been doing for years is not only morally bank-rupt but factually incorrect. Although the Army'soperational records give ample evidence thatthroughout the Philippine War, far too manyFilipinos were indiscriminately fired on or shot"attempting to escape," the premeditated execu-tion of prisoners was neither a common nor anaccepted practice among American soldiers inthe archipelago. Even on Samar, where both athirst for vengeance and a lack of supervision ledto war crimes and unnecessary cruelty, soldierswere expected to follow the laws of war. Smith,who openly advocated illegal policies, wasrelieved, court-martialed, found guilty, andimmediately retired in disgrace. Army officers onSamar suspected of atrocities were investigated,courtmartialed, and, as in the case of Wailer,either acquitted or given mild reprimands. Giventhe nature of :heir offenses and the lightness oftheir punishments, it is hard to view any of thesemen, soldiers or Marines, as scapegoats.4°

A third result of the Marines' march and thetragic events that followed was that Wailer'scourt-martial and the charges of American brutal-ity overshadowed Lukban's capture in Februaryand the surrender of the last prominent guerrillaleader on 28 April. Despite Smith's attempts toturn his men into mindless butchers, the victorywas due to careful planning, detailed organiza-ti()n, and persistence. In order to combat theguerrillas in Samar's rugged interior, the armyconstructed a string of supply dumps from whichlong-ranging columns could sweep the country-side. Through a combination of large expeditionsand hundreds of small patrols that operated fromtowns and field camps, the soldiers demonstrat-ed to the population that the Americans intend-ed to stay. By recruiting Filipino volunteers,promising local autonomy, and offering gener-ous surrender terms, the Army began providingattractive alternatives to resistance. These meth-ods, along wi:h the destruction of most of theisland's foodstuffs, eventually convinced all butthe most intransigent rebels to accept Americanauthority.

The brutality and excesses that characterizedthe conduct cf soldiers and Marines on Samarrepresented a radical departure from the pacifi-cation methods employed elsewhere in the

49

Philippines. Too often lessons that had beenpainfully learned in the previous three years ofwarfare were disregarded, and only the mostprimitive elements were retained. Barring thefirst few months of American occupation, therewas little attempt to found schools, build roads,or win over the population—methods thatproved effective in other areas where the topog-raphy was only a little less daunting and theguerrillas better organized. Nor did theAmericans on Samar later take advantage of theirvastly expanded intelligence capabilities or seekto exploit the deep and bitter divisions amongvarious sections and classes in Samareno society.With some exceptions, pacification methodsremained crude and undeveloped. In part, thiswas the result of Samar's isolation and topogra-phy, which cannot he overemphasized. Yet itshould not be forgotten that Samar's topographywas equally harsh to the guerrillas, who, despitehaving little more experience of the interior thanthe Americans and being led by a "foreigner"from another island and culture, learned to con-trol an unruly populace and to fight effectivelywith small units and with limited supplies. TheMarines, of course, fresh from China, could hard-ly be aware of this mass of tested lore; and in fol-lowing their Army superiors down the path ofdirectionless retaliation, they wrote one of themost painful chapters in the history of thecorps.4'

In assessing the Marines' performance in theirfirst modern small war, it is essential to recognizethat in the early 20th century, before mostMarines had any experience with expeditionarywarfare and interventions and before the emer-gence of a specific doctrine for fighting "smallwars," the character of the commanding officerwas all important. Certainly the physical staminaand rugged endurance that the Marines dis-played on their disastrous attempt to marchacross the island may be sufficient justificationfor the old U.S. Marine Corps toast, "StandGentlemen. He served on Samar." Yet this glori-fication of suffering and tenacity should notobscure the fact that they did not display muchexpertise in their first modern guerrilla war.Inexperienced and, in the case of Wailer, unwill-ing to learn, the Marines' tactics were as physi-

cally devastating to themselves as they werepunishing to their opponents.

Whether this ambiguous performance led toinstitutional growth or lessons learned is beyondthe scope of this work. The Marine Corps tookno action against Wailer, and there is no indica-tion that he displayed any remorse for hisactions. He went on to become the mentor of ageneration of counterinsurgency experts whoemerged within the corps to fight the small warsof the Caribbean. Perhaps much of Waller's phys-ical courage and endurance, his charismatic lead-ership, and his love of combat found their wayinto the Marines' expeditionary forces. Yet it is

important to note that his junior officers rejectedWaller's headlong individual aggressiveness,choosing instead to discuss, disseminate, andeventually codify their experiences in the SmallWars Manual of the Marine Corps.

Research for this article was made possiblethrough a U.S. Marine Corps HistoricalCenter Research Fellowship and a researchgrant from Old Dominion University. Theauthor wishes to thank V. Keith Fleming,Jack Shulimson, Patricia Morgan, and therest of the staff of the US. Marine CorpsHistorical Center for their professionalism,their willingness to discuss Marine Corpshistory, and their many helpful suggestionsof sources to consult. He would also like tothank Daniel P Greene and James R. Linnfor their comments on drafts. The viewsexpressed in this paper are the author's ownand should not be taken to represent thoseof the US. Marine Corps Historical Center.

Notes1. Richard E. Welch, Jr., Response to Imperialism: TheUnited States and the Philippine-American War,1899—1902 (Chapel Hill, 1979), 41. For the Balangiga"Massacre," see Eugenio Dazay Salazar, "SomeDocuments on the Philippine-American War in Samar,"Leyte-Samar Studies 17 (1983): 165—87; Fred R. Brown,History of the Ninth US. Infantry 1 799-1909(Chicago, 1909), 578—96; James 0. Taylor, TheMassacre of Balangiga (Joplin, Mo., 1931); Brig.General Robert P. Hughes to Adjutant General, 30November 1901, Records of U.S. Army Overseas

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Operations and Commands, 1898—1942, Record Group395, 2483, Box 39, no. 7825, National Archives,Washington, D.C. (hereafter cited as RG 395, NA);Edward C. Bumpus, In Memoriam (Norwood, Mass.,1902); Joseph Schott, The Ordeal of Samar(Indianapolis, 1964), 35—55.2. Quote "make a desert" from Hughes to ColonelIssac D. DeRussy, 29 September 1901, RG 395, 2551,NA. Quote "with the exception" from Captain R. M.Blackford to Adjutant General, 8 October 1901, RG395, 2571, Box 1, no. 164, NA. Captain Edwin V.Bookmiller to Adjutant General, 1 October 1901,Annual Reports of the War Department, 1902,1:9:625—27; DeRussy to Adjutant General, 5 October1901, RG 395, 2552, NA. For the reaction to Balangiga,see Major General Adna R. Chaffee to Major GeneralHenry C. Corbin, 25 October 1901, Henry C. CorbinPapers, Box 1, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.;Testimony of William H. Taft, Senate Committee onthe Philippines, Affairs in the Philippine Islands, 57thCong., 1st Sess., 1902, Sen. Doc. 331, 363—64; JohnMorgan Gates, Schoolbooks and Krags. The UnitedStates Army in the Philippines, 1898—1902 (Westport,Ct., 1973), 248—51.3. Harold Kinman to Sister, 18 October 1901, HaroldKinman Papers, U.S. Marine Corps Historical Center,Washington, D.C. (hereafter cited as USMCHC). Cf.Kinmans sentiment with Major Littleton W. T. Wailer's23 October 1901 orders to his command, located intypescript copies of much of the Marines' official cor-respondence during the Samar campaign, Wailer File,USMCHC (hereafter referred to as Wailer Report).4. Records of the Office of the Judge AdvocateGeneral, Record Group 153, General Courts-Martial[G.C.M.I 30739, Brig. General Jacob H. Smith, NationalRecords Center, Suitland, Md.; Richard N. Current, T.Harry Williams, Frank Friedel, Alan Brinkley.American History—A Survey, 7th ed. (New York,1987), vol. 2, Since 1865, 592.5. General Orders 80, Headquarters of the Army, 16July 1902, Records of the Bureau of Insular Affairs,Record Group 350, File 3490—27, National Archives,Washington, D.C.6. John H. Clifford, History of the Pioneer MarineBattalion at Guam, LI. and the Campaign in Samar,P.1. 1901 (Portsmouth, N.H., 1914), 36; Charles E.Callwell, Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice, 3ded. (London, 1906), 44.7. Bruce Cruikshank, Samar: 1768—1898 (Manila,1985), 106. For Samar's topography, see Anon, toAdjutant, 2d Battalion, April 1900, Records of theAdjutant General's Office, Record Group 94, 117, 43dInf., U.S.V., Co. "G," no. 8, National Archives,

Washington, D.C. (hereafter cited as RG 94, NA);Captain Murray Baldwin to Adjutant General, SixthSeparate Brigade 6SB], 21 November 1901, RG 395,3750, Book 1, no. 5, NA; Captain E. R. Tilton toCommanding Officer, 1st District, February 1900,Henry T. Allen Papers, Box 32, Library of Congress,Washington. D ; John R. M. Taylor, The PhilippineInsurrection against the United States, 1899-1903, gal-ley proof (Washington, 1903), 81 HS.8. E. M. Holt, "esistance on Samar: General VicenteLukban and the Revolutionary War, 1899—1902,"Kabar Seberang Sulating Maphilindo 10 (December1982): 1—14; Brig. General Vicente Lukban to AntonioLuna, 8 July 1899, in Taylor, Philippine Insurrection,Exhibit 1321, 58—59 HK.9. Lukban to Local Residents of the Province of Saniar,14 February 1900, Charles G. Clifton File, 43d Inf.,U.S.V. Box, U.S. Army Military History Institute(USAMHI), Carlisle, Pa.; Testimony of Lieutenant G. A.Shields, RG 153, G.C.M. 30739, NA; Lukban to presi-dente of Catubig, 15 September 1900, PhilippineInsurgent Records, Select Document 502.8, NationalArchives Microfilms, Microcopy 254 (hereafter cited asPIR SD); "Copy of Lukban's Speech on his Birthday,"1 February 1901, PIR SD 824.1; Colonel Arthur Murrayto Adjutant General, 4 June 1900, RG 94, 117, 43d Inf.,Report No. 6, na.10. Major John C. Gilmore to Adjutant General, 30June 1900, RG 94, 117, 43d Inf., 2d Battalion, NA.11. Charles G. Clifton Diary, 10 January 1902 entry,43d Inf., U.S.V, USAMHI; Major R. A. Brown,"Inspection of the Post and Troops at Laguan, Samar,"31 March 1901, RG 395, 2483, Box 31, NA; CaptainWilliam M. Swairie to Adjutant, 5 August 1901, RG 395,3450, Box 1, no. 478, NA; Clifford, Pioneer MarineBattalion, 28—29; Brown, Ninth Infantry, 563; Taylor,Philippine Insurrection, 82—83 HS; Lukhan to LocalChief of Cabalian, 3 March 1899, PIR SD 928.8; MajorNarisco Abuke to Anon., 7 October 1900, PIR SD846,1; Lieutenant Colonel Francisco Rafael toLieutenant Jorge Langarra, 16 July 1901, PIR SD 808.3;Hughes to Chief of Staff and Adjutant General, 3 June1901, RG 395, 2550, Box 1, NA.12. "Statement of Private Luther Jessup," in Major JohnJ. O'Connell to Department Commander, 30 June 1901,RG 395, 2483, Box 36, NA; Captain John S. Fair toGilmore, 29 March 1900, RG 94, 117, 43d Inf., Co. "E,"no. 38, NA; Gilmore to Adjutant General, 18 May 1900,RG 94, 117, 43d Inf., 2d Battalion, NA; Brown, NinthIrfantiy, 573, 594—95.13. Hughes to Smith, 15 October 1901, RG 395, 2483,Box 49, NA; Hughes Testimony, Senate, Affairs, 553.14. Hughes to Chief of Staff and Adjutant General, 14

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May 1901, RG 395, 2483, Box 28, NA; Captain A. B.Buffington to Captain Leslie F. Cornish, 14 June 1901,RG 395, 3447, no. 90, NA; Hughes to Adjutant General,10 September 1901, RG 395, 2550, Box 1. NA.15. Hughes to Adjutant General, 30 November 1901,RG 395, 2483, Box 39, no. 7825, NA; Schott, Ordeal ofSamar, 16—17; Holt, "Resistance on Samar," 9;Interrogation of Joaquin Cabanes, 1 January 1902, RG395, 2571, Box 3, no. 360, NA; Salazar, "Philippine-American War," 165—87; Richard Arens, "The EarlyPulahan Movement in Samar," Leyte-Samar Studies 11(1977): 59—66; Testimony of William Gibbs, Senate,Affairs, 2284—2310.16. Chaffee to Hughes, 30 September 1901, RG 94,AGO 406865, NA; Chaffee to Adjutant General, 8October 1901, Senate, Affairs, 1599; Chaffee to Corbin,28 November and 9 December 1901, Corbin Papers,Box 1; Manila American (7 January 1902); LieutenantW. R. Shoemaker to Senior Squadron Commander, 5November 1901, Naval Records Collection of theOffice of Naval Records and Library, Record Group 45,Area File 10, National Archives, Washington, D.C. ForSmith's mental instability, see Captain William M.Swaine Testimony, RG 153, G.C.M. 30739, Brig.General Jacob H. Smith, NA; Allen to Taft, 7 February1902, Allen Papers, Box 7; Luke Wright to Taft, 13January 1902, William H. Taft Papers, Ser. 3, Library ofCongress, Washington, D.C.; Chaffee to Corbin, 5 May1902, Corbin Papers; David L. Fritz, "Before the'Howling Wilderness': The Military Career of JacobKurd Smith, 1862—1902," Military Affairs 43 (1979):186—90.

17. Harry C. Adriance, "Diary of the Life of a Soldier inthe Philippine Islands During the Spanish-AmericanWar by a Sergeant in the U.S.M.C.," photocopy in theUSMCHC. For other evidence of Wailer's alcoholism,see entries of 15 November 1900 and 14—16 February1901, Henry Clay Cochrane Diary, USMCHC; Ben H.Fuller Papers, Box 1, Folder 9, USMCHC; "Record ofWailer, Littieton Wailer Tazewell," USMCHC. For theincident in China, see Wailer to Second in Command,U.S. Naval Force, China, 22 June 1900, and Wailer toBrig. General Commandant, 28 June 1900, AnnualReport of the Brigadier-General Commandant of theUnited States Marine Coips to the Secretary of the Navy,62—66. For the Marines' deployment, see Brig. GeneralRobert Hail to Hughes, 19 October 1901, RG 153,G.C.M. 30313, Major Littleton W. T. Wailer, NA; Hughesto Chaffee, 21 and 25 October 1901, Corbin Papers;Manila American (20 October 1901); Rear Adm.Frederick Rodgers to Commander in Chief, AsiaticSquadron, 5 November 1901, RG 45, Area File 10, NA.18. Brig. General George Davis to Secretary of War, 27

June 1902, RG 153, G.C.M. 30313, NA.19. Wailer Report, 8—10. Wailer's defenders have per-petuated the confusion over his authority by claiminghe was in charge of all of southern Samar or even theentire island. Paul Meishen, "He Served on Samar,"Proceedings 105 (1979): 45; Staniey Karnow, In OurImage: America's Empire in the Philippines (New York,1989), 191.20. Headquarters, Marine Battalion, Samar, 23 October1901, Wailer Report, 6—7.21. Quote "hiking all the time" from Harold Kinman toSister, 23 December 1901, Kinman Papers; quote "wewere to shoot" from Modesto Bee, 31 May 1965.22. "Testimony of Captain David D. Porter, RG 153,G.C.M. 30313, NA. Wailer to Smith, 31 October 1901,Wailer Report, 10—12; Porter to Wailer, 2 November1901, Wailer Report, 15—16; Wailer to Anon., 10

November 1900, Wailer Report, 21.23. "Wailer to Anon., 10 November 1900, WailerReport, 25. See also ibid., 23—31; Wailer to AdjutantGeneral, 6 November 1901, RG 395, 2571, Box 1, no.129, NA; Kinman to Sister, 23 November 1901, KinmanPapers.24. Wailer to Adjutant General, 6SB, 19 November1901, WaIler Report, 26. Clifford, Pioneer MarineBattalion, 34; RG 153, G.C.M. 10196, Lieutenant JohnH. A. Day, NA.25. Kinman to Sister, 23 December 1901, KinmanPapers; Wailer to Adjutant General, 6SB, 30 November1901, RG 395, 3451, Box 1, NA; Wailer to AdjutantGeneral, 6SB, 6, 18, and 20 December 1901, WailerReport, 43—48; Waller to Rodgers, 17 December 1901,RG 45, Area File 10, NA.26. WaIler to Smith, 19 November 1901, RG 395, 3451,Box 1, NA. For the confusion over Wailer's mission,see Wailer to Smith, 31 October 1901, and JudgeAdvocate's Summary, RG 153, G.C.M. 30313, NA;Wailer Report, 42; Schott, Ordeal of Samar, 104—106;Smith to Chief Signal Officer, 2 November 1901, RG395, 3451, Box 1, NA; Adjutant General, 6SB, toAdjutant General, Division of Philippines, 1 December1901, RG 395, 2571. Box 1, no. 1188, NA; Smith to theadjutant general, 11 December 1901, RG 395, 2573,Box 1, no. 166, NA.27. Wailer to Adjutant General, 6SB, 25 January 1901,Wailer Report, 49. For the Army's 1901 expedition, seeWarDepartment, 1902, 1:9:601; Brown, Ninth Infantry,561. It should be noted that judged by the campaignconditions on Samar, Wailer's march was neither overparticularly difficult terrain nor of more than moderatedistance.28. Allan R. Miilett, Semper Fidelis: The Histoiy of theUS. Marine Corps (New York, 1980), 154.

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29. WaIler to Adjutant General, 6SB, 25 January 1902,Wailer Report, 58. See also Commander William Swiftto Smith, 20 December 1901, RG 395, 2574, Box 1, NA;Lieutenant Kenneth P. Williams to CO., Lanang, 19January 1902, War Department, 1902,1:9:446; Porter toWailer, 8 February 1902, Wailer Report, 60—64;

Lieutenant A. S. Williams to WaIler, 18 February 1902,Wailer Report, 64—68; Schott, Ordeal of Samar, chap.5.

30. Wailer Report, 68—88; Lieutenant Commander J. M.Helms to Swift, 6 January 1902, RG 395, 2571, Box 2,no. 43, NA; Wailer to Adjutant General, 8, 9, 18, and20 February 1902, RG 395, 2573, Box 1, NA; 1902entry, 1902, Charles G. Clifton Diary; Clifford, PioneerMarine Battalion.31. Quotations from Testimony of Lieutenant John H.A. Day, RG 153, G.C.M. 10196, NA. The identity of thevictim was unknown at the time of the killing, but itwas later alleged that lie was an insurrecto leadernamed Captain Victor.32. Testimony of Pvt. George Davis, RG 153, G.C.M.30313, NA. Despite voluminous correspondence andrecords, the events of 19—20 January 1902 are stillunclear and the evidence is inconclusive as to howmany Filipinos were executed on 20 January. Theabove is based on the correspondence in the WailerReports; RG 153, G.C.M. 30313 and G.C.M. 10196, NA;and General Orders 93, Headquarters, Division of thePhilippines, 7 May 1902, RG 395, 2070, NA. For theconfusion over the number of U.S. Marine deaths, seeRG 153, G.C.M. 10196, NA; and Schott, Ordeal ofSamar, 139, 142.33. WaIler Report, 76—77.34. General Orders 93, Headquarters, Division of thePhilippines, 7 May 1902, RG 395, 2070, NA.35. For Wailer's incapacity for comniand, seeTestimony of Dr. George A. Ling, RG 153, G.C.M.10196, NA.36. General Orders 93, Headquarters, Division of thePhilippines, 7 May 1902, RG 395, 2070, NA. For thejudge advocate's ruling that Wailer's acts were illegaland contrary to the laws of war, see Brig. GeneralGeorge Davis to Secretary of War, 27 June 1902, RG153, G.C.M. 30313, NA.37. Miliett, Semper Fidelis, 154; Gates, Schoolbooksand Krags, 256; Welch, Response to Imperialism,138—41.

38. Schott, The Ordeal of Samar, chap. 9; Melshen, "HeServed on Saniar," 45; Stuart C. Miller, BenevolentAssimilation: The American Conquest of thePhilippines, 1899—1903 (New Haven, 1982), 227;Karnow, In Our Image, 193.39. RG 153, G.C.M. 30313, NA.

40. Major Charles H. Watts to Adjutant General, 1 April1902, RG 94, AGO 482616, NA; RG 153, G.C.M. 30756,Lieutenant Julien E. Gaujot, NA; RG 153, G.C.M. 34401,Major Edwin F. Glenn, NA; RG 153, G.C.M. 30757,Lieutenant Norman E. Cook, NA.41. An excellent discussion that demonstrates that theSamar campaign was an anomaly in Army pacificationin the Philippine War can be found in Gates,Schoolbooks and Krags, chap. 9. For a study of Army

53

pacification on Luzon, see Brian McAllister Linn, TheU.S. Army and Counterinsurgency in the PhilippineWar, 1899-1902 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1989).

