He’s a senior NCO in the Delta Force. SGM Payne enlisted in 2002, serving as a sniper in the 75th Ranger Regiment until 2007, when he joined the Delta Force.
(SGM Payne in Afghanistan)
In 2015, then-SFC Payne’s unit was deployed to Iraq to help combat ISIS. His unit advised and trained the newly formed Kurdish Counter Terrorist Group. One day, fresh graves are seen outside of a known ISIS prison. The joint team is given the green light.
Payne’s team arrives with the CTG at night time. Upon arrival, they’re hit with volleys of gunfire. The Kurds not having conducted any operations before, are nervous and don’t move forward. The Deltas lead the way, giving their friends courage to press forward. Master Sergeant Joshua Wheeler is killed leading his comrades into battle.
Meanwhile, SFC Payne and his team press into the building. They reach a bolted door that holds in the Iraqi hostages. The team attempts to break it, but there is too much fire coming their way. Payne braves the fire and breaks the bolt. The joint team then starts getting all of the hostages out. As the firefight continues, ISIS terrorists start setting off bomb vests, causing fires which cripple the building’s stability. After securing multiple hostages, they move outside.
(Then-SFC Payne, left or center)
However, plenty of hostages are left. SFC Payne keeps moving back inside to make sure no man is left behind. By doing so, he is risking getting crushed or burnt to death. At one point, a tired hostage believes he is going to die in the fire and can no longer walk to the outside. Payne helps him up and gets him outside.
Overall, due to then-SFC Payne’s actions, over 75 Iraqis are rescued. At first, he is awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the second highest American military award. However, on September 11, 2020, SGM Payne was awarded the Medal of Honor, the highest military award in the US.
A 30-year Army veteran who was the longest continuously serving Ranger in Vietnam and one of the war’s most decorated enlisted soldiers died. Patrick Gavin Tadina served in Vietnam for over five years straight between 1965 and 1970, leading long-range reconnaissance patrols deep into enemy territory – often dressed in black pajamas and sandals and carrying an AK-47.
The retired Command Sergeant Major Patrick Gavin Tadina died May 29, 2020, in North Carolina. He was 77.
“Early this morning, my Dad … took his last breaths and went to be with all the Rangers before him,” his daughter Catherine Poeschl said on Facebook. “I know they are all there waiting for him.”
He is survived by his wife, two sisters, two daughters, four sons, six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren, the family, said in a brief online obituary. A funeral had not yet been scheduled.
After the second Rambo movie release, Patrick Gavin Tadina was profiled in Stars and Stripes, where he was contrasted with Sylvester Stallone‘s beefy – often shirtless – portrayal of a Vietnam combat veteran.
Patrick Gavin Tadina in the Vietnam War
“The real thing comes in a smaller, less glossy package,” wrote reporter Don Tate in December 1985. “Tadina stands just over 5-feet-5and swells all the way up to 130 pounds after a big meal.” His small stature and dark complexion helped him pass for a Viet Cong soldier on patrols deep into the Central Highlands, during which he preferred to be in the point position. His citations describe him walking to within feet of enemies he knew to be lying in wait for him and leading a pursuing enemy patrol into an ambush set by his team.
A 1995 inductee into the Ranger Hall of Fame, he served with “extreme valor,” never losing a man during his years as a team leader in Vietnam, a hall of fame profile at Fort Benning said.
Some 200 men had served under him without “so much as a scratch,” said a newspaper clipping his daughter shared, published while Tadina was serving at Landing Zone English in Vietnam’s Binh Dinh province, likely in 1969.
Tadina himself was shot three times, and his only brother was also killed in combat in Vietnam, Stars and Stripes later reported.
The last time he was shot was during an enemy ambush in which he earned his second Silver Star, and the wounds nearly forced him to be evacuated from the country, the LZ English story said.
As the point man, Tadina was already inside the kill zone when he sensed something was wrong, but the enemy did not fire on him, apparently confused about who he was, the article stated. After spotting the enemy, Tadina opened fire and called out the ambush to his teammates before falling to the ground and being shot in both calves.
He refused medical aid and continued to command until the enemy retreated, stated another clipping, quoting from his Silver Star citation.
