In the first third of the 20th century the Marine Corps was involved in an ever-deepening series of Caribbean brushfire conflicts, interventions, and occupations, collectively called the “Banana Wars.” In large part the United States’ near-continuous military presence in the region resulted from its victory in the Spanish-American War and subsequent emergence as a great power. With the acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone in 1903, which vastly increased the potential of the U. S. Navy, the power evolution continued.
The strategic rationale for Caribbean interventions was to safeguard the canal’s Atlantic gateways, especially the Windward and Mona passages flanking the politically unstable island of Hispaniola. The specter of the new German High Seas Fleet continually dots the records of the Navy’s General Board during the pre-World War I years, and until 1914 there was always fear that financially bankrupt Haiti or the Dominican Republic would lease a port for a German coaling station.
As the United States drifted into the European war, Hispaniola caught fire. In July 1915, a near-total social and political collapse in Haiti brought a major American intervention that lasted for 19 years. Less than a year later, in the Dominican Republic, President Juan Isidro Jimenez and his conspiring war minister, General Desiderio Arias, tossed each other from office. The President and cabinet, with some loyal Republican Guardsmen, camped outside the capital. Arias, with the bulk of the military, ensconced himself behind the thick, ancient walls of Santo Domingo’s Fort Ozama.
Jimenez had been elected with U. S. support, and the State Department demanded he “request” American troops to restore the government. On 3 May 1916, while the President vacillated, two marine companies, the 6th and 9th (artillery), arrived from Haiti. Handed a fait accompli Jimenez now seemed willing enough, and when Arias refused an ultimatum to evacuate the fort, he agreed to combined military operations.
The initial plan called for a dual loyalist-marine attack, but then Jimenez faltered. He decided he could not bring himself to cooperate in retaking the capital, attacking his fellow countrymen. The ranking Marine in the area, Captain Frederic “Dopey” Wise, put the situation succinctly to the President: either accept American help or resign. The anguished politician was pressured into signing resignation documents on the spot. Now the Dominican Republic was without a government.
Through the impasse, Arias remained stolid and unmoving within the Fort Ozama bastion; clearly, marine reinforcements were necessary. On 12 May, Rear Admiral William Caperton, senior American officer in Hispaniolan waters, arrived from Haiti bringing the 4th and 5th companies; the next day the 24th Company came from Guantanamo Bay. Arias was handed an ultimatum: disarm and disband, or face a marine assault and a naval bombardment. The rebel general gave no hint of compliance.
Arias was a perpetual schemer and revolutionary, but he was no fool. Four hundred Marines and the ships’ guns would slice his movement pretty thin. On the night of 14 May, with several hundred well-armed troops, civilian irregulars, and released convicts, he abandoned the capital and moved north. At dawn on the 15th, Captain Wise led the advancing companies through the city’s north wall. Even though Arias was gone, some resistance and sniping were expected. Fortunately for the Marines, not a shot was fired.
Santo Domingo and the major ports were now firmly in marine control. But Arias maintained his popularity and grip over substantial parts of the country, especially in the populous northern Cibao region; worse, he was reportedly preparing his base, Santiago—the republic’s second largest city—to withstand a siege. Admiral Caperton recognized the need for substantial reinforcements.
On 4 June, orders arrived at San Diego for Colonel Joseph Pendleton, the Corps’ beloved and bespectacled “Uncle Joe,” to take his 4th Marine Regiment south. At New Orleans they boarded the transport Hancock (AP-3), and on the 18th anchored off Santo Domingo. At a council of war, Admiral Caperton opted to hold the capital with a skeleton force of ships’ detachments, sending Pendleton north with every available Marine to clear the Cibao and take Santiago. This expedition, the admiral cautioned, was not a war against an enemy, but a police action in support of the constitutional government. Rebel activities were to be put down without further alienating the people, and with a minimum of blood and property damage.
Pendleton decided upon an eastward route into the Cibao, beginning near the Haitian border, 75 miles over the Monte Cristi-Santiago road. The terrain was level, albeit heavy with cactus and brush, and the road—packed earth, and barely capable of handling motor transport in the dry season—at least provided a clear track. The shallow, twisting Yaque River, with its meager source of water, flowed parallel to the road. Approximately 12 miles from Santiago, the railroad south from Puerto Plata joined the road at Navarette, continuing with it into the city.
