Kentucky Marine: Major General Logan Feland and the Making of the Modern USMC

11. Nicaragua, 1927

167 11 Nicaragua, 1927 The United States and the Marine Corps had been involved in Nicaragua since the mid-nineteenth century. In 1855 American soldier of fortune William Walker took a group of men to Nicaragua to support a Liberal Party revolt against the ruling Conservatives. A year later Walker turned coat and accepted the Conservatives’ offer to lead the country as president. Fighting continued, so in December 1857 Marines landed in Nicaragua to restore peace, and they eventually captured Walker. In 1860 Walker returned to Central America, where he was subsequently executed in Honduras. Marines again intervened in Nicaragua at times of perceived necessity . In 1894 Franklin Moses landed with Marines on the east coast to protect American property in Bluefields. The Marines interceded at least three more times before the end of the nineteenth century. Every time they left, the situation deteriorated. Conflict between Liberals and Conservatives continued into the twentieth century. By 1909, Smedley Darlington Butler was commanding a Marine battalion stationed in Panama. Over the next three years, Butler’s Marines sailed to Nicaragua three times, finally staying and fighting in 1912. Additional Marines under Colonel Joseph “Uncle Joe” Pendleton arrived to bolster the U.S. intervention. Fighting eventually died down, but for more than a decade, a small contingent of Marines remained stationed at the U.S. legation in Managua to ensure stability. In late 1924 the Marines finally withdrew from the legation, but within a month, Liberals and Conservatives were fighting again. The Conservatives seized the government and installed Emiliano Chamorro 168 KENTUCKY MARINE as president in January 1926. The United States refused to recognize Chamorro ’s government. In May 1926 fleet Marines again went ashore at Bluefields to protect American lives and property. By the end of the year, the Liberals, under Alfredo Diaz, had regained control; Diaz was slated to be president until a national election could be held in 1928. After one American was killed and other lives and property were threatened, President Calvin Coolidge increased the U.S. military presence in Nicaragua by sending more Marines in early 1927.1 Diplomatic efforts to contain the Nicaraguan crisis continued. The Marine Corps’s involvement faced strong opposition in Congress, particularly by Democratic senator Burton Wheeler and Republican senator William Borah, who claimed the United States was motivated by a desire to protect its commercial interests in oil and mahogany. Others, such as Secretary of State Frank Kellogg, feared that a “Bolshevik menace” from increasingly leftist Mexico might spread to Nicaragua. Finally, President Coolidge and Secretary Kellogg decided in 1927 to send a peace mission to Nicaragua. They chose former secretary of war and army artillery colonel Henry Stimson to broker an agreement to restore peace and stability.2 After being reviewed by Commandant John Lejeune, the Marine Corps Expeditionary Force, with Brigadier General Logan Feland as its commander , set sail on the Henderson on February 23, 1927. Major Marion Humphrey served as Feland’s chief of staff, and First Lieutenant Arthur Challacombe was his aide-de-camp. Feland’s old unit, the Fifth Regiment , comprised most of the 1,200 troops being sent to Nicaragua. During the voyage, Feland’s men watched the movie Tell It to the Marines, a silent epic starring Lon Chaney Sr. The Marine Corps had cooperated with the movie’s producers during the making of the film, as part of the Corps’s strong publicity efforts in the 1920s. The Marines on the Henderson thoroughly enjoyed the movie, and it contributed to their high morale.3 General Feland and his Marines landed at Corinto, on the west coast of Nicaragua, on March 7, 1927. He assumed command of all Marine Corps forces in the western part of the country—nearly 2,000 men. Feland would report to Rear Admiral Julian Latimer, commander of the U.S. Navy Special Services Squadron since May 1926. Latimer arrived in Corinto a week after the Marines and consulted with several people: Nicaragua 169 Feland, U.S. Minister Charles Eberhardt, and Nicaraguan government and rebel leaders. Feland and Latimer already knew each other: they had both served in 1923 on a committee established by Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby.4 The navy had created the Special Services Squadron in September 1920 to patrol the waters of the Caribbean and the Pacific. Based in the Panama Canal Zone, the squadron’s mission was to “promote friendly relations and to...