“When you’re out there in the deep stuff, there’s an unspoken understanding,” he told Tate in 1985. “It’s caring about troops.”
He was not one to boast of his experiences, his daughter said in a phone interview Monday.
After retiring from the Army in 1992, he continued working security jobs until 2013, Poeschl said, including stints in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
In recent years, he’d been struggling with dementia and other ailments, she said, and he often believed he was back in the Army with his buddies.
He always seemed most at home with his “Ranger family,” his daughter said. She was trying to get word of his death to as many as she could.
“He was my dad, but he belonged to so many other people,” she said.
Soldier, statesman, Medal of Honor recipient, hero, and spy, “Wild Bill” Donovan was one of American history’s most remarkable characters.
Some folks are simply charmed. Their trajectory through life just flies a bit higher than that of the rest of us. Winston Churchill was just such a man. An accomplished writer, painter, soldier, and politician, Old Winston was the archetypal Renaissance Man. Over on our side of the pond, “Wild Bill” Donovan was a similar archetype.
Joseph Donovan briefly considered the clergy but ultimately felt he lacked the character for it.
Joseph Donovan was born in 1883, the son of Irish-American immigrants. The family name was originally O’Donovan but got anglicized when Joe’s dad settled in Buffalo, New York. Early on Donovan aspired to the Catholic priesthood before deciding “he wasn’t good enough to be a priest.” Instead, he attended Columbia University where he was voted both “Most Modest” and “Handsomest” out of his graduating class of 1905.
Donovan’s friendship with his law school chum Franklin Roosevelt helped drive his extraordinary career.
Donovan later attended Columbia Law School. He was a classmate of a young Franklin D. Roosevelt. His friendship with FDR would shape the rest of his professional career.
Donovan’s first taste of war was during the Punitive Expedition against Pancho Villa.
Joseph Donovan joined a respected Buffalo law firm and was commissioned into the New York National Guard as a Cavalry officer. In 1914 he married a New York heiress whose family connections immediately transformed him into American aristocracy. Donovan took acting classes under the esteemed stage star Eleanor Robson and went to war against Pancho Villa in 1916. Upon his return from the Punitive Expedition, Donovan was posted to the 42d Rainbow Division alongside Douglas MacArthur.
The acclaimed poet Joyce Kilmer, shown here in his WW1 mufti, was one of Donovan’s soldiers.
While fighting the Germans in France during World War 1, Joseph Donovan caught a load of shrapnel in one leg and was nearly blinded by mustard gas. He subsequently led an assault during the Aisne-Marne Campaign that ultimately cost hundreds of his comrades. Among the fallen was his acting adjutant, the esteemed poet Joyce Kilmer.
Wild Bill Donovan cut an undeniably dashing figure.
In combat, Donovan developed a reputation for being unstoppable, a man of limitless endurance. This led the troops under his command to refer to him as “Wild Bill.” While he publicly professed annoyance at the nickname, his wife later said that she “knew deep down that he loved it.”
Donovan honed his craft in the fetid trenches of the First World War.
As commander of the 165th Infantry Regiment Joseph Donovan led from the front, his rank insignia and medals plainly displayed. In encouraging his troops prior to a critical assault he said, “They can’t hit me and they won’t hit you.” He was nonetheless subsequently shot through the knee yet refused evacuation until all American forces including friendly tanks had been forced back by concentrated German fire.
Wild Bill Donovan, shown here receiving the Legion of Merit from a French General, was an exceptionally capable soldier.
For his remarkable combat performance, Donovan ultimately earned the Medal of Honor. He initially refused the award, stating that it belonged “to the boys who are not here, the boys who are resting under the white crosses in France or in the cemeteries of New York, also to the boys who were lucky enough to come through.” Before his military service was complete Donovan also took home the Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal, the Silver Star, the Purple Heart with two Oak Leaf Clusters, the National Security Medal, and some two dozen other combat awards.
Adolf Hitler loathed Wild Bill Donovan. He must have been doing something right.
