Theodore Roosevelt was particularly fond of retelling the story of his pursuit and capture of the boat thieves in the badlands. He put the story on paper in his 1888 book Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail.
In early spring of 1886, just as the ice was beginning to break up on the Little Missouri River, three thieves cut Roosevelt’s boat from its mooring at the Elkhorn Ranch and took it downriver. Roosevelt, out of personal pride and duty as a Billings County Deputy Sheriff, chased after them with his ranch hands Bill Sewall and Wilmot Dow.
As you read the story, imagine the thrill of the entire event for Roosevelt. A spring flood is no trivial matter, and navigating a river jammed with ice and powerful currents is treacherous work. The weather was viciously cold.
The men he was chasing were armed and dangerous. How might you have reacted to the theft of a replaceable boat when capturing the thieves was so time-consuming and dangerous? The story begins with the ice breaking up on the Little Missouri River at the Elkhorn Ranch in March, 1886:Ice jam on the Little Missouri River
“It moved slowly, its front forming a high, crumbling wall, and creaming over like an immense breaker on the seashore; we could hear the dull roaring and crunching as it ploughed down the river-bed long before it came in sight round the bend above us.
The ice kept piling and tossing up in the middle, and not only heaped itself above the level of the banks, but also in many places spread out on each side beyond them, grinding against the cottonwood-trees in front of the ranch veranda….”
“At night the snowy, glittering masses, tossed up and heaped into fantastic forms, shone like crystal in the moonlight; but they soon lost their beauty, becoming fouled and blackened, and at the same time melted and settled down until it was possible to clamber out across the slippery hummocks.”
“We had brought out a clinker-built boat especially to ferry ourselves over the river when it was high, and were keeping our ponies on the opposite side….
This boat had already proved very useful and now came in handier than ever, as without it we could take no care of our horses.
We kept it on the bank, tied to a tree, and every day would carry it or slide it across the hither ice bank, usually with not a little tumbling and scrambling on our part, lower it gently into the swift current, pole it across to the ice on the farther bank, and then drag it over that…”
On the other side, Roosevelt discovered evidence of mountain lions hunting deer among the bluffs. He followed the trail, but, after losing the trail, he headed back, determined to hunt the mountain lions the next day.
“But we never carried out our intentions, for next morning one of my men, who was out before breakfast, came back to the house with the startling news that our boat was gone – stolen, for he brought with him the end of the rope with which it had been tied, evidently cut off with a sharp knife; and also a red woollen mitten with a leather palm, which he had picked up on the ice. ”
“We had no doubt as to who had stolen it; for whoever had done so had certainly gone down the river in it, and the only other thing in the shape of a boat on the Little Missouri was a small flat-bottomed scow in the possession of three hard characters who lived in a shack, or hut, some twenty miles above us, and whom we had shrewdly suspected for some time of wishing to get out of the country, as certain of the cattlemen had begun openly to threaten to lynch them.
They belonged to a class that always holds sway during the raw youth of a frontier community, and the putting down of which is the first step toward decent government….”
“The three men we suspected had long been accused – justly or unjustly – of being implicated both in cattle-killing and in that worst of frontier crimes, horse-stealing; it was only by an accident that they had escaped the clutches of the vigilantes the preceding fall.
Their leader was a well-built fellow named Finnigan, who had long red hair reaching to his shoulders, and always wore a broad hat and a fringed buckskin shirt.
He was rather a hard case, and had been chief actor in a number of shooting scrapes. The other two were a half-breed, a stout, muscular man, and an old German, whose viciousness was of the weak and shiftless type….We had little doubt that it was they who had taken our boat…”
“Accordingly we at once set to work in our turn to build a flat-bottomed scow wherein to follow them….In any wild country where the power of law is little felt or heeded, and where every one has to rely upon himself for protection, men soon get to feel that it is in the highest degree unwise to submit to any wrong…no matter what cost of risk or trouble.
To submit tamely and meekly to theft or to any other injury is to invite almost certain repetition of the offense, in a place where self-reliant hardihood and the ability to hold one’s own under all circumstances rank as the first of virtues.”
“Two of my cowboys, Sewall and Dow…set to work with a will, and, as by good luck there were plenty of boards, in two or three days they had turned out a first-class flat-bottom, which was roomy, drew very little water, and was dry as a bone; and though, of course, not a handy craft, was easily enough managed in going downstream. Into this we packed flour, coffee, and bacon enough to last us a fortnight or so, plenty of warm bedding, and the mess-kit; and early one cold March morning slid it into the icy current, took our seats, and shoved off down the river.”
Roosevelt had also brought along a copy of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, and a camera to document the capture.
“There could have been no better men for a trip of this kind than my two companions, Sewall and Dow. They were tough, hardy, resolute fellows, quick as cats, strong as bears, and able to travel like bull moose.”
“For three days, the three men navigated the icy, winding river among the colorful clay buttes hoping to take the thieves captive without a fight. A shootout was a concern, for Roosevelt noted that “the extraordinary formation of the Bad Lands, with the ground cut up into cullies, serried walls, and battlemented hilltops, makes it the country of all others for hiding-places and ambuscades.”
However, Roosevelt was certain that the thieves would not suspect that he was in pursuit, for they had stolen virtually the only boat on the river. Roosevelt, Sewall, and Dow battled against the elements, too, enduring temperatures down to zero degrees Fahrenheit. Along the way, they “passed a group of tepees,” the “deserted winter camp of some Gros-ventre Indians, which some of my men had visited a few months previously on a trading expedition.”
Through numbing cold, they continued their pursuit.
“Finally our watchfulness was rewarded, for in the middle of the afternoon of this, the third day we had been gone, as we came around a bend, we saw in front of us the lost boat, together with a scow, moored against the bank, while from among the bushes some little way back the smoke of a camp-fire curled up through the frosty air. We had come on the camp of the thieves.
As I glanced at the faces of my two followers I was struck by the grim, eager look in their eyes. Our overcoats were off in a second, and after exchanging a few muttered words, the boat was hastily and silently shoved toward the bank.
As soon as it touched the shore ice I leaped out and ran up behind a clump of bushes, so as to cover the landing of the other, who had to make the boat fast. For a moment we felt a thrill of keen excitement and our veins tingled as we crept cautiously toward the fire, for it seemed likely that there would be a brush…”
“The men we were after knew they had taken with them the only craft there was on the river, and so felt perfectly secure; accordingly , we took them absolutely by surprise.
The only one in camp was the German, whose weapons were on the ground, and who, of course, gave up at once, his two companions being off hunting. We made him safe, delegating one of our number to look after him particularly and see that he made no noise, and then sat down and waited for the others.
The camp was under the lee of a cut bank, behind which we crouched, and, after waiting an hour or over, the men we were after came in. We heard them a long way off and made ready, watching them for some minutes as they walked toward us, their rifles on their shoulders and the sunlight glinting on the steel barrels.
When they were within twenty yards or so we straightened up from behind the bank, covering them with our cocked rifles, while I shouted to them to hold up their hands – an order that in such a case, in the West, a man is not apt to disregard if he thinks the giver is in earnest.
The half-breed obeyed at once, his knees trembling for a second, his eyes fairly wolfish; then, as I walked up within a few paces, covering the centre of his chest so as to avoid overshooting, and repeating the command, he saw that he had no show, and, with an oath, let his rifle drop and held his hands up beside his head.”
