Ever since it's emergence as an independent state in 1839-40, the Central American republic of Nicaragua had been destabilised by the often violent rivalry between its two political parties, the Liberals and Conservatives. On nine occasions before 1913, United States Marines had been landed in the republic to protect American citizens, diplomats and business interests from violence during wars and revolutions.

After the last of these interventions in 1912, a legation guard was stationed at the capital, Managua, and remained there for twelve years. This guard, consisting of 4 officers and 101 enlisted men, fulfilled a stabilising role in a very unstable country. But in August 1925, despite the misgivings of Managua's foreign colony, and even of some Nicaraguan politicians, the U.S. State Department withdrew this token force.

Within less than three months, on 24 October 1925, a former ultra-conservative president, General Emiliano Chamorro, ousted the moderate conservative president, Carlos Solórzano, and his liberal vice-president, Juan Sacasa, and had himself proclaimed president once more in January 1926. The United States refused to recognise Chamorro, but equally refused to recognise Sacasa's claims to be the legitimate president because he was supported by Mexico, which the U.S. President, Calvin Coolidge, regarded as the spearhead of Bolshevism in Central America.

As fighting broke out, Marines were landed at Bluefields in May 1926 and at Bluefields again and Corinto three months later in order to protect the lives of Americans and the extensive American and foreign property therein. American attempts to broker a peace agreement failed, though negotiations in October 1926 did result in Chamorro's resignation. Thereupon, the Nicaraguan Congress reconvened, reinstated the Liberal members who had been expelled by the General and chose Adolfo Díaz to serve as president until the 1928 election.

As a genuine attempt had apparently been made to reconstitute the Congress as it had been before the October coup, and as Nicaraguan law allowed the Senate to elect one of its members to the presidency in the event of both the president and vice-president being outside the country (both Solórzano and Sacasa had fled abroad), the Diaz government was constitutional and the United States extended it almost immediate recognition. But, in December, Sacasa returned to Nicaragua and proclaimed himself president. Moreover, his forces, led by General José Maria Moncada, began to enjoy military success.

The United States Government was reluctant to undertake a large-scale military intervention in Nicaragua, and when the Liberals began imposing taxes on American firms it responded, at first, by simply directing its nationals to ignore the Sacasa government. It was, however, rather difficult to ignore the Liberals when they controlled large parts of Nicaragua, and American businessmen along the eastern coast were unable to prevent the rebels seizing their supplies and equipment. Then, in late December, an American citizen employed at Puerto Cabezas was killed by Liberal troops.

In response, Marines were again landed in that month and in January 1927 to establish neutral zones at five towns. The legation guard was revived and when Liberal forces threatened the main railway between Granada and Corinto, this, too, was declared a neutral zone.

Power Broker

President Coolidge had still not given up hope of a settlement, and, in April 1927, he sent his trusted adviser, Henry L. Stimson, to Managua to broker one. On 4 May, Stimson reached agreement with Moncada at Tipitapa by which the 2,000 Marines now in country would disarm both armies and assume responsibility for public order, while commencing the organisation and training of a non-partisan native gendarmerie, to be known as the Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua. In the following year, there would be an American supervised election, with secret balloting. Díaz would remain president, but Liberals would participate in his cabinet, and he would be judged ineligible to stand in the elections of 1928.

Although of the 14,448 weapons handed in, only 3,735 belonged to the Liberals, it seemed that the settlement would work. However, a relatively minor Liberal leader in the northern province of Nuevo Segovia, Augusto César Sandino, refused to hand in his arms, and, with his followers, disappeared into the jungle. Although his name was appropriated by the Marxist regime which ruled Nicaragua in the 1980s, Sandino, the illegitimate son of a moderately wealthy Liberal landowner, was not a Communist. He rejected land distribution, and was motivated primarily by a desire to rid Nicaragua of the American presence.

Some two months later he re-emerged and, at 1.15 am on 16 July, launched an attack on the Marine/Guardia Nacional garrison of Ocotal, capital of Nuevo Segovia. The garrison, consisting of 3 Marine officers, 2 Guardia officers, 38 enlisted Marines and 48 native Nicaraguan Guardias, kept their assailants at bay until, at 2.30 p.m., five De Havilland DH-4s of Major Ross E. Rowell's 7th Marine Observation Squadron appeared over Ocotal. Each DH-4 was armed with four 25-pound fragmentation bombs and two machine guns.