About the AuthorBrian McAllister Linn is professor of history at Texas A/kM University. His

books include The US. Army and Counterinsurgency in the PhilippineWar, 1899-1902 (1989), Guardians of Empire: The US. Army and thePac(tIc, 1902-1940 (1997), The Philippine War 1899-1902 (2000),and The Echo of Ba/tie: The Army's Way of War (2007).

Airpower and Restraint in Small Wars: Marine Corps Aviation in the Second Nicaraguan Campaign, 1927-33 by Wray R. Johnson

Aerospace Power Journal, Fall 2001

Air control, as exhibited by the Royal Air :f<orce during the British occupation of Iraq, is often cited as the consummate example of the successful and effective use of air­power. However, the u.s. military need look no further than its own Marine Corps for an equally compelling example. As Dr. Johnson argues, unlike their European counterparts, Marine air leaders understood the need for restraint in using airpower for air control in Nicaragua during the first half of the 20th century.

IT IS ONE of the peculiarities of airpower his­tory that proponents have often claimed air­power to be a more humane instrument of

war, whereas many critics have claimed that bombs dropped from the air are somehow more immoral than an artillery barrage or economic sanctions-even if the latter results in a greater number of civilian deaths. 1 Yet, it is rare to find historical examples of airmen accused of war crimes, much less tried for the same. This has created a paradox of sorts. For example, follow­ing revelations that U.S. troops deliberately fired upon civilian refugees at No Gun Ri during the Korean War, James Webb, a Marine Corps com­bat veteran and former secretary of the Navy, wrote in The Wall Street Journal, "Perhaps the gre'atest anomaly of recent times is that death

55

delivered by a bomb earns one an air medal,while when it comes at the end of a gun it earnsone a trip to jail."2 If we were to take this line ofreasoning to its logical extreme, the tragedy atMy Lai would have been regarded differently inhistory had a pair of F-4 fighter-bombersnapalmed the village. Of course, the distinctionappears to be that Lieutenant William Galley andhis soldiers killed Vietnamese women and chil-dren face to face whereas the F-4 pilots wouldhave been, to use popular jargon, simply "servic-ing a target."

According to Colonel Phil Meilinger, formerdean of the School of Advanced AirpowerStudies at Maxwell Air Force Base (AFB), Ala-bama, "Whether women and children are blownto bits by artillery, starved to death as a result ofblockade, or killed in a bombing attack is a dis-tinction the victims would not trouble themselvesto make."3 But airpower theorists and airmenthemselves have over the years invariably point-ed to the distinct psychological impact of air-power as being potentially far greater than theactual physical destruction wrought. If that is

true, then civilians do in fact make a distinctionbetween death by artillery fire and death bybombs. Giulio Douhet certainly believed in theefficacy of aerial terror to weaken, if not whollyundermine, the will of civilian populations, andas recently as 1997, the director of DefenceStudies at the Royal Air Force Staff Collegeaverred that "airpower when used properly canhe a devastatingly effective psychologicalweapon.

A basic premise of classical airpower theory,then, has always been that people targeted fromthe air—whether combatants or noncombat-ants—react with much greater fear to aerial bom-bardment than to surface attack.5 Apparently,this is equally true among guerrillas and otherirregulars. In his book Viet Cong Memoir, TruongNhu Tang described B-52 strikes as "undilutedpsychological terror." Despite having been hunt-ed by South Vietnamese and American groundforces and having endured all of the privationsand hardships associated with the life of a guer-rilla, Truong Tang noted that "nothing the guer-rillas had to endure compared with the stark ter-rorization of the B-52 bombardments."6 Thus,

56

since the advent of the airplane, airpower enthu-siasts have noted the psychological dimension ofairpower and sought to exploit it. In that light,the use of the airplane by Great Britain to policeits empire in the early part of the 20th centuryserves as a case in point.

As Dr. Jim Corum has noted in his article "TheMyth of Air Control," the British long relied uponterror in the form of punitive expeditions tobring rebellious native populations to heel.7Indeed, Colonel C. E. CalIwell, in his seminalwork Small Wars, first published in 1896, consid-ered what we today would think of as wantonacts of destruction perpetrated against civilians tobe a sound military principle:

It is so often the case that the powerwhich undertakes a small war desires toacquire the friendship of the people whichits armies are chastising, that the system ofwhat is called "military execution" is ill-

adapted to the end in view. The most satis-factory way of bringing such foes to reasonis by the rifle and the sword, for theyunderstand this mode of warfare andrespect it. Sometimes, however, the circum-stances do not admit of it, and then theirvillages must be demolished and granariesdestroyed.8

Although Colonel CalIwell acknowledged "alimit to the amount of license in destruction" insmall wars, he nevertheless acceded to a certainexpediency in such "havoc" and noted that,despite the fact that burning crops and killingcivilians was something "the laws of regular war-fare do not sanction," it was oftentimes a neces-sary, albeit unfortunate, characteristic of smallwars.9

The Royal Air Force (RAF) advanced air con-trol as a substitute for the traditional punitiveexpedition on the ground. In short, such expedi-tions by air were relatively cheap, could inflictserious casualties upon recalcitrant natives with-out exposing English soldiers to any harm, andcapitalized on the fact that primitive people werequite often terrified by airplanes. Thus, whencombined with surface operations conducted bynative levies or other non-English imperialtroops, these operations were quite successful,

and the RAF exploited the results to its ownpolitical ends. But in keeping with the nature ofpunitive expeditions in general, these aerialoperations also tended to be quite brutal. Forexample, at the time, Wing Commander J. A.Charnier of the RAP insisted that airplanes wereto he used relentlessly, carrying out attacks "onhouses, inhabitants, crops, and cattle."10Although repugnant to modern sensibilities, suchan attitude was wholly in keeping with an impe-rial policy intended to crush native resistance toBritish authority as quickly and effectively aspossible. Moreover, Great Britain was not alonein this matter, as the French displayed an equaldisregard for the lives and property of nativepeoples.

French imperial policy was similar to that ofthe British, and the French use of airpower topolice their own colonial possessions was noless brutal—perhaps greater. The French airforce played a significant role in the colonialfighting in Morocco and Tunisia prior to, during,and after World War I. Aerial bombardment ofcivilians by the air force in policing the FrenchEmpire was the norm. In fact, at Naihout,Tunisia, in the fall of 1916, the French usedchemical weapons against civilian targets, includ-ing mosques. Apparently, the French made nodistinction between combatants and noncombat-ants in punitive operations; therefore, the use ofgas was not regarded as particularly unethical orimmoral—or even counterproductive. Frenchuse of aircraft in colonial warfare increased dur-ing the 1920s, with 21 squadrons operating inMorocco alone. According to Dr. Bill Dean, aprofessor on the faculty at Air Command andStaff College at Maxwell AFB, "As had been thecase a decade before, the French had no qualmsabout bombing villages that were strictly civiliantargets."11 They even used American mercenaryaviators at one point.12

Ironically, the British public was not especial-ly outraged by their own soldiers or other sol-diers in the employ of the empire torching vil-lages in Iraq or Yemen, but they were moved toprotest the use of airplanes for the same pur-pose. Early RAP reports on air-control operationsstressed effectiveness and lethality, but laterstatements emphasized the use of airplanes in a

57

more humane and less lethal manner. The prox-imate cause of this shift in emphasis was the ris-ing chorus of protest in the British press and inParliament. It would appear, however, that nosuch compunction developed about matters onthe ground because punitive expeditions contin-ued as before, and British troops repeatedlyshelled villages without warning. But tilerestraint claimed by the RAF was probably most-ly fiction, especially in the more isolated out-posts of tile British Empire. Contrast this state ofaffairs with the operations of United StatesMarine Corps aviation elements in Nicaraguaduring roughly the same time frame.

In Qu/ote on a Burro, a privately publishedclassic on American intervention in Nicaraguabetween 1912 and 1934, Lejeune Cummins wrotein 1958 that "perhaps the only subject regardingthe American intervention . . . upon which allauthorities are able to agree is the efficacy withwhich the Marines employed the air power attheir disposal."13 Indeed, Secretary of the NavyCurtis Wilbur reported in 1929 that Marine Corpsaviation was "of inestimable value" inNicaragua.14 Cummins was thus moved toobserve that "it is probably not an exaggerationto say that the marine occupation . . . could nothave been accomplished" without Marine Corpsaviation. 15

Beginning in 1919, the Marine Corps hademployed airplanes against the cacos in Haitiand "bandits" in the Dominican Republic, but tileaccompanying air units were added to theseexpeditions mostly as an afterthought and, there-fore, generally operated without a clear idea oftheir role in each undertaking.16 Six Curtiss JN-4B "Jennies" of the 1st Air Squadron, command-ed by Captain Waiter McCaughtry, deployed inFebruary 1919 to San Pedro de Macoris, theDominican Republic, while another six Jenniesand six Curtiss HS-2L flying boats of the 4thSquadron under Captain Harvey Mims beganoperations at Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on 31March.17 Although some of these aircraft tookpart in active combat operations—experimentingwith improvised bombing tactics against theindigenous irregular forces—it was not untilimproved radios became available in 1921 thatair-to-ground cooperation proved at all practica-

ble. Consequently, in both the DominicanRepublic and Haiti, Marine Corps aviationproved its worth mostly in combat-support oper-ations such as scouting, communications, map-ping, transportation, and medical assistance.Nevertheless, as one Marine Corps aviator con-cluded afterwards, "We were there and they usedus, and they used us to their advantage, and con-sequently we became a useful and integral partof the Marine Corps."8 In fact, not unlike theBritish and the French, the Corps becameincreasingly aware of the facility of close air-ground counterguerrilla operations. And inNicaragua, the Marine Corps began to perfectthese techniques in a manner that ultimately laidthe foundation for the highly effective system ofclose air support still in use by that service today.

United States interests in Nicaragua did notarise suddenly with the emergence of the revolu-tionary disturbances of the 1920s; this smallcountry had been of strategic importance to theU.S. government since the war with Mexico,when, along with the Isthmus of Panama,Nicaragua became vital to transcontinental com-munications. Suffice it to say that as a result ofthe Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine,the United States took on the role of hemispher-ic gendarme in order to protect American com-mercial interests throughout Latin America.President William Howard Taft subsequentlymade "dollar diplomacy" the paramount strategicconsideration in Latin America, and whenAmerican capital investment was threatened inNicaragua in 1926, the United States sent in theMarines.19

In February 1927, Marine ObservationSquadron 1, commanded by Major Ross "Rusty"Rowell, landed at Corinto, Nicaragua, with eightofficers, 81 enlisted men, and six de HavillandDH-4B aircraft. In May, Marine ObservationSquadron 4, with seven officers, 78 enlistedMarines, and six Boeing 02B-ls (a metal-fuse-laged derivative of the venerable DH-4B) alsoarrived and were placed under Major Rowell'scommand. Combined, the two units were desig-nated Aircraft Squadrons, 2d Brigade.20 MajorRowell, an experienced pilot who had receivedinstruction in dive-bombing during exercisesconducted by U.S. Army fliers at Kelly Field in

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San Antonio, Texas, was quick to appreciate thevalue of dive-bombing: "[Iti seemed to me that itwould be an excellent form of tactics for use inguerrilla warfare."21 Thus, when he took com-mand of the 1st Squadron in San Diego in 1924,Rowell had U.S. Army A-3 bomb racks installedon the squadron's DH-4Bs and set about traininghis pilots in the technique.

Dive-bombing—more accurately, what wewould today describe as glide bombing—hadearlier been employed in Haiti. During the inter-vention there in 1919, Lieutenant LawsonSanderson of the 4th Squadron realized that theusual practice of horizontal release of bombs bythe rear observer was inaccurate, to say the least.By trial and error, Lieutenant Sanderson settledupon the technique of dropping the nose of hisaircraft in what was then considered a steep diveof 45 degrees. Flying directly at the target,Sanderson then released the bomb himself at analtitude of roughly 250 feet. The tactic provedconsiderably more accurate than horizontalbombing, and the other pilots in the squadronsoon abandoned the old method in favor of thenew one. Such accuracy would prove its worthto the Marine Corps in Nicaragua.22

Although much has been written aboutMarine Corps aviation in Nicaragua during whatofficially became known as the SecondNicaraguan Campaign, none of it is considereddefinitive. General Vernon McGee, a MarineCorps aviator, wrote one of the better essays onthe topic in 1965. A veteran of the SecondNicaraguan Campaign, General McGee helpedauthor his service's Small Wars Manual, perhapsthe finest doctrine ever written regarding coun-terrevolutionary warfare. The general was con-vinced that concepts learned in Nicaragua wereapplicable to the ongoing counterinsurgencyeffort in Vietnam. His essay emphasized the tech-nological aspect—specifically, the characteristicsof airplanes useful in a counterguerrilla cam-paign—but his larger idea of looking to theNicaraguan experience as a model for airpowerin small wars bears consideration, particularly incontrast to the British air-control example.

Perhaps there is no better starting point thanto examine what Major Rowell had to say regard-ing the lessons of Nicaragua. In an article pub-

lished in the Marine Corps Gazette in September1929, he acknowledged the examples set by theBritish and French (as well as the Italians andSpanish) with respect to the use of aircraft in"bush, or guerrilla warfare" but went on to assertthat "no broader experience has been gained, orgreater success achieved through the employ-ment of aircraft in minor warfare, than that whichattended the operations of [the] Marines duringthe Nicaraguan campaign of 1927 and 1928."23Major Rowe!! spent the bulk of his artic!e detail-ing organization, tactics, and so forth, but, partic-ularly, his remarks regarding the unique charac-ter of the conflict warrant our attention in thecontext of airpower and restraint.

The Marine Corps had been dispatched toNicaragua to aid the Conservative government ofAdolfo Diaz and to protect Americans and theirproperty from Liberal opposition forces led byDr. Juan Sacasa. The Liberal army had disinte-grated as a unified force but was rep!aced bysmall bands of guerrillas, the most prominent ofwhich was led by Augusto C. Sandino. Althoughin rebellion against the government, Sandinoalso set about to rid the country of the Americanpresence that had dominated it since the Taftadministration. Waging a ruthless guerrilla war,Sandino presented the Marine Corps with anunprecedented challenge. Whereas in earlierconflicts in Central America and the Caribbean,the Corps had faced nominally guerrilla forma-tions ranging from organized criminals to politi-cized, disgruntled elements of society, inNicaragua it faced a different kind of guerrillaopponent—one schooled and educated byMexican Marxists and enjoying international sup-port. The Marine Corps, therefore, was amongthe first regular forces in the 20th century to facethe "revolutionary guerrilla." Whereas in Haitiand the Dominican Republic the Corps func-tioned as an occupation force, invoking martiallaw and having a free hand in the conduct ofmilitary operations in the field, in Nicaragua itsupported the extant government and was thusconstrained by political limitations that its prede-cessors in the Caribbean as well as British andFrench counterparts would have regarded asunthinkable.

Major Rowell in particular was sensitive to the

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limitations imposed on his operations, not theleast of which was the impact of public opinionback home in the United States: "Public opinion,always to be respected, is sensitive to bloodshedand the newspapers are prone to publish rumorsof scandals or abuses. . . . The practical effects

are numerous. For example: we may not1)0mb towns because it would not be consistentwith a policy advocated at some internationalconvention. . . . The safety of noncombatantsbecomes a matter of prime importance."24

It is important to note that Major Rowell'scomments were offered in the context of a com-plaint: "We are required to conform to all of therules of civilized warfare, while the enemy willtorture prisoners, murder the wounded and muti-late the dead." Nevertheless, Major Rowell wasbound by the restraints imposed upon him andat least grudgingly conceded to their politicalnecessity. In a subsequent essay, he recountedhow, in the earliest stages of the Marine Corpsintervention, "the American mission was to stopthe war—not to become involved in it."25 Thisnecessarily led to certain operational constraints.Major Rowell, therefore, "appealed to all pilots toavoid hostilities and to return fire only whennecessary to save their own lives."26

But neutrality soon gave way to active combatoperations as Sandino deliberately attackedMarine Corps patrols and garrisons as well asother Americans and their property. As theAmerican role in Nicaragua became wider anddeeper, operational constraints on the Corpswere loosened but never approximated the free-dom its aviators enjoyed in the Caribbean—andcertainly bore no similarity to the freedom ofEuropean air arms in their air-policing roles. Forexample, despite the fact that Major Rowell andother Marine Corps authors argued for the use ofnonlethal chemicals such as tear gas (in contrastto the French use of lethal chemicals), U.S. poli-cy forbade such usage.27

It became clear to diplomats and MarineCorps commanders in Nicaragua that direct andeven indirect infliction of casualties on the civil-ian population was not only contrary to policy,but also carried negative value. Whereas Britishand French aviators routinely bombed villagesand strafed collections of suspicious men—as

well as women, children, and animals—theCorps clearly understood that this was counter-productive and modified its tactics. Major Rowell,therefore, encouraged the service's pilots to usetheir best judgment when attempting to tell guer-rillas from civilians on the ground: "It is some-times rather difficult to distinguish between thehostile groups and the noncombatants. No fixedrules can be laid down in such cases. The avia-tors must have an intimate knowledge of thecharacteristics of and habits of each group.[However,] pilots will always bear in mind thatinnocent people will sometimes flee upon theapproach of airplanes."28 Contrast this statementwith that of an RAF pilot who stated that nineunidentifiable people in a group constituted anillegal assembly, so he dropped bombs onthem.29

All of the above is not to say that innocentcivilians did not die in Nicaragua as a result of airaction. In his classic account of the Marine Corpsfight with Sandino, Neill Macaulay described theservice's tactics as "aerial terrorism."30 Citing aparticular mission led by Major Rowell, Macaulaynoted that after observing several horses arounda large house, Rowell and the pilot of anotheraircraft dropped bombs on the house and in theyard. Unknown persons were seen darting fromthe house into a nearby grove. Major Rowellstrafed the grove but apparently to no effect.Macaulay, however, fails to mention the indica-tors that the Marine Corps recognized as pointingto probable guerrilla activity and the oftenextraordinary lengths to which its aviators wouldgo to ensure that suspicious persons wereindeed guerrillas.

Major Rowell instructed his pilots to fly nohigher than 2,000 feet and generally 1,500 feet orlower—well within small-arms range—in orderto distinguish between men and women, horsesand cattle, and so forth.31 He also stressed thatpilots and their observers should become expertin the "organization, equipment, and habits ofthe enemy" through careful study. "Basically," hewrote, "reconnaissance consists of distinguishingbetween the normal and the abnormal."32 Whensomething on the ground seemed out of theordinary, Marine pilots would swoop down toinvestigate. Towns that appeared to be aban-

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doned were especially regarded as suspicious: "Ifthe enemy is hiding there, some member of theparty will probably decide to find a better placeand make a dash for it. This may be induced bythe patrol making a feint to attack. Under somecircumstances, it will be possible to develop thesituation by use of a few bursts from the front orrear guns. Occasionally a bomb may be expend-ed for the same purpose."33

Several points of this statement are notewor-thy. Major Rowell insisted that his pilots be ableto distinguish between guerrillas and civilians inorder to avoid harming the latter. In circum-stances in which all indications pointed to guer-rilla activity, attempts to flush them out weregraduated (feint, then use guns, then maybe abomb or two) and employed when civilianswere unlikely to be in the way.34 If the townwere abandoned by the civilian populace, theexpenditure of bombs was certainly less prob-lematic than if the area were bustling with activ-ity. Such restraint certainly appears to refute anyaccusation of aerial terrorism and seems almostmagnanimous compared to the British propensi-ty to bomb any suspicious activity.

