i feel Carlos Hathcock was and never got the credit he deserved. my friend who was a Ranger Sniper for 8 years believes so too .

Hes the only one your heard or read about for decades before American Sniper guy. So Id say he got his due.

Simo Häyhä

Chuck Mahwinney and Vasily Zaytsev were also superior to Hathcock (with all due respect to Gunny)

Seems like he got some recognition for his service.


He is widely known anyway.


Maybe second in name recognition only to Chris Kyle??

the fat Russian woman from WWII , can't remember her name.... I guess she is not very well known, after all

Yep, he was the best by most accounts.

Carlos Hathcock,Chris Kyle and Chuck Mawhinney

Well there was no Hollywood movie made about Hathcock per se. So there's that.

When someone mentioned snipers before 2014 Hathcock's name was always at the top.

the public seems to think Chris Kyle was because of the movie that Kyle`s book was used, many people never have heard of Carlos Hathcock

I would submit The Murderer.


Billy Sing

Thats gonna be a generational problem though.


What about Alvin York? Maybe not a "sniper" but a dang good shot.


Your grand parents knew of him.

Just about every shooter here would know of him, even as a lad I knew of him.

Not to dismiss any of the work that Hathcock, or any of the more "modern day" snipers have done, but they pretty much pale in comparison to what the German and Russian snipers did in WW2, and the conditions under which they had to fight. Same way with the Finn, Simo Hayha, who just might have been the best of the lot.

Bert Waldron. Held the record for most US military kills until 2011. Met the guy when he was working for Mitch Werbel and my BIL was doing business with them.

Hayha was a name I didn't know about till this decade. Heck of a story. It's known that Hathcock had many more kills than were confirmed, & likely the same with others. All, amazing folks.

FWIW, I enjoyed Hathcocks book a lot more than Kyles.

Henry McBride. He wrote the book "A Rifleman Went To War."

Timothy Murphy, Revolutionary War. The more you know about the man, the more impressive.
To bad no one pays attention to our history. This guy impacted American History, in our favor.

How is that?

I would second this I believe her count was over 500 confirmed IIRC and I believe she had been wounded once or twice as well if memory is correct.
Cheers NC

Peter North. Long range expert!!!

There was a cook from the 7th Light Horse around the same time frame that did pretty well too. He'd get done preparing meals and whatever and then go off hunting.

IMO It is impossible to figure out the best. Some people were working in target rich environments, confirmed kills were recorded differently, different equipment and so on.

Chris Kyle was a bad ass there is no doubt but he also had an advanced technology over Carlos Hathcock, Carlos had much less to work with and I'd bet if CK was asked this question he'd give it to CH.

Calm down Quagmire

The coverage is what makes the diff. Every long shot now is reported worldwide on internet. In the White Feather era everything done covertly and was top secret.

As Americans, we like to think that "our" side is always the best at whatever we're discussing. If you take it by the numbers, no one comes to close to the kills made by the WW2 Soviet snipers, and the Finn. Although war is Hell no matter where it's fought, WW2 was fought under much harsher conditions that most wars, and the equipment used was much inferior to modern day weapons.

I'm not taking anything away from any American sniper, they did very good work, and deserve a lot of credit. But, my vote goes to other soldiers who did even greater work.

Hesketh-Prichard is another name that people interested in sniping should be familiar with.

Patrick Ferguson is a name Americans should know. If he had been willing to shoot a man in the back It would of changed our entire history.

Correct. I met Hathcock and his son, Carlos Jr, and they were both talented and humble.
You always hear about the long shots, but I wonder what the breakdown is for "sniper" shots, by yardage. It seems like much of the Iraqi work was in built up areas, so the ranges would have been shorter.

Jack Hinson


Mike

Simo Häyhä

My favorite has always been Roza Shinina. Heck of a killer and cute, too

Then thing about Hathcock was, he would wound a couple first to draw in more targets and start killing them. Now that would be highly frowned upon. Now most of the modern day confirmed kills are a target of opportunity whereas Hathcock went hunting, unless he was sent specifically looking for a particular target.

Some very good reading is the book...Jack Hinson's One Man War. Some friends of my son own the land where he once hid out.

Lyudmila Pavlichenko?

She is credited with 309 confirmed kills, and regarded as one of the top military snipers of all time.