Donovan spent the interwar years in private law practice as well as working for the US Justice Department. Along the way, he traveled the world gathering critical intelligence on world powers in Europe and Asia. He met Mussolini, Winston Churchill, and King George VI. Hitler despised him. During the speech in which Hitler declared war on the United States the German dictator castigated Donovan by name, declaring him “utterly unworthy.” That was high praise considering the source.
This was the original OSS unit insignia.
With the outbreak of WW2 President Roosevelt appointed “Wild Bill” Donovan the Coordinator of Information. While the United States had no formal spy agency back then, Donovan began laying the groundwork for a centralized intelligence apparatus based upon the British MI6. In 1942 Donovan’s organization was rechristened the Office of Strategic Services. The United States was in the spy business.
These days the path to special operations is both regimented and grueling. Back during WW2 those old guys just figured it out as they went along.
Nowadays intelligence officers and special operators are the product of an extensive selection process and grueling training program. Back then unconventional thinkers just came together and got the job done. Over in the UK the future James Bond novelist Ian Fleming was a good example of a neophyte who took to the world of espionage as a natural outlet of his peculiar personal proclivities.
Julia Child had her own TV cooking show for years. This grandmotherly-looking lass was actually a spy during the war.Former spy-turned-TV chef Julia Child likely knew more about using a knife than one might think.
Donovan sought out unconventional warriors for his burgeoning team of misfits. He recruited the film director John Ford and the Hollywood actor Sterling Hayden. The poet Archibald MacLeish, the influential banker Paul Mellon, and the author Stephen Vincent Benet joined the team. The famed psychologist Carl Jung, the chef Julia Child, the industrialist Alfred DuPont, and the author Walter Lord as well as several influential members of the Vanderbilt family hung their hats at OSS headquarters. The extensive density of upper-crust aristocrats drove many in government to claim that OSS actually stood for “Oh So Social.”
Wild Bill Donovan’s unconventional crew had to contrive the guns and gear needed to support covert agents operating in hostile territory.
Building an intelligence and covert action organization from scratch is an overwhelming task. Donovan had access to money and resources, but this was uncharted territory. There were no manuals he could read or deep well of institutional insight he could mine. Wild Bill Donovan just figured it out as he went along. Among myriad other things, that meant brand new specialized covert guns and gear. Principle among them was the High Standard sound-suppressed H-DM/S pistol.
In an effort at selling FDR on his unconventional warfare techniques, Donovan emptied a magazine from his suppressed spy gun into a sandbag on the floor of the Oval Office.
Raw lead bullets were prohibited by the Hague Convention, so Donovan had to contract for special lots of jacketed .22 rimfire rounds. Once the gun was perfected Donovan wanted to show it off. He once slipped into the Oval Office while his friend FDR was dictating a note to his secretary. Dropping a sandbag onto the floor he proceeded to fire ten rounds as fast as he could squeeze the trigger. Donovan then dropped the smoking pistol onto the desk before President Roosevelt. FDR was so smitten with the quiet little gun that he refused to give it back.
The Weapon
The High Standard H-DM/S suppressed covert operations pistol began life as a semiautomatic H-DM target gun like this one.
The H-DM/S was an integrally-suppressed version of the High Standard H-DM target pistol. H-DM/S stood for H-D Military/Silenced. As the program was classified the original examples were spuriously described as “Impact Testing Machines.”
The High Standard H-DM/S suppressed handgun served for decades with America’s clandestine operators.
Chambered for .22LR, the H-DM/S was a straight blowback design that fed on a ten-round single-stack box magazine. The gun sported fixed iron sights, a five-inch ported barrel, and a heel-mounted magazine release. The H-DM/S came equipped with a slide lock that prevented the action from cycling. In this configuration, the weapon was indeed exceptionally quiet. Development began in 1942 with the first operational fielding in 1944.
CIA pilot Gary Powers was packing a suppressed High Standard H-DM/S when he was shot down over the USSR in 1960. This particular pistol is on display in a Moscow military museum today.
The first variants featured a blued finish on the pistol and a Parkerized suppressor. Later versions were completely Parkerized. The H-DM/S saw a fairly widespread issue among early special operations forces. Gary Powers had a suppressed H-DM/S on his person when his U2 was shot down in Soviet airspace in 1960.