Roosevelt kept watch over the captives as Sewall and Dow chopped firewood. “I kept guard over the three prisoners, who were huddled into a sullen group some twenty yards off, just the right distance for the buckshot in the double-barrel.”
Unable to tie up their captives, for doing so meant, “in all likelihood, freezing both hands and feet off during the night,” the captives were made to remove their boots, “as it was a cactus country, in which a man could travel barefoot only at the risk of almost certainly laming himself for life.”
“By this time they were pretty well cowed, as they found out very quickly that they would be well treated so long as they remained quiet, but would receive some rough handling if they attempted any disturbance.”
“Next morning we started downstream, having a well-laden flotilla, for the men we had caught had a good deal of plunder in their boots, including some saddles….
Finnigan, who was the ringleader, and the man I was especially after, I kept by my side in our boat, the other two being put in their own scow, heavily laden and rather leaky, and with only one paddle.
We kept them just in front of us, a few yards distant, the river being so broad that we knew…any attempt to escape to be perfectly hopeless.”
Upon reaching an impassable ice jam in the river, Roosevelt, Sewall, and Dow debated how to proceed. Unwilling to abandon their supplies, they chose to wait for the icy river began to flow again.
“I kept guard over the three prisoners, who were huddled into a sullen group some twenty yards off, just the right distance for the buckshot in the double-barrel.”
Harvard College Library Theodore Roosevelt Collection
“The next eight days were as irksome and monotonous as any I ever spent: there is very little amusement in combining the functions of a sheriff with those of an arctic explorer. The weather kept as cold as ever.”
“We had to be additionally cautious on account of being in the Indian country, having worked down past Killdeer Mountains, where some of my cowboys had run across a band of Sioux – said to be Tetons – the year before.
Very probably the Indians would not have harmed us anyhow, but as we were hampered by the prisoners, we preferred not meeting them; nor did we, though we saw plenty of fresh signs, and found, to our sorrow, that they had just made a grand hunt all down the river, and had killed or driven off almost every head of game in the country through which we were passing.”
“…If the time was tedious to us, it must have seemed never-ending to our prisoners, who had nothing to do but to lie still and read, or chew the bitter cud of their reflections…. They had quite a stock of books, some of a rather unexpected kind. Dime novels and the inevitable ‘History of the James Brothers’… As for me, I had brought with me ‘Anna Karénina,’ and my surroundings were quite grey enough to harmonize well with Tolstoï.”
Low on supplies by the time they reached the C Diamond ranch, Roosevelt, Sewall and Dow decided to split up; Sewall and Dow would continue downriver and Roosevelt would march the prisoners overland to Dickinson.
Before Sewall and Dow proceeded downriver, Roosevelt borrowed a pony and rode to the nearest ranch, where he hired the settler to drive his prairie schooner with “two bronco mares.” The settler “could hardly understand why I took so much bother with the thieves instead of hanging them offhand.” Roosevelt “soon found the safest plan was to put the prisoners in the wagon and myself walk behind with the inevitable Winchester.”
“Accordingly I trudged steadily the whole time behind the wagon through the ankle-deep mud. It was a gloomy walk. Hour after hour went by always the same, while I plodded along through the dreary landscape – hunger, cold, and fatigue struggling with a sense of dogged, weary resolution….”
“So, after thirty-six hours’ sleeplessness, I was most heartily glad when we at last jolted into the long, straggling main street of Dickinson, and I was able to give my unwilling companions into the hands of the sheriff. Under the laws of Dakota I received my fees as a deputy sheriff for making the three arrests, and also mileage for the three hundred odd miles gone over – a total of some fifty dollars.”
That Roosevelt went to such lengths to bring these three criminals to justice was uncommon in his time and place. Such magnanimity was not overlooked by the captives. Writing to Roosevelt from prison some time later, Mike Finnigan closed a letter, “P.S. Should you stop over at Bismarck this fall make a call to the Prison. I should be glad to meet you.”
This is my grandfather’s postal scale from his days as postmaster at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, during World War II.
Today, I’m going to heap some modest invective upon the U.S. Postal Service. However, a disclaimer is in order. All of the USPS workers I know personally are hardworking, committed professionals. I don’t want to inadvertently incur the ire of some powerful letter carriers and never again see another gun magazine delivered to my home.
“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” That’s not actually the motto of the U.S. Postal Service.
The Greek historian Herodotus penned that catchy spot of prose some 2,500 years ago in reference to couriers who ran messages during the sundry wars between the Persians and the Greeks. Modern postmen have just sort of adopted it.
The Problem
One should really never complain about something unless you have a better suggestion. In this case, I just don’t. Some 525,469 people work for the U.S. Postal Service.
They are the second-largest federal employer, right behind the Department of Defense. Total revenue for the USPS in 2024 was just under $80 billion. And yet, it still takes forever to get my mail, if it arrives at all. I have no idea how to fix that. The solution is obviously not people or money.
One part of the problem seems to be Amazon. Nobody goes to stores anymore. Nowadays, if you want something, you just scheme it out a few days in advance and order it online. Amazon Prime offers free shipping with a few exceptions, so there’s no disincentive. That simple observation has increased the USPS workload astronomically.
My letter carrier is an exceptionally nice guy named Joe. We live way out in the hinterlands, so Joe delivers the mail in his private vehicle, an antiquated beater Oldsmobuick. Around Christmas time, there is this tiny Joe-shaped void inside his modest sedan.
Every cubic inch of that thing, to include the front dashboard, is covered with packages. He tells me that as he leaves the post office, it is like driving a tank. He just has a little vision slit that he can still see through. Joe will not be disappointed to see Christmas in his rearview mirror, presuming he can someday see his rearview mirror.
The Old Days
My maternal grandfather spent a career with the U.S. Postal Service. He was postmaster at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, during World War II. One of his letter carriers was caught throwing sales circulars in the trash rather than delivering them. Back then, the letter carrier made his rounds on foot with a big honking mailbag over his shoulder. That thing was heavy. Covertly binning all that vapid newsprint at the beginning of the run made the rest of the day much more palatable.
Folks do stupid stuff like that all the time nowadays. We’re lazier now than was once the case. Back then, however, throwing away junk mail was a really big deal. I forget the details, but I’m pretty sure Pappy said they had the poor guy ritually disemboweled or broken on the wheel or something similar.
Forward to the Present…
I have had four mailed checks evaporate into the ether over the past four years. One of them was astronomical — sufficient to buy me a new machine gun. In each case, these letters just disappeared. I eventually had to stop payment and send replacements.
They never did show up. I guess they fell down a storm drain or something. Who knows?
I mailed a check to Pennsylvania for a new gun four weeks ago. I opted to send the letter with tracking, just in case. It spent the first 10 days in postal purgatory in the Memphis distribution center. Then, it went to Denver, where it remained for several days. As I type these words, its voyage of discovery has finally taken it to Philadelphia. I have no idea why all that is.
These three Roman dice followed a most curious path
between the United Kingdom and my front door.
War Story
You can find absolutely anything on eBay. I once bought a pair of 1,800-year-old lead Roman dice from the United Kingdom. There was no point. Given the Roman numerals, I just thought they looked cool. I followed the tracking data online as my prize left England.
My dice made the uneventful trek across the Atlantic Ocean in five days. Once trapped in the Memphis distribution center, however, they just languished. I imagine that place looking something like the gigantic warehouse at the end of the first Indiana Jones movie.
A month passed, and then another. I sent an email query and eventually got a note back from somebody who might not have been a machine. They said they were searching diligently for my package.
