Randolph C Berkeley earned the Congressional Medal Of Honor as a Marine Corps Major during action in Vera Cruz, Mexico on April 21st and 22nd, 1914. Berkeley’s daring leadership of his battalion from the initial assault and then through street to street fighting on both days earned him the decoration.
Major Berkeley’s performance was especially noteworthy in the fighting in Cinco de Mayo Street, where his brilliant tactics resulted in an incredibly low percentage of casualties for the men under his command.
The Cause of the Conflict: During one of the repeated outbreaks of internal warfare that have made Mexico a very dysfunctional nation, one of the belligerent sides – Huerta in this case – had taken to arresting U.S. service personnel on very tenuous grounds. In retaliation the Democratic Party’s President Woodrow Wilson ordered an occupation of Vera Cruz to prevent the Huerta forces from getting weapons deliveries until they stopped harrasing American personnel, since we were not part of either hostile side.
Major Berkeley’s street to street fighting experience would have been useful several decades later.
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