As alluded to earlier, the Marine Corps went toimprobable lengths to determine the nature ofsuspicious activity in order to avoid unnecessarycivilian casualties. In his annual report dated 20June 1928, Major Rowell recounted how Marineaircraft would approach suspicious locales "frombehind hills or mountains, the planes gliding inwith throttled engines," whereupon the pilotswould fly low enough to the ground that theobserver in the rear of the aircraft could "lookinto windows and doors." As a counter to thisextraordinary tactic, the guerrillas often includedwomen and children among their parties, "securein the knowledge that the women [would] not beattacked."35 This is not surprising, given thatMajor Rowell and his pilots were often (althoughnot always) under standing orders not to attacktowns and villages at all, even if the presence ofguerrillas was indisputable. In February 1928, forexample, Rowell discovered Sandino and hismain column in the town of Rafael del Norte. Hisfully armed patrol flew within a few feet of thebuilding in which Sandino was being inter-viewed by an American journalist, at a level

"where the pilots and observers looked into themuzzles of the enemy rifles." But Major Rowe!!did not attack. He later wrote that "this rareopportunity was passed by because it was thepolicy of the Commanding General to avoid thepossibility of injury to the lives and property ofinnocent persons by refraining from attacks ontowns."6

Unquestionably, Sandino and his guerrillasrespected and feared the Marine Corps lanz-abombas, as they were called by the Sandi-nistas.37 Not only were Marine aircraft useful andlethal weapons in counterguerrilla warfare, butalso they facilitated the political process crucialto counterrevolutionary warfare. To that end,these aircraft supported the national elections in1928 at the height of the guerrilla war, especial-ly in remote areas of the country:

It was necessary to ferry by plane mostof the American personnel to outlying dis-tricts, to supply them there, to maintaincommunication with them, to patrol thetowns and mesas on registration and elec-tion days, and, finally, to bring to Managuathe ballots. In order to accomplish thiswork, flying time generally reached itspeak during the weeks immediately beforeand after the election periods. . . . [In 19281

on election day 237 cantons were visited byairplanes. 38

As the war wound down, leading to eventualwithdrawal of the Marine Corps in 1933, aviationcontinued to play a significant role in the politi-cal process. Because of an earlier agreementwith the government and the insurgents, theUnited States agreed to oversee national elec-tions again in 1932. The assistance provided byMarine aviators was invaluable, constituting themost extensive use of aviation in a political-sup-port role during the intervention in Nicaragua.39

With the close of this chapter in Marine Corpshistory, much of what the corps had learned inNicaragua was synthesized and eventually codi-fied in the Small Wars Manual, first published in1935 and revised in 1940.40 As noted earlier,General McGee and other Marine Corps aviatorsparticipated in this effort, and an entire chapterof the manual was devoted to aviation.41

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Although the chapter was limited mostly to thecomposition of the aviation element, organiza-tion, types of missions, and so forth, the SmallWars Manual as a whole represented a majordeparture in the history of American militarydoctrine for small wars.

The 1935 edition was written by Major HaroldUtley, who had commanded Marines in EasternNicaragua, as well as other Marines experiencedin small wars. The work was informed by theresearch of U.S. Army officers and foreignexperts in colonial warfare—including ColonelCallwell of the British army.42 The 1940 editionwas an encyclopedic work with over 400 pagesof text comprising detailed treatments regardingorganization, tactics, intelligence, propaganda,and a host of other topics, including the care andfeeding of pack animals. But its treatment of rev-olutionaiy guerrilla warfare was groundbreakingand remarkably prescient regarding the nature ofemerging revolutionary warfare: "After a studyhas been made of the people who will opposethe intervention, the strategical plan is evolved.

Strategy should attempt to gain psychologicalascendancy over the outlaw or insurgent elementprior to hostilities. [The] political mission . . . dic-tates the military strategy of small wars."43 Thisstatement is quite remarkable in that this was thefirst time that U.S. military doctrine placed thepolitical mission ahead of military requirements.It also illustrates the extent to which the MarineCorps recognized the "new" guerrilla threat,including the realization that "the motive in smallwars is not material destruction; [it] is usually aproject dealing with the social, economic, andpolitical development of the people."44

The authors of the Small Wars Manual gavespecial consideration to the underlying socioeco-nomic and political grievances that gave rise toinsurgency and thus defined the theory of victo-ry in such situations as relying upon an accurateassessment of the root causes of internal rebel-lion. For example, "the application of purely mil-itary measures may not, by itself restore peaceand orderly government because the funclamen-tal causes of the condition of unrest may he eco-nomic, political, or social." Consequently, "thesolution of such problems being basically a polit-ical adjustment, the military measures to be

applied must be of secondary importance andshould be applied only to such an extent as topermit the continuation of peaceful correctivemeasures."45 Given the primacy of the nonmili-tary dimension, it is not surprising that theMarine Corps would acquiesce to the need forrestraint—including the application of airpower.If the operational objective is to detach popularsupport from the guerrillas and reattach it to thecentral government, deliberately bombing civil-ians from the air is counterproductive.

In contrast to the service's recognition of thepolitical dimension of small wars, the British,French, and other European powers of the sameperiod continued to regard small wars as exclu-sively a military problem. Indigenous peopleswere regarded as "inferior races" who under-stood only the sword and fire.46 Resistance wasto be smashed. European officers failed to dis-cern and appreciate the manner in which ideolo-gies borne Out of Marxism, nationalism, Islam,and so forth, served to focus discontent andunify native peoples in a social, political, andmilitary organization capable of resisting the reg-ular armies of Europe. One must remember thatthe period encompassing the Marine Corps expe-rience in Nicaragua (1910—33) and the British air-control experience between the world wars gaverise to such revolutionary figures as Mao Zedong,Ho Chi Minh, and Emiliano Zapata, among oth-ers. The Corps appears to have understood theemergent political nature of small wars in the20th century, including the need for restraint inthe application of airpower, better than theirEuropean counterparts.

But as Dr. Comm pointed out in his article,the United States Air Force retains a certain fas-cination with the British concept of air control. Itgoes without saying that Air Force officers payless attention to the airpower experience of theMarine Corps in Nicaragua in the 1920s. This isunfortunate because in the context of the emerg-ing challenge of small wars in the 21st century,the model provided by the Corps in the SecondNicaraguan Campaign is probably more appro-priate. One must wonder, then, why the Britishconcept is often stressed in the U.S. Air Forceand the Marine experience is largely ignored.

One answer, perhaps the best one, is that

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Marine Corps aviation in Nicaragua does notserve the interests of autonomous operations andinstitutional independence held sacrosanct bythe U.S. Air Force. The RAF was one of the firstmajor air forces to attain institutional independ-ence, and air control served to solidify that inde-pendence as well as advance the timeless idea ofachieving victory through airpower alone. Usingthe British example appears to validate theoreti-cal and doctrinal propositions that the U.S. AirForce has long held dear. Marine Corps aviation,on the other hand, has always been subordinate,and the Nicaragua experience in fact laid thefoundation for this relationship between the airelement and the ground commander. As GeneralMcGee wrote, "Undeterred by any necessity forcounterair operations, and untempted by any'wild blue yonder' schemes of semi-independentstrategical forays, the Marines buckled down totheir primary mission of supporting Marineground forces."47 The fact of the matter, howev-er, is that airpower in a counterinsurgency envi-ronment is probably best suited to a supportingrole, but this flies in the face of the airman's con-viction that airpower is decisive.

Ironically, during the post-World War II coun-terinsurgency era, the RAF generally found itselfsubordinate to a ground-force commander—afact often overlooked by people who promotethe idea of air control. For example, during the10-year war against communist Dhofari guerrillasin Oman, the air element "defied a time-hon-oured Royal Air Force principle in that it cameunder the command of [ani Army brigadier." Butas the British commander of the Dhofar Brigadepointed out, "all its work was in close support ofthe Army . . . and few disapproved of thearrangement. "48

Compare this disposition with that of theMarine air element in Nicaragua. Based uponthat experience, Major Rowell recommended thefollowing:

The senior air officer should have thesame dual staff and command status that isgiven the artillery commander in theinfantry division. In other words, the seniorair officer should actively command the airorganization and at the same time serve as

the advisor to the [overall] commander onair matters. . . . The air squadrons will oper-ate in support of ground organizations andalso independently. In certain special situa-tions, planes may be attached temporarilyto ground units. As a general rule this prac-tice should be discouraged. Better supportcan be given in most cases if the control iscentralized.49

The similarity between this ordering of controland authority to the relationship between thejoint force air component commander and thejoint force commander today is so obvious as torequire no further elaboration. In short, MajorRowell was advocating a structure not unlikewhat stands as current joint doctrine.50Nevertheless, the RAP concept of air control isgenerally held up as a model for "air constabu-lary" missions, and the Marine Corps example inNicaragua is ignored.51

In closing, Air Force officers over the yearshave advanced various schemes by seeking tocapitalize on the British air-control example, butmuch of the analysis regarding air control tend-ed to ignore certain inconvenient facts—such asthe presence of British ground forces and theapparent brutality of punitive expeditions con-ducted by British airmen. One must also notethat these latter-day American studies tended toeschew any analysis of the political dimension—something also ignored by the British during theheyday of air control and something the U.S. mil-itary has struggled with since the end of WorldWar II. A primary weakness of C. E. Callwell'sbook as a useful guide for today has always beenits emphasis on military operational solutions topolitical and social problems. In that sense, theMarine Corps Small Wars Manual is better doc-trine. By the same token, the Marine airpowerexperience in Nicaragua is a better model for air-power in small wars.

Notes1. For an excellent discussion of ethics, morality, andaerial bombardment, see Louis Manzo, "Morality inWar Fighting and Strategic Bombing in World WarTwo," Air Power History, Fall 1992, 35—50. For a con-trasting view, see Phillip Meilinger, "Winged Defense:

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Airwar, the Law and Morality," Armed Forces andSociety, Fall 1993, 103—23. Another excellent discus-sion of the law of war and airpower can be found inW. Parks, "Air War and the Law at War," AirForce LawReview 32, no. 1 (1990): 1—55.2. James Webb, "Making Sense of No Gun Ri," WallStreet Journal, 6 October 1999.3. Col Phillip S. Meilinger, letter to the editor, AirPower History, Winter 1992, 58.4. Group Captain Andrew P. N. Lambert, "ShatteringImpact: The Psychology of Air Attack," in Air PowerConfronts an Unstable World, ed. Richard Hallion(London: Brassey's, 1997), 105.5. In fact Group Captain Lambert asserts, "The evi-dence suggests that the psychological responses of acivilian population to bombing mirror almost exactlythe reactions of soldiers to enemy fire." Ibid., 94.6. Truong Nhu Tang, Viet Cong Memoir: An InsideAccount of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath, withDavid Chanoff and Doan Van Toai (New York: VintageBooks, April 1986), 167. The B-52 was equally fearedby Iraqi soldiers during the Gulf War. Consequently,one of the most successful psychological-operations(PSYOP) leaflets of the war displayed a photo of a B-52 unloading its deadly cargo, accompanied by textwarning of continued B-52 strikes. Regrettably, manyobservers concluded that the "B-52 leaflet" was a uni-versally applicable leaflet in PSYOP, forgetting that,although the Vietcong were terrified by B-52 strikes,they rarely surrendered as a result.7. Dr. James S. Corum, "The Myth of Air Control:Reassessing the History," Aerospace Power Journal 14,no. 4 (Winter 2000): 61—77.8. Col C. E. Callwell, Small Wars: Their Princzples andPractice, 3d ed. (London: Printed for Her Majesty'sStationery Office by Harrison and Sons, 1906), 41.9. Ibid., 41—42.10. Wing Comdr J. A. Chamier, "The Use of Air Powerfor Replacing Military Garrisons," Journal of the RoyalUnited Services Institute, February—November 1921,210.11. William Dean, "The Colonial Armies of the FrenchThird Republic: Overseas Formation and ContinentalDeployment, 1871—1920" (PhD diss., University ofChicago, 1999), 3 15—24.12. The Escadrille Cherifienne flew 470 missions—often attacking towns that had already submitted toFrench authority—before being disbanded. Ibid., 324.13. Lejeune Cummins, Quijote on a Burro: Sandinoand the Marines, A Study in the Formulation ofForeign Policy (Mexico City: Distrito Federal: La

Impresora Azteca, 1958), 5414. Annual Report of the Secretary of the Navy, Fiscal

Year 1928 (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Navy,1920), 50, cited in ibid.15. Ibid., 55.16. By 1910, revolutions in Haiti followed a well-estab-lished pattern. A military strongman would form acaco army, consisting mostly of military adventurersand conscripts. The caco army would seize the capitalcity of Port-au-Prince, surround the legislature, andoversee the election of the insurgent leader as the newpresident. When the Marine Corps landed in July 1915,a number of caco armies supporting Rosalvo Boboresisted. Suppressing these irregular forces became theprimary military objective of the Marine Corps in Haiti.Likewise, when the United States intervened in theDominican Republic in 1916, armed clashes betweenMarines and various irregulars erupted almost immecli-ately. Generally lumped together as "bandits," theseirregular forces actually comprised professional high-waymen known as gavilleros, ordinary criminals, dis-contented politicians who used banditry to advancetheir own ambitions, unemployed laborers, and peas-ants, the latter generally impressed into service.17. Lt Col Edward Johnson, Marine 6'ops Aviation.The Early Years, 1912—1940 (Washington, D.C.:History and Museums Division, Headquarters U.S.Marine Corps, 1977), 49—51.18. Major General Ford 0. Rogers, USMC, retired, tran-script of oral histoiy interview, Oral History Collection(Washington, D.C.: History and Museums Division,Headquarters U.S. Marine Corps, 3 December 1970),25, cited in ibid., 49.19. For a full treatment, see Ivan Musicant, TheBanana Wars: A History of United States MilitaryIntervention in Latin America from the Spanish-American War to the Invasion 0/Panama (New York:Macmillan, 1990).20. Johnson, 55—56.21. Ibid., 53.22. The use of aircraft to support Marines on theground is an important yet much overlooked aspect ofairpower history. It is beyond the scope of this articleto address the topic in the detail it deserves, but everystudent of airpower history should spend time exam-ining the tactics, techniques, and procedures devel-oped by the Marine Corps in Nicaragua, as it laid thegroundwork for our concept of close air supporttoday.23. Major Ross Rowell, "Aircraft in Bush Warfare,"Marine Corps Gazette, September 1929, 180.24. Ibid., 181.25. Major Ross Rowell, "The Air Service In MinorWarfare," United States Naval Institute Proceedings,October 1929, 872.

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26. Ibid.27. Rowell, "Aircraft in Bush Warfare," 195. See alsoCaptain H. Denny Campbell, "Aviation in GuerillaWarfare," Marine Corps Gazette, Pt. 3 (November1931): 33. In both articles, the authors advocated theuse of nonlethal chemicals ("a sneezing gas, a lachry-matory gas, a laughing gas, a cholic-producing gas oreven a simple and harmless anaesthetic") over lethalcompounds. According to Captain Campbell, such use"humanizes bullet warfare" (33).28. Rowell, "Aircraft in Bush Warfare," 193—94.29. Robin Cross, The Bombers: The Illustrated Story ofOffensive Strategy and Tactics in the TwentiethCentury (New York: Macmillan, 1987), 70.30. NeilI Macaulay, The Sandino A/fair (Durham, N.C.:Duke University Press, 1985), 116.31. As a result, Marine aircraft were struck by groundfire on virtually every mission.32. Rowell, "Aircraft in Bush Warfare," 191—92.33. Ibid., 193.34. Macaulay recounts one incident, however, inwhich Major Rowell machine-gunned purported guer-rillas in a house in a town where women and childrenwere present. Sarcastically, Macaulay wrote, "Thewomen and children were presumably not endan-gered by the machine gun fire." But one can arguepersuasively that at such low altitude and speed andwith the superior marksmanship prevalent among theMarine aviators at the time, Rowell took the womenand children into account when he made his decisionto open fire. Given the absence of reported civiliancasualties associated with this incident. Major Rowellapparently took a calculated risk and succeeded. SeeMacaulay, 116.35. Major Ross Rowell, "Annual Report of AircraftSquadrons, Second Brigade, U.S. Marine Corps, July 1,1927, to June 20, 1928," Marine Corps Gazette,December 1928, 250—51.36. Ibid., 254.37. Cummins, 54.38. Captain Francis Mulcahy, "Marine Corps Aviationin the Second Nicaraguan Campaign," United StatesNaval Institute Proceedings, August 1933, 1131.39. Cummins, 45.40. In addition to Major Rowell, who left Nicaragua inAugust 1928, three other Marine aviators commandedthe air element in Nicaragua: Major Louis Bourne(August 1928 to December 1929), Major Ralph Mitchell(December 1929 to July 1931), and Captain FrancisMulcahy (July 1931 to January 1933). As a colonel,Rowell rose to become director of Marine CorpsAviation from 1 April 1936 to 10 March 1939 and as amajor general was at one point the senior Marine

Corps aviator in the Pacific during World War II. Butfollowing a disagreement with the commandant of theMarine Corps and Adm Chester Nimitz regarding theuse of Marine aircraft on escort carriers (as opposed tosupporting Marines on the ground), he was relievedand sent to Lima, Peru, as chief of the Naval AirMission. It was a sorry end to the career of an other-wise illustrious and dedicated Marine Corps aviator.See Mulcahy, 1122; Marine Coips Aircraft, 1913—1965,rev. ed. (Washington, D.C.: Historical Branch, G-3Division, Headquarters U.S. Marine Corps, 1967), 49;and Peter Mersky, U.S. Marine Corps Aviation: 1912 tothe Present, 3d ed. (Baltimore: Nautical & AviationPublishing Company of America, 1997), 98.41. See Small Wars Manual (1940; reprint,Washington, D.C.: Department of the Navy, 1987), 9-1-1 to 9-36-24.42. Much of what the U.S. Army had learned in termsof "pacification" came from its own experience in thePhilippines at the turn of the century. During the guer-rilla phase of that war, the official U.S. policy underPresident William McKinley was one of "benevolentassimilation," emphasizing conciliation over militarysolutions. See Brian McAllister Linn, The PhilippineWar, 1899—1902 (Lawrence: University Press ofKansas, 2000), 30.43. Small Wars Manual, 1-8-13.44. Ibid., 1-10-1845. Ibid., 1-9-15, 1-9-16.46. In truth, the Marines of the time were no less racistthan the British or French. In his article on the use ofaircraft in small wars, Captain H. Denny Campbellregarded the use of propaganda to he an "effectiveweapon . . . against races of uneducated, uncivilized,indolent and superstitious peoples." The distinction,however, is that Marines recognized that mistreatmentand brutality—even directed at what they considered

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to be inferior peoples—made success in counterrevo-lutionary war all the more difficult and perhaps impos-sible. (For the specific reference cited, see Campbell,pt. 3 [note 261, 33.)47. General Vernon McGee, "The Evolution of MarineAviation," Marine Corps Gazette, Pt. 1 (August 1965):24.

48. John Akehurst, We Won a War Campaign inOman, 1965—1975 (Wilton, Salisbury, Wiltshire,England: Michael Russell [Publishingl, 1982), 38.49. Rowell, "Aircraft in Bush Warfare," 203.50. According to Joint Publication 1-02, Department ofDefense Dictionary qf Military and Associated Terms,12 April 2001, "the joint force air component com-mander derives authority from the joint force com-mander who has the authority to exercise operationalcontrol, assign missions, direct coordination amongsubordinate commanders, redirect and organize forcesto ensure unity of effort in the accomplishment of theoverall mission" (222). Centralized control in supportof the overall commander's objectives is at the heart ofthe joint force air component commander concept andwas the principal concern of Major Rowell and theAircraft Squaclrons, 2d Brigade.51. See, for example, Carl H. Builder, "DoctrinalFrontiers," Aiipower Journal 9, no. 4 (Winter 1995):6—13.

About the AuthorWray R. Johnson, Colonel, USAF (Ret.), is professor of military history at

the School of Advanced Warfighting, Marine Corps University, Quantico,

Virginia. He was professor of military history at the School of Advanced

Airpower Studies, Maxwell Air Force Base, at the time he wrote this article.

Johnson is author of Vietnam and American Doctrine for Small Wars(2000) and coauthor (with James S. Corum) ofAirpower in Small Wars:

Fighting Insurgents and Terrorists (2003). He holds a doctorate in U.S.

history from Florida State University.

u.s. Marines and Miskito Indians: The Rio Coco Patrol of 1928 by David C Brooks

Marine Corps Gazette, November 1996

While most military histories of the Marine involvement in Nicaragua have focused on light infanuy tactics, it's the political aspects of the Second Nicaragua Campaign that might provide the more relevant lessons.

W en it comes to the history of the U.S. Marine Corps, few names stand out more than Major General Merritt A.

"Red Mike" Edson's. Famous for winning the Medal of Honor on Guadalcanal, Edson is also recognized for his leadership during the Rio Coco patrol during the Second Nicaragua Campaign 0926-33). Although several historians have treated the Rio Coco patrol, they mostly have emphasized Edson's composure in the face of natural hazards and determined opposition from Sandinista guerrillas or his creativity in employing light infantry tactics. 1 Most of these accounts have not dealt with the unique political aspect of the mission. Yet this "other side" of the Rio Coco patrol is perhaps the more Significant for today's Marines. Edson's story illustrates how the many campaigns of that era, together known by the trivializing term "Banana Wars," may have much to say to the Marines of today.

Though the link between the 1920s and the 1990s may not be obviOUS, the two eras share a basic similarity: The collapse of the United States' great power rival (in the earlier case imperial Germany, in the latter the Soviet empire) has led to a period of prolonged peace characterized by limited war and multiple forms of small-scale military engagement. Historically, the burden of these messy kinds of political-military missions has fallen heavily upon the U.S. Marines. Like

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their Banana Wars' ancestors, today's Marineshave to carry out a variety of complex tasks—peacekeeping, hostage rescue, refugee support,drug interdiction, counterinsurgency, and combi-nations thereof—on the shoestring budgets typi-cal of these periods of military retrenchment. Inits own way, Edson's Rio Coco patrol illustrateshow Marines in the past successfully adapted tosimilar exigencies. The full story of the patrol,however, also shows some of the stickier andunanticipated difficulties that accompany anyeffort at foreign intervention, even a relativelysuccessful one.

