Although it seems more characteristic of earlier times, cavalry remained active until the mid-20th century. We’re not referring to the modern concept, in which the name has been adopted by tank and/or attack helicopter units, but to cavalry in the strict sense, where combat was fought on horseback. In fact, cavalry was used more in World War II than is often believed, and in that context, the last charge involving U.S. cavalry took place, marking the end of an era immortalized by cinema. This occurred when the 26th Cavalry Regiment of the Philippine Scouts charged against the Japanese in January 1942.

The U.S. Cavalry was officially founded by a law passed by Congress on August 3, 1861. However, this doesn’t mean that there was no cavalry before that, as various units existed from the very outbreak of the War of Independence. After seeing the panic caused in its ranks by the 17th Lancers of the Duke of Cambridge, George Washington requested the Continental Congress create a light cavalry force. His request was granted in late 1776, and he recruited 3,000 men.

He organized them following the model of Connecticut’s 5th Regiment of Light Horse Militia, which performed intelligence duties and had distinguished itself in the retreat to New Jersey. It was converted into one of the four regiments of the newly formed Continental Light Dragoons, trained by Hungarian and Polish officers. Subsequently, more dragoon units were created, which, while constituting cavalry in practice, were generally recruited on the spot for specific missions and disbanded once the emergency passed.

WWII Cavalry Charges
Captain Charles A. May of the 2nd U.S. Dragoons led a charge on a Mexican battery in 1846. Credit: Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons

It wasn’t until 1832 that westward expansion prompted the creation of the Mounted Ranger Battalion, whose goal was to protect settlers. The following year, it was transformed into the 1st Regiment of Regular Dragoons, followed by the second in 1836 and the Mounted Riflemen in 1846. They fought against the Seminoles and Mexicans, and with the mentioned 1861 law, in the context of the outbreak of the Civil War, they were consolidated into a corps to which a couple more regiments were added.

As we’ve seen many times on the big screen and television, the Indian Wars cemented the U.S. Cavalry: the famous Custer’s 7th, and the 9th and 10th of the Buffalo Soldiers (as the Native Americans called Black soldiers)… The Spanish-American War marked the last 19th-century intervention, in which the famous volunteer horsemen, the Rough Riders, organized and led by future president Teddy Roosevelt, took part. U.S. forces also fought in the Philippines against the Spanish, where some units were sent that would later become the foundation of the 26th Regiment two decades later.

Despite the fact that the new century seemed to signal a decline in the importance of horses as a weapon, as tanks and machine guns were clearly working against them, there was still a brief period of glory for cavalry. This was demonstrated by the charges of the Alcántara Regiment against Moroccan insurgents at Annual (1921), and those of both sides during the Spanish Civil War (especially the charges at Singra and Alfambra in 1938, during the Battle of Teruel), and the Konarmiya (Red Cavalry) of Marshal Budyonny during the Russian Civil War.

WWII Cavalry Charges
U.S. rider in World War I. Credit: Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

In 1922, four years after the end of its participation in the Great War, the U.S. Regular Army created the new 26th Cavalry Regiment, adding to the number of cavalry units that existed at the time: eleven divisions, some from the National Guard. The 26th was based at Fort Stotsenburg, a large garrison located about eighty kilometers north of Manila (in the Philippines, the archipelago taken from Spain in 1898), although a small part of the regiment was stationed at Nichols Field airstrip, south of the capital.

The regiment was formed from personnel of the 25th Field Artillery Regiment and the 43rd Infantry, with equipment and horses from the 9th Cavalry, which had just been relocated to Kansas. Besides horses, it had six armored vehicles, trucks, and machine guns, with the bulk of its men being Filipino scouts, indigenous troops under the command of U.S. officers, who had already participated in the suppression of the Moro Rebellion in Mindanao between 1902 and 1913.

When the Japanese invasion occurred in December 1941, command was held by Colonel Clinton A. Pierce. The 26th participated in the Allied retreat to the Bataan Peninsula on the island of Luzon, performing a diversionary action that delayed the enemy’s advance, allowing time for inexperienced infantry divisions to regroup. However, this came at the cost of heavy casualties, reducing their numbers to 450 men, though reinforcements in the following month brought them back up to 657. With these, they managed to keep the roads open to facilitate the army’s resistance.

It was then that the 26th carried out what would be the last cavalry charge. The honor of giving the order fell to Lieutenant Edwin P. Ramsey, a graduate of the Oklahoma Military Academy who had abandoned a college career to enlist, with little idea of where he was being sent: … I didn’t even know where it was, except that it was a hot, tropical country with good polo equipment. Ramsey led a section of 27 soldiers during the retreat to Corregidor, when they unexpectedly encountered the enemy while passing through the village of Morong on the aforementioned Bataan Peninsula.

