Bandit-Catcher

Tattered bandits sneaked down across the Pis-Pis river and with a whoop fell upon the Laluz gold mine. The time: last April. The place: northeastern Nicaragua.

They blew up the mine, wrecked its extraction mill, destroyed the nearby Bonanza mine, captured George Marshall of New York, carried him away, turned him loose in the jungle to die wretchedly of malaria.

The leader of these raids was Manuel Maria Jiron, onetime chief assassin for the late President Manuel E. Cabrera of Guatemala, and more lately a "general" in the guerilla army of Augusto Calderon Sandino, Nicaragua's brigand-patriot.*

Last week "General" Jiron was captured by the U. S. Marine Corps' most potent bandit-catcher--1st Lieut. Herman Henry Hanneken, a blocky, clean-faced young native of St. Louis, Mo. Lieutenant Hanneken had arrived in Nicaragua just after Christmas, detailed to the nth Regiment in the Department of Jinotega. There coffee planters told terrifying tales of Jiron and his raids. Hanneken went out into the wilds and, in his own mysterious way, returned with Jiron, handed him over to the Nicaraguan officials.

Hanneken caught (and killed) his first big bandit on Hallowe'en, 1919. It was in the mountainous Capois region of Haiti. Charlemagne Peralte was the name of a blackamoor chief who was leading 700 rowdy followers to sack Grande Riviere. Hanneken, then a sergeant, took a force of 21 men through the witching night. They rushed the camp, killed Charlemagne and nine of his ruffians, escaped to cover. The feat broke the backbone of Haitian banditry. Hanneken got the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Six months later--on All Fool's Eve--Bandit-catcher Hanneken annihilated Osiris Joseph, another Haitian outlaw, and his retinue. For this Hanneken won the Navy Cross.

*In 1920 President Cabrera sent Assassin Jiron to the U. S. on a secret mission. His instructions included going to Mt. Vernon and piously laying a wreath on George Washington's Tomb.