Major Rowell wrote:

"I led off the attack and dived out of column from 1,500 feet, pulling out at about 600. Later, we ended up by diving in from 1,000 and pulling out at about 300. Since the enemy had not been subjected to any form of bombing attack, other than the dynamite charges thrown from the Laird-Swallows by the (two-plane) Nicaraguan Air Force, they had no fear of us . . . we were able to inflict damage that was out of all proportion to what they might have suffered had they taken cover…" (Quoted in Heinl, 1962, 269)

The effects of this first combat dive bombing attack in the history of air warfare were described by another Marine aviator:

"After the second pass of the planes, the enemy began pouring out of the town and ran wildly to cover, horses were dispersed, and in general there was a wild scramble. This afforded an excellent target for the planes with their machine guns, and bombs were reserved for large groups." (Quoted in Heinl, 1962, 269)

After forty-five minutes of this, the DH-4s began to run low on fuel and ordnance and headed for base. The battle of Ocotal was over, it had cost the Sandinistas approximately 300 dead, of whom about 200 had been killed by the air strike. At least forty of these last, it was estimated in the official report on the battle, had perished from the explosion of one fragmentation bomb. The Marines, by contrast, had lost one enlisted man killed, and four Marines and Guardias had been wounded.

This crushing victory over the Sandinistas had the effect of persuading even the most well informed Marine officers that the rebellion was over. That this was not the case was shown at 1 a.m. on the foggy night of 19 September, when some 200 Sandinistas launched an attack on the village of Telpaneca, about ten miles south-east of Ocotal. The Telpaneca garrison, consisting of 21 Marines and 25 Guardias, held off the attack until, after 3 am, the lifting of the fog enabled them to see the insurgents beginning to drag off their dead and wounded, who were estimated at about fifty. By 5 am, with two Marines killed and one Guardia badly wounded, all was quiet.

Although, as a Marine historian has pointed out, the Ocotal and Telpaneca attacks "should have convinced anyone that Sandino was operating a going concern with really dangerous possibilities" (Heinl, 1962, 271), the Marine Brigade commander's only response to them was a temporary step-up of local patrolling in Nuevo Segovia.

Patrol

At about 10a.m. on 8 October 1927, while on a daily reconnaissance patrol over Nuevo Segovia, a Marine 02B-1, piloted by Second Lieutenant Earl A. Thomas, suffered an engine failure after being hit by ground fire and crashed into the sides of a razor backed ridge, known as Sapotillal, about five miles north of the remote town of Quilali. Thomas and his observer, Sergeant Frank E. Dowdell, escaped from the wreck unhurt and attempted to make their way to Jicaro, where there was a small Marine outpost; but they were captured and killed by the Sandinistas en route.

By 11.30 a.m. on the 8th, Thomas's wingman had dropped word of the crash to the Marines at Jicaro, and, forty-five minutes later, the outpost commander, First Lieutenant George J. O'Shea, had a rescue patrol, consisting of a squad of Marines, ten Guardias and a surgeon, en route to Sapotillal.

Next morning, at the approximate location of the wreck, they were ambushed by a greatly superior force of Sandinistas, and four of the Guardias were killed. O'Shea managed to extricate the survivors by pulling into the thick bush off the trail and retreating down a stream bed. From there, the patrol navigated their way by compass through thirty miles of dense jungle and reached Jicaro just before midnight on 10 October.

In a second attempt to reach the wreckage of Thomas's aeroplane, two patrols were - 178 - launched in a pincer advance on Sapotillal, one moving north from Matagalpa, and the other following O'Shea's route from Jicaro. Both were to rendezvous at the site of the crash. The Jicaro column arrived first, on 26 October, and was immediately attacked by a 175 strong force of Sandinistas, which surrounded them on Sapotillal ridge. The column held a defensive position until the Matagalpa force came up two days later, and, aided by air strikes, put the Sandinistas to flight. Having located the wrecked aeroplane, the combined patrols made their way back to Jicaro. En route, they were attacked by a force of 250 Sandinistas, but managed to beat them off.

These fights showed that the country around Quilali and Sapotillal was swarming with Sandinistas, and that any force entering the area was likely to meet with stiff resistance. Clearly, the insurgents regarded this as a sensitive neighbourhood. Putting two and two together, Marine intelligence concluded that Sandino's secret base - of which rumours had been circulating in Nicaragua for some time - must be somewhere nearby.

On 23 November, after a systematic air search, Major Rowell found this secret base - known as El Chipote or La Fortaleza - on a mountain about seven miles north-east of Sapotillal. It was well fortified, with a great many trenches and machine guns. Fields of fire had been cleared, and shacks constructed at each defensive position to shelter the defenders. On top of the mountain, quite a number of these shacks had been built, some for storehouses and others for dwelling places.