The sound suppressor on the High Standard H-DM/S was radically advanced for its day.
The H-D/MS suppressor was developed during the war by Bell Labs and featured an initial chamber filled with a cylinder of zinc-plated bronze mesh that acted as a heat sink. The barrel was ported with four rows of eight holes that dropped standard velocity rounds into the subsonic range. Later guns featured four rows of eleven holes. A second distal chamber was filled with bronze mesh screens. This repackable design was typically good for 200 to 250 rounds.
This cutaway version shows the internal architecture of the sound suppressor on the High Standard H-DM/S pistol
For applications requiring extreme stealth the distal chamber could be charged with water, oil, or shaving cream. The muzzle was then sealed with a piece of tape. Thusly configured with the action locked the gun made no more noise than a human whisper.
The Rest of the Story
Wild Bill Donovan gifted one of his newfangled suppressed spy pistols to Navy Admiral Chester Nimitz who promptly started shooting it in public with the children in his neighborhood.
Much to Donovan’s consternation, FDR displayed his top-secret pistol at his home in Hyde Park, occasionally showing it to visiting guests during the war. Donovan also gave a copy to Admiral Chester Nimitz. He was known to shoot the classified weapon with neighborhood children. A photograph of such an outing actually made it into a local newspaper in 1944.
Wild Bill Donovan enjoyed some prescient insights into many of the hot button issues of his day.
Wild Bill Donovan was, by all accounts, a genuinely good guy in possession of some remarkable insights. He opposed the internment of Japanese Americans during the war, rightfully predicting that this was an unnecessary solution to a non-existent problem. In his roles as America’s espionage chief, he also took part in many of the major combat actions of the war.
Wild Bill Donovan was trapped along with a subordinate during the Normandy invasion and planned his suicide in the event of imminent capture.
Donovan and his commander for covert ops in Europe, Colonel David Bruce, went ashore early during the Normandy invasion. Pinned down by German machinegun fire, Donovan said, “David, we mustn’t be captured. We know too much…I must shoot first,” Donovan said.
You can’t fault Donovan’s commitment to the cause.
Bruce replied, “Yes, sir, but can we do much against machine guns with our pistols?” Donovan explained: “Oh, you don’t understand. I mean, if we are about to be captured, I’ll shoot you first. After all, I am your commanding officer.”
Apparently, Donovan and Truman did not much get along. However, Wild Bill continued to have an outsized influence on the American intelligence services until well after the war.
Donovan ended WW2 as a Major General but fell afoul of post-war politics. President Truman sidelined him with a task to produce a study of the nation’s fire departments. Under Eisenhower, he was made ambassador to Thailand. Throughout the early bits of the Cold War, Donovan helped influence the formation of the CIA from the shadows.
Wild Bill Donovan is venerated in American intelligence circles today. Yes, that is Daniel Craig in character as James Bond visiting the CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia. Wish I could have been there for that visit.
Wild Bill Donovan died in 1959 from complications arising from vascular dementia. His statue graces the lobby of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, today. In 2011 Vanity Fair writer Evan Douglas described Donovan’s exploits as “a brave, noble, headlong, gleeful, sometimes outrageous pursuit of action and skullduggery.” Wild Bill Donovan was the real freaking deal.
William J. “Wild Bill” Donovan was a genuine American hero.
Situation: Famous as a leader in combat, Chesty Puller was a skillful pistol fighter as well.
Lesson: Training, skill and the best equipment are enormously helpful. Perhaps most important, though, is the fighting spirit that made General Puller a legend. And … a pre-war start in guns and hunting can shape a more survivable combatant.
Lewis “Chesty” Puller. In his time, his name was a household word, and if asked “Who was the most famous U.S. Marine?” — many people today would answer, “Chesty Puller.” He first made his mark in “police actions” in places like Haiti, rose to fame in the South Pacific campaign during World War II, and became solidified in legend by leading the Breakout in the Korean conflict.
There are many books about Puller. Most focus on his leadership and courage. One book is even devoted to his famous quotes. But most give short shrift to the general’s formidable pistol fighting skills.