After six months, I got a note of apology saying they just couldn’t find it. As my dice were not insured, the email explained that I was simply out of luck. In frustration, I went online and found a replacement. It duly arrived from the UK in nine days. The very next day, the original package showed up unexpectedly. Now, I have Roman dice running out of my ears.
The Solution
It costs a bit south of $11 to get a tracking number on a standard letter. You have to go to the post office to purchase that. Despite the fact that our local post office has three checkout stations, there is never more than one working at a time, even if the line stretches through the door and down the street. I guess that’s some kind of post office rule.
As I said, I have no idea what the solution is. I do know that I would actively avoid taking responsibility for fixing it. I’d sooner develop some ghastly intractable skin rash.
The U.S. Postal Service is more complicated than the human female. Trying to streamline that place would be like trying to organize a battalion’s worth of hungry, sleep-deprived toddlers. Rank madness would invariably ensue.
If you haven’t seen this yet, you can go to the USPS website and sign up for Informed Delivery for free. Once your account is active, the postal service will send you an email every day with a digital photograph of every mail piece you have incoming. That service lets me know whether or not I need to make the long trek up the hill to check my mail every day. That’s actually pretty cool.
I’ve always harbored a fondness for both the post office and our letter carriers. The post office always has a distinctively pleasant odor — a symbiotic melding of cardboard and glue paste. Our letter carriers are invariably friendly and personable. For now, however, I am just thankful that the letter I mailed from Mississippi to Pennsylvania finally somehow made it out of Denver.
When Germany unleashed its blitzkreig in 1939, the U.S. Army was only the 17th largest in the world. FDR and George Marshall had to build a fighting force able to take on the Nazis, against the wishes of many in Congress.
On Friday, September 1, 1939 at 2:50 a.m., President Franklin D. Roosevelt was awakened by a telephone call from the U.S. ambassador to France, William Bullitt, who reported that Nazi Germany had just invaded Poland and was bombing her cities.
“Well, Bill,” the president said. “It has come at last. God help us All.”
Cavalry against panzer tanks? At the start of World War II, the U.S. Army still had 11 regiments in four divisions of cavalry. The 10th Regiment, African-Americans once known as the “buffalo soldiers,” practiced at Ft. Riley, Kansas, in 1942.
Two days later, on September 3, France and Great Britain declared war on Germany and the Second World War was fully underway in Europe. That night, Roosevelt took to the radio waves in one of his customary fireside chats with the American people to lament the situation in Europe. He then added: “I hope the United States will keep out of this war. I believe that it will. And I give you assurance and reassurance that every effort of your Government will be directed toward that end.”
Roosevelt then uttered his oft-quoted thought about war: “I have said not once but many times that I have seen war and that I hate war. I say that again and again.”
What Roosevelt did not say that night was that if and when the nation was drawn into this war, the United States Army was not even prepared to wage a defensive battle to protect North America, let alone stage an offensive campaign on the other side of the Atlantic.
At the time of the invasion of Poland, the German army had 1.7 million men divided into 98 infantry divisions, including nine Panzer divisions, each of which had 328 tanks, eight support battalions, and six artillery batteries.
Before the war, there were fewer men in the U.S. Marines than in the police department of New York City.
In stark contrast, the U.S. Army, comprising 189,839 regular troops and officers, was ranked 17th in the world in 1939, behind the army of Portugal. Furthermore, the Regular Army was dispersed to 130 camps, posts, and stations. Some 50,000 of the troops were stationed outside the United States, including the forces that occupied the Philippines and guarded the Panama Canal.
The Army was, as one observer described it, “all bone and no muscle.” The United States Marine Corps stood at a mere 19,432 officers and men, fewer than the number of people employed by the New York City Police Department.
Today, many Americans don’t realize that our nation created a viable citizen army in the 828 days between the beginning of the war in Europe and the “day of infamy,” December 7, 1941. Also largely forgotten was that a fully functioning peacetime military draft system was put in place, and that after a purge of senior officers, a new cohort rose through the ranks that would eventually lead the nation and its allies to victory.
The U.S. Third Cavalry shows off its skills in horsemanship at Fort Myer in 1935.
What’s more, the new peacetime army was given a dress rehearsal for the war ahead in the form of three massive military maneuvers in the spring, summer, and fall of 1941, which ended just a few days before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Following Germany’s invasion of Poland and his announcement that morning on Sept 3, FDR formally appointed General George C. Marshall chief of staff of the United States Army, a job that officially made Marshall the president’s top military adviser. A graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, Marshall had been a highly regarded staff officer for General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force during World War I. Marshall later became assistant commandant at the Army Infantry School and then deputy chief of staff in Washington since 1938. Some officers in the Army complained that Roosevelt jumped over 20 major generals (two-star generals) and 14 brigadier generals (one-star generals) to get to Brigadier General Marshall.
After Germany invaded Poland, Roosevelt overlooked more senior officers to name George Marshall as Army Chief of Staff.
Marshall came to the job with a mission to prevent the errors of 1917–18, which he had witnessed when planning offensive operations as a member of Pershing’s staff. In September 1918, Marshall helped orchestrate two major U.S. operations in France — the attack on Saint-Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne offensive — both of which, though successful, resulted in the massive loss of American lives. Not only had he witnessed the brutality and waste of war, but he’d seen firsthand the limitations of a poorly prepared force.
At the end of World War I, the Army had contained more than two million men; but since then it had been neglected and allowed to shrink in both size and stature. General Peyton C. March, Army chief of staff at the end of that war, complained that the United States had rendered itself “weaker voluntarily than the Treaty of Versailles had made Germany,” concluding that the country had made itself “militarily impotent.”
In 1941, a soldier trained for gas attacks with doughboy helmet.
The American Army, with only a few hundred light tanks, was no match for heavily armored German divisions. And it still maintained a horse cavalry as an elite mobile force. Officers who advocated replacing horses with tanks and other armored vehicles between the wars had actually been threatened with punishment. Dwight Eisenhower later recalled that as a young officer, when he began arguing for greater reliance on armored divisions, “I was told … not to publish anything incompatible with solid infantry doctrine. If I did, I would be hauled before a court-martial.”
In the late 1930s, a significant number of cavalry officers became increasingly vocal in their opposition to mechanization and to any attempt to replace the horse with new combat vehicles, especially armored cars. In 1938, Major General John Herr became the chief of cavalry, and his position was that “mechanization should not come at the expense of a single mounted regiment.”
Some soldiers still wore the flat-brimmed steel doughboy helmets from World War I and carried bolt-action rifles from as far back as the Spanish-American War. In 1939, supply wagons were still commonly pulled by teams of mules, and heavy artillery was moved by teams of horses. Soldiers’ pay was abysmal — $21 a month for a private, just as it had been in 1922.
Col. Dwight Eisenhower was threatened with court martial when he advocated replacing horses with tanks and other armored vehicles.
American troops were learning obsolete skills and preparing for defensive warfare on a small scale. “So sorry was the state of the U.S. Army in 1939 that had Pancho Villa been alive to raid the southwestern United States it would have been as ill prepared to repulse or punish him as it had been in 1916,” observed military historian Carlo D’Este.
The United States did have Reserve officers and the National Guard, which required its members to attend 48 training nights and two weeks of field duty per year to fulfill their obligation, but this was hardly enough to prepare them for combat without sustained additional training. Making matters worse, an attempt to get former soldiers to sign up for the Army Reserve, begun in 1938, was failing. Fewer than 5,000 men signed up within the first year, despite the fact they did not have to go to camps or drill but only to agree to be ready in an emergency.
