Sweep

Far less effective was the large scale drive undertaken by the Guardia Nacional, in mid-August 1930, against the Sandinistas in the Northern and Central areas of Nicaragua. Nine strong combat patrols were lined up from east to west in the northern area, and ordered to sweep south into the central area, eliminating the guerrillas as they went. The most successful of these patrols was the one on the extreme left, or eastern flank, under Guardia Captain George F. Good, Jr.

Good and his men were hacking their way through the jungles of Jinotega when on the 20th August, they arrived at the base of Mount Guapinol. The Captain decided to hold to his course and so the patrol had to scale the precipitous north-western slope of the mountain, man handling their pack mules and supplies. At dusk, as the Guardias entered some open pine woods near the summit, they heard someone playing a guitar. Since this area was known to be uninhabited this could only mean a guerrilla camp. Leaving the mules behind with a guard, Captain Good led about 20 men to within thirty yards of the camp, which he attempted to envelop. But before the movement could be completed, the Guardias were seen and fired upon. Good's men replied at once with a barrage of rifle grenades and the fire of ten rifles and three automatic weapons. Of some fifteen people in the camp, one, a man, was killed immediately. The other guerrillas, with their women and children, fled to the south as the patrol rushed the camp.

After five minutes, the Guardias ceased firing. They had sneaked up on and routed from his camp one of Sandino's foremost commanders, Pedrón Altimirano. In this encounter, Pedrón lost one man killed, six rifles, a large quantity of food and clothing and his family papers. But the commander and his band, the bulk of which had probably been camped nearby, made good their escape. Captain Good's routing of Pedrón was the only important direct result of the drive from the north.

As the Marines had fought guerrilla-type opponents before, they knew that the only way to inflict serious loss upon them was to surprise them in their camps. This was by no means so difficult as might be supposed. On the morning of 10 December 1927, for example, the garrison of Telpaneca learned that a band of forty Sandinistas, led by one Porfirio Sanchez, was encamped near San Juan, only ten miles away. A patrol under Guardia Lieutenant

Satterfield located the camp and attacked at dawn on the 11th, killing five insurgents at no cost to itself. About a month later, another Sandinista column was found to be operating in the countryside near Telpaneca. After marching by the light of a bright tropical moon, a Marine! Guardia patrol, led by Second Lieutenant Wilburt S. Brown, located the insurgents in a farmhouse near El Portero and killed four of them.

The Marines recognised that good intelligence was the key to success in a counter insurgency campaign, and a brigade memorandum of October 1928 stated:

"The practice of doling out small sums of money for reliable information should be encouraged. Larger sums should be promised and paid out for any information which results in our obtaining contact with the bandits. From $25 to $100, depending on the results obtained, might be justifiable. One good contact is worth a lot of time and money. Payments should be made as secretly as possible so as not to jeopardise the lives of informants…" (Quoted in Macaulay, 1985, 131)

But even with financial inducements, intelligence was difficult to obtain in northern Nicaragua, for most of the populations whether through fear or conviction, were unwilling to assist the government forces.

During the counter-insurgency campaign in the Philippines (1899-1902), the Americans had deprived the Filipino insurrectos of both food and intelligence by concentrating the rural population in garrisoned towns. In May 1930, a policy of re-concentration, as it was termed, was tested by the Guardia Nacional in certain pro-guerrilla areas of Nuevo Segovia, such as that around Ocotal. With the consent of President Moncada, the local inhabitants were ordered to leave their farms and bring their property and cattle to those towns that were protected by Marine or Guardia detachments.

Late in May, this programme was extended to other parts of northern and central Nicaragua. Anyone caught in the restricted zones after 1 June would be considered a bandit. The American Minister, Matthew E. Hanna, who had not been consulted on this policy, protested to President Moncada, who agreed to suspend execution of the order until 10 June. Meanwhile, refugees continued to flood out of the restricted zones. At Hanna's insistence, Moncada cancelled the concentration order on 5 June, except in those areas of Nuevo Segovia that had already been evacuated. The President then sent his military aide, Guardia Captain Marvin Scott, and his Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Anastasio Somoza, to investigate conditions in the affected areas. On their recommendation, the re-concentration policy was abandoned, and most of the refugees from Nuevo Segovia were permitted to return to their homes in July.

In the Philippines, the Americans had won over the population with administrative, educational, economic and sanitary reforms. Although the post-1929 economic depression ruled out a policy of benevolent pacification, as it was termed, in Nicaragua, a road building programme was launched in the summer of 1929 with funds allocated by the Nicaraguan Government. This project not only improved the transport system, but also provided gainful employment for many men who might otherwise have been engaged in Sandinista activity. At Yali, for example, 125 known ex-guerrillas laid down their rifles to work on the roads at fifty cents per day.