Burke Davis (1913-2006) was the author of many historical non-fiction books, specializing in war and warriors. One of his trademarks was a personal touch, with deep insights into the heroes about whom he wrote. One of Davis’ classics is Marine! The Life of Chesty Puller, subtitled The Only Marine in History to Win Five Navy Crosses.
It is to Burke Davis we are primarily indebted for the following accounts of General Puller’s pistol fights, his training and background with guns and his general attitude toward related matters.
Puller In Combat
Puller’s first deployments were in Haiti and Nicaragua, supporting friendly governments who were fighting anti-American insurgents. In the latter country in 1929, he found himself traveling with a Thompson submachine gun, cased with ample spare ammunition.
Two years later, he found himself fighting for his life with his .45 pistol in Nicaragua. Davis tells us, “They were more than a hundred miles from Jinotega, Company M marching over open country on high ground beside the swift Cua River. Puller and (Col. William) Lee were not far apart when they saw, almost at the same instant, a native dugout canoe speed around a bend to their rear, bearing two men. One of these men fired, wildly. There was also a burst of rifle fire from across the river — another attempt at ambush.
“Puller reacted as usual. He ran at top speed toward the riverbank, straight for the canoe, pulling his pistol as he went. He fired in motion, and one of the canoeists fell across the gunwale. The patrol killed the other Indian, and when men splashed across the river, they found the band had fled.
“Lee thought Puller’s action a climax of the fighting in Nicaragua: ‘It was the greatest field shot I ever saw. He shot that bird from 15 to 25 yards away from that canoe, going at full speed, and the canoe moving, too. He drilled him right in the ear, so perfectly that we looked over the body for several minutes before finding the wound. He had shot him precisely in the opening of the ear. I don’t think such shooting was accidental.’” (1)
Some of the accounts of Puller’s personal engagement in combat are sketchy and short on details. Here is one, from when he was a Colonel on Guadalcanal: “A grenade fell near the Old Man — no more than eight yards away, Captain Zach Cox estimated, but Puller turned when he saw A Company scatter and yelled: ‘Oh, that damned thing ain’t going off.’ It helped steady the men. The grenade was a dud. Cockrell’s B Company was being cut up in the woods by snipers in trees with light machine guns, and fire from Puller’s front became spotty. The fight was now at close quarters: The Colonel had killed three men with his .45 — one of them a Japanese major.” (2)
There were many men in combat along with Puller who were glad they, too, were carrying pistols. One was Captain Regan Fuller, who spoke of an experience he had on Guadalcanal. “It was rough country, up and down everywhere, with plenty of cover. I sent one of my boys, Corporal Turner, up a grassy hill to our right, where we were trying to persuade the Old Man to stop for the night. I walked behind Turner — and we almost stepped on two Japs who were eating rice by a hidden fire at the base of a big tree. They were as astonished as we were, and we all scrambled. I fired three clips from my .45 and killed one of them, but the other ran down the trail toward our main body. Turner’s squad had deployed into line behind us. There was a little shooting, and then quiet …” (3)
The Guns Of Chesty Puller
Most of the time when an enemy was killed by Puller’s own hand, it appears to have been with his service pistol.
While there exists a photo of Puller shooting offhand with a very long barreled, non-issue DA revolver, virtually all the photos of him in the South Pacific and Korea depict him wearing a standard .45 auto. Burke Davis’ anecdotes all refer to him using a .45. I’ve been unable to find if or where Puller’s sidearm still exists today. Most photos of him wearing it are taken from the front, so we can’t see whether it wore a flat (1911) or arched (1911A1) mainspring housing.
There actually exists a chest holster named the Chesty Puller, but it appears to be a modern play on the great Marine’s nickname. In every photo I’ve seen of him in combat theaters, his .45 is in a standard issue flap holster on his right hip, backed up with a web double magazine pouch at the left front of his web belt. While many military officers did carry their .45s in the tanker-style chest holster during WWII, I’ve seen no indication Puller was one of them. He became a Marine early enough he was presumably issued a 1911, since the A1 dates to relatively late in the 1920s. Of course, if he preferred the 1911A1’s features (slightly better sights, longer grip tang to minimize hand bite, shorter trigger, arched housing), he had the “pull” to requisition one once they became available.