Organizationally, the Army was divided into small sections that hardly ever trained together as larger coherent units because of a lack of funds. The meager budget needed to run the Army had dwindled as the Great Depression deepened. In 1935, the Army’s annual budget bottomed out at $250 million, and the force had declined to 118,750, at which point Douglas MacArthur, then Army Chief of Staff, observed that the entire Regular Army could be placed inside Yankee Stadium.
Upon taking office in 1939, with Franklin Roosevelt’s support and authority, Marshall began creating a new army, purging from it more than a thousand officers he deemed unfit and reshaping the standard Army division by transforming its four large but undermanned regiments into three smaller and more effective regiments with full manpower and greater mobility. Men whose names would become famous in the war in Europe would emerge as stars during the training of the draftees in the 1941 maneuvers. Atop the list was the brilliant but arrogant George S. Patton, a veteran of the First World War.
The cavalry rode alongside tanks during the Louisiana Maneuvers in 1941. National Archives.
That same year, Marshall began training three streamlined infantry divisions and one cavalry division for a series of war games that would be staged in an area somewhere in the arc extending from Georgia to Texas. Marshall let it be known that these would be the largest peacetime maneuvers in the history of the United States. He was keenly aware of the need to prepare American infantrymen for a new kind of brutal, fast, and merciless warfare — blitzkrieg, German for “lightning war.”
George Marshall was tasked with creating a new army — purging more than a thousand officers he deemed unfit and reshaping Army units.
The invasion of Poland had triggered hopes of Marshall and other Army leaders for substantial increases in U.S. Army manpower. But even then, those who understood that an army had to be raised realized the initiative had to come from outside the White House and Congress. It wasn’t until 1940, after the Nazi invasion of Norway in April, that proponents of an increase in manpower, led by well-connected New York attorney Greenville Clark, proposed that the United States establish its first-ever peacetime military draft. After a long battle for approval, a bill was passed and made into law on September 16, 1940, calling for the registration of all American men between the ages of 21 and 34.
But key members of Congress vowed not to extend the original draft legislation, which called for only one year of active duty. A political battle erupted between those supporting the extension and the continued training of the new army of draftees and those who wanted to bring them home and effectively isolate the United States from global conflict.
The battle reached its zenith only weeks before Pearl Harbor, when the House of Representatives came within a single vote of dismantling the draft and sending hundreds of thousands of men home, which would have all but destroyed the United States Army.
While Clark and his band of civilians had taken charge of the draft movement, Marshall feared that the Regular Army lacked the manpower to train conscripted men while keeping intact for emergency duty on this side of the Atlantic — such as putting down a Nazi-backed revolution in Brazil. He concluded that the solution to this problem would be to activate the whole National Guard, which could absorb thousands of draftees and give them basic training. On August 31, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8530, calling up 60,000 men in units of the National Guard in 27 states.
A field artillery unit learns to operate a 155mm cannon during the Louisiana Maneuvers. Fort Polk Museum
In all, close to 65,000 officers and men in the National Guard were initially inducted into service and sent off to become part of the Regular Army, which gave the numbers for a standing army an immediate spike. These were the first peacetime tours of service since 1916, when National Guard units had been positioned along the Mexican border while General John Pershing mounted a punitive raid across the Rio Grande in search of Pancho Villa.
As the Army struggled to house, clothe, and equip this first group of men, a second increment of National Guardsmen was federalized on October 15, adding another 38,588 men to a system already bursting at the seams. The third and fourth increments in November brought in yet another 33,000 Guardsmen. By the end of November 1940, 135,500 Guardsmen were in the Regular Army.
As camp conditions stood at their worst, the first group of 13,806 draftees entered the Army in November, adding new stress to the system.
Marshall’s challenges in building these armies were many. A lot of the draftees were malnourished and otherwise suffering under the difficult circumstances common in the Great Depression. Many were not happy about their new status, especially when posted to remote bases, where they were bored and homesick. Some threatened to desert if the original one-year period of service was extended.
In getting the Army ready for war, Marshall had to contend with the problems of drinking, prostitution, boredom, and disorder.
In the East, the particularly wet winter of 1940-41 yielded mud of such quantity and depth that roads leading to newly constructed barracks became impassable. The incidence of influenza in the Army rose to approximately four times the level of the previous winter, along with a rise in other respiratory diseases.
The National Guardsmen also faced endless problems. From Camp Murray in Washington State came a report in December that half of the 12,000 men encamped there had influenza.
Compounding this infirmity, the Guardsmen were housed in tents pitched on platforms over wet grounds, while the draftees coming in were ushered into new, dry barracks since the draft legislation specifically stated that they be adequately housed. The commanding officer of the National Guard was asked by a reporter from the Seattle Times how this situation affected his men. “They’re patriotic,” he replied, “but they have wet feet.”
George Marshall promoted younger officers such as George Patton and Dwight D. Eisenhower (third from left) after they showed promise during the Louisiana Maneuvers.
For many of the early draftees and Guardsmen, the situation was exacerbated by local custom and regulation — especially in locales in the portion of the country H. L. Mencken had dubbed “the Bible Belt.” State law in places such as Hattiesburg, Mississippi, banned Sunday movies and forbade dancing within the city limits. The only amusement open on the Sabbath inside the city limits was an arcade with pinball machines — colloquially known as “nickel-grabbers.”
Marshall realized that he had, in the words of his main biographer, Forrest Pogue, “an alarming situation” on his hands. The problems of drinking, prostitution, boredom, and disorder were getting worse.
The houses of prostitution that opened near bases caused the spread of venereal diseases, which had sidelined tens of thousands of troops in World War I and remained a huge concern in an era before antibiotics.
Many of the draftees suffered from the effects of malnourishment during the Depression.
The challenge for Marshall was solving immense structural problems with one hand while building a citizen army full of esprit de corps with the other. Marshall never lost sight of the necessity for good morale if this unprecedented expansion was going to succeed. He also knew that this new army could not be disciplined by fear and intimidation but only through respect—a lesson he had learned from both the Army and his work with men of the Civilian Conservation Corps, who had needed to be convinced rather than coerced.
Marshall began to work with the Morale Division on a broad program to create recreational halls on every major base in which men could buy light refreshments, listen to music, and meet and dance with female hostesses. To sustain this massive initiative, the United Service Organizations (USO) was legally established in New York City on February 4, 1941, when several national charities banded together to raise the morale of members of the armed forces providing them recreation, education, and entertainment.
One of Marshall’s many innovations was creating the U.S.O. to help raise the morale of troops.
Another key element of the morale boosting was the three realistic war games staged in 1941, in which more than 820,000 new soldiers participated. Conducted in Tennessee, Louisiana, and the Carolinas, the exercises transformed the way Americans would wage war and paved the way for the highly disciplined, fast-moving units, including armored cavalry units led by bold and resourceful officers that led to victory in North Africa and Europe.
Not only did the maneuvers train the men in crucial new weapons and methods of warfare, but they also helped create a new and unique “G.I.” culture that was invaluable in boosting morale and bonding men from all backgrounds into a cohesive group before they set off to fight around the world.
The Louisiana Maneuvers were the largest of the 1941 mock battles and the centerpiece of Chief of Staff Marshall’s plan to give the Army fresh vigor, a higher level of morale, and a new cohort of leaders. Marshall also saw Louisiana as a place to show the nation what it was like to go to war and what it would take to win that war.
