Marine Corps’ deadliest sniper, Charles ‘Chuck’ Mawhinney, dies at 75

Ask any Marine about the service’s greatest snipers, and a flurry of references to the legendary Gunnery Sgt. Carlos Hathcock are sure to flood the conversation. Yet it was another sniper, Charles “Chuck” Mawhinney, who quietly surpassed Hathcock as the Marine Corps’ deadliest.

The Lakeview, Oregon, native recorded 103 confirmed kills in Vietnam over the span of 16 months in 1968 and 1969. By the time he returned home, he’d also been credited with another 216 “probable kills,” a classification for incidents in which the act of confirming a kill in an active war zone would jeopardize safety.

Mawhinney, whose prowess with a Remington M40 sniper rifle in Vietnam remained largely a secret until a chance mention in an obscure 1991 book, died Feb. 12 at his home in Baker City, Oregon. He was 75.