The Last Cavalry Charges: Mounted on Horses they Rode into Battle in WWII

Horse mounted cavalry has been with us since the before 800BC. They have been instrumental in warfare for three millennium, making the difference between victory and defeat in thousands of battles across time. The advent of the machinegun, the airplane and the tank in the First World War spelled the doom of horse cavalry. By the 1930s most modern countries were putting their cavalry horses out to pasture and replacing them with mechanized units. A few die hard regiments survived this transition and entered World War Two where they gave their last full measure and rode off into history. The Polish Cavalry of World War Two fought the Germans hard and fast in historically controversial charges in 1939.

The year 1942 saw the embattled US and Filipino army fighting for their lives in Bataan against an invading Japanese army. On January 16, 1942 a young Lt Ed Ramsey led his 27-man Troop G of the US 26th Cavalry Regiment (Philippine Scouts) in a charge against Japanese infantry in the village of Morong. Mounted on his horse Bryn Awryn, a chestnut gelding, Lt Ramsey led the last American cavalry charge to victory and was awarded the Silver Star after the war. The American cavalry carried no swords, since April 18, 1934, the issuance of swords to US cavalry troopers was discontinued, but they were packing the ubiquitous Colt 1911. The last British charge was made just two months later by Capt. Arthur Sandeman and 60 Sikh horsemen mounted on short Burmese horses of the Burma Field Force. They blundered into a force of entrenched Japanese soldiers and were repulsed after taking heavy losses. Capt Sandeman was killed with his saber in hand.

The Italians made a number of charges. Flamboyant Italian Lt. Amedeo Guillet, with his motley Gruppo Bande Amhara, became the ghost of the desert in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia during the first two years of the war. In January 1941 he led a remarkable charge through a British tank column without being absolutely destroyed. Perhaps the best known of the Italian charges was that of the Savioa Cavalry near Chebotarevsky (Izbushensky) on the Eastern Front against an overwhelming Soviet force on August 24th 1942. However the last Italian cavalry charge of World War Two was credited to the troopers of the 14th Alessandria Cavalleggeri (Cavalry Regiment) when part of a Celeri (Fast) unit of mixed mechanized troops and cavalry. While serving in anti-partisan activities its horsemen charged an encircling group of Tito's partisans near Poloj in Croatia in October 17, 1942. This charge broke through the surrounding partisans and saved the day. The claim of having the very last horse-mounted charge by any army in any war goes to the Polish horsemen of the 1st Warsaw Cavalry Brigade who successfully charged through German lines on March 1, 1945.....and riding off into the sunset.

Sources

Glueckstein, Fred Last Mounted Cavalry Charge: Luzon 1942, Army Magazine, July 2005

Andreanelli Sergio The Last Cavalry Charge in WWII” The Shotgun News March 1990

Stato Maggiore Dell’Esercito – Ufficio Storico (General Staff of the Army – Historical Office). Le Operaazioni Delle Unità Italiane Al Fronte Russo (1941-1943). Rome, 2000

The copyright of the article The Last Cavalry Charges in WW II History is owned by Christopher Eger. Permission to republish The Last Cavalry Charges in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Apr 8, 2009 11:57 AM

Guest :

Sir,
The last true 'trumpets and sabres' Cavalry charge in British Military History took place in Turkey on 13th of July 1920 when 300 men and horses of the 20th Hussars under the command of Colonel M.C. Richardson attacked and destroyed Turkish forces caught on open ground at Gebze (about 60mls from Istanbul). An Officer of the Garwalis Regt wrote.
“Their sabres were drawn and glistened in the early morning sunlight, their trumpets sounded & they moved slowly toward the enemy’s flank as our artillery stopped firing…they struck, with sabres flashing in the sun …all the time their trumpets echoed fierce & thrilling in savage exultation …they swept through the Nationalist line rallied wheeled and charged again…not more than 30mins after appearing on the ridge the Hussars had vanished whence they came leaving the echoes of trumpets and the bodies of the enemy to bear testimony to they’re passage”
I close,Yours,
James Schorah

Apr 8, 2009 12:39 PM

Christopher Eger :

James,

while Major J. C. Darling (2003), 20th Hussars in the Great War, Naval & Military Press, ISBN 1843425386 ^ pp. 349-52, does mention that the 1920 Izmit 300-man charge of the 20th Hussars (now 14th/20th Kings Hussars) was the "last regimental charge of the British Cavalry"...the charge mentioned above by Capt. Arthur Sandeman and 60 Sikh horsemen of the Burma Field Force was still some 22 years later. The point that the Sikhs were commonwealth horsemen and not good old "Light Brigade" lineage regimentals is taken. Yet British horsemen did still make a final charge in 1942, which is the subject of the article.

Thank you

Chris Eger