Ed Ramsey

Ed Ramsey (born May 9, 1917, Carlyle, Illinois, U.S.—died March 7, 2013, Los Angeles, California) was a U.S. Army cavalry officer and guerrilla fighter. He led the last horse-mounted cavalry charge in U.S. military history, against Japanese forces in the Philippines during World War II.

Ramsey attended the Oklahoma Military Academy (now Rogers State University) in Claremore, Oklahoma, and participated in its Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) cavalry program. There he became a gifted rider and starred on the academy’s polo team, one of the best in the country. He graduated in 1938 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the cavalry reserve the following year. He enrolled in the University of Oklahoma law school, but, with war approaching, he left school to serve on active duty in the U.S. Army.

He was assigned to the 11th Cavalry Regiment in 1941 and volunteered for duty overseas with the 26th Cavalry Regiment (Philippine Scouts), an elite horse-mounted force stationed at Fort Stotsenburg on the island of Luzon in the Philippines. That regiment was also known for having one of the best polo teams in the U.S. Army at the time. After the Japanese attack on the Philippines on December 8, 1941, Ramsey fought as part of the 26th Cavalry under the command of Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright as the regiment covered the withdrawal of U.S. and Filipino forces into the Bataan Peninsula on Luzon. It was on January 16, 1942, then, that Ramsey, who had been ordered to delay the advancing Japanese troops, led the last horse-mounted cavalry charge in the history of the U.S. Army. Ramsey led 27 vastly outnumbered riders against hundreds of Japanese troops. As the enemy waded across a river in his direction, Ramsey raised his pistol and ordered his men to charge. The audacious tactic worked, driving back the advancing Japanese infantry and allowing Ramsey and his men to hold their position in the village of Morong for some five hours under heavy fire.

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Ramsey, a clever and resourceful junior officer, did not surrender when Bataan fell months later, thereby avoiding the fate that befell thousands of prisoners during the subsequent Bataan Death March. He eluded capture by the Japanese and eventually made contact with Col. Claude Thorp, who was organizing American and Filipino forces into a guerrilla army. The result was the East Central Luzon Guerrilla Area, which grew into a partisan force of some seven light divisions, consisting of 3,700 officers and 38,000 enlisted men and women. After Thorp and other leaders were captured and executed by the Japanese, Ramsey assumed command and led the guerrillas for nearly three years, working behind Japanese lines until the return of regular American forces under Gen. Douglas MacArthur. In anticipation of that event, Ramsey and his guerrilla forces gathered intelligence and conducted a propaganda campaign, distributing packs of cigarettes and chocolates that bore MacArthur’s promise to the Philippines: “I shall return.”

After the liberation of the Philippines in 1945, Ramsey was promoted to lieutenant colonel, and MacArthur personally decorated him with the Distinguished Service Cross. He was ordered back to the United States to recover from the effects of malaria, amebic dysentery, anemia, and acute malnutrition, and after a year in a stateside hospital, he was medically retired from the army. Ramsey went on to complete his law degree at the University of Oklahoma and had a successful business career with Hughes Aircraft. His extensive experience with unconventional warfare informed the establishment of the doctrinal and organizational structure of the U.S. Army Special Forces in 1952. In 2001 Ramsey was honoured by the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School and awarded the Green Beret and Special Forces Tab for his remarkable service.