Base

On 19 December, two columns were sent into the rebel area with the mission of setting up a base at Quilali and then of capturing and destroying Sandino's headquarters. Of the two columns, one, consisting of 115 officers and men, advanced from Jinotega; and the other, of 40 Marines and 20 Guardias, from Telpaneca. At the time, it was believed that Sandino had anywhere between 200 and 500 men at his disposal. In fact, he had more than 1,000.

At 9.30 am on 30 December, the Jinotega column was ambushed about a mile south of Quilali by a force of about 400 Sandinistas. The Marines and Guardias beat off their assailants, but lost 7 killed and 25 wounded, 8 seriously. Having collected their dead and wounded, the column made their way into Quilali to await a junction with the Telpaneca column.

At 12.55 pm on the same day, some fifty Sandinistas ambushed the Telpaneca column, but were beaten off after a twenty minute fire-fight. Next day, the column reached Sapotillal, where they were again attacked by some 350 Sandinistas. The Marines and Guardias managed to gain a commanding knoll, known as Las Cruces hill, where they dug in to fight it out. They had a field radio set, with which they were able to raise Quilali, from where a forty-three strong relief party hurried to their aid. Had it not been for air support, there is no telling how the affair might have ended. As it was, Marine air patrols established cover over the column on 1 January. Next day, they repeated the performance until, at 2.15 pm, the relief party arrived, and, with continual air cover, the beleaguered patrol struggled into Quilali, which the Sandinistas promptly surrounded.

The situation was now critical, for there were approximately thirty wounded, some, including the two original column commanders, in desperate need of medical attention, in the town. There was neither the time nor the men to organise a relief column. Worse still, there was no airstrip at Quilali. It was vital, however, that medical supplies be flown in and casualties evacuated. First Lieutenant Christian F. Schilt volunteered for the mission.

While the embattled Marines levelled walls to lengthen Quilali's main street for an airfield, the aviation mechanics at Managua rigged Schilt's plane, a Vought 02U-1 Corsair, with the old-type De Havilland landing gear, which the pilots considered best for such a field. As the 02U-1 had no brakes, Marines had to run forward each time he touched down on the makeshift runway, seize hold of the wings, and, with their added weight, slow the rolling plane and prevent it from nosing over into a deep ravine which yawned menacingly at the end of the street.

In spite of this mechanical failing, enemy fire and low hanging clouds, the Lieutenant was able to touch down safely on the rugged roadway, and, on 6, 7 and 8 January 1928, he made a total of ten flights into Quilali, bringing in a relief commander, Captain Roger W. Peard, and 1,400 pounds of emergency medical supplies and provisions. For these daring flights, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honour. On 10 January, in accordance with new plans, Captain Peard withdrew his troops to San Albino, a mining town far better suited for a base of operations.

In the first half of January, three companies of Marines and one of Guardias were concentrated at San Albino, under Major A. J. Young, for a second drive against El Chipote. This time, however, the operation was preceded, on 14 January, by a four-plane assault, led by Major Rowell, on the guerrilla base. This air strike was much more effective than previous ones, for the ageing De Havillands had now been replaced by new Vought Corsairs and Curtiss Falcons, both of which had much greater bomb-carrying capacities.

Approaching El Chipote from 5,000 feet, the planes came down at a rate of about 200 miles an hour, so that they could drop their bombs accurately. The Sandinistas signalled their approach by firing two rockets, and the planes received heavy rifle and machine gun fire during most of the attack. Engine trouble forced Rowell to break off the action after he had dropped his two bombs and fired only 200 rounds of machine gun ammunition. The other pilots continued to press home the attack. One scored a direct hit with a 50-pound bomb, demolishing a Sandinista building. After the bomb burst, about forty people ran from a nearby house and the plane dropped another bomb, making a direct hit in the middle of the group. In all, 2,800 rounds of machine gun ammunition, four 50-pound demolition and eighteen 17-pound fragmentation bombs were fired into or dropped on the hilltop. In addition, dozens of white phosphorus hand grenades were tossed over the sides of the planes by the gunner-observers. The total number of Sandinista casualties is not known, but the aviators saw about forty-five dead in and around the shacks on El Chipote.

On 19 January, Young's columns converged on the Sandinista stronghold, meeting steady but not strong resistance. The Major hoped that the entire enemy force would be encircled and cut off, but this was not to be. Except for a few stragglers, the insurgents made good their escape.

Nicaraugua 1927-1932: Learning Guerilla Tactics
Nicaraugua 1927-1932: The Guardia Nacional Sweep