Perhaps the most notable use of the BAR during that period was in the hands of Marine Cpl. William R. Button, who was serving with a detachment of Haitian Garde d’Haiti as a lieutenant. In a story that would be considered as unbelievable were it to be seen today in movie theaters, Button, his commanding officer, Marine Sgt. Herman Hanneken (Captain, Garde d’Haiti) and 10 native gendarmes, bluffed their way into the camp of the bandit chief, Charlemagne Peralta, during a battle that the two Marines had orchestrated in order to draw Peralta out of hiding. When Peralta chose to avoid the battlefield and stay behind in camp while the fighting raged a few miles away, this small group successfully passed through several Caco outposts, disguised in part by the Marines’ faces and hands being covered in burnt cork. Button even evaded a comment about his BAR from one of the Cacos, and responded to the question in the local patois, a mixture of French and African Creole. Upon reaching the Caco camp, Hanneken quickly dispatched Peralta with his pistol, while Button, assisted by the loyal gendarmes, kept the Cacos at bay throughout the night with accurate and heavy BAR and rifle fire, thus preventing the bandits from reclaiming their chief’s body.

In spite of the BARs effectiveness, the most immediate solution to the ambush problem in what became known as the “Second Nicaraguan Campaign” was the Thompson submachine gun. Developed during World War I as a “trench broom” by a retired Army Ordnance officer, Brig. Gen. John Taliaferro Thompson, the “Tommy Gun” fired the standard .45 ACP pistol cartridge from either a 50-round drum or a 20-round “stick” magazine. Marines were well acquainted with the new gun by that time as they were using it to guard the U.S. Mail in 1926, shortly before shipping out to Nicaragua and China with Thompsons in 1927. Marine Gen. Richard M. Cutts had designed its familiar muzzle brake—the “Cutts Compensator.” Moreover, Marines had been testing and evaluating the submachine gun and its early 100-round magazine at Quantico in the early 1920s. The Thompson gun proved to be an invaluable asset in the Nicaraguan jungle, and was usually carried by a non-commissioned officer at the “point” of a Marine patrol or a combined force of Marines and native constabulary.

Although the Thompson submachine gun was often employed by Marine patrols throughout northern Nicaragua, perhaps its most constant use in that country was with Company M of the Nicaraguan Guardia. The officer commanding Company M was none other than “Chesty” Puller, arguably one of the most well-known Marines of all time, who was ably assisted by his second in command, “Ironman” Lee. Company M (for “Mobile”) had been formed to take the fight directly to the rebels by means of continual and aggressive patrolling, and, with most of the command being native Indians from northern Nicaragua, they succeeded. While the standard shoulder arm for all of the native constabularies was the .30 Army Krag rifle, several of Company M’s men were issued Thompson submachine guns, as well as BARs, M1903 Springfield rifles equipped with rifle grenades and, as recounted earlier, Lewis guns. Although Puller apparently preferred the BAR to the Thompson, both were used to great effect in the scores of fighting contacts that Company M had with the Sandinistas.

Accounts of Marine patrols also often refer to Thompson guns and their effectiveness. Conversely, whenever the Sandinistas captured American or Guardia weapons, especially automatics, they also put them to good use. Author Ivan Musicant tells one such story in his book, The Banana Wars, about a Marine patrol commanded by Capt. Robert Hunter that ran into a Sandinista ambush: “Within minutes a heavy volume of rifle and automatic fire from at least 100 guerillas in the ravine and atop a hill to the left front opened on the point … . A corporal fell dead. The navy hospital corpsman picked up the dead man’s Thompson submachine gun, but being unfamiliar with the piece, could not fire. Hunter grabbed the gun. On his way back to the crest, Hunter stopped and in a standing position, fired into the bandits and felled two of them, but in turn was shot in the chest by a bandit Thompson at a range of 50 yards.”

Patrolling through the Nicaraguan jungles by foot or by horseback was not the kind of war in which heavy water-cooled machine guns could readily be deployed. However, there were instances in which M1917 Browning machine guns played a significant role. During the epic defense of the Nicaraguan town of Ocotal, the commanding officer, Capt. Gilbert Hatfield, directed the gunners firing the detachment’s lone heavy Browning at the attacking rebels. Although known primarily for the orchestrated dive-bombing attack that lifted the siege, Ocotal was a fierce battle on the ground, and the work of the lone Browning gun was recognized as being one of the contributing factors to the success of the Marines and Guardia. Later, when several Marine columns were closing in on the bandits’ main defensive position, El Chipote, there were several clashes in which the Marines brought Vivien-Bessieres rifle grenades, Stokes mortars, and even a 37 mm anti-tank gun into action in addition to heavy Browning machine guns.

With all of that firepower and weaponry, however, it was the courage and dedication of the Marines and their native allies that determined the final outcome in the hundreds of small actions throughout the Banana Wars. The lessons learned from fighting in an arena of tropical disease, while suffering horrendous heat and humidity, subsisting on scant rations, and being in near-constant action paid great dividends for the Marines of World War II during their drive across the Pacific.

The author thanks the staff of the Marine Corps History Division, the National Museum of the Marine Corps, and the Marine Corps Archives for their wholehearted and enthusiastic assistance in the preparation of this article.