Lyudmila Pavlichenko

Snipers do so much more than is captured in a kill count. Hathcock's fame exploded with Henderson's book. Similarly Chris Kyle and American Sniper. Some of the others named on this thread were great snipers as well but without the legend that a popular book or movie brings. If you want to hear about one not named on this thread look up Eric England. He shunned the publicity and I'm glad the Marine Corps got him to talk a little about his views on what he did;

I have a copy of a book about him. Books name is the Phantom of Phu Bai and was written by Joseph Blair Turner, PHD.

I have been searching high and low for a copy of that book. Finally bought the kindle edition. Would still like a hard copy of that book if you ever run across another.

Depends if we are talking about the Craft or the Shooting.

If we consider both together Hathcock had no equal.

If you look at just number of kills it would go to our enemies. WWII was a target rich environment.

Chris was good no doubt about it. He was in a target rich environment as well. But he had to adhere to rules of engagement. I think we love Chris as a person so much that is what brings him up as one of the greatest.

It looks like it was a "print on demand" as inside it has a "printed especially for Fxxxx Sxxxxxx Distinguished Shooter". Fxxxx Sxxxxxx was the man I got the book from after he died.

Reading about one of Hathcock's forays to take out a high ranking North Vietnamese officer, it became apparent that getting the bullet placed is only a small part of what a sniper had to do. When he killed the officer, the whole camp erupted into a search for him. Getting home in one piece was no small trick. IIRC, it took him three weeks, and when he got home he was 15 pounds thinner. That's impressive.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyudmila_Pavlichenko

This one did it with a snatch....

Pretty impressive.

Right! There is no standard of measurement, but if field craft counts heavily in defining the greatest sniper, and it does for me, then Simo Hayho has to be the man. IMO Hathcock would be next, though there are some I don't know much about.

Simo killed over 500 Russians in 98 days, likely way over 500, in extremely difficult rural winter conditions, and he did it with iron sights. He chose iron sights over a scope, which was available, because the scope stuck up higher and might give away his position. He had a lot of targets and soon tied up thousands of Russians who were trying to get him, but that is incredible skill any way we look at it.

IMO Kyle is well down the list from greatest, though he had an engaging personality.

Think of how many stories of that sort that we will never hear about.

I haven't read Chris Kyle's book in a while, but I believe he wrote that in his opinion Carlos Hathcock was the best. I'm 99% sure he wrote or said it, but maybe not in his book.
It is impossible to name the best without criteria.
Most kills
Longest confirmed shot
Shot/hit ratio
Most significant kill (Had someone managed to snipe Adolf Hitler, you'd have to give him some serious credit of some sort.)
Best "sneak" (If you have ever read Hathcock's book, he did some amazingly arduous things, damn near suicidal, to get some of his shots.)

Were it possible, which it is not, I'd get all the snipers together then tell them to decide which of them was the greatest. Their collective decision would be hard to argue with.

Simo also did a lot of work with a submachine gun.

Hathcock was into results. There was an evil Viet Cong bitch they called the Apache. If I recall correctly, when he finally caught up with her, he didn't shoot her. He called in an artillery barrage. That works too.

This seems like the kind of discussion best held over a couple sticks of beef jerky while perusing samurai swords at the gun show.

Again he was in a target rich environment. Also much more open than the confines of Asian jungles. Hathcock had to hunt down his targets. They were not walking into him.

His CO called in artillery and Carlos killed her on the run.

Different aspect of the trade. IIRC Chris spent the majority of time on overwatch vs hunting specific targets.

Simo Häyhä might get the title if the number of corpses one stacked up is how we pick a "GOAT" sniper. He was one tough and deadly Finn lander who gave the invading Russians a reason to keep their head down.

right after she stopped to take a piss if i remember right.

Correct.

IIRC he crawled the front lines at night with a submachine gun, and a loader who followed him with extra mags and a bag of loose ammo to refill the mags. He said that Siberian troops were the hardest to kill as it took 6-9 hits with the 9mm to kill them.

Lon Horiuchi

Not if he saved the Union.

Wha?!

He is one of about 3 snipers the average jane or joe could name.

I wasn't referring to Chris.

Edit in my opinion Chris isn't on the board. Not to say he wasn't a great sniper.

James Earl Ray

Never got credit? I mean anyone that knows ANYTHING, likely the first name they learned or read was Carlos. Some posts are hard to believe.

Hathcock, Land, England and a few others whose names I don't remember are largely responsible for keeping US sniping alive after Vietnam. The US military had always let the capabilty erode if not completely disappear after the wars ended.

This....

