Despite all the challenges the Scouts felt and the overwhelming odds of 200 men versus 1,700 men, the Seventh Scouts would be successful in their goals after 4 days of endless grueling fights. Most of the Seventh Scouts, including Ralph, would travel back to California on a boat with a majority gaining gangrene. Only 20 of the 200 scouts would escape the island free from death, battle injuries, or weather injuries that would cause gangrene and would require amputation from a couple toes to both legs depending on the severity of the gangrene.
Ralph would spend four days at Telderman hospital in San Francisco after arriving back in the states on June 6, 1943 before being transferred over to McCloskey General Hospital in Temple, Texas where he would recover from his frostbite. He would be honorably discharged on September 27, 1943 and receive the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal. Following his part in the war, Ralph would go on to attend Ole Miss where he would be a member of Pi Kappa Alpha and the president of the Ole Miss Veterans Club and would graduate in 1946. Ralph would work as a tractor salesman after college in between Indianola and Greenwood Mississippi until 1960 when he would settle down with a job at Indianola Tractor. July 8, 1956, Ralph married Miss Josephine Bennett and the two would go on to have three boys. In 1963 Ralph would buy his first home in Indianola, Mississippi and would continue on in life until August 22, 1979 when his life would end and he would be buried by the 1st Methodist Church in Indianola at Indianola Cemetery. |