Background to Intervention

Before discussing Edson's mission, it is impor-tant to recall the circumstances that broughtabout the Second Nicaragua Campaign. In 1926,a vicious civil war broke out in Nicaraguabetween the country's two rival political parties,the Liberals and the Conservatives. Washingtonresponded, as it so often had in the past, bysending Marines to Nicaragua to establish neutralzones and protect U.S. lives and property.

Along with the Marines came SpecialPresidential Envoy Henry Stimson in May 1927.Stimson put forward a plan to get the warringfactions to move their struggle from the battle-field to the ballot box. U.S. Marines would bothtrain a new, nonpartisan Nicaraguan army, theGuardia Nacional, and would supervise a freeelection. Under pressure from Stimson, Liberaland Conservative leaders agreed to the Americanrepresentative's plan—all save one. In May ofthat year, Liberal General Augusto C. Sandinorejected the U.S. sponsored scheme as unwar-ranted Yankee interference in his country'saffairs and retreated into the mountains of theNicaraguan north with about 200 men to launchan early "war of national liberation" against whathe called Nicaragua's vendepatria (country-sell-ing) elites and the U.S. Marines.

Within a year, the conflict had become a stale-mate, locking itself into a pattern familiar to stu-dents of counterinsurgency. The Marines easilycontrolled the cities and towns of westernNicaragua. Sandino and his men, however, weremasters of the rugged hills of Nueva Segovia. In

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addition, when pressed from Marine patrols, theSandinistas could cross the mountains that divideNicaragua and descend the Coco River, or RioCoco as it is known in Spanish, which forms theborder between Honduras and Nicaragua, andattack the country's Caribbean side—the site ofmany important U.S. and foreign investments.This region of Nicaragua, known locally as theAtlantic Coast, served as a kind of strategic rearfor the insurgents.

The Marines recognized the military signifi-cance of the Atlantic Coast and moved into thiszone in 1928, establishing the Eastern Area,under the command of Major Harold H. Utley.Working under Utley was an innovative youngcaptain named "Red Mike" Edson. In the weeksbefore landing, Ecison and his shipmates aboardthe USS Denver eagerly followed the campaignin Nicaragua by studying a Christian Brothersmap of the country that hung from the bulkheadof the ship's mess. At that time, Edson noted howthe Rio Coco dominated the northern part of thecountry. A kind of Nicaraguan Mississippi, theCoco begins in Nueva Segovia, in the heart ofwhat was then Sandinista territory, and runsmore than 300 miles to empty into the CaribbeanSea at Cabo Gracias a Dios. Edson reasoned thatthe Marines might use the mighty CentralAmerican waterway to penetrate Nicaragua's dif-ficult terrain and blindside Sandino, hitting himfrom a previously secure flank.

The Marines Land on theAtlantic Coast

Utley, Edson, and about 150 other Marinescame ashore in January 1928. Almost immediate-ly, Edson and several of Utley's other officersbegan a series of riverine penetrations, an expe-rience that gave Edson the chance to try out hisideas about navigating the Coco. These firstefforts became a test that his Marines would faildecisively. Edson himself later recalled what hap-pened when the "can-do" attitudes of his menclashed with the realities of Central America'smost formidable river. As he wrote:

While here [at Livings Creek on the RioCocol two men of the patrol made their

first attempt at navigating a native dugoutith a pole and paddle as they had seenthe Indians do. [The two Marinesi pushedout into the river, both paddling frantically,first on one side, then the other. The boatwent round and round in circles until final-ly the current washed it ashore a mile or sodown stream and the two men gave up theattempt and walked back. It was ludicrousenough but it was a fair example of whatmight be expected from men whose onlyexperience with water craft had been aspassengers in a ship's motor sailer.2

In contrast to the early and rather humblingefforts of the Marines, the Indians were mastersof the Rio Coco. As Eclson described them:

[Theyl were taught to swim as soon as theywere taught to walk, and once they couldstand erect they found a pole and paddlethrust into their hands so that they couldlearn to navigate the native pitpan [dugoutcanoe].3

The natives that Edson referred to wereMiskito Indians, members of an indigenousgroup that, along with their neighbors, the Sumuand the English-speaking black Creoles, made upthe population of Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast.These different peoples constituted more thanjust a series of Nicaraguan ethnic groups. In fact,the Atlantic Coast was (and, some would argue,remains) a kind of submerged nation withinNicaragua that possessed distinct history, lan-guages, and cultural rhythms from the rest of thecountry.

A Nation within a Nation-State

At the time of the intervention, the Miskitomade up the largest and most important popula-tion group along the Rio Coco. As a people, theyhave a singular and proud history. Unlike otherCentral American Indian groups, the Miskito suc-cessfully resisted Spanish conquest in the 16thcentury. Later, in the 1600s they made commoncause with British buccaneers who found themuseful allies in raids against the Spanish for theircanoeing and maritime skills. This de facto

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Indian-English alliance would receive officialexpression in 1687 when British naval officers inJamaica crowned the Miskitos' most prominentchief, Jeremy I. King of the Mosquito (thespelling commonly used by British of that time,as in Mosquito Coast).

For a little over two centuries, the Mosquitia,a separate kingdom with its own monarch,would remain independent from Nicaragua.Over time, the Indian society lost its military col-oration as Moravian missionaries fromBethlehem, Pa., and American and British com-panies like Standard Fruit moved into the area.Along with the foreign companies and the mis-sionaries came small businessmen—many ofthem Britons, Germans, and Americans—whosettled in the interior of the Rio Coco. They set-tled into the region, married Indian women, andset up trading posts, ranches, boat yards, andlumber supply areas along the river. These peo-ple, called "bamboo whites" by the Marines,shipped raw wood from inside Nicaragua tosawmills located at Puerto Cabezas on the coast.Both politically and economically, they wouldprove critical in the war with Sandino.

As a result of all these developments—mis-sionary activity, the development of foreign-owned "big businesses" along the coast, and theaddition of a new strata of "bamboo business-men" to the area's social structure—theMosquitia remained more connected to theUnited States and the English-speaking Carib-bean than to Hispanic Nicaragua. But if local his-tory and economics pushed the coast in onedirection, geopolitics moved it in another.Backed by pressure from the United States, GreatBritain dropped the coast from protectorate sta-tus and officially ceded the area to Nicaragua in1860. Since Nicaragua was too weak to exerciseits claim, the coast remained in political limbo fordecades until Nicaraguan President Jose SantosZelaya sent troops into the area to captureBluefields in 1894. Despite military occupationby Spanish-speaking troops, the Indians contin-ued to resent the Nicaraguans. The inhabitants ofthe coast also kept looking to Great Britain forsupport. In the years following the 1894takeover, Black Creoles and Miskito Indianswould pepper the British Foreign Office with

petitions that asked the British to retake their ter-ritory, a tradition that would continue until thelate 1950s.

Competing for Contacts

From the first, Edson worked hard to create anetwork of contacts that could help him win thecooperation of the local people. Fortunately, thearea's social structure provided him with a natu-ral "in" with the natives. Benny Muller, a bamboobusinessman, was an American logger who hadlived in the area since 1895. Through Muller,Edson:

met all of the influential people in this sec-tion and the chiefs of the larger settlements,and they in turn assisted in inculcating theordinary Indian with the idea that wemeant them no harm. .

.

These same local notables also related toEdson the essentials of the Indians' history andculture, and he was quick to appreciate theirimplications for his own mission. As he wroteyears later in the Marine Corps Gazette:

The Miskitos were inculcated from the timeof their birth with a hatred of the Nica-raguans whom they called 'Spaniards' andso were potential allies if properlyapproached and handled. . . . By learningenough native words to make my wantsknown to them; by showing an interest intheir mode of living; and by always treatingthem fairly, I believe that I succeeded inthat part of my mission to establish cordialrelations with the inhabitants.5

Despite his advantages, Edson's task wouldnot be an easy one. Sandino, too, had recog-nized the Indians' importance and had takensteps to win their trust. In addition, the people ofthe coast had historically supported the LiberalParty, of which Sandino was a member, albeit adissenting one. As Edson later recalled:

In his journey up the river in 1927,Sandino had treated the inhabitants of theriver in a friendly and conciliatory mannerso that the feeling, not anti-American, was

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certainly not anti-Sandinista. Through hisagents, Sandino exerted a distinct influencethroughout the whole valley and he re-ceived tribute of both money and foodfrom as far east as Bocay.6

Sandino, like the Marines, depended onMiskito help to move up and down the Rio Coco.One sign of the importance that the Nicaraguanguerrilla attached to the Indians' assistance wasthe able lieutenants whom he appointed to over-see his operations in this part of Nicaragua—Abraham Rivera and Adolfo Cockburn. Bothwere intimately familiar with the Rio Coco andperformed services for Sandino that resembledthose Muller carried out for Edson. Thus, theminiwar for the Rio Coco quickly became less acontest for territory and more a political one forthe loyalty of people whose skills either sidewould need to control the region.

When in the Mosquitia, Do asthe Indians Do

Soon after arriving on the Atlantic Coast,Edson suggested his idea for a long-range patrolup the Rio Coco, but this was at first rejected bythe Marine command. In the meantime, heworked to extend his relations with the localpeople. Perhaps the most interesting facet of hisefforts at this stage was his attempt to imitate theIndians and get other Marines to do the same.When he had the opportunity, Edson traveledwith the Miskito in their canoes. In letters home,he recounted how he enjoyed shooting the RioCocos white-water rapids with the Miskito. Ashis correspondence shows, however, canoeingwith the Indians constituted more than meresport. By learning how to handle a fast-movingpiante, Edson and his men were later preparedwhen local help proved hard to find. As he wroteto his wife in early June 1928:

On the 2d . . Linscott, eight enlisted andmyself left Kalasanoki by boat and camedown to Bocay. There is no trail down theriver, so we came down to look it over.Due to the shortage of Indians, a corporalof my outfit and I paddled down in a small

boat. . . You should have seen us shoot-ing rapids—almost as good as Indians. Itwas a great trip and rather thrilling inspots.7

Patrols overland also benefited from theMiskito example. In a letter to his son, Austin,written in May 1928, Edson described how theMarines had adopted camping techniques fromthe Indians:

You are probably asking if these Indianslive in tents, aren't you? They do not usetents, hut lean-toos (sic) when stopping foronly a few days. These lean-toos are madelike this. Four bamboo poles are cut andtied together at the top. Then on the sidetowards the wind where the rain will come,they put up a roof or a wall of leaves some-thing like this. [Illustrated in letter.] Thefloor is the sand, and their beds are madeof big green banana leaves laid on thesand. Then they put down a blanket fromthe bark of a tree, and that is their sleepingplan. It is not a bad bed either, for yourDaddy has slept several nights just likethat.8

The Rio Coco Patrol

In July 1928, the Marine command decided tolaunch a patrol up the Rio Coco to take Poteca,Sand:ino's headquarters 350 miles into the interi-or of Nicaragua. This was a formidable task. First,the mission would take place at the height of therainy season, when the Coco becomes a ragingtorrent that can rise as much as 20 feet, oftentearing trees from its banks and hurtling themdownstream with deadly force. All supply wouldbe cut off except by air, and even that contactwould be intermittent during stormy weather. Inaddition to natural obstacles, the Marines wouldalso face the prospect of ambush by Sandinistaguerrillas in the interior, On 26 July 1928, Edsonset out with 46 other Marines and their Indianguides and oarsmen from Bocay to take Poteca.

Under these conditions, it became essential towin local cooperation if the mission was to suc-ceed. Edson found that despite his successeswith the Indians down the river, those who lived

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closer to Poteca were more wary of the Marines.This often resulted in a shortage of willing Indianboatmen, and forced the Marines into a "stopand go" pattern in their advance.9 Still, Edsoninstructed his men to approach the river peoplein a friendly way, even though some had aidedSandino in the past.1°

Utley backed Edson's patient approach.Although this slowed the advance, he realizedthat the Marines had to consider the Miskitos'delicate political situation, sandwiched as theIndians were between the forces of the interven-tion and those of Sandino. In a letter to theMarine command in Managua written in August1928, he justified Edson's slow pace in politicalterms:

It appears that we are approaching one ofthe delays due to lack of transportationwhich while I anticipated, are neverthelessheartbreaking. . . . We are. . . handicappedby two factors; the lack of boats and thedisinclination of the indians (sic) to go intothe zone of operations. We can get enoughto operate all the boats we have as far upas Bocay but it is difficult to get them to gofarther then that. Impressment only servesto kill the goose that laid the golden egg, asit means that in the future the approach ofMarines is the signal for abandoning of thetowns and houses. We have been at somepains to establish a feeling of confidenceamong the indians (sic) and hope that thesituation will improve. The fact that Edsondid not have any of his indians hurt was animportant factor and I took pains to broad-cast that information down the river as wellas at Bocay.11

Delay was a small price to pay for good rela-tions. Edson did resort to impressment on occa-sion, but his general treatment of the Indiansappears to have been good. As he moved intothe interior and captured Indians who hadworked for Sandino, he had them disarmed,questioned, and then released in keeping withhis attempts to win their favor. 12

Edson and Utley's gradual and humaneapproach to the Indians of the Rio Coco contrast-ed markedly with the way that at least some

Marines treated Sandinista "collaborators" inNueva Segovia on the other side of Nicaragua.There, the burning of the houses of guerrillasympathizers and the loss of many prisoners"shot while attempting to escape" took place fre-quently enough that it compelled the Marinecommand to issue orders in 1928 and 1931 ask-ing for restraint in dealing with the locals andprohibiting the destruction of homes.'3 In 1930,the Marines in this region also tried to resettle vil-lagers by force into secured zones, an effort thatwas called off when Matagalpa and Jinotegabecame flooded with refugees.14 In part, theMarines in Nueva Segovia resorted to harsherpolicies because they were engaged in a shoot-ing war when Edson and Utley faced primarily apolitical situation. Nonetheless, the contrastbetween the Marine approaches to these two dif-ferent regions of Nicaragua is noteworthy.Although the differences in Marine methods usedis only one variable in a complex situation, it

seems that Edson's patience contributed impor-tantly to his ultimate success along the Rio Cocoand that the harsher measures used in NuevaSegovia probably aggravated an already bad sit-uation in the Sandinistas' home area.15

The patience of tile Eastern Area Marineswould pay off handsomely in strategic terms.After foiling an ambush by Sandinista guerrillason 7 August, Edson and his men capturedSandino's headquarters at Poteca 10 days laterand sent the Nicaraguan guerrilla forces scatter-ing into the interior of the country. This actionnot only threw the Sandinistas off balance, it alsoprevented them from massing to disrupt the U.S.supervised election in the fall of 1928.

Edson's Rio Coco patrol would represent, inthe words of Major Utley, the "elastic limit" of theMarines' penetration of Nicaragua from its east-ern shore.16 Along the river, behind Edson'sbase, Marines began to set up strong points thatsecured the area from further Sandinista attacks.Both the Miskito and the region's bamboo whitesbenefited from the added security. The Marinepresence and careful treatment of the locals hadwon the Indians' trust. After an initial period ofwariness, more Indians began to cooperate freelywith the Marines and many returned to their vil-lages from the woods where they had hidden.17

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The stability achieved along tile upper reach-es of the Rio Coco did not endure, however. InMarch 1929, the Marine command in Managuaordered a pullback from the interior of the RioCoco for later that year. Major Utley protestedthese orders in the name of a people whosefriendliness he had cultivated. As he put it, theIndians of the interior:

have gained confidence in our abilityand willingness to afford them protection.To abandon Bocay will leave the entirenorth eastern (sic) part of the province ofJinotega open to any small band ofmarauders who—when organized bandsare broken up—may be expected to con-tinue their depredations.'8

In fact, the Indians had gained more than justconfidence in the Marines. Some decided toserve alongside the Marines by joining theGuardia Nacional. Although it has proven impos-sible to pin down exact numbers, one Marinereport from 1930 that describes Guardia recruit-ing stated that, "On the Atlantic Coast a consid-erable number of Mosquito Indians are enlist-ed."9 Evidence also exists that Marine trainersappreciated the special abilities of their Indianrecruits. As one Marine instructor working atBluefieids in 1929 commented:

I can conceive of no more valuable soldierthan a property [sic] trained and disciplinedMosquito boy with his knowledge ofwoodcraft and tracking and at tile sametime an ability to read a simple map andperhaps make a simple sketch.2°

While young Indians joined tile GuardiaNacional, their community leaders looked at theAmericans in new ways as well. In particular,they saw them as potential deliverers from theabuses and depredations of the "Spaniard"regimes in Managua, a development that addedanother wrinkle of complexity to the Marine-Miskito connection. Indians involved in land dis-putes with the Nicaraguan Government protest-ed to Major Utley in 1929, and to a MarineColonel Wynn in the Guardia Nacional in 1931.21The concluding words to the petition sent toColonel Wynn show how at least some Miskito

We Miskito Indians are clamoring for theAmericans to sever us from our bonds,from this Nicaraguan yoke, [to] give us asbefore our reservation, and hold the solerights of protectorate, given by us.22

Washington, however, viewed the problemfrom a different perspective. The administrationhoped to wrap up an unpopular intervention assoon as possible and so the planned withdrawalof the Marines took place. Soon after, theSandinistas regained control of Bocay and usedthis as a staging area to rebuild their positionalong the upper reaches of the Rio Coco. InFebruary 1931, Indian spies told Guardia Nac-ional Intelligence that the Sandinistas were onceagain gathering forces at their old headquarters.Driven from Jinotega and Matagalpa in the westby aggressive Marine patrols, they were prepar-ing a strike downriver with the aid of agentslocated as far down as Puerto Cabezas. A criticalpart of the insurgents' preparations had involvedsuccessful political work among the BocayIndians. As the report said:

A deliberate effort has been made to gain

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favor with the Bocay Indians with a view tohaving their support, and has met withconsiderable success. The Indians in thisreason professing (sic) themselves ready totake part in any attack on Guardia or expe-dition to Puerto Cabezas or Cabo Gracias [aDiosi. What means, exactly, has been usedto gain the confidence of the Bocay Indiansis not known, but their feelings and sympa-thies have been clearly brought over to theside of the bandits.23

The United States' precipitous pullback com-bined with the effects of the global economicdepression set the stage for a devastating guerril-la retaliation. In April 1931, the Sandinistaslaunched an offensive against the Atlantic Coast.Striking down the Rio Coco, they captured CaboGracias a Dios and assaulted Puerto Cabezas, theheadquarters of the Standard Fruit Company andthe home of hundreds of its American employ-ees. The Sandinista raids caused panic within thecity and disrupted Indian communities all alongthe river.24

Despite these later reversals, Edson's andUtley's careful work would not be completelyundone. Miskito Indians, particularly those locat-ed on the lower Rio Coco and those along the

had come to view the Marines and, by extension,the United States. It read:

Caribbean coast, served in the Guardia Nacionalalongside Marine officers and helped thwartthese same attacks.25 At least one reason for theMiskitos' continued loyalty to the Marine-ledGuardia was a new-found fear of the Sandinistas.Although Sandino's lieutenants would still enjoythe help of some Indians from deep inside theRio Coco region,26 they abandoned the guerrillageneral's earlier careful treatment of the inhabi-tants and resorted to terrorism in dealing withthe Indians and bamboo whites. They beheadeda Moravian missionary for allegedly operating asa Guardia spy and burned his village because itsinhabitants had helped Edson. In addition. San-dinista guerrillas roved the Rio Coco with hit listsof bamboo whites condemned to death for hav-ing aided the Marines. Finally, the insurgentscaptured and killed a number of employees ofStandard Fruit, dismembering their bodies withmachetes.

Despite their violence, these measures woulddo the guerrillas little good. Far from their logis-tical base, they became vulnerable to Marinecounterattacks by aircraft and by ground patrols.After one of Sandino's top lieutenants, PedroBlandon, was killed in the attack on PuertoCabezas, the insurgents had to retreat back upthe river. In the end, the depredations they car-ried out only turned the inhabitants against theinsurgents and earned the earlier Sandinistas areputation as "bandits" among the Indians, a per-ception that persists to this day and helps explainMiskito resistance to the Sandinista Governmentof the 1980s.27

Lessons Learned

Soldiers are inclined to view history in a verytechnical fashion. Frequently, they want to knowwhat tactic or gambit can be borrowed from thepast and used in the future. This view, however,better fits large, conventional battles than it doessmall wars, interventions, and counterinsurgencycampaigns, which rarely turn on a single dazzlingmaneuver. Instead, such endeavors prove thetruth of the old cliché about presidential cam-paigns in the United States that "all politics islocal." Small wars most often turn on local factors,and they are consummately political contests.