Read what fishdog52 wrote jag the 3rd and 4th words
We need a smiley with a pair of glasses

You need to talk to ricbin and make it happen eye doc

Carlos Hathcock gets maximum cool points for mounting a Unertl scope on an M2 and making up to 2500 yard shots with it.

Sure hope you're being sarcastic. That sonofabitch should have been tried for murder. (Horiuchi)

obviously they all could shoot.the one I would never want hunting me above all of them would be carlos hathcock.the term relentless and also mentally tough with zero quit defines this man..not demeaning others at all.

I just finished the book about Carlos Hathcock "Marine Sniper", If he wanted you dead you best be making the sign of the cross. Certainly not taking anything away from some of the other well known snipers but reading how he once crawled for three days into position over open ground to kill a VC general and then get away is an incredible feat. And also the fact that he was instrumental in helping set up the Marine sniper program from the beginning he is at the top of my list. God bless him!

Two books that might interest you all are:

"Avenging Angels" by Lyuba Vinogradova. It's about the young women of the Soviet Union's WWII Sniper Corps.

And "Notes of a Russian Sniper " by Vassali Zaitsev. It's about his time mostly at Stalingrad.

Both are available in English translations. Amazon and Abebooks.

Carlos

I’d say this was pretty impressive.

https://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/sniper-shot-record

And I think he was dealing with the toughest environment of any of the others & with likely much fewer targets of opportunity.

The man was a hunter extraordinaire, not just a shooter.

MM

fixt it

His body of work encompassed the entire craft not just shooting a rifle and killing people. Some will just never understand that. When they hear sniper all they think about is the shooting aspect.

Yes, I think you're right.

Taking nothing away from Chris Kyle, but I'd count him as more of a shooter than a hunter, stalker.

But again, the environments were so different, I also think it's hard to make a direct comparison.

MM

I'm not sure you can compare them, how would Hathcock done in an urban setting, how would Zaytsev have done in the jungle with ants and leeches up his ass..or Kyle. Hathcock I believe had to work harder for a shot than Kyle did, Kyle was taking humvee rides from roof to roof in a target rich environment, running and gunning.

I know nothing about who was better, but I believe Hathcock endured more misery per shot.

Hathcock was a hunter. Kyle was a shooter. Not taking anything from Kyle, just different circumstances.

I don't imagine Stalingrad , Finland, the Western Front or Gallipoli were all that pleasant Either

Give me the cold and warm jacket over the jungle and the insects.

KAG!

Thats not that's not entirely true.

Before deploying to South Vietnam, Hathcock had won shooting championships, including matches at Camp Perry and the Wimbledon Cup. In 1966, Hathcock started his deployment in the Vietnam War as a military policeman and later became a sniper after Captain Edward James Land pushed the Marines into raising snipers in every platoon. Land later recruited Marines who had set their own records in sharpshooting; he quickly found Hathcock, who had won the Wimbledon Cup, the most prestigious prize for long-range shooting, at Camp Perry in 1965.[3]

dave

With all things being considered, I doubt there was a war that could equal the Eastern Front in WW2. The Germans and the Russians hated each other passionately, and conditions under which they fought could be downright miserable. The survival rate there was probably about as low as it could have been anywhere. Some of the Russian snipers ran up scores of 500+ kills, and did so with a rifle that's not generally thought of as being all that great. While they did have a lot of targets to shoot at, those targets were also shooting back at them.

The Russians were defending on home turf which is a huge advantage and so were the Germans mostly during the war in Europe. Hathcock was in unfamiliar territory hunting for days at a time without coming in. His feats are legendary.His tools were not near as good as we enjoy today. Mawhinney is in the same category.

They all command our respect for the sacrifices they made. I'm not sure one can put one of them above the rest as they all hold their place in time each beating the odds in service to their country. That said Hathcock endured some very unique circumstances to pull off some hair raising feats against all odds.

As some have said, these people are all to be admired for their skill, whatever the circumstances. Too often any discussion of the "best" of anything seems to bring about a need to "win" for a person's choice.

I served with Hathcock’s son in the Marine Corps. Hathcock III

Must of been in the genetics. After a career, I still don’t know anyone who could shoot better.

Chris had to be an exceptional observer to find and identify his targets.

5sdad;
Top of the morning to you sir, I trust all is well with you and yours this windy February Sunday.

