Hathcock pulled seven Marines from the flame-engulfed vehicle, suffering severe burns (some third-degree) to his face, arms, and legs, before someone pulled him away and placed him in water because he was unaware of how badly he had been burnt. On September 16, 1969, Hathcock's career as a sniper came to a sudden end along Highway 1, north of LZ Baldy, when the LVT-5 he was riding on struck an anti-tank mine. He missed the Marine Corps, however, and returned to Vietnam in 1969, where he took command of a platoon of snipers. Īfter this mission, Hathcock returned to the United States in 1967. As the general exited his encampment, Hathcock fired a single shot that struck the general in the chest, killing him. At one point he was nearly bitten by a bamboo viper, but had the presence of mind to avoid moving and giving up his position. Hathcock said he was almost stepped on as he lay camouflaged with grass and vegetation in a meadow shortly after sunset. This effort took four days and three nights without sleep and with constant inch-by-inch crawling. He was not informed of the details of the mission until he accepted it. During a volunteer mission days before the end of his first deployment, he crawled over 1,500 yards of field to shoot a PAVN general. Hathcock only once removed the white feather from his bush hat while deployed in Vietnam. Marines, was killed by Hathcock around the firebase at Hill 55. Ī female Viet Cong platoon leader called " the Apache woman," with a reputation for torturing captive U.S. Hathcock took possession of the dead sniper's rifle, hoping to bring it home as a "trophy", but after he turned it in and tagged it, it was stolen from the armory. When Hathcock saw a glint (light reflecting off the enemy sniper's scope) in the bushes, he fired at it, shooting through the scope and killing the sniper. The sniper, known only as the "Cobra," had already killed several Marines and was believed to have been sent specifically to kill Hathcock. Hathcock and John Roland Burke, his spotter, were stalking the enemy sniper in the jungle near Hill 55, the firebase from which Hathcock was operating, southwest of Da Nang. One of Hathcock's most famous accomplishments was shooting an enemy sniper through the enemy's own rifle scope, hitting him in the eye and killing him. These Marines were aware of the impact Hathcock's death would have and took it upon themselves to make themselves targets in order to confuse the counter-snipers. After a platoon of Vietnamese snipers was sent to hunt down "White Feather", many Marines in the same area donned white feathers to deceive the enemy. The Viet Cong and PAVN called Hathcock Lông Trắng, translated as "White Feather", because of the white feather he kept in a band on his bush hat. Hathcock held the record for highest bounty and killed every known Vietnamese marksman who sought him to try to collect it. snipers by the PAVN typically ranged from $8 to $2,000. The PAVN placed a bounty of US$30,000 on Hathcock's life for killing so many of their men. Confrontations with North Vietnamese snipers Hathcock himself estimated that he had killed between 300 and 400 enemy personnel during the Vietnam War. Snipers often did not have a third party present, making confirmation difficult, especially if the target was behind enemy lines, as was usually the case. In the Vietnam War, kills had to be confirmed by a third party, who had to be an officer, beside the sniper's spotter. Confirmed kills ĭuring the Vietnam War, Hathcock had 93 confirmed kills of PAVN and Viet Cong personnel. 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. 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. Jo gave birth to a son, whom they named Carlos Norman Hathcock III.īefore deploying to South Vietnam, Hathcock had won shooting championships, including matches at Camp Perry and the Wimbledon Cup.
Hathcock married Jo (nee Broughton) Winstead on the date of the Marine Corps birthday, November 10, 1962. Hathcock dreamed of being a Marine throughout his childhood, and so on May 20, 1959, at the age of 17, he enlisted in the U.S.
He would go into the woods with his dog and pretend to be a soldier and hunt imaginary Japanese soldiers with the old Mauser his father brought back from World War II. While visiting relatives in Mississippi, he took to shooting and hunting at an early age, partly out of necessity to help feed his poor family. He grew up in Wynne, Arkansas, living with his grandmother after his parents separated for the first 12 years of his life. Hathcock was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, on May 20, 1942. 2.2 Confrontations with North Vietnamese snipers.
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