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On this score, both Edson and Sandino haveto be given high marks. Each possessed an abil-ity to "read" the local situation and put thatknowledge to effective use. If, in the end,Sandino "lost" the Atlantic Coast, this wouldappear to have happened not through any blun-der of his own, but rather because he failed tocontrol his lieutenants—a problem not uncom-mon to armies fighting guerrilla wars, as theexamples of Marine tactics in Nueva Segoviacited above indicate. As the conflict with theAmericans dragged on and as their frustrationmounted, Sandino's lieutenants seemed to viewthe complex bamboo white social structure ofthe Atlantic Coast through the lens of their ownmilitant Hispanic nationalism. Thus, missionariesand bamboo whites friendly to the Marines,many of them American, appeared as foreignersor vendepatrias, deserving only death. Theseactions only alienated the Miskito who lookedupon these foreigners as friends, employers, andeven kinsmen.

But beyond Edson's (or Sandino's) effective-ness as a "soldier-diplomat," the Rio Coco casestudy also shows, in an overall sense, how inter-ventions are shaped by the complex, many-sidedpolitics of underdeveloped countries. SinceVietnam, it has become fashionable in some cir-cles to interpret interventions as primarily con-flicts between the resented forces of foreignpowers and outraged nationalists, between"imperialists" and local patriots. From the per-spective of post-World War I decolonization,such a view seemed natural. Yet in the case dis-cussed here, the conflict was not a two-sidedmilitary one, but a three-sided relationshipbetween Indians, Marines, and insurgents—anassociation that was shaped as much by the pol-itics of adhesion as by some reflex on the part ofthe locals to reject the outsider.

As Edson and Utley understood, special fac-tors make the Miskito "potential allies if proper-ly approached and handled." Yet this added newcomplications to the Marines' task, for to haveremained effective along the Rio Coco, theAmericans would have had to stay in the area.Overall, the Indians preferred the Marines to thelargely Spanish-speaking Guardia Nacional. Still,to have created a purely Miskito army would

have been locally logical but also would haveundercut the U.S. "nation-building" agenda inNicaragua, its plan to bolster the elected regimeof friendly "Spaniards" in Managua. Yet to fail todo either of these things left the Indians open tothe angry Sandinista backlash of 1931. Thus, theIndians were not just "potential allies," but alsopotential victims, as Utley recognized, whenWashington's shifts undercut the actions of cre-ative Marines in the field.

In this way, the Rio Coco case study speaks towhat happens when U.S. forces encounter a frus-trated national group of the type that appears tobe emerging in a variety of areas today. TheMiskito example discussed here brings to mindthe Montagnards in Vietnam and, more recently,the Kurds of northern Iraq. Alliances with com-munities like these quickly become very trickyand are charged with ethical implicationsbecause such peoples frequently become de-pendent on the forces of an occupation for pro-tection and support or, more importantly,because they may want to use the intervention asa springboard for further political action. Whenthese considerations do not parallel Washing-ton's agenda, it is often up to the military toresolve the differences in the field, somethingthat can be a difficult and messy task.

In conclusion, the Rio Coco patrol serves asmore than just an apt illustration of how somemembers of an earlier generation of Marinesmodified their tactics to fit the politics of theareas in which they served. Ultimately, it alsoshows why counterinsurgency remains the mostdifficult of military tasks even when well execut-ed under favorable circumstances. In the end,this may be the most important lesson thattoday's Marines can learn from the story ofEdson's mission and the Marine-Sandinista strug-gle to control the Rio Coco from 1928—1931.

Notes1. For an insightful discussion of Edson's use of lightinfantry tactics, see Major Jon T. Hoffman, "Edson's'First Raiders," Vol. 5, No. 3, Fall 1991, 20—25.2. Edson, "Coco Patrol," Marine Coips Gazette, August1936.3. Edson, "Coco Patrol," Marine Corps Gazette, August1936, 41.

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4. Edson, "Coco Patrol," Marine Corps Gazette, August1936, 40.5. Edson, "Coco Patrol," Marine Corps Gazette, August1936, 41.6. Edson, "Coco Patrol," Marine Corps Gazette, August1936, 40.7. Letter to Ethel R. Edson, Bocay, Nicaragua, 4 June1928. File: "Letters Nicaragua. MAE to ERE. 5 April1928 to 8 July 1928," Container 2, Edson Papers.Library of Congress (LC).8. Letter to M. Austin Ecison, Musawas, Nicaragua, 22May 1928. File: "Letters Nicaragua. MAE to ERE. 5 April1928 to 8 July 1928," #16 Container 2, Edson Papers,LC

9. A telegram from "Commanding Officer, PuertoCabezas," (Utley) to "Brigade Commander,"(Managua), 4 June 1928 reports that as Marine patrolspenetrated the Bocay-Poteca region deep inNicaragua's interior, "All reports indicate natives andIndians show fear of Marines." NA, RG 127, Entry 221,File 923 (Information from Eastern Area 1928).10. Headquarters, Eastern Area, Nicaragua, MarineBarracks, Puerto Cabezas, Nic., 17 June 1928. SpecialIntelligence Report-Wanks River-Waspuc River-BocayArea. Signed, "M.A. Edson." The report notes that mostof the people in the area have aided Sandino at onetime or another but that, "If properly handled, a greatdeal of assistance may be expect (sic) as boatmen,guides and laborers." The key, Edson asserts, is, "tomaintain a friendly attitude towards them." Folder 20,Entry 204, RG 127, National Archives.11. United States Marine Corps, Headquarters, EasternArea, Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, 16 August 1928.Letter from Major Harold H. Utley to the CommandingGeneral, NA, RG 127, Entry 221, File 922 (East Coast).12. Headquarters, Second Brigade, Marine Corps,Managua, Nicaragua, 17 August 1928, "Dispatch-Outgoing-Code Underlined Words."13. Headquarters, Northern Area, Western: Nicaragua,U.S. Marines, Ocotal, Nicaragua, 23 Mayu 1928,Memorandum for all Officers and Men of the MarineCorps and Guardia Nacional in the Northern Areafrom Col R.H. Dunlap, USMC, Commanding Officer,RG 127, Entry 220, File 811.0(2), 11th RegimentCorrespondence. Therein, Col Dunlap remindsMarines that rural inhabitants are the victims of banditdepredations and so, "they hide out. act suspiciousand.. . become hunted creatures by both bandits andMarines." The Memorandum asks that Marines makesure that the houses they destroy belong to bandits.Two years later the commander of the GuardiaNacional, Cot Julian C. Smith, would forbid all houseburning and prohibit the Guardia from exercising arbi-

trary authority under martial law, although such wastechnically permitted in northern areas of the countryat the time. See Headquarters Central Area, GuardiaNacional de Nicaragua, Jinotega, Nicaragua, 26 May1931, Area Order from Col Julian C. Smith, GuardiaNacional de Nicaragua, Commanding Central Area, RG127, Entry 202, File 32.0.14. Telegram from the CO, GN Northern Area to JefeDirector GN Managua; All GN Northern Area, 9 June1930. See also Telegram, Dept Comdr Matagalpa toD.C. McDougal, both located in RG 127, Entry 220,File 815: Commander of the Special Service Squadron.15. For examples of the harder-edged approach thatthe Marines took toward pro-Sandinista peasants inNueva Segovia, see Guardia Nacional, San Juan, 22February 1931, Patrol Report [by 1st Lieutenant JH.Satterfield, G.NJ which describes how a "bandit" waswounded and left where he fell, "Jaw broken, rightarm broken also shot thni (sic) back" after attempts atinterrogation. House burning is described inHeadquarters, District of Palacaguina, GuardiaNacional, 9 March 1931, Patrol Report from J. OgdenBrauer, District Commander, which describes burningof houses. For an example of prisoner "shot whileattempting to escape," see Guardia Nacional deNicaragua, San Juan de Telpaneca, Nic., 13 March1932. Patrol Report from 2dLt Donald G. Truesdale,Guardia Nacional. All of the above references are RG127, Entry 202. The first two are from File: 52.0 and thelast from File: 54.0. Further such information can befound in the same Entry (202) in File: 57.0 and amongloose materials near File: 55 in the front of Box 13.16. Headquarters, Eastern Area, Nicaragua, MarineBarracks, Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, 1 June 1928,Letter from Major Utley to the Commanding General.Utley's estimate of the situation attached, p.1 ofEstimate.17. On Indians returning to their homes, seeHeadquarters, Eastern Area, Nicaragua, MarineBarracks, Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, IntelligenceReports for 1 April 1928 and 3 June 1928, RG 127,Entry 204, Folder: 20.18. Letter from the Commander Eastern Area to theCommanding General, Second Brigade, 26 March1929, PC 127, Box IV, Utley Papers, Marine CorpsHistorical Center, Building 58, Washington Navy Yard,Washington, D.C.19. "Estimate of the Situation in Nicaragua," Sec. Nay.General Corresp, 1925, "EF-49" Box 2009, Folder: EF49/P9-2-(291112 to 30033).20. Letter from H.D. Linscott, Department Commander,to The Area Commander, Area of the East, GuardiaNacional, Bluefields, Department of Northern blue-

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fields, Guardia Nacional. Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, 6September 1929, RG 127, Entry 202, File 92.0.21. Letter from Major Harold H. Utley, Headquarters,Eastern Area, Nicaragua, Marine Barracks, PuertoCabezas, Nicaragua, 18 February 1928, to H. SanfordLondon, Esquire, His British Majesty's ChargéD'Affaires, Managua, Nicaragua, Folder: Utley'sPersonal 3 Jan '28 to Jul '31, Box, 3, Utley Papers,Marine Corps Historical Center, Building 58,Washington Navy Yard.22. Letter from the Miskito Indians of Bilwi to theHonorable Colonel Wynn, Commander, GuardiaNacional, Eastern Area, Bluefields, Nicaragua, 15 May1931, File E. Bilwi, Entry 206, RG 127, NationalArchives.23. Letter from H.N. Sent to The DepartmentCommander, Department of Northern Bluefields,Guardia Nacional De Nicaragua, 20 February 1931, RG127, Entry 43-A, File: 2d Brig B-3 Repts & Mess 1Jan—24 Mar 31.24. Months later, Marine Inspectors would report howpreviously secured areas remained in chaos as a resultof the Sandinistas' resurgence. In describing the situa-tion around Waspuc, one Marine author (unidentified)commented on how, as a result of Sandinista raids,"Several hundred Indians who previously lived in thatregion [the area around Waspuc, a town far behind theareas originally secured by Edsoni have come into thetown below Kisalaya, over crowding them (sic) andmaking living conditions almost impossible."Inspection Report (apparently a rough draft), GuardiaNacional de Nicaragua, 9th Company, Puerto Cabezas,31 August 1932, located on back of last page of saidreport.25. See "Estimate of the Situation in Nicaragua," Sec.Nay. General Corrsp., 1925, "EF-49" Box 2009, Folder:EF 49/P9-2-(291112 to 30033); Letter from H.D.Linscott, Department Commander, to The AreaCommander, Area of the East. Guardia Nacional,Bluefields, Department of Northern Bluefields,Guardia Nacional, Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, 6

September 1929, RG 127, Entry 202, File 92.0.26. See Patrol Report from 2dLt E.J. Suprenant, G.N. toThe Area Commander, Eastern Area, Bluefields, Nic.,District of Kisalaya, Department of NorthernBluefields, Kisalaya, Nicaragua, 2 February 1932, NA,RG 127, Entry 202, File 58.0.27. See Patrol Report by E.J. Suprenant, DistrictCommander, to The Area Commander, Eastern Area,Bluefields, District of Kisalaya, Department ofNorthern Bluefields, Kisalaya, Nicaragua, 29 February1932, RG 127, Entry 202, File: 54.0. Therein, Suprenantdescribes the enthusiastic participation of aggrieved

Miskitos in a Marine-led, Guardia Nacional patroldirected against Sandinistas who bad recently raidedseveral villages in the Kisalaya area. Suprenant conclu-sion relates his own frustration at not having enoughmen to "clean up" the area above Kisalaya and hisinability to explain this deficiency to "the land owners[Miskito Indians, for land along the Rio Coco is plenti-ful] that (sic) have property above Kisalaya On asimilar sacking of Sacklin, a town with pro-Sandinistaconnections, for example, see patrol Report fromDepartment Commander O.A. Inman to AreaCommander, Area of the East, Guardia Nacional,Bluefields, Nicaragua, Department of NorthernBluefields, Guardia Nacional d Nicaragua, PuertoCabezas, Nicaragua, 29 April 1931, RD 127, Entry 202,File: 57.0. In other areas, particularly along thePrinzapolka River, at least some Miskito sought moreof a Marine presence to maintain order and protectthem from elements they saw as lawless. For an exam-

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plc, see Letter from Stephen Boudien (?), Head ofCommunity Mosquitos (sic) Tungla to Commander inChief of the USMC, Tungla (Nicaragua), 7 January1929, RG 127, Entry 204. Folder 26.2. Numerous otherreports document consistent Miskito cooperation withthe Marines in terms of providing a rich flow of infor-mation about Sandinista or "bandit" movements. Thiscontrasts with the often unreliable information Marinesreceived in Nueva Segovia, Sandino's major area ofsupport.

About the AuthorDavid C. Brooks is currently chair of Western Hemisphere Affairs at the

Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. Department of State. A career diplo-

mat since 1994, he has served in Peru, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Poland.

He was a Fuibright Scholar in Nicaragua in 1990. Brooks's University ofConnecticut dissertation was "Revolution from Without: Culture andPolitics along Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast in the Time of the SandinoRevolt, 1926-34" (1999).

Lessons from Yesterday's Operations Short of War: Nicaragua and the Small Wars Manual by Richard J Macak jr.

Marine Corps Gazette, November 1996

Those who forget the past. . As the Defense Department struggles to keep pace with a changing world, this author suggests it may be time to look back at one of our previous experiences with low­intensity conflicts.

A the u.s. Armed Forces develop and refine their doctrine for the use of military esources in low-intensity conflicts and

military operations other than war, they should carefully assess the "small wars"! experiences of Marine forces through the first three decades of this century. These earlier campaigns are impor­tant, not only for their doctrinal contributions, but also because of their resemblance to conflict today

wherein military force is combined with diplomatic pressure in the internal or exter­nal affairs of another state whose govern­ment is unstable, inadequate, or unsatisfac­tory for the preservation of life and of such interests as are determined by the foreign policy of our Nation. 2

Probably the most significant small war expe­rience in Marine Corps history was the lengthy conflict in Nicaragua. Fortunately, we still have extensive published and unpublished firsthand accounts of that campaign. More fortunately, we

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have a complete manual of doctrinal statementand application—the Small Wars Manual—derived from that experience. Although the man-ual has remained unchanged since its secondpublication in 1940, it will nonetheless proveinvaluable to U.S. planners. Let's look at the sit-uation of the time, the Marine involvement, andthe resulting publications.

During its 20-year military involvement inNicaragua, which ended on 1 January 1933, theMarine Corps achieved State Department foreignpolicy objectives by stabilizing a country with along history of political unrest and civil war. Todo so, the Marines engaged in diverse andimportant missions promoting the internal stabil-ity of the Nicaraguan Government. For instance,they established neutral zones to protect Ameri-can lives and property; they physically separatedand disarmed warring political parties, thus end-ing the 1926—27 civil war; they successfully pro-tected the election process ensuring free andimpartial presidential elections in 1928 and 1932;and they organized and trained a nonpartisannational guard, known as the Guardia Nacionalde Nicaragua, into an effective fighting force.3Just before withdrawal, the Marines completed asix-year counterinsurgency campaign againstAugusto C. Sandino that was important for itsintellectual contribution to counterinsurgencydoctrine.

The involvement's contributions to counterin-surgency doctrine are the result of the cumula-tive efforts of many Marine officers who servedin the lengthy campaign. Through their thought-ful articles in the Marine Corps Gazette andNaval Institute Proceedings, they provided a siz-able reservoir of personal experience in coun-terinsurgency operations. As an institution, theMarine Corps focused these experiences at itsSchools Command in Quantico, Va. Other Marineauthors expanded the knowledge on counterin-surgency warfare by publishing the Small WarsManual detailing the lessons learned from con-flicts such as the Nicaraguan campaign.4

Before examining the military involvement indetail, let's review the historical highlights of U.S.regional interests and Nicaraguan political align-ments. By the 1920s, U.S. economic, political,and military interests had grown considerably in

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Central America, particularly in Nicaragua. Forexample, the American business community,searching for overseas markets, expanded intothe region. Companies, such as the highly suc-cessful United Fruit Company, establishedbranches throughout Central America, and thesebecame lucrative investments for U.S. business-men.

Also, the U.S. Government naturally consid-ered the area vital to its national security, partic-ularly because of the Panama Canal and its reten-tion of construction rights to a future canalthrough Nicaragua. Likewise, the United Stateswas concerned that Mexico, as a result of itsrecent revolution, would begin spreading itsform of bolshevism or communism southwardinto the Central American countries.5

In Nicaragua, Americans through their invest-ments and influences controlled the key ele-ments of the economy. Internally, Nicaragua waspolitically divided between two powerful fac-tions. The Conservative and Liberal Parties ruledthrough separate family alliances that constantlyfeuded over power. Always suspicious of eachother's motives, they turned political unrest intoa way of life in Nicaragua. The party occupyingthe Presidential Palace could expect unlawfulattempts by the opposition to gain power. Thus,the United States faced a paradox in Nicaragua.On the one hand, U.S. national interests in thearea required a stable political environment tosurvive, one conducive to growth and prosperi-ty; on the other hand, the Nicaraguan Govern-ment was powerless to provide such an environ-ment.6

With that historical and political context, let'sturn to the campaign itself. In late 1922, theUnited States approached the problem from adiplomatic standpoint. From 4 December 1922through 7 February 1923, the United States spon-sored a conference in Washington on CentralAmerican affairs in which it proposed ways tostabilize the area. Representatives from all fiveCentral American countries attended. The confer-ence concluded with the General Treaty of Peaceand Amity signed by all parties establishing sev-eral agreements.

First, no country would recognize a govern-ment that came to power through a coup d'etat

or revolution. Second, internal disputes wouldbe submitted to an international board of arbitra-tion. Third, no country would interfere in theinternal affairs of another.7 Finally, standingarmies would be replaced by nonpartisan con-stabulary forces. Thus, the 1923 treaty provideda means to preserve law and order. It also grant-ed a degree of legitimacy to constabulariesalready established, especially the ones constitut-ed in Haiti and the Dominican Republic in 1916and 1917, respectively, during actions by U.S.naval forces.8

The first opportunity to apply the GeneralTreaty of Peace and Amity occurred in October1925, when a Conservative Party coup inManagua deposed the Liberal president and vicepresident. Invoking the treaty, the United Statesrefused to recognize the new Conservative gov-ernment, instead proposing a diplomatic solutionthat promised U.S. recognition to the party win-ning the 1928 presidential election. But thisdiplomatic initiative fell apart when Mexico,throughout the autumn of 1926, covertly sup-ported the Liberal cause by encouraging theousted vice president to return to Nicaragua andclaim power. A hotly contested civil warensued.9

By now, the State Department realized thatmore aggressive policies were necessary to endthe civil war.1° As a result, beginning inDecember 1926, the State Department expandedthe Marines' role and presence in Nicaragua.Thus, their involvement entered a new stagecharacterized by escalating intensity and diversi-ty.