I'm adding what I believe to be a factual and well done 6 minute video on this chap who amassed the greatest number of confirmed kills for a Canadian in any war. Some sources say it may be almost double the number given in the video as he did a whole bunch of his work solo and thus couldn't get the confirmations required.


As an additional bit of character for this man, I'll note that after the war he didn't slide into self medication of any kind, but was active in both Native politics as well as the local militia. All in all an admirable man and fierce fighter by any measure I'd say.

Anyway it's more than 100 years ago now, but to this day we reap the benefits of the actions of brave men who stood in the breach on behalf of freedom.

All the best to you all as we hopefully head into spring soon.

Dwayne

I got a kick out of the beach ball story...

BC - very interesting. Thanks for sharing and also for the well-wishes; I return the same to you and yours.

Pretty much.

We have the toughest standards when it come to counting kills. Each of the above probably killed three times their official numbers.

The big name Russian and German snipers we hear about likely had inflated kill numbers for propaganda purposes, and even if they didn't, they were in very target rich environments.

Carlos did his work in a very difficult environment, and lived to tell about the most difficult missions accomplished by any sniper. This is what sets him apart from other who just have high kill counts.

I doubt Fat Russian Chick would of come back alive from the mission to kill the VC General.

Jack Hinson

I will go with Jack Henson also. 100 kills with a 50 cal Kentucky rifle. And he was a hunter-killer. Read his book.

Billy Dixon...
Took the fight out of 1000 Comanches with one shot....

and there are sniper kills accomplished on highly sensitive clandestine missions that will likely never be revealed to the public.

so when the public talk about the' longest sniper kill in history' for example, the actual record may well belong to a person the public
will never get to know or identify or that such an op. even took place.



Whenever Sniper discussions come up on gun forums people often like to quote an operatives kill count,
but rarely do they mention kill ratio.

Does any fanboy of Hollywood spectacle Chris Kyle know his KR..?...and Carlos, what was his KR..?

There are too many great ones to choose just one. Many other countries have had good ones. And a lot of wars like the Revolution and the Civil War don't have very good records. Carlos Hathcock stands out because of his fieldcraft. He was a great shot too, winning at Camp Perry.

Francis Pegahmagabow MM & two bars (/ˌpɛɡəməˈɡæboʊ/; March 9, 1891 – August 5, 1952) was the First Nations soldier most highly decorated for bravery in Canadian military history and the most effective sniper of World War I. Three times awarded the Military Medal and seriously wounded, he was an expert marksman and scout, credited with killing 378 Germans and capturing 300 more.[2] Later in life, he served as chief and a councilor for the Wasauksing First Nation, and as an activist and leader in several First Nations organizations. He corresponded with and met other noted aboriginal figures including Fred Loft, Jules Sioui, Andrew Paull and John Tootoosis.

Not sure I agree actually.

The Soviets were in a extremely target rich environment. Same as the Murderous Finn. He had the advantage of Russians being led ineptly, poorly equipped, hungry and cold.


Makes for good shooting.




I guess its maybe a quality vs quantity thing.


From what I have heard, these modern sand box fights were pretty [bleep] hairy too! It would sure be difficult to pick a "toughest" war.

One reason the Russian snipers had such high body counts is that many times they were fighting from the bombed out ruins of cities,...like Stalingrad. The piles of rubble made it a sniper's paradise.

Laughing here.

KRs!!!!LMFAO old starfish be an operator, I wonder why he refuses to talk about his service and experience?

He would probably have to kill us, or he signed a NDA.


mike r

No, DO you? But again you are focusing on only one aspect of sniping and not the craft as a whole.

Carlos Hathcock was my greatest hero. He got the job done!

The greatest sniper, the greatest athlete, the greatest movie star........are usually the person that has gotten the greatest amount of publicity. Here in this country, that's Hathcock and Kyle, as a result of books and a movie. I consider Hathcock to the greatest modern day American sniper, but the all time American sniper title probably belongs to Jack Hinson. Hinson killed over a 100 Yankees, shooting them with a muzzle loader rifle, while they were floating down the Tennessee River on boats. By all accounts, that is nothing short of incredible.

I think there are several Russian and German snipers, along with the Finn Simo Hayha, who were probably the best overall. Some on here have said that the Russians kill totals were overstated, yet they say that Hathcocks were understated.....that sounds like sour grapes to me

They say that the Eastern front was a target rich environment, and it was, but it was a place where a sniper had all that many more enemy trying to shoot him, so that argument doesn't fly.