On 21 June the Hancock arrived at Monte Cristi, where Pendleton found logistic preparations for the march already well in hand. Major Robert Dunlap had come up from Santo Domingo with the 13th Company (artillery) and Captain Wise’s 6th Company, and together they organized the baggage train. At that time, a marine expeditionary force came equipped with clothing, rations, tentage, arms, ammunition, and medical supplies. For baggage there were a few two-wheeled hand carts; all other contrivances had to be purchased on the spot. Motor transport was very much in its infancy. The 13th Company brought its pair of Jeffrey Quad trucks to haul their three-inch guns, and Pendleton’s regiment landed with a Holt tractor, on loan from the manufacturer. For an advancing column of more than 800 men, this hardly made do.
Dunlap and Wise bought or leased everything with wheels, four legs, or a motor. The local Ford agency, at a rather large profit, was stripped of its 12 Model T touring cars. These invaluable vehicles performed ubiquitous service akin to the World War II Jeep. Other additions included a pair of boxcar-like White trucks, five Studebaker wagon trailers, and 24 Dominican mule carts. Wise, remembering the water problems during his Boxer Rebellion service, confiscated the town water cart. “It was,” he noted, “the most important single item in the transport.”
On a blazing hot June 26th morning, Pendleton ordered the column to march. A 15-man detachment, mounted on stringy local horses—the rebels had already taken the best—clattered to the point. Behind them stepped the advance guard, the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines. Then marched Pendleton with the main body, the 1st Battalion, plus the 13th (artillery), 28th (machine gun), and 29th (signal) companies. Bringing up the rear came the vehicle train guarded by Wise’s 6th (provost) Company, reinforced with a truck-mounted machine gun squad.
Immediately there were problems with the transport. The mules had no understanding of English and refused to obey their marine skinners. Wise found the carts stalled and badly overloaded, “with typewriters, field desks, and personal trunks of officers who didn’t know how much an animal could carry. We dumped them out.” The trucks, because of their heavy loads and the dreadful road, traveled mostly in low gear, burning enormous amounts of gasoline, about a gallon per mile.
The first sight of the rebels came at kilometer post 9— small bands falling back in the face of the advance. At kilometer post 18 the 27th Company received some sniper fire. The Marines brought a machine gun into action and the rebels scattered. Wise thought the best way to prevent sniping was to burn the houses along the line of march. In mid-afternoon the column halted. Up ahead about two miles along the road sat the twin hummocks of Las Trencheras. It was a strong, natural position rising about 75 feet, and the rebels had improved it with a double line of trenches. Through their field glasses, regimental officers watched numbers of armed Dominicans milling about. Rather than attack with tired troops, Pendleton camped for the night.
At dawn, as patrols went forward to reconnoiter the enemy positions, the 13th and 28th companies emplaced their artillery, machine guns, and observation post on a ridge north of the road. Pendleton planned for a frontal assault with two battalions abreast: Major Melville Shaw’s 2nd Battalion on the left, north of the road, and Captain Arthur Marix’s 1st Battalion, on the right, south of the road. He intended to attack shortly after first light. But the men had unwisely depleted their water ration. Until the water cart returned from the muddy Yaque, the advance was stalled. As Pendleton reported, “it was inadvisable to start without it.”
The water party came under heavy fire and Pendleton could wait no longer. Just after 0800, he ordered the two battalions to advance to the line of departure. The ground was broken, much overgrown by cactus and heavy brush, and with visibility severely limited, the inward flanks soon lost touch. There were further obstacles. On the right, the 32nd Company came up against a hidden swamp, directly in its line of march. On the left, the 27th Company was slowed by grinding intestinal disorders from over-indulging in large quantities of liberated canned honey.
At 0845, the artillery and machine gun companies opened long-range searching fire on the rebel lines. Front to rear, left to right, the guns swept the rebel field works. The artillery, however, was equipped only with shrapnel charges—there were no high-explosive rounds in the limbers—and though it kept the enemies’ heads down, it did little physical destruction.
Major Shaw halted his 2nd Battalion, hoping to regain contact with Marix. The Dominicans, seeing their opportunity, opened a heavy rifle fire at the stalled attack. “The rebels,” First Sergeant Roswell Winans remembered, “kept up a fairly heavy fire but aimed too high. One of our men was burned on the back of the neck by a big lead slug.”
Colonel Pendleton, watching the action through his field glasses, ordered Major Dunlap to take command on the line. Grabbing a machine gun crew, Dunlap jumped into a Model T and sped down the road. He reached the 2nd Battalion just as the inner flanks were again joined, and the machine gun poured a spray of drumfire on the trenches; Dunlap ordered the advance to continue. The skirmish lines reformed, and the Marines went forward.