Since the State Department's initial concernswere with protecting American lives and proper-ty, the department directed the U.S. Navy to putlanding parties ashore to safeguard these inter-ests. Accordingly, on 23 December 1926 the USSDenver and USS Cleveland landed Marines andsailors at Puerto Cabezas on the east coast.11 Thisnaval contingent promptly established a neutralzone in a district containing American fruit, lum-ber, and mining companies. Generally, a neutralzone was an area in which combat would endan-ger American lives and property. The Marinesestablished these zones where contending par-ties were incapable of guaranteeing the safety of

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life and property and when conflict appearedimminent. Thereafter, neutral zones became astandard practice for the Marines, recognized byboth Liberal and Conservative factions.12

Similarly, after initially landing in Corinto onthe west coast, Marines and sailors from the USSGalveston arrived in Managua on 6 January 1927and established themselves as the LegationGuard.13 This force symbolized the U.S. commit-ment to stabilize Nicaragua. In fact, the LegationGuard was the vanguard for several other land-ing parties and the 1st and 3d Battalions of the5th Marine Regiment. By 9 March 1927, whenBrigadier General Logan M. Feland arrived inManagua with his 2d Marine Brigade staff to takecommand of all naval forces ashore in westernNicaragua, the Marines totaled 2,000 men andpossessed six aircraft from ObservationSquadron—i (VO—1M) for aerial reconnaissanceof the opposing armies.14

By mid-March 1927, the Marines had placedthemselves in key positions to protect Americanlives and property and to guard critical commu-nications lines between major cities. On 1February 1927, one Marine battalion garrisonedin Managua and took over its defense. The Corpsopened railroad lines between the major cities ofCorinto, Managua, and Granada by 13 February1927, and on 12 March 1927 occupied Matagalpato keep lines of communications open withManagua. Also, all large ports on both coasts andthe major cities in the interior contained Marinedetachments and neutral zones.15

With the Marines in position, State Depart-ment officials thought the time was appropriateto initiate a diplomatic solution to the civil war.On 31 March 1927, President Calvin Coolidgeappointed a former Secretary of War, ColonelHenry Stimson, as his personal representative toexplore possible solutions to the political situa-tion in Nicaragua. Meeting with both Nicaraguanparties on 4 May 1927 under a large blackthorntree along the banks of the Tipitapa River,Colonel Stimson negotiated an end to the fight-ing. Realizing the unlikelihood of a military vic-tory and obtaining assurances from the StateDepartment that U.S. forces would remain inNicaragua as a stabilizing force, each side agreedto a truce, disarmament, supervised elections,

and the establishment of a nonpartisan constab-ulary.16

More importantly, while the negotiators final-ized the details of the Treaty of Tipitapa, Marinedetachments occupied positions between theConservative and Liberal armies along theTipitapa River. The Marines thus prevented anyincidents from spoiling the diplomatic effortsunderway. On 13 May 1927, however, Sandino, ageneral in the Liberal army, refused to abide bythe treaty's terms and abruptly left the area witha small band of followers. On three separateoccasions in the next few days, Marine patrolswere fired upon.17 Despite these encounterswith Sandino's rebels, the Marines maintainedthe peace between the contending parties.

According to Colonel Stimson's scenario, thenext step for the Marines entailed disarming thewarring factions. Over 800 Marines comprisingelements of the 5th and 11th Marine Regimentsarrived in Corinto on 19, 21, and 22 May 1927 toassist with this task.18 With the 5th MarineRegiment now manning the neutral zone alongthe river, the factions were disarmed—the Liberalforces turned in over 3,700 rifles and machine-guns, the Conservatives over 11,000, and bothsides left over 5.5 million rounds of ammuni-tion.19 Thus, the premature departure ofSandino's relatively small band became only ablemish on the disarmament process. Overall,the Marines had thus far successfully fulfilledState Department policy objectives.

With the civil war concluded and disarmamentcomplete, the State Department focused on itspledge to supervise the forthcoming 1928 presi-dential election. Also looking ahead, the Marinesrealized that if they had any hope at all of effec-tively supervising this election they had to dotwo things. First, they had to transform theemerging Guardia Nacional into an effectiveforce against the rising bandit threat. Second,they had to conduct an aggressive counterinsur-gency campaign of their own to keep the banditsoff balance until the election.

In accordance with the 1923 Treaty of GeneralPeace and Amity and the Tipitapa Treaty, theUnited States and Nicaragua had agreed to estab-lish a nonpartisan national constabulary. On 22December 1927, both countries signed the

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"Agreement Between the United States andNicaragua Establishing the Guardia Nacional deNicaragua." Marine officers and senior enlistedmen were appointed by the President under anact of Congress to serve with the Guardia.Eventually these Marines would he replaced byNicaraguans. Marine Colonel Elias R. Beadle wasappointed as the chief of the guard. The Guardianow filled the void left by the disarmed politicalfactions. And with the Marines as the Guardia'simpartial leadership, both countries regarded thisnew force as the most effective guarantee of fairand free elections.2°

Led by their Marine officers, Guardia detach-ments began a campaign against the rebels thattotaled 510 engagements before the Marineswithdrew.21 Employing aggressive patrollingtechniques, the Guardia forces constantly pur-sued Sandino, keeping his forces away frompopulated areas.

One of the most famous Guardia units duringthe Nicaraguan involvement was Company M(for Mobile), commanded by Captain Lewis B.Puller. A combat veteran with experience incounterinsurgency operations, Captain Pullerbecame a continual thorn in Sandino's side.Recognizing the need for mobility and speed,Puller organized his patrols into two units ratherthan one larger unit in order to reduce the logis-tical load and number of pack mules perpatrol.22 In addition, by keeping one patrol atthe base, he could respond quickly either torelieve the other patrol or to investigate otherincidents in his area. Because of the stamina ofthe local mestizos he recruited into the Guardia,Puller could average 18 to 20 miles daily—stretching it some days to as many as 40 miles—to overtake rebel bands. He chose to travel onfoot because horses not only drew fire butslowed progress since so little jungle forage wasavailable for a fast-moving force. Mules, howev-er, could feed on the foliage of felled trees afterthe company encamped.23 The bandits usedhorses, thus had to rest them every third day,giving Puller an opportunity to close on them. Inone instance, Puller chased a mounted rebelband of horse thieves for about a week before heovertook them near Malcate in the interior. Formonths after the capture, civilians came to

Puller's headquarters in Jinotega to claim previ-ously stolen animals and saddles.24

As a result of these successes, the StateDepartment and Marine Corps recognized thevalue of and need for Guardia units such asCompany M. Plans were made to organize eightadditional companies. However, severe budgetcuts forced by the worldwide depression pre-vented implementing this good idea.25 Nonethe-less, the Guardia had shown it was an effectiveforce in the field. One reason was that theNicaraguan guardsmen were intensely proud andexcellent fighters. The guardsmen transferredtheir Conservative and Liberal Party loyalties totheir Guardia units. Once trained, they exhibiteda devotion to their Marine officers unequaled inprevious Marine Corps constabulary experience.Deeds of bravery by guardsmen protecting theMarine officers were not uncommon, and manyearned the coveted wound chevron. In short,Guardia efficiency was directly attributable to theexcellent rapport between Marine officers andNicaraguan enlisted men.26

In addition to the Guardia, the 2d MarineBrigade conducted a similar counterinsurgencycampaign, actively patrolling into the northernareas where the bandits crossed into Nicaragua.But while the Brigade's methods closely fol-lowed those of the Guardia, a whole new factormade possible by the Brigade's organic aircraftassets distinguished this campaign from any pre-vious ones.27

Never before had combat and logistical airsupport been combined to augment a groundcampaign. By mid-1928, Marine aircraft had con-ducted "84 attacks on bandit forces" and carried"more than 1,500 people (including casualtiesand sick) and 900,000 pounds. Accident ratezero."28 Aviation also provided "aerial mapping,photography, meteorology, daily message andmail drops, and packages through the coun-try."29 Airpower continually came to the aid ofMarine and Guardia ground forces. For instance,on 16 July 1927 in the town of Ocotal, a seem-ingly overwhelming bandit force of approximate-ly 500 men threatened to overrun the detach-ment of 39 Marines and 47 Guardia. "In the firstorganized dive-bombing attack in history—longbefore the Nazi Luftwaffe was popularly credited

83

with the innovation,"30 a five-plane detachmentfrom Managua routed the bandits with machine-gun fire and bombs. The Marines and Guardiasustained only one killed and one wounded,respectively, while Sandino suffered his worstdefeat of the rebellion, losing 300 of the estimat-ed 400—500 bandits in the attack. From this dis-aster at Ocotal, rebel forces gained a healthyrespect for Marine aircraft, often moving at nightand avoiding open areas during the day.31

Another important aspect of the Brigade'scampaign was the civic action program createdto reduce bandit influence on the population.Both a road-building project and a local volun-teer defense group whose members were called"civicos" constituted this innovative program.

On 24 May 1929, the American Minister inNicaragua initially proposed to the StateDepartment the idea of the construction projectwith a "two-fold purpose: military necessity andemployment."32 Building through the ruggedbandit territory would let government forcesrespond more rapidly to all parts of the area. Inaddition, the construction would offer steadyjobs to the inhabitants, thereby eliminating themanpower source for the bandits. And the roadswould economically boost the country becausethey would serve to move products to the mar-ketplace more efficiently. But, although the proj-ect began in August 1929, the same fundingshortage that had prevented forming moremobile companies halted construction a littleover a year later.33 Conceptually, however, thisproject offered a real solution to the bandit prob-lem. Had it continued, Sandino would have beenfaced with a shrinking manpower base and thusmay have come to terms with the Nicaraguangovernment.

The other half of the program, the forming ofthe civicos, was a reaction to the financial reali-ties of the day. With fewer funds available in1930, the Nicaraguan government was forced toreduce the size of the Guardia. To supplement,the Marines proposed urban defense groups towork closely with the local Guardia commander.The civicos were citizens organized and trainedas an emergency auxiliaiy.34 The forming of thecivicos indicates just how well the Marinesunderstood counterinsurgency warfare.

With the counterinsurgency campaigns wellunderway, the State Department turned its atten-tion to the upcoming 4 November 1928 presiden-tial election. To supervise voter registration andballoting, Marines were detailed to each of theprecincts throughout the country. The AmericanMinister reported to the Secretary of State in an11 October 1928 telegram that 35,000 more peo-ple registered to vote than in 1924 and that thiswas due to the Marines and Guardia. TheMinister telegraphed:

[They were able to] protect citizens fromintimidation. Detachments were stationedin key positions in towns and on patrolduty on roads leading to booths throughoutregistration period Sep23—Oct7 . . . Nocases of intimidation, other disturbances[were] reported at any of 352 precincts inRepublic [and] conduct of 352 Marineenlisted men who served as chairmen atprecincts [wasi . . highly commended byboth political parties.35

The Minister was equally enthusiastic on elec-tion day when he telegraphed in short bulletstyle:

Complete order, heavy early vote through-out Nicaragua . . . polls opened 7 thismorning with crowds of 100 to 300 waitingprecincts in Managua and elsewhere. Finalair reconnaissance overfiew every precinctyesterday and reported large crowds mov-ing over trails to precincts with as many as200 to 300 arriving late afternoon to voteearly today . . Heavy vote indicatedJinotega, Esteli, Segovia is considered proofbanditry has been practically ended byMarine pacification program which hasgiven peaceable citizens complete confi-dence in measure taken by Marines to pre-vent intimidation of voters.6

The leading party newspapers appropriatelysummarized the Marines' efforts. The Conser-vative paper La Prensa 's headlines read: "TheAmerican supervision has honorably observed itspromise. The election Sunday was honest, tran-quil, correct and honorable." The El Comericio,the leading Liberal paper, wrote: "The United

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States is vindicated before the world."37 Beforetheir withdrawal in 1933, the Marines would alsosupervise the 1930 local elections and anotherpresidential election in 1932. Sandino wouldremain at large, but he would not prevent theMarines from bringing stability and democraticprocesses to the country.

Lessons Learned

Back home, the involvement served as a cata-lyst for intellectual development within theCorps. Primarily, it motivated many Marine offi-cers to regularly submit their combat experiencesfor publication in the Gazette and Proceedings.These articles offered valuable insights into therealities of "small wars." In a May 1931 article inthe Gazette entitled "An Introduction to theTactics and Techniques of Small Wars," MajorHarold H. Utley noted that although the MarineCorps maintained many historical examples ofsmall wars, "few real studies seem to have beenmade of them."38 It would not be long, howev-er, before the Marine Corps would be seriouslyanalyzing all the evidence accumulated through-out the occupation.

By the mid-1920s, the Division of Operationsand Training was frequently augmenting thepages of the Gazette with firsthand accounts ofsignificant engagements, but the articles weremerely compiled battlefield accounts rather thananalysis and lessons learned. They dealt withsubjects such as "Protection of AmericanInterests" or "Combat Operations in Nicaragua."For instance, one article, presenting the after-action report of the Marine detachment's com-manding officer at Ocotal, outlined Sandino'sattack on the Marine and Guardia garrison thereon 16 July 1927. The report also containedSandino's attack order and a detailed map of thetown. Even without discussion, by its detail andcompleteness the report gave the reader aninsight into the tactics used by both sides.39

Even while articles continued regularly in theGazette on subjects such as "Aircraft in BushWarfare," "The Supply Service in WesternNicaragua," and "The Guardia Nacional deNicaragua," the Marine Corps began evaluatingits formal school curriculum at Quantico.4° In the

Gazette's August 1934 issue, Major Charles J.Miller highlighted the need to analyze the wealthof material collected thus far. He indicated that

this work would seem to devolve upon theschools to digest and place the material inpresentable form for the guidance andinstruction of all the officers of the Corps.4'

He concluded by noting that "the subject as awhole has only received a cursory examination"and much more needed to be done to

furnish the students with a clear and com-plete picture of all the tasks, obligations,and responsibilities that may devolve on aMarine Corps expeditionary force whenintervening as an occupation force.42

Quantico had increased its small wars instruc-tion from nine hours in 1924—25 to 19 hours by1932. Possibly in response to Major Miller's callto establish a systematic education in small warstechniques, the 1934—35 academic year featured94 hours of instruction.43

Beyond this educational improvement, theMarine Corps continued its efforts to produce amanual distilling the Caribbean experience intoestablished principles. Based upon the efforts ofMajor Utley, a Nicaraguan veteran, and othersmall wars instructors at Quantico, the MarineCorps produced the first edition of the SmallWars Manual in 1935 and the final revision in1940. They drew their material from publishedarticles, small wars lesson plans, and Colonel C.E. Callwell's 1906 book entitled Small Wars—Their Principles and Practice, which containedguerrilla warfare experiences from such places asIndochina, Cuba, Rhodesia, the Punjab frontier,the Sudan, the Philippines, and sub-SaharaAfrica.44

Not surprisingly, the manual's blueprint forfuture counterinsurgency operations closely cor-responded to past events in Nicaragua. In 428pages, the authors provided

instruction for feeding and supplyingtroops, gathering intelligence, finning amilitary government, patrolling in jungles,attacking houses, bombing and strafing vil-lages, conducting river operations, and a

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variety of other specific activities.45

The manual addressed other facets of coun-terinsurgency warfare as well, such as the under-lying causes of revolution, how to handle thehost country's population, and rules of engage-ment.

Furthermore, the manual divided the processof military intervention into five phases. First, theMarines should begin a gradual buildup of forcesashore. Second, they should commence combatoperations using neutral zones or patrolling tech-niques. Third, they should develop a nonpartisanconstabulary force to assist the civic affairs proj-ects and internal defense. The constabularyshould take on an active role in counterguerrillapatrols. As the bandits are subdued, the Marinesshould withdraw to garrison the large cities.Fourth, the Marines should begin preparationsfor the supervision of free elections. Fifth, onceelections are complete, the constabulary shouldtake control as the Marines withdraw.46 Fromthis review of the manual's process of interven-tion, one can see how much of an impact theNicaraguan campaign had on counterinsurgencydoctrine. In short, the manual was a comprehen-sive and successful attempt to deduce the lessonslearned from this vast amount of counterinsur-gency experience.

Unfortunately, after 1940 the Marine Corps'firsthand experience with and schooled knowl-edge of small wars declined significantly, due inpart to the large-scale amphibious nature ofWorld War II in the Pacific and the preoccupationwith nuclear warfare in the 1950s. In fact, by asearly as the 1946—47 academic year, the Marinesdeleted all small wars instruction from the cur-riculum at Quantico, although counterinsurgencyclasses were reintroduced two years later. InApril 1950, Lieutenant Colonel Robert D. Heinl,Jr., bemoaned the loss of small-unit operationsexpertise in a Gazette article entitled "SmallWars—Vanishing Art?"47 In another instance, aMarine officer preparing a 1960 study on coun-terinsurgency operations was not even familiarwith the Small Wars Manual's existence.48

Despite this decline in small wars emphasis,the Corps still retained a strong tie to its coun-terinsurgency heritage. This link to its institution-

a! past was apparent in the Marines' approach tocombat operations in Vietnam. According to SirRobert Thompson, the noted British expert oncounterinsurgency warfare:

Of all the United States forces the MarineCorps alone made a serious attempt toachieve permanent and lasting results intheir tactical area of responsibility by seek-ing to protect the rural populations.49

By 1965, the Marines opted to use combinedaction platoons (CAPs) that operated withinestablished hamlets (neutral zones) to protect theinhabitants from Viet Cong intimidation. Anotional CAP consisted of 14 Marines, one Navycorpsman, and 34 paramilitary Popular Forces(PFs, i.e., constabularies). By rigorous day andnight patrolling, the CAPs sought to destroy theinsurgent infrastructure, protect the local popu-lace, organize intelligence nets, and train theconstabulary. Unfortunately, the Marine CorpsCombined Action Program was not a high prior-ity effort with Army leadership, which empha-sized search-and-destroy operations. Ultimately,this lack of priority combined with personnelshortages restricted the use of CAPs despite theirpromising accomplishments 50

A more complete analysis of the conceptsemployed by the Army and Marine Corps inVietnam lies beyond the scope of this study.However, the important point remains thatalthough the Small Wars Manual is now almost50 years old, it holds much to discover, thanks toits notable depth and range. And at a time ofincreasing likelihood of U.S. military involvementin operations much like the aging campaign inNicaragua, the manual takes on even greaterimportance.

Notes1. Small Wars Manual, United States Marine Corps,1940 (Government Printing Office, Washington, DC),1. The Manual recognized the wide variety of militaryoperations the term "small wars" implied by indicatingthat "small wars vary in degrees from simple demon-stration operations to military intervention in thefullest sense, short of war."2. Ibid.3. Allan R. Millett, Semper Fidelis: The History of the

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United States Marine Corps (New York: MacMillan,1980), 243—261.4. Ibid., 263; Major H.H. Utley, "An Introduction to theTactics and Techniques of Small Wars," Marine CorpsGazette, May 1931, 50—53.5. Millett, 236; Lieutenant Colonel Clyde H. Metcalf, AHistory of the United States Marine Corps (New York:G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1939), 408; Neil Macaulay, TheSandino Affair (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1967),161—185.

6. Captain Evans F. Carlson, "The Guardia Nacional DeNicaragua," Marine Corps Gazette, August 1937, 7;

Millett, 239.7. Department of State, Papers Relating to the ForeignRelations of the United States, 1927 (Washington,1942), 288—289 (hereinafter cited as ForeignRelations).8. Marvin Goldwert, The Constabulary in theDominican Republic and Nicaragua (Gainesville:University of Florida Press, 1962), 24.9. Lester Langley, The Banana Wars (Lexington:University Press of Kentucky, 1982), 184—188.10. Millett, 242—243.11. Ibid., 243; "Summary of Operations in Nicaragua,December 23, 1926—February 5, 1928," Appendix, U.S.Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Hearings:"Use of United States Navy in Nicaragua." February11—18, 1928, 70th Congress, 1st Session (Washington:Government Printing Office, 1928), 2 (hereinafter citedas "Use of United States Navy in Nicaragua").12. Metcalf, 418. For an in-depth discussion on neutralzones, see Small Wars Manual, Chap. 5, Sec. 1, 1—4.13. Use of United States Navy in Nicaragua, 2.14. Ibid., 3.15. Ibid., 3; A. Millett, 244.16. Henry Stimson, American Foreign Policy inNicaragua (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1927),42—84; Foreign Relations, 351—353; United StatesCongress, Senate, Senate Document No. 288, 71stCong. 30 Sess., Serial 9347, United States Marines inNicaragua.17. Use of United States Navy in Nicaragua, p. 3.18. Ibid., 4.19. Metcalf, 422—23.20. Agreement for the Establishment of the NationalGuard of Nicaragua, 22 December 1927, in ForeignRelations, 1927, III, 434—439; Dana Munro, "TheEstablishment of Peace in Nicaragua," Foreign Affairs,11 (July 1933), 698.21. Carlson, 7.22. Robert D. Heinl, Jr., Soldiers of the Sea: The US.Marine Corps, 1 775—1962 (Annapolis, MD: U.S. NavalInstitute, 1962), 284.

23. Burke Davis, Marine! The Lfe of chesty Puller(Boston: Little, Brown, 1962), 81.24. Ibid., 62.25. Richard Millett, Guardians of the Dynasty(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1977), 93.26. Langley, 193—216; Neil Macaulay, 161—185; Go! H.S.Reisinger, "La Pa!abra de! Gringo, Leadership of theNicaraguan Nationa! Guard," Naval InstituteProceedings, 61, 2 (February 1935), 216—220.27. Heini, 289.28. Ibid.29. Ibid., 290.30. Gaptain Kenneth A. Jennings, USAF, "SandinoAgainst the Marines," Air University Review,July—August 1986, 37, 86—88; Macaulay, 81.31. Use of United States Navy in Nicaragua, 4;

Jennings, 89.32. Foreign Relations, 1929, 3:567—570.33. R. Millett, 91.34. Ibid.35. Foreign Relations, 1928, 3,507—509.36. Ibid., 513—514.37. Ibid., 515.38. Ut!ey, 50—53.39. Division of Operations and Training, "Protection ofAmerican Interests," Marine corps Gazette, 12 (Sept.1927), 175—183; and "Gombat Operations inNicaragua," Marine Corps Gazette, 14 (Mar 1929),16—30.