Even during the planning stages, the Louisiana Maneuvers were labeled the largest-ever military exercises in size and scope. More than 19 full divisions and some 400,000 men were to be made ready to engage in a mock war, which was approximately the same number of troops on active duty in the United States Army in 2019.
The Army also developed techniques for feeding much larger numbers of soldiers. Fort Polk Museum
Like the Tennessee Maneuvers, these in Louisiana were unscripted; nothing was prearranged about how they would be conducted or how they would end. The goal was to approximate real combat in a way never achieved before – and the staging would borrow a page from Hollywood. No fewer than 500 of them would drop from the skies over Louisiana and float to the ground ready and armed for mock battle. Actual tanks, including those under Patton’s command, as well as mounted cavalry divisions would participate. Smoke canisters would be released to shroud battlefields, large bags of white flour would be fired from artillery or dropped from aircraft to simulate attacks and mark direct hits while loudspeakers would blast the recorded sounds of battle.
While Congress wrestled with whether or not to extend the service of the draftees and Reservists, troops from all over the country began their trek to Louisiana and staging areas in neighboring states. Many units would remain in the field for five months. Enlisted men could possess only what they could carry, which would mimic the conditions of a real war.
On the eve of the first phase of the exercises, the combat zone came within an eyelash of a direct hit by a hurricane, which changed course and made landfall in the area near Galveston, Texas. The heavy rain and wind only added to the power of the enemy both armies faced: “General Mud.”
The Louisiana Maneuvers are essential to understanding the United States’ involvement in World War II and the ultimate outcome of the war.
The maneuvers were testing whether a superior force without tanks (Blue) could defeat a smaller force with two mature armored divisions (Red). Not stated as such by the men in charge, but understood by a few of the reporters, this setup was akin to the situation the allied nations faced in Europe. As Leon Kay of the United Press noted, when Lieutenant General Walter Krueger gave the order to “advance and engage the enemy,” it was essentially the same order given to the vastly smaller armies in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Yugoslavia when Germany’s columns of tanks and armored vehicles thundered over their borders.
Kay, who had witnessed firsthand the war in Europe and had watched the German invasion of the Balkans, would view the maneuvers through a prism that saw Lieutenant General Ben Lear, as the Nazi, sending his two Red Army Panzer divisions into a nation holding on for its life.
The maneuvers officially began at 12:01 a.m. on September 15, 1941, as rain fell over most of the area. Close to a half million men were now at war. The day got off to an inauspicious beginning, as the 400 aircraft of the Blue Third Army were grounded before dawn after two planes collided and one pilot was killed. Three other soldiers were killed in predawn traffic accidents—fatalities that immediately underscored the exercises were more akin to real war than simple war games.
During that first exercise—officially referred to as Phase I but quickly dubbed the “Battle of the Red River” by the press—the Second Army quickly found that getting across the river was tougher than expected. A lack of bridges strong enough to carry tanks forced Lear to deploy three temporary pontoon bridges. These, along with three strong highway bridges, allowed him to send his First and Second Armored Divisions on a wide pivot northwest, to cross the river at Shreveport and Coushatta, with Patton’s tanks in the lead.
As they began, it was clear that the maneuvers were well staged and above all augmented by top-notch sound effects. “This added realism was so loud that we had to shout to be heard,” commented Captain Norris H. Perkins. Added to this were the other sensory cues suggesting real warfare including the smell of burned powder and diesel exhaust and the distinct odor of cavalry horses as well as the presence of billowing clouds of smoke and dust.
Gen. John N. Greely offered a $50 bounty to his men in the Louisiana Maneuvers if they captured the opposing general, “Georgie” Patton. Instead, Patton’s men secretly found Greely and took him “captive.”
By nightfall, the greater part of Lear’s Red Army had met little opposition as it occupied several hundred square miles of Blue territory. If there was a great success on opening day, it was the placement of those massive pontoon bridges across the Red River. As September 15 came to a close, the expectation was that there would be conflict the next morning.
Inside the maneuvers, a contest within a contest was going on. Before the opening, Brig. Gen. John N. Greely, commanding the Second Infantry Division of the Blue Army, had offered his men a $50 reward for the capture of “Georgie” Patton, “dead or alive.”
Upon hearing this, Patton offered $100 for the capture of Greely. After crossing the river, a group of Patton’s men went looking for Greely and found him in his command post near Lake Charles. The bounty was collected.
On September 18, after three days of preparation, the Red Army thrust more than half of its 130,000 men at the Blue Army along a 75-mile front in central Louisiana, while sending its armored divisions, based on airborne reconnaissance, east rather than west, where the Blue Army had positioned its anti-tank units.
The armored divisions had virtually disappeared for two days, setting up the surprise attack. However, Krueger’s forces discovered Lear’s armored divisions, and the Third Army’s B-26 aircraft attacked them before dawn, dropping flares on the columns.
By nightfall, observers felt that each side still had a chance at defeating the other, but the tide turned quickly the following morning, September 19, when the Blue Army captured most of two regiments of the New York 27th Infantry, which led Hanson W. Baldwin to declare, “Had today’s finale been real war, General Lear’s Second Army would probably have been annihilated.”
Commanders during the maneuvers discovered that they needed air superiority and a motorized infantry for tank attacks to succeed.
A few lessons appeared to have been learned—or at least underscored during this exercise. Major General Charles L. Scott, commander of the First Armored Division, concluded that air superiority and a motorized infantry were needed for the success of tank attacks. “The day of trying to operate without aircraft is past,” he asserted. “And putting foot troops with tanks is like sending a race horse and a plow mule out together and expect them to go at the same speed.”
George Patton’s Second Armored Division had met with overpowering infantry and anti-tank opposition and was essentially destroyed. There was general agreement that the combination of inhospitable terrain, weather, unfavorable umpire rulings, and the anti-tank battalions had combined to defeat Patton’s men. Patton was not only frustrated to be on the losing team but also unhappy that he was unable to pay the $50 reward he had promised to his officers and men for the capture of “a certain s.o.b. named Eisenhower.”
Patton and Eisenhower were old friends, united in part because they both saw a future in tanks. Despite their vast differences in temperament and personal wealth, they enjoyed the highest personal respect for one another. Having been placed on the opposite side in a mock war, Patton thought the best way to humiliate Eisenhower would be to capture him, but his attempt did not avail.
On the other hand, reporters in Louisiana had no trouble finding Eisenhower, who became the face and voice not only of Krueger’s Blue Army but also of the leaders of Marshall’s emerging new U.S. Army. As Ike’s son John Eisenhower explained, Krueger was a reticent man who still retained a trace of a German accent, and he was glad to hand over the role of keeping the press happy and well informed. Because of his good nature, genuine humility, and love of telling stories, the 49-year-old Eisenhower became the counter-stereotype to the no-nonsense, tight-lipped Army field officer.
The Louisiana games were among the most watched and carefully reported events of 1941 — but they were largely forgotten when real war ensued with Japan’s invasion of Pearl Harbor on December 7 and Germany’s declaration of war on the United States on December 11. The maneuvers themselves tell a dramatic story filled with colorful characters and monumental (sometimes comic) missteps, taken as the Army learned by its mistakes. But they are also essential to understanding the United States’ involvement in World War II, and the ultimate outcome of the war.
After-action inspections found 263 bullet holes in his F9F-5 Panther.
Legendary Navy aviator Royce Williams, who shot down four Soviet MiG-15 fighters in 1952, is the inspiration for legislation that would make it easier for troops and veterans to be awarded the Medal of Honor. Photos via the U.S. Naval Institute and the Congressional Medal of Honor Society.