They say that the jungle and the sand was more difficult to deal with. I don't think minus 40 temps were a piece cake. I imagine they were all bad.

The rifles used by modern day snipers, and the other equipment makes hitting your target much easier that what snipers of an earlier era had to use. Also, todays snipers are able to put a lot of distance between them and the target, instead of rather up close and personal like snipers like Hayha dealt with.

They're all great, and all did the job that was asked of them to do.

I mentioned one aspect that people tend to ignore -KR- bcause they get all worked up about kill count.
that doesn't mean I only focus on that one aspect, ...but alas, you seem content drawing such rash minded wrong conclusion.

The craft as a whole would include their KR element...since you don't know their KR then you are not encompassing
or factoring in all parts and elements of their craft when discussing their career achievements.

Hell, James. Who knows....maybe the greatest of all time only had a handful of kills?

The KR is the aspect of shooting the gun/making the kill. The least technical part of the craft, is my point. Sniping is a broad term and to most it just means shooting the gun/making the kill. I have more than a few friends from STA Platoon. All but two of them I have out shot. That doesn't make me a Sniper. So many get hung up on the shooting. STA Platoon gathers a lot of INTEL and a lot of times doesn't even make a shot. But oh well what the hell do I know. I know Carlos body of work, it is second to none. I also know his work after the war and his role in what he brought to the table is still relevant. Feel free to carry on.

That's the problem with "the greatest" anything, the criteria is totally subjective. I was hands down the smartest, best looking, all around greatest kid that ever lived - just ask my Mom.

Greatest: clearly define the criteria for "greatest" and then judge the candidates against that criteria. Award prizes in different categories if certain criteria cannot be adequately weighted against each other. Otherwise "greatest" just becomes a popularity contest.

Billy Sing was talented.

In the video I saw, he said he shot her.

Agree.

IIRC, Even Chris said Carlos was the best. Chris admitted, compared to Carlos, he had a target rich environment, admired Carlos' ability to hunt, fight and survive in the jungle.

I have an autographed copy of the book, White Feather. Interesting read.

DF

I see what you did there.... amusing.

Chris Kyle was a good friend of mine and when asked who the best was he didn’t even hesitate..... Carlos Hathcock

Without a doubt

My buddy was pretty good friends with him. Still very good friends with his wife. Chris was a great man. He had a storied career and saved a lot of lives. I wish I could have met him.

Jim Conrad,

AGREED 100% - In 1995-6, I dated a young Ukrainian doctor whose (then 15-18YO) aunt during WWII was a teen-aged sniper & even "Svet" said that her aunt was able to kill all those Germans at Stalingrad because there were so many targets available & she was well-hidden inside several old factory buildings that had been bombed to a huge pile of rubble.
She doesn't know how many Germans that her aunt took out but simply said, "Evidently a great many."

Btw, after the War, her aunt returned to the little town near Kiev where she was born, married her childhood sweetheart, had 6 children by him & spent the rest of her life as a housewife. - She passed away in her sleep in OCT 1992.
("Svet" lived with her family when she was a girl for 4-5 years & NEVER knew that her aunt was a heroine of the Battle of Stalingrad. = After she passed away, her children found her decorations/uniforms/diary/photos/etc. under the floor of the house's attic. Her aunt had told NOBODY, except perhaps her husband who had died in 1990, of her wartime experiences.)

Note: The VAST majority of REAL heroes/heroines don't talk about their war, even if you know enough facts to ask them about it.
(During the run-up to the 1st Audie L. Murphy Day that we ARNG folks sponsored in Greenville, TX, I talked to MAJ Murphy several times by phone, shortly before his untimely death in a plane crash on 28MAY71. = I found him to be VERY modest & SELF-effacing. - He said to me, during one phone call that, "I did nothing that thousands of other guys didn't do just as well, too.")

yours, tex

Indeed, but for you to say I only focus on one aspect is untrue...I mentioned KR, but nowhere did I say one should
only consider the shooting aspect.

Tex, Audie Murphy and Alvin York were venerated heros, but it's sad how many of those guys died in oblivion, some destitute like Billy Sing.

Carlos grew up in AR, hunting and shooting as a youngser, honing his skills. I had a cousin who grew up like that, in the woods, hunting and shooting. When he was in basic training he was issued a new Springfield. He loved that rifle, loved to show out his marksmanship. His name was Leo, "Watch ole Leo stack'em", he was fond of bragging to his buds. When training was completed, soldiers started shipping out, just a few were left. Finally, his small group was put on a train headed for CA. They'd pick up a few here and there along the way. When they finally got to CA, they were formed up, addressed by the CO. "Congratualtion boys, you're snipers". Ouch, watch old Leo stack'em.... .