40. Major Ross E. Rowel!, "Aircraft in Bush Warfare,"Marine Corps Gazette, 14 (Sept. 1929), 180—203; Major

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Roger W. Peard, "Bull Gait Transportation in theTropics," Marine corps Gazette, 15 (February 1931),29—49; Garlson, 7—20.41. Major Gharles J. Miller, "Marine Gorps School 19341935," Marine Corps Gazette, 19 (August 1934), 58.42. Ibid.43. Ibid., 59.44. Ronald Schaffer, "The 1940 Smal! Wars Manua! andthe Lessons of History," Military Affairs, Vol 36, 1972,46; Got G.E. Gallwe!1, Small Wars—Their Principles andPractice (3d ed., London, 1906).45. Ibid., 47.46. Small Wars Manual, 5—9.47. Lieutenant Golonel Robert D. Hem!, "SmallWars—Vanishing Art?" Marine Corps Gazette, 34, Apri!1950, 23—25.48. Schaffer, 49—50.49. Major Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., USA, The Armyand Vietnam (Baltimore and London: John HopkinsUniversity Press, 1986), p. 172.50. Lieutenant General Victor H. Krulak, USMG (Ret),First to Fight (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1984),179—195; Krepinevich, 172—177.

About the AuthorRichard J. Macak Jr. was, at the time this artic!e was published in 1996,

Lieutenant Colonel, USMC, serving as executive officer of the 12thMarines. He wrote the artic!e while attending the Army's Command and

Genera! Staff Co!lege, for whom he had written The CORDS Paq/icationProgram: An Operational Level Campaign Plan in Low IntensityConflict (1989).

The AmericanOccupation of Haiti:Problems andPrograms,1920-1928by Robert Debs Hem! Jr and NancyGordon Hem!

Marine Corps Gazette, December 1978

y 1920, Haiti had been pacified. TheMarines had stamped out banditry (knownas Cacoism) in the north and the Artibonite

Valley and had put down a major revolt, the CacoRebellion, originating in the same regions withcloset support from elite politicians in the nation-al capital and abroad in exile. Now with the U.S.occupation of Haiti established, important ques-tions as to its direction, destiny, and ultimate suc-cess remained to he answered.

A central paradox was that the specter of the"Maitre blanc" (the white master), whom Haitianshad so spectacularly slaughtered in 1803, neverseriously frightened the peasant noirs (blacks) butscared and angered the educated, mostly lighter-colored (mulatre) elite.

As early as 1917, the French minister in Port-au-Prince, reporting to Paris on "Ia question de racequi prime ici toutes les autres" (the racial questionwhich, here, takes precedence over all others),said that the elite oligarchy that had so longexploited the country now feared possible re-establishment of a white society. Such fears wereunderstandable in light of racial conditions thenprevailing in the United States.

In supporting the Caco Rebellion of 1918—1920,the elite, characteristically at odds among them-selves, had been playing with fire. PresidentDartiguenave's enemies hoped to upset him, butat the same time had everything to lose from thedefeat and expulsion of the Americans and areturn to the bad old days and ways of Caco-dom-mated politics.

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Thus, until the revolt was snuffed out,Dartiguenave, the elite mulatre, was happyenough to collaborate with the occupation. But inmid-1920, he felt secure enough to take on theAmericans who had put him in office. In theDecember 1920 view of Colonel John H. Russell,Marine brigade commander in Port-au-Prince:

[Dartiguenavel threw off the mask, steppedinto the arena, fought fiercely as the socalled champion of the Haitian People andwith the intention of posing as a martyr. Thepolitical situation at once became complex

Where formerly the scene of trouble hadbeen in Central Haiti it quickly shifted toPort-au-Prince which became the one sorespot in Haiti.

Russell did not exaggerate. The terrain of resist-ance had shifted to the capital.

In early 1920, an American socialist, journalist,and associate of the National Association for theAdvancement of Colored People (NAACP),Herbert J. Seligman, had briefly visited Haiti. Onreturn, he wrote for the Nation a purportedexpose, "The Conquest of Haiti," which was theopening gun of a sustained American-Haitiancampaign to undermine the U.S. occupation.

The tone of Seligman's article (which precipi-tated a sensation in July 1920 and typified theNation's future style in dealing with the Haitianquestion) may be judged quickly:

Five years of American Occupation, from1915 to 1920, have served as a commentaryon the white civilization which still burnsblack men and women at the stake. ForHaitian men, women, and children, to anumber estimated at 3,000, innocent of anyoffense, have been shot down by Americanmachine gun and rifle bullets; black menhave been put to torture to make them giveinformation; theft, arson, and murder havebeen committed with impunity by whitemen wearing the uniform of the UnitedStates.

Seligman's sole source was a Haitian propagan-da group formed in 1915 and called the UnionPatriotique. Five years later, the Union hadexpanded to include every elite politician and

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intellectual who opposed President Dartiguenaveor the occupation, and claimed membership of30,000, a figure hard to substantiate. In what sure-ly must represent an apogee of self-deception,Ernest Gruening of the Nation (later a U.S. sena-tor) claimed that the Union's leaders—every onea presidential hopeful—were without ambitionand that the Union was "apolitical."

More realistically, British minister R. F. S. Ed-wards called the Union a set of "disgruntled politi-cians who would do anything to obtain a govern-ment position," a judgment amply confirmed bypast, and in some cases future records of leadingmembers of the Union.1

Obviously the Union also contained highmind-ed men: to name one, Haiti's most eminentlawyer, Maitre Georges Leger, who worked so sin-glemindedly to end the occupation. But to protestthe Union's political chastity is to be blind to therealities and personalities of Haitian politics. In thesardonic phrase of a fellow countryman, the menof the Union Patriotique now became "les Cacosde Plume" (Cacos of the pen), who in 1920 tookup the cause against the Americans.

The American connection that gave the Unionvoice and support came through an interlockingrelationship among the NAACP, the Nation, andan American front group, the Haiti-SantoDomingo Independence Society, which, byGruening's admission, "we at the Nation organ-ized." Very soon, the society's letterhead wouldinclude such prestigious names as Eugene O'Neill,Walter Lippmann, Felix Frankfurter, and even H.L. Mencken. For the voices at the heart of allthis—NAACP president James Weldon Johnson,Seligman and Gruening—the Nation was to afforda strident, unbridled, antimilitaiy, and unashamed-ly partisan pulpit during the decade to come.

Despite his burning advocacy of the Haitianresistance, Gruening only belatedly came to thecountry. After his one interview with ColonelRussell, in November 1921, the Marine recorded,"Mr. Gruening, I am afraid, has come to Haiti withthe idea of not seeing anything good, but onlylooking for something sensational to write up."

If the Nation and other foreign critics of theoccupation stooped to irresponsibility anduntruth, the flow of invective and invention fromthe Union Patriotique never faltered. In the sad

verdict of Dantes Bellegarde, Haiti's greatest 20thcentury historian: "Telling the truth is not a quali-ty the majority of Haitians possess."

Rear Admiral Caperton, who had carried outthe original occupation of Haiti, was charged, ifone can believe it, with having simply sailed awaythe Haitian Navy to New York and sold it to ship-breakers for his personal account at $500,000profit. Russell was accused on every side of vari-ous embezzlements. When Colonel R. S. Hookerwent home in 1921, Ic Courrier Haitien wrote of"the fortune he had amassed" and said he hadcome to Haiti• "for the sole purpose of enrichinghimself."

In August 1921, Stenio Vincent, later presidentof Haiti, assured a U.S. Senate investigating com-mittee that 4,000 people were killed in the CapHaitien jail from 1918 to 1920; that from the sameprison, 78 bodies a day were "thrown into thepits" throughout 1918 (a total that would haveamounted in one year to 28,470 deaths on anaverage prison population of 400); and that mor-talities "just as high" occurred in prisons at Port-au-Prince and Gonaives.

B. Danache, an intimate of Dartiguenave, laterwrote that when fires swept a downtown shop-ping district in Port-au-Prince in 1921, Americanofficers' wives pillaged shops and houses. Haitianand French journals elaborated this story byaccusing the Americans of setting this and otherfires in the first place.2

Citing 1921 charges by the Union Patriotique,Britain's famed Manchester Guardian credulouslyreported the killing of entire families by Marines;wanton burning of houses and villages; burning,hanging and torturing of prisoners; and "outrageson pregnant women."

For all his devotion to veracity, historianBellegarde stated as fact the propaganda rumorthat Caco chief Charlemagne Peralte had beencrucified by the Marines and charged the latterwith "butchery of women, and children, massacreof prisoners, use of man-eating dogs, tortures ofwater and fire

Pursuing the same line, French journalists toldreaders that Haiti's cities and villages had beensacked and burned by the Marines, and theirinhabitants "devoured by war dogs imported fromthe Philippines."

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Such vilification, carried on without cease bythe Cacos de Plume and given a gloss of truthwhen filtered through the Nation, the New YorkTimes, and foreign publications (notably theManchester Guardian), would continue for a

decade. In the long run, save for one or two seri-ous falsehoods imbedded in history, this propa-ganda, however galling to Americans in Haiti, canbe dismissed as the only resort of a group neitherwilling nor capable of pursuing resistance beyondthe salon, or print shops whose freedom to oper-ate was guaranteed by U.S. Marines.

The 1920 U.S. elections, combined with theNation's continuing campaign, served, however,to light a fire under Congress, which typicallyreacted with an investigation. Commencing inAugust 1921, a Senate committee held 11 monthsof exhaustive hearings (1,842 pages of printed tes-timony) on U.S. activities in Haiti and SantoDomingo.

Chaired by Senator Joseph Medill McCormick,a cultivated Chicagoan who spoke fluent French,the hearings included every leading figure of theoccupation as well as its main opponents, Haitianand American. To ensure fair play, the Americanlawyer representing both the NAACP and UnionPatriotique was accorded adversary status, includ-ing cross-examination and summing-up. Despitethis latitude, unheard of in congressional proceed-ings, and despite admitted stage-management byDr. Gruening both at home and in hearings con-ducted in Haiti, the Union, while protesting "num-berless abominable crimes" by Marines, madeonly a weak case with testimony the senators(including Haiti's partisans) frequently found to begossip where not obviously coached or suborned.

The committee found that Haiti needed betteradministration, not U.S. withdrawal. To implementthis, Senator McCormick called the administrationto create a new post, an American high commis-sioner who would supervise treaty officials,Gendarmerie, Marines, and the American legation.And that on 11 February 1922 was what PresidentHarding did.

To the surprise of many, not least theappointee, the lot fell to Colonel John H. Russell.

Important events that had done much to pre-cipitate the Senate investigation and thus returnnewly promoted General Russell to Haiti dated

back three years to 1919 and to the region ofHinche in central Haiti.

Hinche lies far from Port-au-Prince. Remote,forbidding, wild, the place bore from ancienttimes a sinister title: "Hinche the Accursed." InJanuary 1919, rumors came to Port-au-Prince thatall was not well in Hinche. The corvee (forcedroadgang labor), though officially abolished, stillcontinued and Caco prisoners taken by Marinesand Gendarmes were openly shot or simply dis-appeared.

When Brigadier General A. W. Catlin (then sen-ior Marine in Haiti) heard these things, he direct-ed Colonel A. S. Williams and the local command-er, Major C. H. Wells, to investigate. He also senta trusted subordinate, Lieutenant Colonel R. S.

Hooker, to Hinche. On Wells' say-so, Williams toldCatlin the charges were baseless. When ColonelHooker got back, he told a different story:corvee going on at both Maissade and Hinche, andthe Gendarmes had used the natives so brutallythat many had left their gardens and either joinedthe Cacos or had come into town for safety."

Catlin went to see for himself. Visiting theregion, talking to the priests, the magistrats, andto trembling peasants, the general satisfied himselfwhere the truth lay. With sanction of Wells andlocal Haitian officials, the corvee was in full force,prisoners had been shot (escaping was always theexcuse), and Major Wells (falsely reporting that hisdistrict was quiet when in fact Caco banditry wasmounting) had made clear to subordinates he did-n't want to see or hear of prisoners.

Catlin forthwith relieved Wells and shipped himhome, transferred every Gendarmerie officer(each a Marine NCO) out of the district and out ofHaiti, replaced the local Gendarmerie units withothers, and put U.S. Marine garrisons under U.S.commissioned officers in each town. Believing,however, that the evidence, however damaging,would not sustain courts-martial, he ordered notrials. On this decision, later charges of whitewashmainly rest. But for an accident, the business, badas it was, might never have been heard of again.

At Headquarters, Marine Corps, in September1919, while reviewing a general court-martial fromHaiti, Major General Commandant George Barnettwas jolted by a passing assertion by counsel that"practically indiscriminate killing of natives has

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gone on for some time."Catlin, still suffering from his war wound at

Belleau Wood at the head of the 6th Marines, hadbeen invalided home. Russell was back. InSeptember 1919, General Barnett wrote a sternletter headed "Personal and Confidential," which,accepting at face value and stating in his ownwords the "indiscriminate killing" charge, toldColonel Russell, "I was shocked beyond expres-sion to hear of such things . . . I know you willtake up most seriously . . . I want every case sift-ed thoroughly and guilty parties brought to jus-tice."

Then began a rigorous and extensive series ofinvestigations. Russell put the case into the capa-ble hands of Lieutenant Colonel Hooker, back-stopped by one of the sternest and most probingdisciplinarians in the Corps, the aviation pioneerMajor Thomas C. Turner. The Hooker-Turner find-ings verified Hooker's initial conclusions. TheNavy Department then ordered Major GeneralJohn A. Lejeune and Brigadier General SmedleyD. Butler to Haiti for a further, more formal, andbroader investigation. The Lejeune-Butler report,filed 12 October 1920, unmistakably confirmedwhat Hooker had reported 18 months earlier.

Two days later, the New York Times reprintedon page one General Barnett's leaked private cor-respondence with Russell, including heavy play ofthe phrase "indiscriminate killing." With the 1920elections at climax, the "indiscriminate killing"issue was ready-made for Republican foes ofWoodrow Wilson and, of course, for the antioccu-pation constituency that had been gathering in theUnited States.

Typical of public and media reaction was theTimes' wide-eyed interview (15 October 1920)with Harry Franck, a travel writer, shilling a just-published book about the West Indies. Wrote theTimes:

American Marines, largely made up of andofficered by Southerners, opened fire withmachine-guns from airplanes on defenselessHaitian villages, killing men, women andchildren in open marketplaces; natives wereslain for "sport" by a hoodlum elementamong these same Southerners; and theancient corvee system of forced labor was

revived and ruthlessly executed.

Another rapid reaction was that of JamesWeldon Johnson, well known black adviser ofRepublican Presidential candidate Warren G.Harding and secretary of the NAACP. Johnsoncounseled Harding to take immediate advantageof Haitian "atrocity" charges. Harding beatJohnson to the punch. He had already told elec-tion crowds, "Thousands of Haitians have beenkilled by American Marines."

President Wilson's response was one final full-dress court of inquiry under Admiral Henry T.Mayo, including among its members Lejeune andthe former naval governor of the Virgin Islands.Even more exhaustive than its predecessors, theMayo inquiry (dismissed in the Nation as "white-wash" before the court even heard its first wit-ness) arrived at similar conclusions but added inits opinion, "Considering the conditions of servicein Haiti, it is remarkable that the offenses were sofew

Sorting Out all the investigations as well asantecedent events, several observations seem inorder.

• Behind the smoke lay fire. Illegal executionsdid take place, and so did acts of violence againstHaitians. The corvee was continued in violation oforders and was flagrantly misused as a form ofpeonage. Major Wells and a handful of U.S. sub-ordinates condoned and tried to cover up thesemisdeeds.

• All abuses were localized in the Hinche-Maissade area and to a six-month period(December 1918 to May 1919). They were neithertypical nor nationwide. The 1922 Senate investiga-tion, energetically pressed at home and in Haiti,established only ten illegal executions.

• A major guerrilla war (the Caco Rebellion)was in progress. In the words of historian LudwellMontague:

Operations were carried on by smalldetached patrols, generally led by enlistedmen, remote from control or succor, alonein a wild country and momentarily expect-ing ambush. No mark distinguished hostileCaco from peaceful peasant, and, with one'slife at stake, there was a strong temptationto give oneself the benefit of the doubt. Had

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the Marines not shown remarkable restraint,the havoc must have been greater.

• General Catlin's decision not to press chargeswhen evidence was fresh and all parties still in theservice and in Haiti foreclosed further prosecu-tion. Later, when General Barnett reopened thematter, the trail was cold and the guilty beyondreach.

• Although inevitably seen as "official white-wash," if only because they tended to vindicateAmerican military conduct in Haiti, the successiveinvestigations, pursued in every instance by offi-cers of high standing, come through 50 years lateras fair and rigorous. That they failed to producedisciplinary results beyond actions taken at firstinstance by Catlin resulted from unavailability tomilitary courts—as in the exponentially worse MyLai scandals in Vietnam—of persons clearly guilty(Marines dead or discharged) and the wildly unre-liable and conflicting testimony of Haitian com-plainants.

• Behind all else lies the evident fact thatHaitian peasants simply did not regard theMarines as the sadistic bullies and savage oppres-sors depicted in elite antioccupation literature.

Months later in 1921, after the uproar hadbegun to quiet, Colonel L. McC. Little, the Marinechief of staff in Haiti, wrote a thoughtful letter toEdwin Denby, the former Marine Secretary of theNavy in the new administration:

We have committed errors. . . . It is for thisreason that our punishment of offenses byMarines and Gendarmes against Haitians hashad to be prompt and severe. . . . We mayhave had to kill in our engagements but itwas to prevent the slaughter or ill treatmentof many thousands more. .

It remained for the British Foreign Office inLondon to extract a final lesson. Reading thereports from Port-au-Prince, and no doubt mind-ful of similar painful episodes of one's own, suchas the Aniritsar massacre of 1919, the permanentundersecretary jotted down: "It is useful toremember cases of this kind when the U.S.A. takeit upon themselves to preach to us aboutMesopotamia or Persia."

On the tropical night of 10 March 1922, while

the old battleship North Dakota plowed across theGulf of Gonaives toward Port-au-Prince, GeneralRussell, aft in the flag cabin, removed his whitesthen turned in as the land breeze brought Haiti'spungent presence—charcoal fires, dung, frangi-paniers, overripe mangoes, and the distant throbof drums—in through the open ports. Perhaps hismind dropped back to 1893 when, on a midship-men's cruise, he had first seen and smelled Port-au-Prince.

Next morning when Russell came on the quar-terdeck, bugles were already sounding officers'call, the barge's crew was standing by to hoist out,sailors were going to quarters, and the ship'sguard, rifle stocks gleaming like fine mahogany,were paraded to honor the new high commission-er, still a bit awkward in the civilian clothes he haddecided he would henceforth wear.

When Russell stepped ashore over the Port-au-Prince wharf, he was greeted by the magistratcommunal (mayor), by a smart honor guard ofGendarmes, and the Port-au-Prince crowd thathad cheered many another new ruler of Haiti.Behind a mounted Gendarmerie escort, the bur-nished Model T touring car clattered officiously uppast the Cathedral where the priests, French to aman, watched impassively, and thence to his newheadquarters in the American legation. Out in thebay, following her gun salute for the high com-missioner (19 guns, six more than he would haverated as a brigadier), North Dakota hoisted inboats and gangways, hove short, and got under-way. Ashore, Russell got down to work.

"The history of our intervention in Haitianaffairs," Secretary of State Charles Evans Hugheshad written in Russell's instructions, "is not viewedwith satisfaction by this Government." It was withthese words before him that the new proconsulissued his first directive.

As previously worked Out in Washington, theU.S. treaty services were reorganized. All corre-spondence to or from the Haitian government orWashington would pass over the high commis-sioner's desk. No policy statement, project of law,or budget item would issue save by Russell's writ.Not surprisingly, the organization and the way itfunctioned would resemble a military staff.

Prestigious as their offices and perquisitiesmight appear—especially in the setting of the

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gleaming new National Palace completed in1918—the president, his ministers, and the coun-cil of state would not enjoy much power, or, ifRussell and the financial adviser had anything tosay, any pelf at all. Behind official pomp, invari-ably and tactfully sustained by the high commis-sioner, stood American officials from Russelldown who, from reverse-slope positions, woulddirect the affairs of Haiti.

Yet there was another dimension. Back in 1920,with Caco leaders Benoit Batraville andCharlemagne barely cold in their graves, thenColonel Russell had issued an order he was toreaffirm as high commissioner, which in abridge-ment reads as follows:

Where the duty of officers and enlistedmen brings them in contact with the HaitianPeople, such duty will he performed with aminimum of harshness . . . and a regard fordecency and human kindness.

