The female Viet Cong sniper and interrogator, known as “Apache,” enjoyed torturing 5th Regiment, 1st Marine Division US Marines and South Vietnamese troops and letting them bleed to death. She was known for cutting off the eyelids and saving them as souvenirs. She was of Vietnamese and French ancestry and grew up in Hanoi.
She operated around Hill 55, in the vicinity of Duc Pho, 8 miles (13 km) from DaNang. She used a 7.62mm Model 44 Russian-made Mosin-Nagant rifle, with a scope. In 1966, legendary sniper, Gunnery Sgt. Carlos Hathcock, II and his spotter, Captain Edward “Jim” Land were sent from DaNang to hunt for Apache. She was notoriously well-known to the Marines around Hill 55. Because of her brutal tactics and infamy, she quickly became a high profile target
One day she had captured a young Marine during an ambush. Within hearing range of the hilltop camp defenders, she tortured him through the night. Hathcock and Land heard horrendous screams and the next morning a Marine private staggered toward camp. He was bleeding profusely, much of his skin had been cut away and his fingernails had been removed. He had been castrated, and his arms were hanging limp, the bones were broken and exposed. Land said, “Carlos ran towards the Marine who collapsed dead, a few feet in front of him.”
It took several days for Carlos and Jim to locate the Viet Cong sniper team. Late one afternoon Land spotted the group with a Vietnamese woman that fit Apache’s description, 700 yards away. He pointed her out to Hathcock. She was a small woman walking towards a ridgeline with her squad of five Viet Cong guerrillas. All of them were armed, and Hathcock noticed that the woman was carrying a rifle with a scope. Carlos did not want to shoot the wrong one so he waited.
When she squatted down to urinate, Land called in an artillery barrage on the group of snipers. The group started running towards Hathcock and Land. At that point Jim told Carlos to take her down. Hathcock put a round in her with his bolt-action Winchester Model 70 30.06 (7.62mm) rifle and she collapsed on the ground. Land told Hathcock to “put another round in her.” Hathcock fired again and her body convulsed. She was 31 years old and that was the end of that “sadistic bitch.” This was a major morale victory. The artillery strike killed the other five snipers.
Read more about Carlos Hathcock in an earlier post from 2016. Here’s the direct link: This Marine Was The ‘American Sniper’ Of The Vietnam War – CherriesWriter – Vietnam War website
A 1993 Youtube interview with Carlos can also be found here: https://youtu.be/vEIWEMiCg8I
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So much about Hathcock sounds like bogus, and this Shakespearean villain the most implausible.
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Great it cleared up a few things. I know enough to know that if your writing about it “it’s creadable” ( Jerry lembcke says she doesn’t exist?) Dutrochristopher@gmail.com
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Jerry Lembcke sounds like an uncertain but potential transgender volunteer. Carlos Hathcock is a Marine legend, and ANYONE questioning Hathcock in a USMC-infested barroom is playing loose with their life and jewels.
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You sound like you have a fetish for transgender. People like you just can’t stop thinking about them and bringing them up in totally unrelated conversations because you’re a dirty pervert.
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Wonder what might have happened in this woman’s life to make her so vicious ? I have read horror stories about both sides, but nothing compared to this.
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Vietnam had been going through so much war up until that point. They had been invaded by the Japanese in the 1940s. Then when World War II was over, they were in a bitter long war with the French which lasted around eight years. Plenty of time for horrible things to happen that she either witnessed her experienced.
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Well for one thing she was kill crossing the water so it’s not really a victory but a massacre of army female women that try their very best to keep us Americans off there land because we were the invaders of their land. It’s all because of politics of the government with the big bankers and corporations that this so call war start ed . We shouldn’t be there it’s like someone invade our country do you really think that women would not fight and torture the invaders to sent a clear message stating that this what happens if you try to control us and invade our country. That’s my thoughts.
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I disagree, it was a victory because of the nature of combat in which this woman operated. Defending your country/land is one thing, torturing, dismembering, sodomizing captured enemy was not defending, it was sadistic. And people who perform sadistic acts of torture and murder just to make the victim suffer need to be eliminated.
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The war was America stopping or attempting to slow communism…. It’s a pity they didn’t succeed fully … Formally the Soviets ,and now the Chinese and north Korea are the bane of the world … Peace will happen as long as these fools exist….
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Served many years as Army National Guard medic, now retired. I was lucky and never did hard time overseas. Thank you for sharing. We must be able to learn from the past, the good and the horrors. It matters not what war or side, we can always learn. It is sad what one person can do to another. Apache is prime example of a female who deserved no mercy. The same for anyone who carries a weapon, regardless of age or sex. The person on receiving end is damaged just the same if shot from an adult or child. It’s sad but yes, some American solders were guilty of torture, here again, ‘We Must Learn!’ so one can stop what they know is wrong and not join peers. Once again THANK-YOU for sharing about that sadistic bitch!
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how true is that story ? like mass destruction weapons in iraq ?!
