How the Marines’ greatest sniper killed 16 enemy soldiers in 30 seconds in Vietnam
Charles “Chuck” Mawhinney loved to hunt while growing up on a ranch in a small town in Oregon. His father, who served in the Marine Corps during World War II, taught his son how to fire a rifle. The younger Mawhinney paid attention.
Mawhinney followed his father in the military, choosing the Marines over the Navy only because they allowed him to delay his entry so he wouldn’t miss deer hunting season. Mawhinney’s original plan was to become a military pilot, but he failed the flight qualification test because of heavy drinking the previous night. Mawhinney then attended Scout Sniper School at Camp Pendleton in California, and after graduating, he arrived in Vietnam.
Mawhinney started out as a rifleman for a few months in southeast Asia, then transitioned to become a machine gunner. It didn’t take long for the young Marine to learn firsthand the dangers inherent in that job. In the short while that Mawhinney served as a machine gunner, he told the “Warriors in Their Own Words” podcast, two or three partners were killed.
“I decided then that if I were going to stay a machine gunner—and I had another 10 months left in Vietnam—probably my longevity was being shortened up,” Mawhinney said.
Mawhinney had to think of something. Not above a bit of deception, Mawhinney faked a toothache. While receiving treatment, he struck up a conversation with a sniper platoon leader. Mawhinney admittedly begged to join the sniper team, and his persistence finally worked. He served as a spotter for a couple of months until he moved into the sniper’s role.
“Extremely Aggressive”
The Marines credited Mawhinney with 103 confirmed kills and 216 probable kills during the Vietnam War. He didn’t become the most prolific sniper in the Corps’ 251-year history by accident. Mawhinney was nothing if not his father’s son.
“Chuck was extremely aggressive,” Mawhinney’s squad leader, retired Master Gunnery Sgt. Mark Limpic, told the Los Angeles Times in 2000. “He could run a half-mile, stand straight up, and shoot offhand and drop somebody at 700 yards.”
Assigned to Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, Mawhinney’s most memorable encounter with the North Vietnamese Army came on Valentine’s Day in 1969. During the evening, Mawhinney’s unit was positioned outside Da Nang when it received reports of a significant enemy contingency across the Thu Bồn River. The company didn’t have any air support because of a monsoon, so Mawhinney and his spotter volunteered to observe the NVA from their side of the river.
Mawhinney brought along a M14 semiautomatic rifle, instead of his normal M40, along with a night-vision scope. Mawhinney explained to “Warriors in Their Own Words” that it was only approximately a hundred yards across the river, whose waters were low. The two Marines waited for a couple of hours before Mawhinney detected a NVA scout so near him that he could hear the water dripping off his enemy.
Mawhinney followed the North Vietnamese soldier’s movements as he approached an area of tall grass before turning back and heading across the Thu Bồn.
“I told my partner this might get really interesting,” Mawhinney said on the podcast.
Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre
Mawhinney and his spotter returned to waiting.
Later that evening, they noticed the NVA soldiers were stirring again. Mawhinney perked up as the enemy troops began to approach his side of the river. As they neared the bank but were still in the water, Mawhinney started firing.
His rifle contained 16 rounds. In the span of 30 seconds, Mawhinney used them all up with deadly effectiveness. Every shot struck an enemy combatant in his head.
“I could see the bodies floating down the river,” Mawhinney recalled on the podcast. “… To this day, I’ve always wondered what their company commander’s report was and what happened to them.”
The North Vietnamese retaliated with small-arms fire as Mawhinney and his spotter hastily retreated. They returned safely to their company after what Mawhinney’s unit came to call the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.
It was a perfect night for a sniper. Although the accomplishment—a 16-for-16 performance—pleased him, Mawhinney did simply what he was trained to do.
“They had a job to do. We had a job to do,” Mawhinney reasoned. “That’s the way it works in war. I had a lot of respect for them. I didn’t hate the enemy, but toward the end, you start to get a bitter taste in your mouth toward the enemy, because as friends die… My job was to demoralize them and do what we could.”
Not One to Brag
Mawhinney considered his 16-month tour in Vietnam “the ultimate hunting trip,” he told the Los Angeles Times. He left the Marines in 1970 and built a quiet life with his family in Oregon. He worked for the U.S. Forest Service for about three decades and never boasted about his record as a military sniper.
In fact, even his family and closest friends never knew of his exploits.
It was not until the publication of Joseph T. Ward’s book, “Dear Mom: A Sniper’s Vietnam”—which included Mawhinney’s exploits—that the media and public paid notice to him. Mawhinney was anonymous no more.
The book contended that Mawhinney was responsible for 101 confirmed kills, eight more than Carlos Hathcock’s Marine record. That claim led to a Marine investigation, whose findings actually credited Mawhinney with 103 kills.
“We shot that rifle so much over there, it wasn’t one of those things you thought about,” Mawhinney said on the podcast. “It was a natural thing that occurred. When you saw your target and it came up, it’s just like typing. You don’t have to think of each step of where your fingers are going to go for the typewriter to make a word.”
Mawhinney’s M-40A1 sniper rifle is on display at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Virginia. Mawhinney died on February 12, 2024, at the age of 74.
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