No people with any spirit can view thepresence of troops of another nation in anylight than as a heavy blow to their pride.Considerate treatment may soften the blow,but harshness is bound to harden intoresentment that goes to defeat the largerinterests of the intervening nation.

The Haitians are naturally courteous peo-ple and resent, and properly resent, n.ide-ness and discourtesy. One rude act of anyindividual may undo much good work onthe part of many others in the cause forwhich we are here.

/s/ John H. Russell

President Dartiguenave, whose term expired inMay 1922, wanted to succeed himself, but hispresidency was at a dead end. Never truly popu-lar with the country, let alone the elite, he hadalienated the Americans by maneuver, untrustwor-thiness, and obstruction. Yet hope died hard. Aftervainly seeking endorsement from Russell (whorightly said he intended to "preserve an absoluteneutrality"), Dartiguenave declared for the presi-dency in early April.

Public reaction showed rare unanimity. Thepress, Union Patriotique, and virtually everyorganization in Port-au-Prince leveled its guns onDartiguenave (even holding a mass in the

Cathedral for deliverance from his regime). AsDartiguenave's support crumbled, there began aperiod of jockeying (and of private visits, in vainhope, to lobby Russell). Louis Borno, former for-eign minister—with financial propulsion from thewealthy Jamaican-German entrepreneur, 0. J.Brandt—pulled ahead. On the evening of 10April, after Dartiguenave failed to muster supportin the electoral Council of State, Joseph LouisBorrio was elected president.4

On 15 May 1922, for only the second time inHaiti's history since 1804, a constitutional transferof power took place. With full honors, Dartiguen-ave surrendered office and Louis Borno was inau-gurated. The outgoing president's seven-year termequaled the combined incumbencies of his sevenimmediate predecessors.

Onetime editor of La Patrie, poet of distinction,keen botanist, fluent in English and Spanish,lawyer and legal scholar, ardent Catholic, diplo-mat, and thrice foreign minister, Borno at 56 wasa man of the world and of culture. In previouscabinets under Dartiguenave, he had opposed theAmericans.

Borno had, therefore, amply demonstrated thathe was his own man. Then, in the frank collabo-ration he extended to the occupation, he was toevince a pragmatism that would anger his fellowelite and in the end, linked with Russell, result inwhat has been called a two-headed dictatorship.On the day of his inauguration, Borno said he was"confident that earnest efforts and sincere cooper-ation with the Americans will secure to my peo-ple a large measure, if not all, the benefits con-templated in the spirit of the treaty."

It was with this common objective that presi-dent; and high commissioner set to work.

Russell, to he sure, held the high cards. EveryHaitian knew that the high commissioner's viewswere backed by more than pure reason. Behindhim stood the Marine brigade. Yet Borno was notand would never be a figurehead. In the words ofone U.S. treaty official, Arthur Millspaugh, whoknew him well, "There was understanding, friend-ship, and cooperation between Borno andRussell; each was ready to yield at times; and eachneeded the other."

Seven years later, in 1929, R. F. S. Edwards,British minister in Port-au-Prince, assessed the

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occupation: "What has America done for Haiti inthe 14 years since the intervention? Primarily,maintained peace and allowed the peasant towork in safety."

To Edwards, an Englishman inclined to conde-scend toward lesser breeds, little else save overe-laborate public buildings and a few roads hadbeen the result. Viewing Haiti four decades afterthe end of the occupation, one might supposeEdwards had been right.

The facts, however, are otherwise. Financedentirely from efficiently managed Haitian rev-enue—foreign aid was then unknown, anddependencies were expected to pay their ownway—the material achievements of the Borno-Russell years bely the British minister and can besummarized before we come to the politics, theproblems and the shortcomings that occupy theother side of the ledger.

• In 1929, the year of Edward's assessment,Public Works (directed by a few U.S. Navy civilengineer officers, forebears of the Seabees) hadbuilt and were maintaining over a thousand milesof all-weather roads suitable for the 3,000 motorvehicles that had come to Haiti since the first tour-ing car arrived in 1913. There were 210 majorbridges, airfields at ten towns, and auxiliary land-ing fields in many remote places. Many of theseare still in service today.

• In 1920, the lighthouses of Haiti amounted tothree kerosene-burning relics at Port-au-Princeand one at the Cap. Nine years later, the republicboasted 15 automatic acetylene lighthouses, 54buoys, 10 harbor lights, and extensive aids to nav-igation in the modernized smaller ports. At theCap, Gonaives, St. Marc, Jeremie, and Les Cayes,harbors had been dredged. Modern concretedocks had replaced aged, tumbledown timberedwharves, thus enabling tramp freighters to plythese ports. Weekly first-class service for Port-au-Prince on the Panama Line's New York-to-Colonrun had been arranged by Russell. In 1929, PanAmerican clippers from Miami commenced Haiti'sfirst commerical aviation service to seaplaneramps at the foot of downtown Port-au-Prince.

• About 1912, the old French telephone systemand telegraph had sputtered into silence. Tenyears later, Port-au-Prince could take pride in thefirst automatic telephone exchange in any city in

Latin America, soon followed by a second suchsystem at the Cap. By 1929, there were 1,250 milesof telephone long lines connecting 26 localexchanges. The telegraph had been completelyrehabilitated, and national communications werepaying for themselves and showing a profit. (Onone sample day that year, Port-au-Prince logged27,574 local calls.) There were working Streetlights in Port-au-Prince and three other cities. In1927, Haiti's first radio station (HHK) went on theair at Port-au-Prince.

• Ten towns enjoyed potable running waterand 64 villages had clean wells or springs. Port-au-Prince also had pressurized fire mains. Eighty-two miles of new irrigation canals had been dugin the Artihonite Valley. Among a wide range ofagricultural reforms were national forests,mahogany and pine reforestation, and soil conser-vation. Sisal was introduced into Haiti, and for thefirst time in decades, sugar and cotton againbecame significant exports.

• "The U.S. Naval Medical Service stands aloneand far ahead of all American services." Thusly ina rare moment of approbation, British MinisterEdwards wrote in May 1929. Fourteen years earli-er, Haiti had been rotten with hookworm, tuber-culosis, filariasis, leprosy, malignant malaria,enteric diseases, yaws, syphilis, smallpox, andtyphoid. "The whole country," wrote Captain KentC. Melhorn, the able naval Director of PublicHealth, "teemed with filth and disease

The Navy doctors responded by building andoperating 11 modern hospitals and 17 rural ortraveling clinics. In addition, there was the U.S.Naval 1-lospial, Port-au-Prince (later the famousOloffson hotel and setting for Graham Greene'sThe Comedians). In 1929, 1,341,596 treatmentswere conducted, and nearly half the country's 159physicians worked for Public Health. In 1926, thegovernment allowed the occupation to take overand reorganize the National Medical School,which, with a hospital corps and dispensers'school, for the first time enabled Haiti to producedoctors and technicians with modern professionalqualifications.5

• None of these achievements could have beenaccomplished without the public order that theGendarmerie, hacked by the Marines, hadbrought about by 1920. With Marines entirely

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withdrawn to Port-au-Prince (except for a detach-ment at the Cap), the Gendarmerie (in 1928renamed "Garde d'Haiti") efficiently pursued itsnation-building tasks: police, fire, prisons, customsand immigration, emergency communications,lighthouse service, rural medicine, and communaladvisership. Military marksmanship, a joke in pre-occupation times, was raised to professional stan-dards—an achievement dramatically underscored,to great national pride, when a Haitian rifle teamcompeting in the Olympics for the first time in1924 tied France for second place, outclassed onlyby an American team composed largely ofMarines.6

• The most far-reaching and controversial U.S.program was that of the Agricultural Extensionand Teaching Service (usually referred to as the"Service Technique"). Its functions, as stated inGeneral Russell's 1924 report, were:

higher agricultural education for thetraining of experts, teachers, and advisers;rural farm schools . . . advice to adult farm-ers. . . direct aid through clinics and demon-strations . . . experiments in all phases ofagricultural activity . . . and vocational;industrial education.

In more general terms, the goal the ServiceTechnique set itself was creation among the peas-ants of a class of black yeomanry, obviously amatter of extreme social sensitivity for the largelymulatre elite. Leaving, however, the resulting con-troversy for later, it is enough to recite undeniableachievements: agricultural experimental stations, acattle-breeding station at Hinche, the school ofagriculture at Damien, demonstration farms andextension services, Plantation Dauphin at Ft.

Liberte (eventually the world's largest sisalacreage), reintroduction of tobacco as a moneycrop, nationwide soil and resource surveys, andveterinary clinics which healed more than 100,000sick beasts. That so many good intentions and, forthat matter, good works should have ignited suchhostility, so deepened divisions, and, in the end,left so little behind was not least among thetragedies of intervention—and of Haiti.

The Borno-Russell regime had accomplishedmuch since 1922, but progress had been uneven.New problems had arisen, old ones went

unsolved, and original promises (and premises) ofoccupation remained unfulfilled.

Many hopes had stemmed from the belief thatHaiti held hidden resources that U.S. capital mightquickly exploit. The truth, as disclosed by geolog-ical surveys, was that Haiti had little or nothingsave bauxite at Miragoane and marginal copperdeposits near Port-a-Piment. As it was in thebeginning, agriculture was the country's onlyresource. Yet plantation agriculture, based onlarge-scale foreign land acquisition, would out-rage national feelings. Peasants, for example,forcibly resisted occupation projects to conduct aland-ownership survey bound to threaten tinyfreeholds. In 1926, after Marine aviators complet-ed air-photo coverage for such a survey, thebuilding housing the negatives was burned down.

While U.S. investment in Haiti waxed almostfourfold, from $4 million in 1913 to over $14 mil-lion in 1930, it nonetheless mounted far faster inneighboring unoccupied countries during thesame time, which in cause or effect refutes dollar-diplomacy theories as to American intervention.

Borno and Russell experienced common andcontinuing difficulties with the press. Edited in thepolemic tradition of France, Haitian journals hadonly secondary regard for dissemination of newsand none at all for truth. Enjoying freedom andsecurity unknown before the Marines arrived, theydelighted in attacking the U.S. occupation withirresponsibility and scurrility licensed by Haitiancourts that refused to convict an editor. InDecember 1923, the State Department's astuteDana Munroe (later to be U.S. minister to Haiti)commented:

The fundamental difficulty is that Haitianscannot enjoy freedom of speech and of thepress without outrageous abuse, and anyattempt to punish editors or politicians .

gives rise to the charge that the Americanoccupation is throttling the press in Haiti.7

One of the occupation's most serious mis-takes—mistake of ignorance—was to permit theGarde (and thus by implication the Americanauthorities) to be used in ill-advised attempts tostamp Out Voodoo. Yet who could blame newlyarrived foreigners for enforcing a penal code writ-ten by elite Haitians, which proscribed sorcery as

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a crime and recognized zombi-ism as a phenom-enon.

President Borno was deeply anti-Voodoo. Theelite, with whom U.S. officials and senior Marineshad most contact, further confused the Americanswith traditional condescending attitudes, givingthe impression (whatever their inward beliefs) thatVoodoo was superstitious rubbish capable ofcausing trouble among the peasants. It is a meas-ure of the occupation's lost opportunities that noevidence can be found that senior U.S. officialsever seriously comprehended Voodoo in itsimpressive totality as Haiti's national religion.

Thus we find the Garde arresting and prosecut-ing Haitians for such "crimes" as preparing conse-crated meals to win the good will of Voodoo ba(gods) or conducting various Voodoo services. ToAmerican officers of the Garde, it seemed onlythat they were enforcing anti-Voodoo provisionsof the penal code. Among the Garde's Haitian offi-cers, there was comprehension and tolerance, asindeed there was on the part of individualAmericans such as the widely publicizedLieutenant Faustin Wirkus of La Gonave.

In social relations with Haiti, the occupationmirrored colonial attitudes of the day: paternaltoward the masses and aloof and condescendingtoward the elite, who cordially reciprocated. As ifHaiti were West Africa or British India, theAmericans had their club, which no Haitianentered except as a servant. On the other hand,from 1918 on (as a direct consequence of SmedleyButler's tactlessness), no U.S. officer was admittedto the elite Cercle Bellevue.8 Some of this distancehas been blamed, no doubt correctly, on U.S.racial attitudes, and particularly those of the wivesof the lower-ranking among the 250 civilian treatyofficials and less numerous NCOs who served asjunior officers in the Garde.

British Minister Edwards, never at a loss whereAmerican failings were concerned, mused in 1929:"I do hate to see one's own colour and racebehaving in a way that brings discredit to thewhole white race. What respect can an educatedHaitian have for a race that allows its women toget so drunk that they have to be taken home inthe bottom of the car? And all that before nativeservants

Only six months later, Edwards rendered his

final verdict: "The American in Hayti [sici hasshown himself quite unqualified to colonize."

A recurring theme in Minister Edwards's reportswas typically stated in April 1927: "The U.S.Government has sent about 75 percentSoutherners to Hayti [sic] as they are supposed toknow how to handle coloured people."

The charge was not new. It seems to haveappeared, not in Haiti, but in the October 1920New York Times piece about Harry Franck whohad laced his book, as we have seen, with sensa-tional charges against the Marines. How Francksubstantiated this assertion, or where he found it,is unknown. Unlike other charges, it does notseem to have sprung from the fertile imaginationof the "Cacos de Plume" because it never appearsin the 1921 Union Patriotique memorials to theU.S. Senate, where every possible stop was pulledout. Nor was it ever raised throughout the year-long McCormick Committee investigation.

Regardless of origin, this accusation eventuallycaught on. Because it was repeated widely by for-eign and later by Haitian writers, it should besquarely addressed.

Following first enunciation by Franck, thecharge that the Marines deliberately exportedAmerican racial prejudices to Haiti was echoed in1927 by sociologist Emily Balch and future MarinePaul Douglas. In 1941, the sociologist Leyburn(who later admitted he could not substantiate theassertion) repeated the accusation as fact in hisauthoritative Haitian People. Only to cite furtherexamples, historian Selden Rodman reinforcedLeyburn. Two years later, in still another book,Edmund Wilson did the same. In 1954, Timerepeated the charge as fact.

Curiously, however, no Haitian source through-out the entire range of antioccupation literatureever raised the issue. In fact, it was not until 1950,long years after the Marines departed, thatDanache, one of the most anti-American Haitianwriters, briefly alluded to the charge. Six yearslater, a second Haitian historian, Hogar Nicolas,gave it as fact.

How can we assess these unpleasant charges?Originated and propagated by non-Haitian

civilians otherwise critical of the occupation andunfriendly to the American military, the accusationwas never raised by any Haitian during the occu-

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pation or, for that matter, until long after Americanwriters accepted and repeated it. Most significant-ly, no instance can be found early or late in whichany person advancing this thesis substantiated it,or even tried to do so.

Now what were the facts?This was the question raised in 1964 by a skep-

tical history student at Wellesley, Ann Hurst, whoin a term paper, asked and answered the ques-tion: "Southerners to Handle Haitians?"9

Analyzing by name against U.S. Census datathe record of every Marine officer on duty in Haitifrom 1916 to 1932, Hurst found (1) that the pro-portion of southern-born officers in the Corps asa whole was lower than the percentage of south-erners in the national population, and (2) that in13 of the 19 years of occupation, the percentageof southern Marine officers in Haiti was below thepercentage of southern officers in the Corps.Interestingly, according to Hurst, 1927, when theaccusations seemed to peak, was one of six ran-dom years in which southern officers in Haiti didexceed the Corps-wide percentage, which, how-ever, still fell below that in the U.S. population.

Critics have demurred that Hurst covered offi-cers only and did not consider Marine NCOsbreveted to junior ranks in the Garde. But partialdata on such cases confirm Hurst. In 1930, forexample—one year when complete statistics cov-ering the Garde were compiled—only 24 of 116officers (including ex-NCOs), or 20.6 percent,were southern at a time when 23.4 percent of allAmericans were southern-born.

To nail down Hurst's findings, no other student(including the authors during a lifetime in theCorps) has found any trace in record or recollec-tion that any such policy ever existed.

By 1927, the occupation seemed well estab-lished. Haiti was pacified. Its financial and eco-nomic affairs were, on the whole, doing well.General modernization was afoot. In social mat-ters—education, incorrigibly corrupt courts andjudiciary, and continued elite resentment andresistance toward the Americans—progress hadbeen poor. It was ironic that the very interests,aspirations, and injuries which sparked theadamant resistance of the elite to the moderniza-tion of their country were, at the same time, whol-ly adverse to, and bound to estrange them—as if

they cared—from the mass of their downtroddenpeasant countrymen. This contradiction has neverbeen resolved.

As for the Marines, after 1920 they had settledinto routine garrisons at Port-au-Prince and theCap, keeping a low profile and leaving the tasksof public order and nation-building to a Marine-directed Garde and treaty administration. This hadbeen General Russell's policy from the outset, acourse encouraged by a perennially nervousWashington. Of the Marines, the American chargéd'affaires, Christian Gross, aptly remarked in 1927,"So long as they are here, there is no need fortheir being here."

Notes

1. Joseph Jolibois, a leader of the Union and one ofHaiti's most vociferous journalists (and post-occupationpresident of the Chamber of Deputies), had, for exam-ple, a long police pedigree richly spiced with civil andcriminal charges, including assaults and the attemptedmurder of his sister-in-law. Exiled to Argentina in 1928,he was detained in an asylum, and after return to Haiti,died mad at Pont Beudet, Haiti's national lunatic asy-lum. The year before he died, he asserted in print thatthe sun was composed of geometric blocks of ice shin-ing by reflected light and was inhabited by a species ofbeings resembling Laplanders.2. The Port-au-Prince pompiers (firemen), with their 12buglers, leaky two-mule Belgian Steamers, and mem-bers who went home to shift into uniform beforeresponding to a fire, originally stayed Out of control ofthe occupation's Haitian Gendarmerie. In the wake ofserious fires beginning in September 1918 (and coincid-ing closely with the fortunes of the Caco Rebellion), anexperienced U.S. fireman was brought down as anadviser, but the pompiers would have none of him. The1921 conflagrations persuaded President Dartiguenaveto assign fire service to the Gendarmes, and eventuallythe pompiers ended up with two gasoline pumpers,four motorized steamers, two hose companies, and achemical rig. Characteristically, when the first workingfire to occur under the new regime was knocked downin minutes, the press said the American fire chief hadset it in order to show off.3. On 13 April 1919, British troops opened fire withrifles and machine guns on political demonstrators in apark in Amritsar, killing at least 400 and woundingsome 1,200 more. This tragedy, exactly contemporane-

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ous with the alleged "indiscriminate killing" at Hinche-Maissade, did not inhibit members of Parliament fromrunning on about U.S. actions in Haiti in 1920.4. It has been frequently charged that the Americanssimply replaced Dartiguenave with Borno. Other thanunsupported statements to this effect, no evidence hasbeen found to justify the conclusion. On the knownrecord, the forces that put Borno in office were notAmerican, but rather Borno's political astuteness and 0.J. Brandt's purse.5. One product of this program, a 27-year-old Port-au-Prince student, graduated in the last American-super-vised class in 1934. His name was Francois Duvalier.6. When for four years, a Marine military missionreturned to Haiti in 1959, one of its first steps was toreintroduce national rifle matches and internationalcompetition. In the Inter-American Rifle Matches of1959 and 1960 held at Panama, Haitian teams each timedefeated every country in Latin America, being onlynarrowly outpointed by U.S. teams sent down from theArmy's advanced marksmanship unit at Fort Benning.After the Haitian team's triumphant second win,President Duvalier characteristically responded by with-drawing Haiti from international competition and dis-banded the team, never to shoot again.7. Visiting reporters to Haiti were told (and naivelybelieved)—an outcry the U.S. and British press quicklytook up—that Haitian editors "were being denied theright of habeas corpus," a process, of course, unknownto the Code Napoleon and thus unheard of in Haiti.8. Not until 1960 was a U.S. Marine officer (one of theauthors) elected to membership in this most exclusiveHaitian club.9. Ann Hurst will be recognized by many Gazette read-ers as the daughter of Brigadier General E. H. Hurst,USMC (Ret.) and now wife of Lieutenant Colonel MyronHarrington.

About the AuthorsRobert Debs HeinlJr. and Nancy Gordon Heinl lived in Haiti from 1959

to 1963, where Robert was Chief of the U.S. Naval Mission to Haiti until he

was declared persona non grata by François Duvaliet He retired from the

Marines as a colonel in 1964. Robert Hem! had already published several

works of history before he retired, including World War II battle studies for

the USMC History Division and Soldiers of the Sea. The United StatesMarine Corps, 1775-1962 (1962). Upon retirement, he became a syndi-

cated newspaper columnist and worked with his wife Nancy, an independ-

ent writer and journalist, on their major work, Written in Blood: TheStory of the Haitian People, 1492-1971 (1978), from which the article

presented here was excerpted and condensed. Their son Michael has sub-

sequently published revised and updated editions of Written in Blood in1996 and 2005.