The rebel fire faltered. Dunlap sounded a blast on his whistle, the Marines halted, ceased fire, fixed bayonets, and with a cheer, charged up the slopes into the trenches. The whole fight lasted about an hour. One Marine was killed, and five dead rebels were later found in the woods. The Dominican casualties were probably much greater, but as First Sergeant Winans noted, “It seemed to be a religion with these people to carry off their dead and wounded.”
Wise brought up the vehicle train, Pendleton reformed the column, and at 1300 pressed on. Maddeningly, the enemy’s mounted scouts reappeared, hovering on the flanks, just out of range. The 15 horse Marines, with their scrawny, wretched animals, could do little to drive them off. One eager rebel, however, got in too close and was shot dead. At kilometer post 42, Pendleton called a halt and the troops made camp in the order of march.
Shooting erupted from all sides. First Sergeant Winans remembered, “The night was terribly dark. I had just crawled under my mosquito net and gotten comfortably settled when the rebels commenced firing on our camp. Somebody ran right through my mosquito net, stepping on my stomach en route.” Some of the rebels were equally surprised. A large party blundered into a 13th Company machine gun post and faced annihilation. But just as the Marines made ready to open fire. Jack, their barking mascot dog, gave them away. The rebels turned and fled into the gloom.
The rebels were badly shaken by the automatic weapons. Weeks later, General Arias told the Marines that his men believed machine guns, or “sprinklers,” as the Dominicans called them, could not be fired at night.
At kilometer post 49, just beyond the hamlet of Dona Antonia Abaja, a rebel outpost opened fire on the advancing 27th Company. A short, running fight commenced. The horse Marines trotted forward, located the enemy, and as firing increased, Pendleton ordered up Major Dunlap. Taking a squad and a machine gun, Dunlap found the situation under control. The rebel vedette was routed, and the column encamped for the night. It was a rainy night, and many of the troops’ kerosene lanterns went dry. But Uncle Joe Pendleton, ever solicitous of their needs, replenished them from headquarters stores.
On the morning of 30 June, the column came under heavy fire from rebels hidden in the dense underbrush. The machine guns came into action and the rebels faded away. One Marine was killed. A second fight erupted at noon, and again the “sprinklers” drove the enemy off. At dusk the Marines trudged into the village of Jaibon.
Pendleton now made a critical decision. The column was nearing the halfway point to its objective, and the supply line to Monte Cristi stretched back more than 30 miles, the absolute limit for the shuttling motor transport. The line of communications to his supply base was also consuming a fair amount of troops for guard duties. Additionally, Pendleton received a radio message that his railroad detachment, coming down the line from Puerto Plata, was nearing the column rendezvous at Navarette, where the tracks joined the road to Santiago. Pendleton opted to cut himself off from his base and form a “flying column.” The guarding detachments were pulled in and the Model T’s sent back to Monte Cristi for a last supply run.
The men and beasts rested for the coming trial. Animal fodder required constant attention. “Camp had to be made at times entirely with this consideration in view,” Pendleton noted in his report. “With only grass as food animals require a much longer time to feed and I fear much of the time went hungry. Towards the end of the march all were busy gathering grass wherever it could be found, and the animals were given every opportunity to graze.”
The machine gunners put the time to good use. Sergeant Winans and his mates cursed the ammunition. Some of it dated back to 1907 and had been reloaded so many times that the cartridge cases expanded, jamming the guns. During the halt every gun was thoroughly broken down and cleaned; all rounds were removed from the belts, and contrary to regulations, polished and oiled.
On the morning of 3 July, the flying column marched out. After approximately four miles, rebel pickets opened fire on the point. Reinforcements rushed up, the outposts were driven in, and the enemy broke contact. Ahead lay the lines of Guayacanas.
Pendleton halted the column and ordered Shaw’s 2nd Battalion to deploy and attack, but a reconnaissance of the enemy field works reported them as far more imposing than at Las Trencheras. Just beyond the village, the road cut through a low, straddling ridge, a fine natural position completely dominating the axis of advance. On and forward of the heights were the rebel trench lines, skillfully dug and camouflaged by the removal of excavated earth. The ground for 200 yards to its front had been cleared of vegetation, giving an unobstructed field of fire. Astride the road, about 150 yards before the first trench, sat an undefended road block of felled trees.
At 0900 the 2nd Battalion formed in companies abreast, and a reinforcing platoon of machine gunners, roughly in the center, moved forward to the road block. As with the fight at Las Trencheras, there were problems. The troops, before coming into the cleared ground, were hampered by dense underbrush, which also confused the 13th Company’s gunlayers. Shrapnel burst over the advancing Marines’ heads. Tree limbs were severed and fell amongst them, but there were no casualties.
