Up for auction the “Last Cavalry Charge” Edwin Ramsey Hand Signed 4X6 Color Photo. ES-9169ELieutenant Colonel Edwin Price
Ramsey (May 9, 1917 – March 7, 2013) was a United States Army officer
and guerrilla leader during the World War II Japanese
occupation of the Philippines. Early in the war, he led the last
American cavalry charge in military history. Edwin Ramsey was born in Carlyle, Illinois. The family moved, first to El Dorado, Kansas, when he was two, and then to Wichita ten years later. His father committed suicide
after being arrested on suspicion of battering his wife. Ramsey's mother was a dermatologist who later ran her own clinic. His older
sister, Nadine, became one of the
first female United States Mail pilots and ferried fighters and bombers in World War
II. Ramsey graduated from Oklahoma Military Academy in Claremore, Oklahoma, in
May 1938. He attended the University of Oklahoma,
but left to enlist in the United States Army in
1941. In February 1941, Second Lieutenant Ramsey was assigned to the 11th
Cavalry Regiment at Campo, California. When volunteers were requested for the 26th Cavalry Regiment (Philippine Scouts) in the Philippines, he jumped at the
opportunity. Ramsey recalled later that "... I didn't
even know where it was, except that it was a warm country, it was tropical and
they had a good polo team there." He had been on the Oklahoma Military Academy
polo team and played on the losing side of a polo match in the Philippines the
day before Japan attacked Pearl
Harbor; the umpire was Major General Jonathan M. Wainwright (who
would assume command of the South West Pacific Area after
General Douglas MacArthur was
evacuated to Australia). As a first lieutenant during the withdrawal to Corregidor in the Philippines Campaign,
he was in command of the 27-man, mostly Filipino, G Troop when they encountered
the enemy in the village of Morong on the Bataan peninsula on January 16, 1942. Despite being heavily outnumbered by an
infantry force supported by tanks, Ramsey ordered the last cavalry charge in
American military history. The surprised Japanese broke and fled. Ramsey and
his men held their position for five hours under heavy fire, until
reinforcements could be brought up. He would later be awarded the Silver Star and the Purple Heart for this action. After the fall of Bataan, Ramsey and Captain Joseph Barker made their
way to central Luzon and joined Lieutenant Colonel Claude Thorp,
who had been given the task of organizing guerrilla resistance by MacArthur. Luzon was divided
into four regions, and Barker was given responsibility for the East Central
Luzon Guerrilla Area (ECLGA), extending from Manila to the Lingayen Gulf. After Thorp was captured by the Japanese
in October 1942, Barker took his place, putting Ramsey in charge of the ECLGA.
Barker himself was eventually caught and executed by the Japanese. The
guerrilla force under Ramsey's command grew to nearly 40,000. They fought using
captured and hand-made weapons ("We made arms out of sawed-off pipes that
we used as shotguns."), gathered intelligence and distributed propaganda. Allied
forces landed in Luzon in
early January 1945. On June 13, General MacArthur personally awarded Ramsey
the Distinguished
Service Cross for his guerrilla activities. Ramsey, already a
major by 1943, was promoted to lieutenant colonel shortly before being ordered
back to the United States. The ordeal in the Philippines had taken its toll –
he had lost half his weight and was down to only 93 pounds (42 kg) in
January 1945 – and he spent nearly a year recovering from malaria, dysentery, and acute malnutrition in the
hospital. Lieutenant Colonel Ramsey received a medical
discharge in 1946. |