26th Cavalry Regiment (Philippine Scouts) Sculpture - Fort Stotsenburg
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Fort Stotsenburg Cavalry Sculpture
An equestrian sculpture honoring the 26th Cavalry Regiment (Philippine Scouts) that was composed of Filipino soldiers under American officers and the last horse-mounted charge in U.S. military history against Japanese forces on January 16, 1942, in Morong, Bataan. The artwork was made by Joy M. De Leon.
Last Cavalry Charge of the United States Army (from the Phillipines in WW2 Website):
Mount up!
On January 16, 1942, the order pealed through the sultry Bataan air. The battered, exhausted men of the 26th U.S. Calvary, of the Armys Philippine Scouts, climbed astride their horses and flung themselves against the blazing gun muzzles of Japanese tanks. To the shock of the cavalrymen and the Japanese commanders alike, the cavalrymen scattered and drove back the armored squadrons.
To them, we must have seemed a vision from another century, says Edwin P. Ramsey, wild-eyed horses pounding headlong, cheering, whooping men firing from the saddles. Ramsey knows firsthand of what he speaks. As a young lieutenant in the 26th, he led the battered riders of the 26th on that chargethe final cavalry charge in the history of the U.S. Army. His heroic dash was only a small part of the valor and skill of the forgotten men of the 26th Cavalry.
The savage clash between Ramseys riders and the Imperial Japanese Army marked the end of an institution whose roots stretched back to the Revolutionary War. The hell-bent-for-leather strike of Ramseys troopers, however, was hardly the first mounted action unleashed by the 26th during General Douglas MacArthurs ill-fated defense of the Philippines. From the first few hours after the Japanese troops had poured from their landing craft onto the shores of Luzon Island to the final months on The Rock, the Corregidor fortress, the Scouts had bought time for MacArthurs army to fight back. The cavalrymen fought the last horseback campaign in Americas annals, paying a terrible toll but exacting an even higher one upon the Japanese troops.
Source of information: coffeeordie.com, en.wikipedia.org; Phillipines in WW2 Facebook Page
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