From the trenches, the rebels commenced a hot, deadly fire. Again, Major Dunlap came forward with a machine gun crew. Outstripping the advancing companies, they found themselves fully exposed on the open ground. Rushing ahead, Dunlap and the gunners took cover behind the fallen trunks. Corporal Joseph Glowin brought his Benet-Mercier gun into action and was almost immediately hit. He continued to fire, was hit again, and had to be forcibly dragged off and taken to the rear. Dunlap took over and the gun jammed; the men exposed themselves to repair it but could do nothing.
Roswell Winans’s platoon came on at the run. “The enemy,” he remembered, “were using mostly old-fashioned breech loaders, with big lead slugs, ‘tin cans’ we called them ... At our end of the log a Benet-Mercier had just commenced roaring ... it had no sooner opened up than all the bullets in the world seemed coming our way. The enemy was shooting mighty close, too . . . [They] had an immensely strong natural position and had they had a few machine guns and some barbed wire they could not have been rooted out without great loss of life.”
The first gun in Winans’s platoon opened fire. Immediately, the gun captain was killed and the rest of the crew wounded. Winans continued, “A call went up for a hospital apprentice, as Corporal Frazee had been shot in the head. He had been working hard getting his gun pointer on the enemy and had just succeeded. ‘You are right on them now, give them hell!’ were the last words he said.”
Winans emplaced his heavy, spoke-wheeled Colt, mounted the seat, and opened fire. ‘‘They seemed to be just missing me. I don’t know how the other men felt, but I expected to be shot any minute and just wanted to do as much damage as possible to the enemy before cashing in.” The last round in Winans’s belt jammed, and in full view of the enemy he stood up to clear the breech. ‘‘We faced the enemy as much as possible while repairing the guns, as we had a horror of being shot in the back.” In a radius of 20 feet, another man was shot dead and seven more wounded. A third Colt was brought up, and with three machine guns pouring lead into the trenches, the Marines finally achieved fire superiority; the rebel fire slackened.
Under cover of the machine guns, the skirmishers advanced to within 150 yards of the trench line. On the Marines’ left, the 27th and 29th companies cut their way through dense cactus hedge and turned the enemy flank. With a loud cheer they burst through, charged the works and carried the northern end of the line. ‘‘One of the sweetest sounds I have ever heard,” Winans remembered, ‘‘was the cheering of the infantry battalion as it charged the right flank of the enemy.” The rebel commander was
killed in the charge; the Dominicans abandoned the entire position and fled east. For their heroism at the roadblock, Corporal Glowin and First Sergeant Winans were awarded the Medal of Honor.
The flying column continued the march. The rebels had done an excellent job sabotaging the already dreadful road, and three man-, truck-, and beast-breaking hours were needed to travel something less than a mile. At dusk Colonel Pendleton ordered camp for the night. The next morning, 4 July, the column moved out. Shortly before noon, a civilian Model T, bearing a Red Cross flag and four Dominican doctors, approached the advance guard from the direction of Santiago. They had come to treat their wounded from the previous day’s battle. The physicians were blindfolded, and with a marine driver, passed through the lines.
In mid-afternoon the weary Marines plodded into Navarette linking up with the Puerto Plata-Santiago railroad. After three days on the loose the flying column had reestablished its supply and communications with the coast. Pendleton’s logistic problems were eased immeasurably. All his heavy equipment could now travel the final 12 miles by rail, much relieving the strain on beast, man, and truck.
At the station. Major “Hiking Hiram” Bearss made his report to Pendleton. Bearss had come down the line from Puerto Plata with a train of four boxcars dragged by a locomotive that, to Captain Wise, “seemed to be held together with hay wire.”
The original Puerto Plata landing force of ships’ detachments had been increased by the 4th and 9th (artillery) companies, commanded by Captain Eugene Fortson, a highly-respected gunner. On 25 June came Pendleton’s orders to reconnoiter down the line and establish secure communications to the column rendezvous at Navarette. The next day, Fortson mustered his command: five officers, 129 Marines, a navy medical officer and two hospital apprentices. Four Colts, a pair of Benet-Merciers, and a three-inch artillery piece, mounted on a flat car in front of the locomotive, formed the heavy ordnance. There was an immediate problem. The Dominican train crew deserted their posts, and Fortson had to send to the gunboat Sacramento (PG-19) for a couple of her black gang to man the engine. In mid-morning they clanged out of Puerto Plata.