In 1930, Hanna urged the United States Government to provide financial support for an expansion of the road building programme. Such a project; would, he argued, not only aid military operations against the guerrillas, but also help check the growing unemployment which was providing fertile ground for Sandinista agitation. Secretary of State Stimson liked the idea, but realised that the US Government could not possibly appropriate money for road construction in Nicaragua when it had serious economic problems to solve at home. Without American aid, the Nicaraguan Government was able to sustain a modest road building programme during the next year, though it had to close all the state schools in the republic.

Innovation

The most innovative feature of the counter-insurgency campaign in Nicaragua was the use of airpower. A Marine Corps historian has written:

"Most of the things done by Marine aviation in Nicaragua had been done or experimented with before. But never before had they been done simultaneously and routinely, and never before had combat and logistic air support been woven into the fabric of a campaign as it was by the 2nd Marine Brigade."

Airpower drove Sandino from Ocotal and El Chipote, and, between mid-1927 and mid-1928, aircraft carried out 84 attacks, dropping 300 bombs and expending more than 30,000 rounds of ammunition, a considerable achievement when only twelve planes were available. In fact, the only three actions in which as many as five aircraft operated together were Ocotal, El Chipote and Saraguazca.

Another field in which aviation contributed was that of communications. Planes not only dropped messages, but also picked them up from wires. By displaying cloth panels in a pre-arranged manner, a ground detachment could call for supplies, air support, medical assistance or simply inform a pilot that there had been no change in the situation. But while Marine aviators provided a vital link in the system of communication, they were less successful at aerial reconnaissance, for the Sandinistas were adept at camouflage, and, as we have seen, from mid-1928, they rarely moved in large groups and, if at all possible, marched at night.

Since even the better roads in Nuevo Segovia were impassable except with bull carts, Marine aviation also had to shoulder a large share of the burden of supply. Little could be done in the way of carrying bulk supplies during the summer of 1927, for the elderly De Havillands were simply not big enough. But, in December 1927, 2nd Marine Brigade obtained a tri-motor Fokker transport, capable of hauling 1,300 pounds of cargo. By 29 August 1928, five of these rugged aircraft were in service. Everything from cigarettes to mules and even payrolls was delivered by air, 68,614 pounds of cargo being lifted by Marine planes in a single week in August 1928.

From May of that year, seven Loening OL-8 seaplanes contributed to the transport capacity, supplying the "Coco patrol," in which Captain Merrit A. Edson led forty-six men in dug-out canoes some 400 miles up the Coco River to Poteca to clear guerrillas from the river valley and establish a garrison.

Only two Marine aircraft were shot down in Nicaragua, one, as we have seen, in October 1927, and the other in March 1931.

On 2 January 1933, a day after the inauguration of Juan Sacasa as president, the last Marines left Nicaragua. Despite the claims of hostile observers, such as the radical journalist Carleton Beals, they had adapted well to the requirements of counter-insurgency; but because Sandino possessed supply lines running through, and a "safe base" in Honduras, a neutral country, they had been unable to completely suppress the rebellion in northern Nicaragua. They had lost 47 killed in action or died of wounds in over 150 engagements, together with another 89 deaths from other causes, such as accidents or disease. The Guardia Nacional had lost 75 dead and 122 wounded in over 500 engagements, but claimed to have killed a total total of 1,115 Sandinistas.

The principal legacy of the American intervention, free and fair elections, did not long survive the Marines departure. Shortly after, negotiations began between Sandino and President Sacasa, and on 2 February 1933 it was agreed that, in return for a complete amnesty, the guerrilla leader and his followers would lay down their arms. Little more than a year later, Sandino was lured to Managua and shot by members of the Guardia Nacional, acting on the orders of their Jefe Director, Colonel Anastasio Somoza. After seizing absolute power for himself two years later, Somoza founded a dynasty that ruled Nicaragua with an iron hand until 1979.

SOURCES

The Roots of Counter-Insurgency: Armies and Guerrilla Warfare, 1900-1945, by I. F. W. Beckett (ed.), Blandford Press, London, 1988.

Sandino: The Testimony of a Nicaraguan Patriot, by R. E. Conrad (ed.), Princeton University Press, U.S.A., 1990.

Discussion of the Voluntario Troops in Nicaragua, by H. H. Hanneken, Marine Corps Gazette, U.S.A. 26th Nov. 1942, pp.120, 247-65.

Soldiers of the Sea: The United States Marine Corps 1775-1962, by R. D. Heinl, U.S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, 1962.

The Banana Wars: United States Intervention in the Caribbean 1898-1934, by L. D. Langley, University Press of Kentucky, 1985.

The Sandino Affair, by N. Macaulay, 2nd edition, Duke University Press, U.S.A. 1985.

The United States Marines in Nicaragua, by B. C. Nalty, U.S.M.C., Washington D.C., 1961.

Nicaraugua 1927-1932: The US Marines Go In
Nicaraugua 1927-1932: Learning Guerilla Tactics