Kenneth Earl Ritter
PFC Kenneth E. Ritter served with Easy Company, First Marine Raider Battalion (Edson’s Raiders).
He died of wounds received in action at the battle of Edson’s Ridge, Guadalcanal, on 14 September 1942.
Branch
Marine Corps Regular
Service Number 281346
Current Status
Remains Not Recovered
Pursuit Category
The DPAA has not publicized this information.
Capsule History
Pre-War Life
Birth
November 14, 1922
at Moatsville, WV
Parents
Freddie Leonard Ritter
Rosa Mandana (Cline) Ritter
Education
Details unknown
Occupation & Employer
Details unknown
Service Life
Entered Service
January 25, 1940
at Baltimore, MD
Home Of Record
Moatsville, WV
Next Of Kin
Parents, Fred & Rosa Ritter
Military Specialty
Assistant BARman
Primary Unit
E/1st Raider Battalion
Campaigns Served
Solomon Islands / Guadalcanal
Individual Decorations
Purple Heart
Additional Service Details
Ritter may have falsified his year of birth to enlist underage; military documents say he was born in 1921.
He appears on the rolls of Company C, 1st Raider Battalion prior to September 1942.
Loss And Burial
Circumstances Of Loss
PFC Kenneth Ritter served with the First Marine Raider Battalion during the Solomon Islands campaign. He first saw action on the island of Tulagi during August, 1942, as a member of Company C. The following month – at a date and for reasons unknown – he transferred to Easy Company, and took part in a raid on Tasimboko, Guadalcanal. As an assistant BARman, his primary role was carrying ammunition and providing fire support for his squad’s automatic rifleman, PFC Joseph Rushton.
By mid-September 1942, Ritter was sick and suffering, but still manning his post on the front lines. “He had dysentery and was in bad shape, laying alongside the trail,” commented Corporal Robert Youngdeer. “As I went by, he looked up and smiled real weak-like. He didn’t have anything to say.” Shortly after this encounter, Ritter and Rushton were told to accompany their old buddies in Charlie Company and take up positions at an outpost on the far side of a lagoon. It was an unsavory spot, reachable only by a fallen tree stretching over murky water. When the Japanese attacked on the night of 12 September 1942, the post became a death trap. Ken Ritter was badly wounded in the back and legs by shrapnel during the fracas. Rushton recalled
People were crawling in all directions, mainly away from the log crossing. It wasn't long before they were overrun by the swarming attackers of the main charge. It was horrible and frightening hearing our small group of overrun Raiders screaming as the bastards bayoneted and hacked them with their Samurai swords.... [RItter] was in great pain and shock and asked me not to leave him.
In Edson’s Raiders: The 1st Marine Raider Battalion in World War II, historian Joseph H. Alexander records how Rushton, himself wounded in multiple places, laboriously dragged Ken Ritter and their BAR through the swampy lagoon back towards the Ridge. At one point, a Japanese group pounced on the pair and bayoneted Ritter in the leg. Rushton fought off the assailants, but Ritter’s condition rapidly deteriorated. “He became delirious, calling for his mother,” writes Alexander. “Rushton wrapped his hand over his friend’s mouth…. Sometime in the pre-dawn hours of 13 September, [Ritter] died. Rushton placed his body under a large fern near the edge of the swamp and crawled uphill alone, racked with pain and faint from loss of blood.”
Rushton was rescued by a Marine patrol later that morning, and reported Ken Ritter’s fate. Battalion record keepers entered “14 September 1942,” fixing Ritter’s official date of death on the final day of the battle for Edson’s Ridge.
Burial Information or Disposition
It is not known whether or not Marine burial parties found the spot where Rushton concealed Ritter’s body.
Information contained in the First Raider Battalion’s muster roll indicates that PFC Ritter was “interred in U.S. Cemetery, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands by ‘B’ Medical Company, 1st Marine Division.” However, his name was never recorded at the cemetery itself, and his remains were ultimately declared non-recoverable.
Ritter, or one of his Raider comrades, may have been buried as Unknown X-8 in the First Marine Division Cemetery.
Memorials
Next Of Kin Address
Address of parents, Fred & Rosa Ritter.
Location Of Loss
PFC Ritter was killed in action in the vicinity of Edson’s Ridge.