In any case, whenever Puller personally fought with a pistol in hand, it was the government-issue pistol known colloquially in his time as simply “the .45 automatic.”
Puller had specific opinions on other small arms. Pictures of him in the field almost invariably show him wearing a pistol and two spare magazines, and he expected fighting men to be constantly armed when in danger zones. Davis writes of one day when Col. Puller was selecting staff members: “When he was choosing his intelligence officers, his exec pointed out a major sent in for the purpose by headquarters. Puller scoffed loudly, ‘Hell, that man hasn’t even got on a weapon. Find me another one.’” (4)
Only The Best For His Men
He also worked hard to make sure his troops had ample ammunition. Again, from Burke Davis: “As the time for a new campaign drew near, Puller drove his staff to complete the last detail in preparation. He warned the regimental supply officer, an Army Quartermaster general, was to check their requisitions. ‘Notify me at once when he arrives,’ Puller said. ‘I want to explain things in person.’
“The Army general arrived when Puller was out, and the lieutenant took the inspector to the supply dump. Puller found them there and overheard their conversation:
“‘Lieutenant, your requisitions are excessive.’
“‘I’m sure Colonel Puller would never have signed for more than we need, sir.’
“‘But he’s asked for 10,000 brass buckshot shells. What the devil does he want with those?’
“‘To kill Japs with, sir.’
“‘Doesn’t Colonel Puller know buckshot is prohibited by the Geneva Convention?’
“‘Sir, Colonel Puller doesn’t give a damn about the Geneva Convention — any more than the Japs did at Pearl Harbor.’” (5)
It should be noted short barrel pump shotguns were indeed used in the Pacific Theater. My late mentor, Bill Jordan, a veteran of that campaign, told me he used a Winchester slide-action trench gun and an S&W 1917 .45 revolver when clearing enemy pillboxes in the island campaign. The brass buckshot shells had been requisitioned because paper shells swelled up in the heat and humidity there, getting stuck in the magazines and chambers.
Puller’s demands for the best equipment for his Marines weren’t limited to guns and ammo. Wrote Davis, “(Puller) spoke to War Production Board officials in Washington: ‘I want to ask you why American troops shouldn’t have the world’s best fighting equipment. On Guadalcanal we saw our trenching shovels break at the first use. All of our men now have Jap shovels because they’re better and more dependable. Jap field glasses are better, too. I have good ones myself, German glasses I’ve carried for 20 years. Why should American glasses be so poor? Not worth a damn in the tropics. They fog up because they are improperly sealed, and once they get damp, they’re done for. I’ve seen hundreds of pairs tossed away in the jungle or the sea, because men know they can see as well with the naked eye. What kind of American ingenuity — or patriotism — produced those?’”
Yet, curiously, Puller wasn’t a fan of the M-1 Garand that George S. Patton had called “the best battle implement ever devised.” Davis reports the following:
“There was a squabble between A Company and some of the 164th Army men, for Regan Fuller’s men had bartered for, or stolen, some new M-1 rifles during the big night’s fighting, and Army officers wanted them returned. The Colonel was amused by the affair. For himself, he favored the old rifle they brought to Guadalcanal: ‘For sheer accuracy, if you want to kill men in battle, there has never been a rifle to equal the Springfield 1903. Others may give us more firepower, but in ability to hit a target, nothing touches the old ’03. In my opinion, nothing ever will. A perfect weapon, if ever there was one.’” (6)
The following seems contradictory to the above, but Davis noted, “… Puller was asked by Marine Corps Headquarters for a full report on his experiences with the Thompson submachine gun under field conditions and sent in an enthusiastic report on the weapon’s value on patrol.” (7)
Puller’s Training & Quals
While based in Hawaii, having shot Expert Rifleman five years running, Puller was affronted when a grizzled sergeant offered to teach him to shoot. When the sarge promised to bring his rifle score up 20 points in two weeks, Puller accepted the challenge. Davis reported, “Puller became the sergeant’s pupil, shooting when targets became vacant during the training, and shot an average of two bandoleers daily. He improved rapidly, and brought his record score from 306 to 326, of a possible 350. During all these years he qualified as expert with both rifle and pistol, and when a rifle team was sent from Pearl Harbor to a competition in San Diego in 1928, Puller was a member.” (8)
Davis adds, “… in the first report period, Puller posted an average score in bayonet drill; a fellow Marine, Lieutenant Gerald Thomas, finished 10 places ahead of him. But in marksmanship, with the automatic pistol, he ranked as expert, with a score of 91.13 out of 100 points. As a rifleman, he fired 335 of a possible 350, and stood 16th in the class of officers. He also ranked as expert with the machine gun, in which he stood high in the top third of the class, with a score of 340.” (9)
The quality of marksmanship training in the United States Marine Corps is, of course, legendary. That said, Puller famously credited his survival and many of his accomplishments in battle to having been a young armed citizen before he enlisted in the Marine Corps.