WWII Cavalry Charges
Lt. Edwin P. Ramsey on the back of his horse Brynn Awryn. Credit: Philippine Scouts Heritage Society

It was January 16, 1942. The Japanese, formed by an infantry force supported by tanks, were crossing a river at that moment. Ramsey, despite being outnumbered and outgunned, ordered a charge against them at a gallop, firing their Colt 1911s (they had not used sabers for a decade). The lieutenant recounts in his memoirs:

Leaning almost flat over the necks of the horses, we charged against the Japanese advance, firing our pistols at their surprised faces. Some returned fire, but most fled in confusion. To them, we must have looked like a vision from another century, horses with bulging eyes charging headlong; men cheering and shouting, shooting from the saddles.

The surprise they experienced from such a bold and unusual action was so great that the Japanese broke their lines and fled, allowing the scouts to take positions and prepare to hold them against the expected return of their adversaries. That happened, but they managed to hold them off for more than five hours, under heavy and desperate fire, until reinforcements arrived to relieve them. Nevertheless, the Japanese resumed their advance, and Ramsey had to hide in the jungle, where he organized a guerrilla that harassed the enemy for three years, to the point that a bounty (equivalent to $200,000) was offered for his capture, without success.

WWII Cavalry Charges
Japanese invasion and advance in the Philippines between December 8, 1941 and January 8, 1942. Credit: Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

That charge was nothing more than a skirmish; historians usually include it within the Battle of Bataan, in which the Scouts, some National Guard units, and ten divisions of the poorly trained and poorly equipped Filipino army were the backbone of the U.S. defense. But for Ramsey, it earned him the Silver Star and the Purple Heart, and several soldiers were also decorated. The horses, however, suffered a worse fate: the scarcity of provisions and the inability to receive supplies forced the riders to sacrifice them and feed on their meat.

Thus, the 26th underwent a restructuring, forming two squadrons, one of motorized riflemen and another of mechanized scouts, who used a type of British-made armored troop transport vehicle called the Universal Carrier (or Bren Carrier). Some sections were isolated in the northern island defending Baguio alongside the 71st and 11th Infantry and later joined guerrilla forces, sometimes following tactical orders and sometimes just for survival.

With the end of the war, the 26th was first deactivated (1946) and later disbanded (1951). Tens of thousands of Filipino Scouts died in Japanese concentration camps, with special mention to Camp O’Donnell, where 60,000 Filipinos and 9,000 Americans were imprisoned. The latter were transferred to mainland Asia to be used as slave labor, and many died during the infamous Bataan Death March; it is estimated that over 20,000 of the former died, at a rate of about 400 per day, due to mistreatment, hunger, and tropical diseases (malaria, dysentery, beriberi…).

In July 1946, when independence was granted to the Philippines, about a thousand survivors accepted U.S. citizenship and were able to continue their military careers; some even reached the rank of general. Most, however, did not receive that offer and remained considered Filipino soldiers in the service of the U.S.; as such, they were employed in the occupation and control of the Japanese island of Okinawa, among other similar destinations. The controversy generated by that oversight persisted for decades, and it was not until 2009 that the U.S. Senate granted them compensation for their service.

WWII Cavalry Charges
Polish cavalrymen in 1945. Credit: Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

As we mentioned earlier, the cavalry had taken its last breaths in World War II. It is estimated that the German and Soviet armies used 2,750,000 and 3,500,000 horses, respectively, between 1939 and 1945. It is true that most were used for logistical tasks, but there were still occasions for direct combat since in 1939 the Polish lancers launched their legendary charge against the Germans, the first of dozens they would make throughout the war, repeating something they had done not long before against Soviet cavalry (Marshal Budyonny belonged to that arm and refused to admit its obsolescence).

At the start of Operation Barbarossa, the USSR opposed thirteen cavalry divisions to the German invasion; in 1942, the squadrons of the Italian Savoia Cavalleria regiment had to fight to protect their 8th Army’s retreat from the Russian front; in 1945, the Polish cavalry took a village defended by the enemy in Schoenfeld (Pomerania) in what was the last successful cavalry charge of World War II. That swan song would be a symbol of changing times that, however, still had one more epilogue, and it was also led by American cavalrymen.

It was on October 22, 2001, when twelve members of the Green Berets, accompanying the Northern Alliance mujahideen in Afghanistan, entered battle against the Taliban in Cobaki, in Bakh province, mounted. That singular episode was immortalized in the movie 12 Strong, and it reveals that in some corners of the world, the horse has not yet been displaced by the motor.

This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on October 24, 2024: Las últimas cargas de caballería de la Historia sucedieron durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial

SOURCES

Urwin Gregory J.W., The United States Cavalry. An Illustrated History, 1776-1944

Gordon L. Rottman y Peter Dennis, World War II US Cavalry Units. Pacific Theatre

Edwin Price Ramsey y Stephen J. Rivele, Lieutenant Ramsey’s War. From Horse Soldier to Guerrilla Commander

Elaine Woo, Colonel Edwin Price Ramsey

Edwin Price Ramsey Official Website

Wikipedia, 26th Cavalry Regiment (Philippine Scouts)

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