More than 70 years after he took part in the longest dogfight in Navy history, scoring four aerial victories, Royce Williams might finally get the Medal of Honor.
Over the weekend, Congress released the text for the compromise National Defense Authorization Act, the annual defense policy bill outlining spending plans and goals. This year, it is a record $901 billion. Nestled into the large defense appropriations bill is Sec. 591, which would upgrade Williams’ Navy Cross to the Medal of Honor for “acts of valor during the Korean War.”
Those acts involve taking on seven Soviet MiG-15s in a 35-minute dogfight almost single handedly, in a battle that was kept under wraps for years despite Williams’ achievements.
On Nov. 18, 1952, Williams — then a Navy lieutenant flying in his Grumman F9F-5 Panther for his second mission that day — was with three other aviators over the Sea of Japan when seven Soviet Air Force fighter planes emerged.
Two of the American planes had to return to their ships due to mechanical issues, leaving just Williams and his wingman in the skies as the Soviets closed in. As they flew by, Williams let out a burst of his F9F’s guns, scoring a hit. One MiG went down, with Williams’ wingman breaking off to chase it. Royce Williams was now alone, against six Soviet pilots in jets that were more advanced than his.
Over the course of 35 minutes, Williams banked and weaved his Panther, trying to avoid getting in the MiGs’ sights. He quickly downed a second Soviet jet, and kept using his maneuverability to line up passing shots with his limited ammo. He took out a third. Then he heavily damaged another that was eventually lost.
“In the moment I was a fighter pilot doing my job,” Williams told Task & Purpose in 2022. “I was only shooting what I had.”
Eventually, he ran out of ammunition and was forced to break off. He flew back to the Navy task force — which fired on him at first, mistaking him for the many more Soviet planes that had outnumbered him — and managed to land. After-action inspections found 263 bullet holes in his Panther. Somehow, Williams and the plane survived.
For his actions in the wild dogfight that day, Williams was awarded a Silver Star. But his actions were covered up — and his official victories listed as downing one enemy plane and damaging another — over fears it could heighten U.S.-Soviet tensions.
So for the rest of his career, which included actions in Vietnam and commanding a ship, his record stayed that way, the truth kept hidden. It was only in the 21st century that retired Capt. Williams’ story came out.
For more than a decade, there has been a push to get Williams the Medal of Honor, with backers including retired Rear Adm. Doniphan Shelton and members of Congress.
Three years ago, in December 2022, then-Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro upgraded his Silver Star to a Navy Cross, saying that Williams “clearly distinguished himself during a high-risk mission and deserve[s] proper recognition.” Williams received the award in January 2023.
The text in this year’s defense spending bill would authorize awarding Williams, who is now 100, the Medal of Honor and waive any time limitations on presenting him with the award.
Washing the sleep from his eyes, the boy was excited. On mornings like this, unlike school days, he didn’t mind getting up early. No sir, today he was going on a special trip with his dad. After brushing his teeth and combing his hair, the freckle-faced boy slipped into Wrangler jeans and a plaid shirt with pearl snaps. Last came his boots and cowboy hat, just like dads.
His boot heels clip-clopped against the hardwood floors, skipping his way to the kitchen. Grinning, he smelled the aroma of frying bacon mingled with cigarette smoke.
He loved days like this when it was just him and Dad getting ready for some kind of adventure or fun outing. Flipping the bacon with a fork, his dad asked, “You ready to learn something about Pancho Villa?” The excited boy responded, “Yes, sir!”
With the bacon done, his dad cracked four eggs into the grease as toast popped from the toaster. “Grab that toast and put in two more slices. These eggs should be finished so we can eat,” he said.
Covered supply wagon used in Mexico on Villa manhunt.
The Trip
Sitting in the warm pick-up truck with a full belly and anticipation surging through his body, the boy noticed they were headed south as Hank Williams played on the radio. “It’s only a half hour drive to get there,” his dad told him.
Pulling into a small village, he saw a small building. It was a museum. The boy’s eyes widened when he spotted the 3-inch artillery piece, along with an old wagon and some type of armored vehicle sitting out front. For a 10-year-old, it didn’t get any better.
“Son, I’m going to tell you the historical relevance of this place. You may not appreciate it now or quite understand it, but you will each time you visit here. Let me tell you how it all started …”
Looking down the barrel of the 3” gun
Battle of Columbus
The Battle of Columbus, also known as the Columbus Raid or The Burning of Columbus, began in the early hours of March 9, 1916, by the remaining soldiers of Pancho Villa’s Division of the North.
The small town was three miles north of the Mexican border. The raid grew to a full-scale battle between the U.S. Army, joined by some townsfolk, against the Villistas. Villa’s men were driven back by the bravery and tenacity of the 13th Cavalry Regiment stationed there.
This surprise attack infuriated Americans. It caused a punitive military reaction, further complicating Mexican-American political relations. President Woodrow Wilson responded by sending General John “Blackjack” Pershing and his troops into Mexico. Called the “Punitive Expedition,” they invaded Mexico but failed to capture Villa.
Book on Pancho Villa given to Tank from Bart.
Pancho Villa with his motorcycle.
Background
Pancho Villa was no fan of Mexican President Venustiano Carranza, fighting against him and his Army whenever possible. During the Mexican Revolution, Villa sustained his greatest defeat during the 1915 Battle of Celaya.
Villa’s Army, The Division of the North, was now disorganized, wandering around northern Mexico, short on food, military supplies, money and munitions. To continue his war of opposition against Carranza, Villa figured raiding Columbus, New Mexico would be a good way to obtain needed supplies.
Villa planned the attack, camping his army of an estimated 1,500 horsemen outside of Palomas on the border three miles south of Columbus. The area was populated by about 300 Americans and about as many Mexicans, which fled north from the advancing Villistas.
Villa sent spies into Columbus before the raid and they mistakenly told him only 30 troops were in town. In reality, there were 12 officers with over 340 troops from the 13th Cavalry, of which 270 were combat troops. On the night of the attack, half the men were on patrol or other assignments.
Pancho in a suite. Notice the double print bulge under coat?
The Attack
Villa divided his force into two columns, most approaching town on foot, launching a two-pronged attack at 4:15 a.m. on March 9. When the Villistas entered Columbus from the west and southeast shouting, “Viva Villa! Viva Mexico!” and other phrases, the town’s people, along with most of the garrison, were asleep. They woke to an army of Villistas burning their buildings and looting their homes.
McClellan saddles of cavalry.
Battle Stations
Despite being taken by surprise, the Americans quickly recovered. Soon after the attack, 2nd Lt. John P. Lucas, commanding the 13th Cavalry’s machine gun quarters organized a hasty defense around the camp’s guard tent, where the machine guns were kept under lock, with two men and a Hotchkiss M1909 Benet-Mercie machine gun.
Lucas was soon joined by the remainder of his unit and 30 troopers armed with armed with M1903 Springfield rifles, led by 2nd Lt. Horace Stringfellow, Jr. The troop’s four machine guns fired over 5,000 rounds apiece during a 90-minute fight, their targets illuminated by the fires from burning buildings. In addition, many of the townspeople were armed with rifles and shotguns.
Villa’s men looted and burned several houses and commercial buildings while fighting civilians defending their homes. It’s not confirmed if Villa was with the actual raiding party at any time. Villa and his commanders took up position on Cootes Hill overlooking Columbus. From this location, they could observe the battle while some of Villa’s men acted as sharpshooters.
