Spencer

In February of 1969, I was made the second in command of the Engineers, the CIIFA at the Zacatecoluca barracks. I was here until the beginning of the war with Honduras.

On the morning of July 13th, I received a telegram from the Ministry of Defense. It ordered me to go to the artillery barracks at El Zapote and organise a battalion of troops which I would lead. I immediately went up and began organizing the numerous reservists that had answered the call and arrived at the Zapote barracks. Many of them were old comrades with whom I had served before in Cojutepeque, La Paz, Zacatecoluca, San Vicente and Usulutan. Most knew me, and we had a wonderful reunion. The battalion was designated the 11th battalion. We organized the battalion with three infantry companies and a service/support company. The latter was armed with .50 caliber machine-guns only as there were no mortars available for us yet. The infantry was issued Ml Garand rifles, except there were not enough, so the 3rd company was not issued any weapons at all.

The next morning early, I received a second telegram ordering me to take the 11th battalion by truck and arrive at Santa Rosa de Lima no later than at 0600 hours on July 15th. The trucks were supposed to arrive that same morning, but they came late, at about dusk. Furthermore, they came with only enough gasoline to reach Usulutan. When they finally arrived, we mounted up and began our convoy. It was dark, so we turned on our headlights. Around Oloquilta we began to hear planes flying overhead, so I ordered the headlights turned off.

This slowed down our march considerably. In the dead of night we reached Usulutan where we queued up to fill up our gas tanks. Once this was accomplished we drove up to Santa Rosa de Lima. We had been on the road for 18 hours. While the battalion rested, I was ordered to report to the Commander of the Eastern Theatre of Operations (TOO), Segundo Montes. He showed me an aerial map and ordered me to take my men up to the front and prepare to attack the next morning across the El Amatillo bridge.

My mission was to take the dominating hills, 3 kilometres from the border around El Amatillo. To take the bridge we would be provided with several home made armoured trucks built on the chassis of American 2.5 ton trucks. At 0543 in the morning of the 16th, Salvadoran artillery which had silently taken up position on the hills on the Salvadoran side of the border suddenly opened a murderous fire on the Honduran troops stationed at the customs building. The artillery was joined, by our soldiers and the border guards stationed on our side of the river.

Just after this, we started to cross the bridge in our armoured trucks. The four or five armoured trucks, known as Rayos, were up front. These each had a machine-gun that fired through a slit on the co-driver side of the cab and could carry around 20 troops. In addition, we had removed the mufflers so the noise would add a psychological effect to their appearance. The combination of the artillery, small arms fire and the horrific noise of the Rayos caused the Hondurans to flee, so we rolled into El Amatillo unopposed.

However, as we rolled across the bridge we didn't know that the Hondurans had fled. I was in the lead Rayo and it was somewhat claustrophobic. The vehicle was completely closed, and it was very hot and cramped inside. Furthermore, we couldn't see very well and were waiting for Honduran bullets or artillery to hit us at any minute. As we reached the other side and rolled into the town, I noticed a Honduran flag at half mast, that had been abandoned in the haste of the enemy evacuation. Perhaps it had gotten stuck as the Hondurans had fled, so it was left behind. Once we disembarked with relief from the vehicle, I ordered a soldier with a machete to cut the flag down and bring it to me. I folded it up, and hid it in my shirt, never revealing it to anyone. It is now one of my souvenirs from that war.

At the point of disembarkation, I organized my battalion for the advance. 1st company was positioned on the right side of the road, with responsibility for sweeping the road. 2nd company was placed 500 meters to their right, to cover the right flank. 3rd company was placed behind the 1st company and was only armed with machetes and corvos (a curved knife for cutting plants or harvesting). The heavy weapons were placed to the right of 3rd company, in the middle to be able to support the advancing troops. My headquarters was next to the heavy weapons to be able to control the line companies and the support weapons.

