Battle of Ocotal
The Battle of Ocotal ( Spanish : Batalla de Ocotal , English : Battle of Ocotal ) took place on July 16, 1927 in Ocotal / Nicaragua in the context of the US military intervention in Nicaragua 1926–1933 between the rebel army of the rebel liberal General Augusto César Sandino on the one hand and the US Marine Corps and the Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua on the other hand. It was one of the first skirmishes in which air forces were used to counterinsurgency ; allegedly it was the first dive bomber attack in air war history.
Sandino's attack on the Ocotal garrison
At the time, Ocotal was the main town in the Nueva Segovia department and had a population of around 2000. In the village there was a garrison made up of members of the Marine Corps and the National Guard, which had only recently been considerably strengthened, and each with a good 40 men, were housed in the Casa de Ayuntamiento and in a fort . Both units were commanded by Captain USMC Gilbert D. Hatfield, who had created a runway at the western end of Ocotals to maintain a flight connection with the capital Managua .
The attack on Ocotal was the first combat action by Sandino's rebel army against the Marines and National Guard. Although Sandino also had dynamite that he had stolen from the San Alberto mine , his troops, which consisted of 60 veterans of the last civil war and a good 300 volunteers (referred to as Indios by the marine infantry ), were poorly equipped and barely trained . Allegedly the rebel army also had two or three machine guns , but these were probably just Thompson machine guns .
Sandino's attack on the city began at 1:15 a.m. on July 16, 1927. The place itself was easy to take, but the Marines and National Guards holed up in their quarters. Hatfield's forces were well prepared, adequately armed and ammunitioned. Three senseless frontal attacks by the rebels under General Rufo Marín on the garrison positions failed; Marín himself and dozens of the attackers fell.
After Hatfield had refused negotiations with Sandino around 8:00 am, there was no new attack, but a violent exchange of fire. At 10:00 am, two Marines aircraft, which were on a routine reconnaissance flight from Managua, appeared over the runway at Ocotal. As the abandoned landing field seemed suspicious to them, they made a sightseeing flight and discovered signals in the garrison of Hatfield, from which the pilots concluded that the accommodations were being besieged by Sandino's troops. Thereupon Lieutenant Boyden landed on the landing field while his wingman , Warrant Officer Michael Wodarczyk (* 1890 ?, † 1957), gave him cover from the air. Boyden was informed of the military situation by the government to loyal residents of Ocotal.
The air raid on Sandino's positions
Both pilots immediately flew back to Managua. In the foreseeable future because no soil reinforcements were expected for Hatfield, decided Major USMC Ross E. Rowell (1884-1947), commander of the airmen armed forces of the Marine Corps in Nicaragua, despite very poor weather conditions for immediate use his five Airco DH4 - biplane . Each machine was equipped with four 25 kg bombs and the on-board machine guns were ammunitioned.
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Despite heavy rain showers, the double-deckers reached Ocotal around 2 p.m. and attacked Sandino's positions at an altitude of 100 m. The rebels were in no way prepared for an air strike and panicked. Nevertheless, the bombers came under fire; Major Rowell's machine alone reportedly had 45 bullets.
The attack led to Sandino's immediate retreat. According to US information, the Sandinista suffered a good 300 casualties, while the Marine Corps recorded only one casualty and the National Guard recorded four abductees, whose fate remained unknown.
consequences
Today, the deployment of the five bombers is interpreted as the first dive attack in flight history:
" The timely arrival of the aircraft probably saved the Ocotal garrison, but the dive-bombing technique portended a frighteningly modern quality in the Nicaraguan. "
However, the expected shock effect on Sandino and his rebel army did not materialize:
“ The outcome of the battle showed that conventional warfare against the North Americans, especially the use of larger troop units, had no chance in open combat. It took a long learning process to develop the special elements of the guerrilla war that gave the resistance a chance of survival: the tactics of ambushes , the surprise attack with selective superiority and the mobility of small units. "
According to Niess, the battle was described by US President Calvin Coolidge as a "heroic action" , whereas by the former governor of Illinois , Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne , it was called " slaughter ", since women and children were apparently also victims of the bombing.
Movie
In the feature film Sandino , the battle of Ocotal was re-enacted with great effort.
literature
- Sergio Ramírez : Viva Sandino! Life and death of the first Latin American guerrilla leader. 3. Edition. Peter Hammer Verlag, Wuppertal 1984, ISBN 3-87294-077-5 .
- Ivan Musicant: The Banana Wars. A History of the United States Military Intervention in Latin America from the Spanish-American War to the Invasion of Panama. New York 1990, ISBN 0-258-82210-4 .
- Richard Millett: Guardianes de la dinastia. Historia de la Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua creada por los Estados Unidos, y de la Familia Somoza. Educa, San José / Costa Rica 1979.
- Volker Wünderich: Sandino. A political biography. Peter Hammer Verlag, Wuppertal 1995, ISBN 3-87294-696-X .
- Frank Niess: The legacy of the Conquista. History of Nicaragua. Pahl-Rugenstein, Cologne 1987, ISBN 3-7609-1058-0 .
- Lester D. Langley: The Banana Wars. United States Intervention in the Caribbean, 1898-1934. Univ. Press of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 1983. (Reprint 2002, ISBN 0-8420-5047-7 )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Frank Niess: The legacy of the Conquista. History of Nicaragua. 1987, p. 243.