Aftermath
The raid left 18 Americans dead, both civilian and enlisted personnel. Outraged, President Wilson ordered the U.S. Army, led by General Pershing to hunt down Pancho Villa. National Guard units from all over the United States were called up.
By the end of August 1916, over 100,000 troops were on the border. The Army used Curtiss Jenny airplanes for reconnaissance, along with trucks carrying supplies, both firsts for the Army, during the operation. They scoured portions of northern Mexico for six months for Villa to no avail.
The Jenny airplane was used for reconnaissance in finding Poncho Villa.
Significance
With the use of Jenny airplanes, the raid is sometimes referred to as the birthplace of the U.S. Air Force. The raid resulted in the deaths of 70-75 Raiders, 10 Americans and eight soldiers. It also marked one of the few times foreign forces attacked the United States.
Hotchkiss M1909 Benet-Mercie machine gun.
Cootes Hill plaque.
Real Time
The boy listened intently as his dad told him the history, stories about the men and Pancho Villa. They’d visit regularly after reading more about the raid and Pancho Villa himself. Naturally, they’d talk about the guns used by the men involved.
There’s a hill near the barracks providing a nice view into Mexico. The boy and his dad always climbed it, finishing their visit, looking south for signs of Pancho. It was the same hill from which Villa and his men watched the raid.
I first visited Pancho Villa State Park about 10 years ago when the very boy took me and Doc Barranti.
The boy, now grown, was Bart Skelton — Skeeter Skelton’s son. It made the park visit more personal and interesting with Bart as our tour guide sharing his stories with us. After the tour, we climbed Cootes Hill, just as Bart always did, only now he shared the experience with Doc and me.
Southwest history is rich with stories like this one. Stories that entertain while teaching the lessons of rugged men living dangerous lives. They’re especially good when shared with a good amigo leading the way. Thanks for everything, Bart.
In September 1940, the 30th Infantry Division, composed of the National Guard troops of North & South Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia, was inducted into Federal service at Ft. Jackson, S.C. spending over one year in preliminary training.
In 1942 and 1943, the 30th received a major part of its advanced training at Camp Blanding, near Starke, Florida. After losing most of its trained Officers and Men to cadre new divisions throughout the country, the 30th received replacements from nearly every state in the country. Training continued during 1943 at Camp Blanding, Florida, Camp Forrest Tennessee and Camp Atterbury, Indiana, where final preparations were made to move overseas.
On 12 February 1944, the 30th Infantry Division sailed for Europe, and settled on the south coast of England to participate in further training for the coming invasion.
In June of 1944, after being fully trained and prepared, the 30th Infantry Division started crossing the English Channel to France on 6 June, D-Day, to replace some of the units of the 29th Infantry Division which suffered devastating losses in the initial attack. The remainder of the Division to Omaha Beach on 10 June and was almost immediately committed into combat against the experienced German Army.
During combat, the 30th Infantry Division was known as the “Workhorse of the Western Front” and was named “Roosevelt’s SS” by the German High Command because of the consistent vigor and terrific pressure the 30th Infantry Division brought to bear on Hitler’s ‘elite’ 1st SS Division.
1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler
The German 1st SS Division was the main force of resistance prior to the breakthrough at St. LO, and again at Mortain, where the 30th stopped the 1st SS, thereby allowing Gen. George Patton’s 3rd Army to race across France, shortening the war by many months.
The German 1st SS Division was reorganized over the next few months, and again faced by the 30th in the “Battle of the Bulge” during the Ardennes-Alsace Offensive, near Malmedy, Belgium, in the winter of 1944-45. Again the 30th Infantry Division tore to shreds this ‘elite’ enemy division, which never returned to battle.
During its initial training, the 30th Infantry Division was commanded by Maj. Gen. Henry D. Russell, followed by Maj. Gen. William Simpson. MG Simpson later commanded the Ninth Army when the 30th was attached to this command. Maj. Gen. Leland S. Hobbs commanded the 30th during the rest of its training and throughout the war.
Immediately following the end of the war, the 30th Infantry Division spent the next two months in Occupation on the border of Czechoslovakia and Germany.
Shortly after the end of their Occupation duties, in early August 1945, the 30th Infantry Division returned to the United States on the Queen Mary and the USS General Black, and was soon deactivated at Ft. Jackson, S.C. on 25 November 1945.
My buddy Sario Caravalho is a fascinating guy. Born and raised in Hawaii, he was one of the US Army’s first Green Berets. Sario entered the Army in 1955 and went straight into Special Forces from basic training.
Back then experienced senior NCOs taught SF tactics via O.J.T. in the absence of a formal school. Sario subsequently left the Army in 1976 after three combat tours in Vietnam. His remarkable career spanned the entire evolution of modern American special operations.
I met Major Sario Caravalho at a local veteran’s breakfast. Sometimes some of the most amazing folks live right down the road.
Covert Op into Iran
Sario’s first operation downrange was a mission into Iran to recover the bodies of the aircrew of a downed American spy plane in 1962.
CPT Larry Thorne commanded his part of that remarkable op. CPT Thorne fought for Finland and then Germany against the Russians during WW2 before smuggling himself into the US and joining the US Army. He was later killed in action in Vietnam.
CPT Thorne is the only member of the Waffen SS buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Here’s his incredible story. CPT Thorne drafted Sario’s letter of recommendation to Officer Candidate School. In 1964, Sario found himself a young SF lieutenant in one of the first contingents deployed to Vietnam with the 5th Special Forces Group.
Welcome to the Jungle Sario
Those first Southeast Asian operations were TDY—temporary duty- by the Green Berets of the 1st SF Group based in Okinawa. Nobody expected that we would be there for ten years and lose 58,000 great Americans along the way. Like the rest of the Army, SF figured Vietnam out as they went along.
American forces first met the AK-47 rifle in the jungles of Vietnam.
Sario’s first trip downrange in Vietnam had him serving on one of nine A-teams operating as the advanced contingent of the 5th SF Group.
While operating out of the An Khe SF camp, Sario and his indigenous troops captured a handful of SKS and AK-47 rifles after defeating an NVA (North Vietnamese Army) unit in battle. General Westmoreland personally flew in afterward with his entourage to inspect these radical new weapons.
The AK-47 was a paradigm-shifting infantry weapon. Capturing a few in the early days of Vietnam was a big deal.
The Kalashnikov assault rifle is the most-produced firearm in human history and is ubiquitous today. Back in the early sixties, however, these captured examples were both exotic and unfamiliar.
When General Westmoreland climbed back into his helicopter, his staff pogues took the captured guns with them. Sario still seems a wee bit bitter about that.
Turning Up the Heat
Sario worked out of the SF camp at An Khe before the 1st Cav showed up and blew the neighborhood to hell. He was then posted to Tan Linh east of Saigon and kept occupied humping the boonies alongside ARVN and Montagnard forces.
Given the remote nature of the place, resupply was via Air Force C-123 aircraft. F-4 Phantoms flying close air support would roll in so low over their camp to drop Snakeye bombs and napalm outside the perimeter that their jet wash frequently blew the tents down.
With nine months of his one-year combat tour in the bag, Sario began to imagine the sweet smell of home. A mere three more months, and he would be on that freedom bird headed back to the World.
Then LTC Hale, the C-Team commander, broke the news that the SF XO at an obscure little outpost called Duc Co had been KIA (Killed In Action). The beleaguered SF contingent there was surrounded and cut off. For his sins and with three months left in-country, Sario climbed aboard a Huey headed for Duc Co.