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John, the story about Apache is 100% true.
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https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02uzQtASVGa8hzXtZgfpQJkcGafttjuGoEeH8NQfApgqraGVEgLni4nQ55XuW5boaol&id=100001517875054 and this is what we get when we return from Nam.
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Again Another Good Story…I Heard Something Similar..A Women Sniper In The Trees Of The Vietnam Jungle..Shooting At Huey Helicopters…………Trying To Bring Them Down To Crash..Thankyou John Podlaski
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The story I heard was that Carlos had to put a round into the Marine to end his suffering. Then he went hunting for that VC.
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Thank God for Carlos. That bitch needed killing in the worst way your description of her torture is mild compared to what she actually did.
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I love all the Americans here acting horrified at something the North Vietnamese did to Americans.
But you’re totally ok with the stories of US soldiers killing innocent Vietnamese civillians, cutting off ears as souvineirs, the My Lai massacre, and all the other horrnedous things the US did whilst in someone elses country. All stuff you pushed under the carpet to maintain your BS “defenders of the free world” image.
More like defenders of making your politicians and the military industrial complex richer with the blood of the poor in your country.
But a Vietnamese person doing the same to protect their country from you, the invader, makes them some kind of bad person.
You’re all pathetic hypocrites.
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and yet here you sit in a free country free to spew your vitriol against the country that shelters you and allows you (under the U.S. Constitution) to say it. It may surprise you to know that NO country who goes to war against another country is completely blameless. Ugly things happen in war, some, unfortunately are necessary. My suggestion is, if you can’t deal with events of the past, then PACK YOUR SHIT AND LEAVE!!!
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Imagine being that fucking stupid that you think I’m a ignorant Americunt. How about you and your country leave the planet instead of stealing more oxygen?
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Fuck you, dude
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Replying to the Truth Hurts idiot
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Typical American snowflake, can’t handle it when you get back the stuff you dish out. You people are a fucking pathetic joke.
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A mod.70 Winchester 30.06 is not a 7.62. A 7.62 NATO is a .308 caliber.
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a cal. .30-’06 IS 7.62 x 63 mm .. a NATO 7.62 is a re-designed 1952 version of the old (1906) .30-’06 and it is 7.62 x 51 mm .. A LITTLE knowledge is dangerous, and you may just be there.
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I have heard about this torturer in Carlos hatchecks book, I was in Chu Lai and Duc Pho it is almost 70 miles from Da Nang.
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I meant Hathcock what a Marine!
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Excellent. I just wish he could have put a few “non kill” rounds in her to give her a taste of her own medicine before nailing her ass with the final one to send this sorry bitch to hell!
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Is the woman in the photo supposed to be “Apache”? The story remarks that her weapon was a Mosin Negant rifle. I have seen this photo many times before.
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I’ve read about her and also saw a short video re-enactment of that witch!
Sent from my iPad
>
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I would have liked to have put ten 2.75 inch white phosphorus rockets into her from my cobra.
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Very short article but good. Semper Fi, Jack
Sent from the all new AOL app for iOS
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This explains the horrors of the Vietnam war. So many people tell us to “move on” from history. No, we SHOULD NOT move on. We need to know what happened, what our soldiers endured, why they came home defeated and disgusted, and had to regain their lives. I remember testimony saying, in effect, that when you take fine, upstanding American boys thousands of miles away from home, put them somewhere where the weather is brutal, they can’t speak the language, the food is ridiculous, they don’t know why they’re in the place, they can’t identify their enemy–and to face situations like this? To have that lasting vision of that poor Marine who suffered so horribly up to his last breath and never be able to erase that from one’s mind? My husband was a medic in Vietnam, much later in the war, but he still won’t discuss what he saw. Every now and then he slips and says something.
Today is the 77th anniversary of D-Day. What our fathers and grandfathers did on that day is unimaginable to most of us. When I hear people complain about minor inconveniences in our day-to-day lives, I want to scream. Get a grip. Read this story. Watch the interview on YouTube. Learn. Never forget.
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Thank you, Wanda. A great compliment to this article. I just finished a book called NEVER FORGET by Andy Adkins…have your hubby read it. it may get him to open up.
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Well said. No, don’t forget! m. Louisville.
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GREAT ARTICLE IN SOME SMALL WAY IT LET’S THE PUBLIC KNOW WHAT WE WENT THROUGH WHILE SERVING IN VIETNAM SERVED WITH THE BIG RED ONE APRIL 67 TO APRIL 68 MOS–11C40
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WELCOME HOME, Bob!!! I KNOW YOU had to BEWARE of the ADVERSARY-FOE-ENEMY; though a WOMAN at that!!!
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Wow! How awful and a woman. She needed to be taken out. The way they took her out was masterful. I had to catch my breath on this one. Your writing took me straight there. So horrible.
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Thank ful she was shot dead before my husband landed in Vietnam. Prayers she is with the Devil in HELL
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