On the first day Fortson traveled ten miles meeting no resistance. The next morning, with foot patrols cautiously advancing along the tracks, the train inched its way up to the town of Llanos. While the engine headed back to haul up the second section, an enemy outpost opened fire on the stranded cars at extreme range. Fortson sent two squads forward to flush the snipers and opened fire with the three-inch gun. Two hours later the engine returned and Fortson advanced. From three sides higher up the mountain, the Dominicans delivered a heavy rifle fire. Fortson brought his Colts into position, a squad of nine men pushed up the heights, and the rebels were driven out.
The track ahead was torn up, thrown down the embankment, and the ties burnt. Fortson had the presence of mind to carry spares, and the Marines turned to making repairs. With a chuff of greasy smoke the train continued down the line.
The next day, 28 June, Major Bearss arrived with the marine detachment from the battleship New Jersey and took command. Bearss was determined to keep the enemy on the run, giving them no time for further damage. But it seemed they were dug-in on every crest. On the 29th, at Alta Mira, the three-inch gun was again brought into play, shelling a rebel position for half an hour until the infantry was able to envelop the town. The train dragged itself up to La Cumbre, the critical position dominating the tunnel entrance.
Scaling the peak, the 4th Company spotted about 200 rebels less than two miles off. Fortson unloaded his gun and brought it to bear on a shack overlooking the rebel lines. His third shot tore off a side, the fourth hit dead center. The rebels, with shrapnel charges exploding over their heads, quit the trenches and ran for the tunnel. Major Bearss gave them no time to regroup. While Fortson directed the fire, Bearss, furiously pumping a handcar, dashed forward at the head of his men into the tunnel mouth. It was 300 yards long, pitch-black, and a death trap. But without casualty or mishap the Marines burst through, only to see the rebels in high flight down the tracks. As one Marine noted, “It was the most fun Hiram had enjoyed in a long time.”
The action at La Cumbre ended rebel resistance on the railroad, and on 3 July, one day before the flying column, the battalion chugged into Navarette.
At the rendezvous, Pendleton quickly reformed and revictualed. The wounded were sent to Puerto Plata, and on the return journey, the train brought the welcome reinforcements of the 24th Company. Preparations were made for the immediate march and battle for Santiago.
But on 5 July, Dominican heralds arrived from the capital. General Arias, Pendleton was informed, had decided to accept defeat, amnesty, and pardon. He would lay down his arms and offer no further opposition. It was requested by all factions—rebel, “government,” and Admiral Caperton—that to permit Arias time to demobilize his forces, the column should not enter the city until the next day.
To this, Colonel Pendleton only partially agreed. Santiago was fair belted with trench lines, old forts, and the Yaque and Quiningua rivers to its front. If Arias reneged, and held them in any kind of strength, Pendleton would have to lay the city to a formal siege. The defenses, he noted, “were excellent...In the hands of well organized and brave troops they would have been hard to take.” Pendleton had no reason to suppose the Dominicans would cut and run; they certainly hadn’t done it yet. He ordered the column to saddle-up and march for the outworks. “There the town lay ahead of us,” Captain Wise wrote, “right on the banks of the [Yaque]. Behind it rose a hill. On top of the hill was a big masonry fort dating back from the Spanish days. It looked like a fight ahead.”
But Arias made good his promise—the positions were empty. Signallers connected Pendleton with the city’s telephone lines, and the heralds, accompanied by the new governor, arrived at the command post to arrange the entry. Colonel Pendleton noted in his final report of the action: “at 2:40 PM marched to the city, occupied the ' Castillo and Forteleza de San Luis. There was no opposition, and the attitude of the people was more friendly than otherwise.” By taking a chance on cutting loose from his base—forming a flying column—he’d brought to an end another episode in the ongoing Banana Wars.
Condit, Kenneth W. and Edwin T. Tumbladh, Hold High the Torch: A History of the 4th Marines (Washington, D. C.: Historical Branch, G-3 Division, Headquarters, U. s. Marine Corps, 1960).
Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States. 1916.
Fortson, Eugene, "Report of Operations of Fourth and Ninth Companies from June 21, 1916 to . . . July 9, 1916,” History and Museums Division, Dominican Republic File.
Pendleton, Joseph H. to Commander Cruiser Squadron, 20 July 1916, "Report of Provisional Detachment, U. S. Expeditionary Forces . . . Operating Ashore in Santo Domingo, June 26th to July 6th 1916," History and Museums Division. Dominican Republic File.
Winans, Roswell. "Campaigning in Santo Domingo," Recruiters' Bulletin. March 1917.
Wise, Frederic, A Marine Tells it to You (New York: J. H. Scars, 1929).