Combat· Banana Wars
Sandino Campaign
The grouping of the long guerrilla war in northern Nicaragua, the hardest and most prolonged of the Corps' small wars.
After a renewed American intervention in 1927, the rebel leader Augusto Sandino refused to lay down arms and took to the wild mountains of the north, beginning a guerrilla struggle that the Marines and the Nicaraguan Guardia they led would wage for six years. The campaign opened at Ocotal, where dive bombing made its combat debut, and ran through a long series of patrols, ambushes, and skirmishes across the rugged frontier, La Paz Centro, Telpaneca, Quilalí, Bromaderos, the Coco River patrols, and many more, against an enemy who would not stand and fight. It produced famous names and pioneering tactics in aviation and riverine warfare, but no decisive victory; Sandino was never caught. The Marines withdrew in 1933, leaving the Guardia and its commander, Somoza, behind.
Podcast episodes on Banana Wars
Record no. 502