Ambush

One hot damp morning last week, ten U. S. Marines with a roll of telephone wire rode on mule-back along a narrow road under the shadow "of towering, jungle-clad mountains near the Honduras border. Their job was to repair a telephone wire that somebody had cut during the night, their only thought was to finish the job and get back to barracks before lunch. Near a straggling corn patch they found the broken end of the wire drooping from a pole. Though this was the most dangerous district in Nicaragua, the Marines had had no serious trouble for months. The party did not bother to send out patrols. One private shinnied up the pole with a pair of pliers in his teeth, others stretched new wire along the ground. Sergeant Arthur M. Palrang, in the manner of sergeants directing operations, sat on his mule.

From the underbrush on four sides came a crackle of rifle fire. The man on the pole fell to the ground dead. The Marines deployed, firing whenever a head or a shoulder showed. For two and a half hours the battle kept up. It was a quiet fight. Nicaraguan guerillas dare not waste cartridges. There were long, heartbreak ing silences. Whenever the ambushers shot they made sure of their marks.

With half the Marine patrol dead, Sergeant Palrang ordered Private Mack Hutcherson to crawl back, try to get reinforcements. He never got through -- two bullets laid him out with a shattered arm.

About noon a frightened Nicaraguan farmer arrived at Marine headquarters at Ocotal babbling that a massacre was taking place. While he talked a mule belonging to one of the wiring party galloped riderless down the village street. A rescue party was rushed to the scene. Of the ten Marines, only two were living. The dead men had been hacked .to pieces with machetes, their rifles, shirts and shoes stolen. Eleven dead Nicaraguans were sprawled nearby.

Same day a band of 100 Nicaraguan insurgents twice attempted to raid the Guardia Nacional barracks at Quilali, were beaten off. Three days later a Marine patrol under Captain Ernest L. Russell, scouting for the band that had wiped out the repair crew, fought off an ambush of 150 outlaws, but not before two Marines had been wounded.

The death of eight Marines brought plenty of repercussion in Washington. Democratic Senator King of Utah announced that he would introduce a resolution immediately demanding the withdrawal of U. S. troops from Nicaragua.

"We have been in the habit of intervening too much in foreign lands," cried he, "It is bound to provoke and has provoked resentments and feelings of ill will on the part of the Latin Americans."

Added Senator Borah: "I am of the opinion as I always have been, that we ought not to be in there."

The Women's International League for Peace & Freedom sent an open letter to President Hoover: "The unfortunate death of these . . . human beings is the result of a United States policy which we believe 'is neither intelligent nor ethical. May we, therefore, respectfully inquire if the time has not now come to carry out the delayed pledge of two administrations by setting a definite date for the withdrawal of troops from Nicaragua?. . ."

Irving August Lindberg (not to be confused with & no relation), who owes his post as Collector General of Customs and High Commissioner of Nicaragua entirely to presence of Marines in that country, could see no cause for worry. Said he last week sailing from New York to resume his duties:

"The attack on the Marines appears to have been a sporadic affair, almost an accident. . . . The 1,200 Marines who are still in Nicaragua have done no fighting for almost a year."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.