Born in Virginia, he learned guns and hunting early. He was about 10 years old when cancer took his father, and he supplemented the larder by shooting small game and wild turkeys. He became a trapper, selling muskrat pelts to pay for his ammunition. “Lewis learned both accuracy and frugality, for he bought his own ammunition,” biographer Davis wrote. (10)
Another writer, Michael Martin, wrote, “After his military fighting career was over many years later, Chesty noted he learned more about the art of war by hunting and trapping than he learned from any school. He insisted the skills he learned as a kid, living off the land, saved his life many times in combat.” (11)
Lessons
The constant presence of his sidearm saved Chesty Puller’s life more than once. It is no surprise you see his holstered .45 in almost every photograph taken of him in a combat environment, from his early days in the banana republics to the Pacific Theater to Korea. Note he insisted all his men be within reach of their guns in combat environments, at all times. It saved his life multiple times over … and, doubtless, the lives of many of his troops, including Captain Regan Fuller, as noted above.
Puller was a contemporary and friend of Herman Hanneken in his early combat days. Hanneken was the man who had killed the revolutionary leader Charlemagne Peralte in Haiti in 1919, with a single .45 slug to the heart from Hanneken’s USMC-issue Colt 1911. Puller had doubtless incorporated this knowledge into his trust in the same weapon, which he learned to keep constantly close.
His critics felt too many USMC casualties had accrued from Puller’s aggressive tactics, while his defenders argued those aggressive tactics were what won his major victories. Both sides need to remember Puller was a casualty himself, blown up on Guadalcanal with shrapnel savaging his legs, yet he returned to lead from the front sooner than his doctors wanted. Many who served under him were heard to say they’d follow him into Hell … and that he actually led them there and did his damnedest to get them back out after they’d won.
It is vital to remember this legendary Marine gave credit to his survival and victories to the hunting and shooting skills he learned in boyhood and adolescence. This sort of “pre-service preparation” has served American fighting men since the beginning of our nation. Woods-wise citizen soldiers with their own rifles and muskets won the Revolutionary War. The National Rifle Association was founded in 1871 by Yankee officers who had noted the superior fighting ability of individual Confederate soldiers who had grown up hunting and shooting. Sergeant Alvin York in WWI, WWII’s most decorated soldier Audie Murphy, Carlos Hathcock in Vietnam and Chris Kyle in the most recent conflict all fit the same mold: super-soldiers whose skill at arms had been developed before they joined up. This heritage is one reason why we at the Second Amendment Foundation where I currently serve as interim president have brought lawsuits to allow young Americans ages 18 to 20 to buy their own AR15s and prepare for a career defending their nation with firearms similar to the faster-shooting true assault rifles they’ll be issued when asked to die for their country.
There is much, much more to the history and legacy of Lewis “Chesty” Puller than can be presented in this short space. We conclude with thanks to the late biographer Burke Davis, who gave us so many valuable details from this particular side of the Puller legend. He is the one to thank for what you’ve just read; hell, I merely “wrote the book report.”