After completing sniper training and were shipped out. The average life of a WWII sniper wasn't that long, a well known fact at the time. Leo was a sniper for over 3 years, both in European and Pacific theaters. I asked him how he stayed alive so long. He said he knew when to withdraw... He finally got a Garand, which he loved. He said he got good enough with that thing to hit a flying crow. One time, he was on a beach, big piles of brush all around; hogs were in the brush. The guys lit the piles and Leo shot hogs as they dashed between brush piles. Sorta like Sporting Clays with a Garand... I'm sure they ate well.

I asked him what was the most upsetting thing he saw. In Germany, they were getting sniper fire from a barn. They ultimately shot the sniper, but when they got in the barn, the shooter was a young girl with long hair, not a soldier. That really upset him; I could feel his remorse, talking about it years later.

Like posted before, those guys really didn't like to talk about their war experiences, I had to work on Leo to get what stories I did. May he rest in peace.

For sure, they were the Greatest Generation.

DF

Dirtfarmer,

You are 100% CORRECT. = The USA has MANY unsung & "forgotten" heroes. Many real heroes' service is UNKNOWN even to their nearest kinfolk.

Btw, both Darla's & my father served in combat but nether of know much about their war service.

Mr Costello was a CPL in the Korean War with the 187th ABN Brigade.
(Darla knows little of his service as a paratrooper, as both of her parents were killed in a traffic accident near Portland, OR, when she was just 3 years old. - She was raised by her widowed grandmother.)

My dad served from 08DEC41-30SEP45 in B17/B29 bombers with the USAAC, in both the European & Pacific Theaters.
(He died of a massive heart attack when I was in high school & seldom would talk about his WWII service with the USAAC, even when I tried to ask him about it.)

yours, tex

Everything in this post was about shooting/killing. Show me what I missed you wrote about the craft. Maybe I need glasses?

Did I state anywhere in my posts that one should only consider the shooting skill aspect of Snipers?

if you can find that I did , you can quote me...

The point I made simply was that most folks rare even go outside the popular kill count # way of assessing.

I did not suggest in anyway that KC and KR are the only things to consider or take into account when it comes to snipers.

but your mind is made up regardless.

We are so fortunate to have the many awesome examples listed in this thread! Sniping in a battlefield/war/conflict environment can never be discounted,.it effects on personnel are huge, way beyond the single person that was neutralized. One bullet, huge influence!

It's kind of appropriate to this thread so I'll mention that a few days ago my wife and I were eating lunch at a local cafe/restaurant and had finished and were leaving and we walk by a couple of young men finishing their meals at a table. The fellow with his back to us has something about 'Scout Sniper" on the back of his T shirt. He gets up to go pay his bill just as we pass him and I looked back and said. "Scout sniper?". He said, "I was". I gave him a grin and a thumbs up and said "Thanks". He gave me a big smile back. We get to the car and he comes running out and runs up to the car just to shake my hand.

It meant something to both of us.

I had the pleasure of meeting a good friend of Chris Kyle, a retired LEO from Dallas PD SWAT. The meeting took place at a LEO conference I was attending where he was an instructor. I happened to be reading Chris's book at the time. He saw that I had Chris's book and said he was tight with him. As we talked he mentioned that In addiction to Chris's confirmed kills (170 ) Chris had done a good bit of " wet work" so his real numbers where in the 240 range. This is not known far and wide since the shots were not confirmed in the normal way due to who he working for and where he was operating. Still awesome! Glad he was on our side!

Yep and not just snipers. My 92 yr old FIL was a sailor on the Belleau Wood, a Cruiser converted aircraft carrier hit by a Kamikaze during the Pacific War. They saved the ship, went on fighting, ultimately ending up in Japan after the surrender. Those guys are dying off, not that many left. FIL used to attend Belleau Wood reunions. Now, not enough left to have a reunion. Their reunion is more and more on the other side. They were tough.

After the war, the French ended up with the ship. In the ‘50’s it was decommissioned, sunk to become a home for the fishes. And life moves on.

DF

Dirtfarmer,

VERY TRUE. - Of all of the WWII veterans from my home county, that my dad ever introduced me to, there are exactly TWO left.

I honor ALL of the WWII Vets for their service.

yours, tex