That afternoon I received weapons for the 3rd company as well as 60mm mortars and 57mm recoilless rifles for the heavy weapons section. The rifles were 7mm Czech Mauser carbines, and although they were old, the 3rd company was extremely glad to finally get some firearms. On the night of the 16th, I briefed my officers on their mission and we tried to get some sleep before next the days battle. On July 17th, at 7AM we began our attack. At 0645, before our advance, the artillery opened up to soften up the Hondurans. We had two 120mm mortars attached to the battalion and these, plus our other artillery fired for 15 minutes.

As soon as the fire lifted we began to advance toward the Honduran positions. At first there was little fire, sporadic shots coming from positions behind rock walls, houses and trees. These Hondurans were members of the Cabanas Battalion, and they did not fight so well. However, after about an hour the Hondurans received reinforcements from the elite Presidential Battalion and our advance was slowed down. At 0900 our advance was halted by accurate withering fire. We were taking a lot of casualties. The rest of the day the men attempted to advance meters at a time.

The men managed to take some lower heights, and even captured an obsolete German made Grusson 57mm artillery piece. These cannons were very old and even had wooden wheels. However, the dominating heights were still in Honduran hands. At 1700 hours I suspended our attack so as not to have to fight during the night. Our men set up a provisional defense and dug shallow foxholes along our perimeter. We feared a Honduran counter-attack, so before it got dark, at around 1800 I requested that the artillery support us by firing flares. Our fears were justified because at 1830 hours, the Hondurans began to fire on us with everything they had, machine-guns, rifles and artillery. The artillery were the same old wooden wheeled Grusson 57mm infantry guns as the piece we had captured earlier. This shows how short of heavy weapons the Honduran army was.

The cannon fire was inaccurate and fell far to the rear, between the heavy weapons group and our support group. Perhaps they were trying to hit our heavy weapons. Our heavy weapons replied with counter-battery fire, and after a half hour, the Honduran artillery fire ended. After this, the artillery took us seriously and began to fire flares. This started about 1930 hours at intervals of five minutes.

The flares lit up the night to prevent the Hondurans from getting too close to us. At 2100 hours the Hondurans attacked again with the same weapons, rifles, machine-guns and the old Grusson cannons. We replied in the same manner as described before. Finally at 0600 hours the next day, they launched their final attack, using the same weapons. This attack also lasted approximately a half hour.

After this attack I began to prepare for a new advance. I wanted the men to be strong so I waited until after breakfast to start the advance.. This kicked off on July 18th at 0800 hours with an artillery bombardment of the dominating heights that were occupied by the Hondurans. At 0830 hours my three companies began their advance. Resistance was light, and apparently our counter-fire and artillery had caused the Hondurans a lot of casualties. The terrain was proving almost more difficult than the enemy. There were several positions behind stone walls and trees, but these were easily swept away.

However, one curious thing was that we began to run into Nicaraguan National Guardsmen. Apparently Somoza had sent some of his troops to fight for the Hondurans. However, their morale was low because we had proven to be much superior than the Hondurans and second because the Nicaraguans were fighting for a foreign country and not Nicaragua. They did not fight very well and we scattered them easily. At 1800 hours we finally took the dominating heights around Lange. It was here that we found out that there had been a formal ceasefire negotiated by the Organization of American States. However, we hadn't known and had been fighting during the ceasefire. We spent the night on our newly conquered heights. My battalion's total casualties for the three days were around 90 killed.

The next morning our men withdrew single file down the road back to El Amatillo. Here they boarded trucks and were taken to Pasaquina canton on the Goascoran river. On August 4 we were taken in trucks to San Salvador to march in the victory parade the next day at 0730 hours.. We arrived at the Eastern bus terminal for the victory parade. The parade went from the terminal up Avenida Independencia and ended in the Soccer Stadium. The infantry marched first, after which came the artillery and the Rayo armoured trucks.

The engineers took Aramecina. The Hondurans had set up fortified positions in the houses. The engineers used their bulldozers as improvised tanks. They raised the blades to protect the vehicles from incoming fire and mounted machine-guns on the roofs. The bulldozers would then ram the houses to knock them down and bury the defenders. Quite a few Honduran buildings suffered this fate at Aramecina, and many Honduran defenders died.

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