For more info: SAF.org. References: 1) Davis, Burke, Marine! The Life of Chesty Puller, P. 56. 2) Ibid., P. 118. 3) Ibid., P. 118. 4) Ibid., P. 181. 5) Ibid., Pp. 169–170. 6) Ibid., P. 148. 7) Ibid., P. 61. 8) Ibid., P. 46. 9) Ibid., P. 61. 10) Ibid., P. 9. 11) Martin, Michael. “Chesty” Puller and the Southern Military Tradition, Abbeville Institute Press, 2018.
With the countless stories that would emerge from the Normandy landings, some of the most harrowing would come from the U.S. troops that stormed “Bloody Omaha” beach. Of the two primary U.S. landing beaches along the Normandy coastline, with “Utah” beach to the west of Pointe du Hoc and “Omaha” to the east, the landings at Omaha beach would result in far more carnage than the other American landing zones.
Omaha, the code name given to a five-mile stretch of the Normandy coastline, was divided into four sectors: “Charlie,” “Dog,” “Easy” and “Fox,” which were themselves further divided into sub-sectors. This beach was the designated landing zone for elements of the U.S. 5th Corps, consisting of the 1st and 29th Infantry Divisions along with supporting naval personnel and combat engineers.
A map showing the sectors and German defensive positions along the five mile stretch of “Omaha” beach.
This stretch of beach features a large sandy shoreline overlooked by tall bluffs and rolling hills. the bluffs were fortified by the Germans in the years leading up to the invasion as a part of Hitler’s “Atlantic Wall,” which was intended to keep any Allied forces from landing along the conquered coastlines of Nazi-controlled Europe. The Germans built numerous concrete bunkers, machine-gun nests and other fortifications along the bluffs overlooking the beaches. On the shoreline itself, the Germans also emplaced tank traps, mines and various other wood and metal obstacles meant to prevent armor and landing craft from making their way up to the shore.
A view of Omaha beach today, showing the outlay of the bluffs and the long stretch of sand that separates them from the shoreline.
These German defensive positions along the coast were targeted by numerous Allied bombing raids in an effort to destroy them, but these raids did little damage to the fortified emplacements. In the hours before the landings, these positions were further shelled by naval artillery from a fleet of Allied vessels off shore, but this too had negligible effect on the defenses. To make matters worse, the German defenders of Omaha did not have to contend with the issue of paratroopers behind their lines as those defending Utah did. This in turn meant that the men going ashore at Omaha would be facing a focused, entrenched and well-armed enemy that was waiting for them.
U.S. troops seen wading ashore at Omaha after leaving their landing craft on June 6, 1944.
On the morning of June 6, 1944, troops boarded their landing craft and prepared to make the journey ashore, but issues cropped up almost immediately. The less-than-ideal weather produced choppy seas, resulting in seasick crew and swamped landing craft. The rough water also caused a the majority of a group of M4 Sherman Duplex Drive amphibious tanks that were meant to support the troops on the beach to instead founder and sink. To make matters worse, a combination of smoke covering the shore and an eastward tidal current pushed many of the landing craft off from their designated landing sectors.
Men wading ashore at Omaha, with a clearer picture of the scene of chaos unfolding on the beach.
As the craft approached the beach, the German positions along the coastline opened up on them with mortars, artillery and machine gun fire. Obstacles in the water and on the beach prevented many landing craft from being able to get right up to the shoreline, forcing the troops they contained to wade ashore. The men of the first wave to hit the beach were soon greeted by a hail of fire from the numerous MG34 and MG42 machine gun positions spread out amongst the bluffs. Some men were cut down still inside the landing craft, with German gunners focusing in on them as the ramps dropped.
With a high rate of fire and the ability to quickly swap hot barrels, the MG42 was murderous for the men landing at Omaha.
For the men of A Company, 116th Infantry Regiment of the 29th Infantry Division, the German fire was murderous. Landing at the “Dog Green” sector of Omaha, within in five minutes of hitting the beach, the company was essentially wiped out, with 91 killed and 65 wounded. The intense German defensive fire caused the landings at Omaha to stall as American troops desperately tried to find whatever cover they could on the beach. Luckily for many of them, Omaha had a shelf of shingle, or tidal rock, that provided some small degree of cover. However, they would still have to make their way up the rest of the beach and then up the bluffs in order to take it.
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