Snipers Sniping & Countering them

[RJ]

Hey Ken,

When I was new to the Corps and going thru a Regimental Scout/Sniper School there was a legend about a Marine Buck Sgt. sniper who was using a Cpl. Friday as bait to lure NK or ChiCom snipers in to revealing their positon by having him walk and run, bob and weave his way down the hill to a water point and and back up.

The story was that he killed several enemy snipers using this method and a story in Stars and Stirpes killed the baiting of enemy snipers because the brass or the mothers back in the states were horrified.

This wa supposed to have happened in the static war after the Frozen Chosin fight.

Recall that legend?

[Ken White]

the Shooter was SSgt John Boitnott, Kentucky boy, 3/5. After the story hit S&S they told him to quit using PFC Friday for a decoy and gave him a meritorious promotion to TSgt, the 1946-58 version of a Gunnery sergeant. Last I heard, he was a MGySgt working in the Pentagon -- obviously he's long retired now. He was about 7 or 8 years older than me, I think...

There also about the same time was the Hershey Bar Kid, a Cpl in 2/5 (IIRC) who'd put a dozen Hershey's Tropical Chocolate Bars in his pockets and take off alone on three and four day scouting trips behind the Chinese lines. He alway brought back good intel and occasionally a, uh, 'souvenir' if some poor Chinese soldat had been unfortunate enough to be caught alone. He made the paper also -- and the word came down to have him stop; no individual forays...

No guts, no glory...

[RJ]

SSgt John Boitnott's legend was alive and well in 1960.

M/3/5 was one of my most favorite outfits.

We didn't hear about the Hershybar Kid but there was an Amerindian, (Comanche or Apache) who liked to take a stroll and and he liked to find a occupied bunker and worm his way into it and kill the last man in it and leave his head with the first Chinese asleep at the door.

We took the story with a grain of salt, but I have seen Marines who could move that easily in and out of tight places.

I had a farmer in my squad from a ranch in S.D. who would go on night recons barefooted and never make a sound.

I'm sure we all have heard similar war stories about individuals who were almost invisible.