Snipers have been a specter of the modern battlefield since the American War of Independence when Colonial sharpshooter Timothy Murphy was reputed to have killed both Sir Francis Clerke and General Simon Fraser with single well placed shots from a distance. Fast forward two hundred years and sniping had become an obsession of the US military foot soldier. In Vietnam several sniper schools produced wickedly efficient young snipers who have since become legend such as marines Charles Mawhinney, Eric England and Gunnery Sgt Carlos Hathcock Snr. However the most successful sniper of the conflict is a little known US Army Staff Sergeant, Aldelbert "Bert" F Waldron III.
Adelbert Waldron was born March 14, 1933 in Syracuse New York. He joined the US Navy in 1953 and left that branch after successful service as an E-5 (GMG2) in 1965. Waldron enlisted in the US Army in May 1968 as a Sergeant, the equivalent rank he held in the Navy. Sgt Waldron found himself attached to Company B, 3d Battalion, 60th Infantry Regiment (Scouts Out!) of the 9th Infantry Division in South Vietnam the same year. An expert marksman with a rifle he was chosen to attend the 9th Infantry's in-country sniper school run by members of the Army Marksmanship Unit and formed with the blessing of the division commander Lt Gen Julian J. Ewell. The 9th Infantry was the only major U.S. Army combat unit to conduct operations in the Mekong Delta where it was part of the Mobile Riverine Force (MRF). Riding shotgun on US Navy brown water 'Tango Boats” and PBRs the MRF attempted to clean out the multitude of insurgent units operating in that lawless area. In this high tempo hazardous environment Waldron was placed as a sniper
In the first half of 1969, 36-year old Sgt Waldron was credited with 109 confirmed kills, making him the highest scoring US sniper in history. Unique among the highest scoring US snipers, who were all marines with bolt action rifles, Waldron was a soldier with a semi-automatic weapon. He used an accurized M-14 rifle, known popularly as an M-21. The M-21 Waldron used was a National Match quality weapon with a Leatherwood 3X-9X Adjustable Ranging Telescope (ART) and the standard leather M1907 sling. Rock Island Arsenal converted some 1,435 of these weapons for use as sniper weapons and sent them to Vietnam in 1969. From then on it was the primary Army sniper rifle until 1988. The M21 was accurate out to 800m and fired the M118 standard NATO 7.62mm round. Waldron at times used an early Starlight night vision scope coupled with a suppressor and sniped targets in the middle of the night. On one such night he took no less than nine confirmed targets. He was also credited with making one of the most famous mythical shots in sniper lore:
From Lt Gen Ewell in the US Army’s Center for Military History's archives "..., our most successful sniper was Sergeant Adelbert F. Waldron, III, who had 109 confirmed kills to his credit. One afternoon he was riding along the MekongRiver on a Tango boat when an enemy sniper on shore pecked away at the boat. While everyone else on board strained to find the antagonist, who was firing from the shoreline over 900 meters away, Sergeant Waldron took up his sniper rifle and picked off the Viet Cong out of the top of a coconut tree with one shot (this from a moving platform)."
Promoted to Staff Sgt Waldron finished his tour in Vietnam with a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, a Presidential Unit Citation, and two Distinguished Service Crosses. He taught at the US Army Marksmanship Unit as a senior instructor before leaving army service in 1970. In later years he worked for noted mercenary, firearms engineer and former CIA operative Mitchel WerBell III. Waldron was WerBell’s resident firearms instructor in his private training schools at the “Farm” in Powder Springs GA. It was in that school the Waldron’s name became linked to such groups as Lyndon LaRouche’s NCLC. WerBell died in 1983 and Waldron himself died in quiet obscurity on October 18, 1995 in California. He was 62 years old. Notably Waldron did not publish a book or lecture as many other noted snipers of the 20th century have.
Sources
Ewell Julian J Lt Gen "Sharpening the Combat Edge: The Use of Analysis to Reinforce Military Judgment" US Army Center for Military History Various archivists 1974
Lanning, Michael Inside the Crosshairs Snipers in Vietnam 1998 Ballentine-Random House
King , Dennis Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fasicsm Doubleday 1989
Gilbert, Adrian Stalk and Kill The Thrill and Danger of the Sniper Experience St Martins Press 1998
Roberts, Craig, Crosshairs on the Kill Zone: American Combat Snipers, Vietnam through Operation Iraqi Freedom 2007
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