Marines Trapped

Nicaraguans in smart khaki uniforms and armed with rifles, machine guns and dynamite bombs, lay in ambush on the heights commanding a narrow defile in the Nicaraguan mountains. Soon Captain Richard Livingston, U. S. M. C., commenced to lead through the defile an expeditionary force of 200 U. S. Marines, 200 Nicaraguan National Guardsmen, and 200 pack mules. Purpose: To capture Quilali, the remote war base of the recalcitrant General Augusto Calderon Sandino whose men were ambushing the defile. Reason: The Sandino troops have been declared outlaws and bandits. Cause: Sandino and his men were the only Nicaraguan faction which refused to lay down and sell their arms under the terms of national peace enforced in Nicaragua by U. S. Marines (TIME, May 16).

Scouts had not informed U. S. Captain Livingston that he was leading his men into a trap. He himself was one of the first to fall, sniped. Then the machine guns crackled, the dynamite bombs boomed. . . .

Second in the U. S. command was Lieutenant Moses Gould. As the Captain fell, the Lieutenant, though wounded, rallied his men and rushed them forward out of the trap onto an open plain beyond. There they successfully repelled an attack by the Sandino forces, drove them into the forest where they disappeared like old-time Red Indians.

Killed in the trap were five U. S. Marines. Six were seriously wounded. Eighteen, including Lieutenant Moses J. Gould, were classed as slightly wounded.

Four day later U. S. Marines moving to support the detachment which held Quilali again shed blood, theirs and the enemies. A Marine was killed; five wounded, including Lieutenant Merton A. Richal. No count was possible of rebel casualties. Fleeing comrades carried them away.