The Lay of the Land
This is a shot from inside the besieged SF camp at Duc Co. Sario is standing to the left of the guy with the bazooka.
A typical SF contingent for a place like Duc Co would be two officers and maybe ten enlisted soldiers along with a small Vietnamese SF team. The proper muscle came from between 100 and 200 indigenous Montagnards, a few crew-served weapons, and a whole lot of air support.
Sario said that during his first tour, they had access to most any imaginable personal weapons, but that the M-16 had not yet been fielded in theater. He said they had M1s, M2 carbines, M14s, Grease Guns, BARs, and M1919A4 and A6 belt-fed machineguns in abundance.
For serious work, the camp was equipped with a single 4.2-inch mortar as well as a brace of the smaller 81mm sort. They also had a 57mm recoilless rifle and a WW2-vintage 3.5-inch bazooka. When it was time to make his grand entrance at his new posting, the Army delivered Sario in style.
The One Man Air Assault
Early Huey Hog gunships were exceptionally effective for close air support.
Sario Caravalho made his way to Duc Co as the sole passenger in a UH-1 Huey Slick escorted by a pair of armed Huey gunships. The gunships slathered the surrounding area with rocket and minigun fire to ensure that the Slick could get in without undue mischief.
When the Slick touched down, out stepped Sario all by his lonesome. He was greeted by the SF Team Sergeant as mortar rounds fell liberally all around. It was obvious this was going to be a long three months.
Sario’s three air assault aircraft were in and out immediately. However, not everyone was so fortunate. A few days later, a Huey attempting to bring in ammo and supplies went down close enough to the camp to salvage.
Sario harvested both M-60 door guns and repurposed them for perimeter defense. At the time, the M60 was brand new and difficult to acquire in Vietnam. Compared to their WW2-vintage M1919A4 Brownings, the new Sixties were both more portable and more versatile. Sario put the two liberated pigs to good use until some passing aviator laid claim to them again and ran off with the weapons.
This is MAJ Norman Schwarzkopf carrying one of his injured Vietnamese airborne soldiers to safety in Vietnam. Note his M1A1 paratrooper carbine.Schwarzkopf went on to command all Allied forces during the First Gulf War.
Duc Co was only a couple of clicks from the Cambodian border. Extra supplies arrived solely by air. While there, Sario and his team leader worked with Major Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf. Schwarzkopf was the US advisor to a South Vietnamese airborne brigade.
The Vietnamese paratroopers had the mission to relieve the pressure around Duc Co. Schwarzkopf eventually went on to become the supreme commander of Allied forces during Operation Desert Storm.
Now Things Get Real For Sario
The siege of Duc Co took place immediately before the infamous battle of the Ia Drang Valley that was memorialized in the Hal Moore book We Were Soldiers Once, and Young. Mel Gibson made a fine movie out of it. At some point, the NVA decided that they simply must have Duc Co. Then it was game on.
US Army Special Forces had access to Uzi submachine guns beginning early in the Vietnam War.
Relentless NVA pressure had closed the unimproved dirt strip that was used by the C-123s to resupply Duc Co. In desperation, an SF officer named MAJ Curt Terry went looking for Air Force pilots crazy enough to fly supplies and ammunition into the beleaguered SF camp. The two pilots he found agreed on the condition that MAJ Terry tag along to prove he had skin in the game. Terry climbed aboard the big twin-engine cargo plane packing an Uzi submachine gun.
When Sario Caravalho first met MAJ Terry it was to be castigated for walking on some precious and holy Army grass someplace. However, the two eventually became close while serving together downrange. MAJ Terry was a pretty remarkable man.
Uzi Versus .51-cal
The C-123 Provider was both fat and slow. However, it had excellent short-field characteristics and did yeomen’s duty supporting remote American military outposts in Vietnam.
When the lumbering C-123 touched down, the surrounding NVA opened up with everything they had. This included at least one 12.7mm DShK heavy machine gun as well as several mortars. With the C-123 on the ground getting shot up worse by the minute, MAJ Terry stepped out onto the runway to try to make sense of the chaos.
The details have been muddied by the passage of time. Apparently, MAJ Terry unlimbered his Uzi and, alongside the accumulated Montagnards, ultimately charged through and neutralized the big NVA gun. The C-123 ultimately made it off the ground and safely back to Saigon despite being badly perforated.
In the process, they also managed to evacuate some of the wounded from the airborne brigade. Thanks to Terry and these brass-balled wingnuts, the SF camp at Duc Co also got enough beans and bullets to continue the fight.
Improvise, Adapt, Overcome…
Sario and his indigenous troops repurposed a damaged M48 tank into a sort of improvised pillbox.
Relief of the surrounded SF came in the form of ARVN airborne forces and then, later, South Vietnamese Marines. The Marines brought along an M48 tank that was ultimately knocked out and had to be abandoned.
Sario and his buddies eventually dragged the enormous armored vehicle into the camp using Deuce and a Half trucks and set it up as a stationary pillbox. In this capacity, the liberated tank helped keep the relentless NVA at bay for the rest of Sario’s time at Duc Co.
When his three months were up, LT Sario Caravalho duly headed home to reacquaint himself with his family. Back then, Special Forces, like Aviation, was not yet its own Army branch. Commissioned officers serving as either Green Berets or aviators would rotate back through their assigned branches as needed for career development. On paper at least, Sario was still a grunt.
Take 2
Sario’s second tour downrange was as company commander of Alpha Company, 1st Battalion of the 20th Infantry (11th Infantry Brigade) of the Americal Division. After a successful company command in combat, Sario rotated home once more to catch his breath.
He later did a third combat tour, again with SF. This time he was assigned to MACV (Military Assistance Command—Vietnam). Sario returned home from his MACV posting when the war ended.
The Gift That Keeps on Giving
I jumped T10 parachutes myself back in the day. They were fairly crude in comparison to more modern fare. Controlling the T10 involved nothing more than grabbing a handful of risers and tugging.
Military service in the combat arms, particularly during wartime, is a young man’s game. Sario ultimately left the Army with 65 parachute jumps. On his first night jump, he landed backward in the dark underneath a T10 parachute.
Relative to the newer canopies in use today, the T10 was fairly primitive. Sario dislocated his shoulder and wrenched his back, injuries that would nag him to this day.
Sario is 86 years old today, though he appears twenty years younger. He is active, sharp, and opinionated, as one might expect from a seasoned special operator. Despite having left the Army in 1976, Sario still carries himself like a soldier. He explained to me that, by 1970, the ARVNs were good. He was certain that the South could have won the war had the politicians left them alone to do so.
Mining for Heroes
Sario Caravalho is a quiet American hero. He served three combat tours downrange in Vietnam and then came home to raise his family.
I met Sario Caravalho when I attended a monthly veteran’s breakfast at Harmon’s restaurant in Paris, Mississippi. Sario, retired Army 1SG Justin Hill, and Mack Thweatt, the owner of Harmon’s, host the free vets’ event on the first Saturday of every month just because they are great Americans.
I got to know Sario because I happened to sit down beside him one Saturday over grits, hashbrowns, and some GI-style scrambled eggs.
America was once awash in legit heroes. Though he would push back against the characterization, my friend Major Sario Caravalho is counted among them. They can be a bit tougher to find these days, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there. Sometimes it is just a matter of sitting down at the right table.
Ice jam on the Little Missouri River
