In recent blasts, we learned about Forty-Third Company, Second Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment scout snipers Private Jack Kneeland and Gunnery Sergeant Walter Cook (1889-1952). In this blast, we feature Seventy-Eighth Company, Second Battalion, Sixth Marine Regiment scout sniper Gunnery Sergeant Ople Lee “Buck” Waggoner (1898-1984).

Gunny Waggoner served during WWI in 78th Company with the first Marine scout sniper to receive the Medal of Honor, Corporal John H. Pruitt (1896-1918).

Military Service, 1917-19

Waggoner enlisted in the Marine Corps from Bickleton, Washington on 15 May 1917 (see bootcamp photo) then as a 5’4’ 128 pound 19-year-old completed bootcamp at Recruit Depot Marine Barracks Navy Yard Mare Island in Vallejo, California (where he qualified as a marksman), and advanced infantry training, including the scout sniper course, at the Overseas Depot Marine Barracks Quantico from July 1917 through January 1918.

Waggoner and the eight other recently minted 78th (or E) Company scout snipers shipped out to France on 19 January 1918 from Philadelphia on the U.S.S. Henderson and arrived at St. Nazaire on 8 February. He was promoted three times in France: on 28 May 1918 to corporal, 15 August 1918 to sergeant, and on 8 July 2019 to gunnery sergeant. He separated from service on 24 December 1919.

With 2/6 at full strength in June 1918, Privates Waggoner, Pruitt, Edward C. Severance, Carl E Whipple, and four other 78th scout snipers deployed to the Chateau-Thierry front to stop the German advance along the Paris-Metz Road. It was during his first encounter with the enemy on 7-8 June 1918 that Waggoner received the Silver Star (then a ribbon device Marines could affix to the WWI Victory Medal) for “his ability as a sniper, dislodging several enemy snipers who were firing on our front line…in the Bois de Belleau." Waggoner and the 78th scout snipers were engaged with the Germans from 25 June through 5 July at Belleau Woods on the front at Hill 142.

Later that year, following the armistice on 11 November, then Sgt Waggoner was awarded the French Croix de Guerre with one bronze star for his combat action serving with “bravery and coolness” as a “sniper of value who has put out of action many enemy snipers” from 30 May through 10 August at Chateau-Thierry and 18-20 July during the Allied counter-offensive at the Marne and St. Mihiel “one of the bloodiest battles the Seventy-Eighth Company was ever in,” according to one chronicler of the 78th Company. When 2/6 left the Marne on 20 July only 53 Marines had survived.

Waggoner himself survived extensive combat in WWI having been gassed once and having received laceration wounds from shrapnel twice, once in the face on 14 June at the Chateau-Thierry front and a second time seriously in the chest on 15 July at St. Mihiel. He also suffered a gunshot wound on 11 October at the Blanc Mont Ridge to his left distal third femur — the area of the leg just above the knee joint. It was at the Blanc Mont Ridge on 4 October, just one week earlier, that then Corporal Pruitt was killed in action.

Life After War

The Marine Corps discharged Gunny Waggoner on 24 December 1919. Along with the Silver Star, French Croix de Guerre, and the earliest version of the USMC Good Conduct Medal, Waggoner was authorized to wear two wound chevrons on the lower right cuff of his dress uniform.

From Chicago where he was discharged, Gunny Waggoner settled in Boardman, Oregon along the Columbia River about 160 miles east of Portland in 1930 where he was the owner of Latourell Auto Company and Boardman Garage, a Standard Oil Red Crown Gas franchise. He was married the following year and remained with his wife until she passed away in 1969. He did not have children. His older brother Rollie Kenneth Waggoner survived him by 5 years.

Taps

Gunny Waggoner passed away at age 85 in Gladstone, Oregon, about 25 miles south of Portland, on 24 February 1984 and is buried in the Juniper Haven Cemetery located in Prineville.