CAMP
ARROWHEAD
1954
COLONEL
RALPH IRVINE SASSE
Funeral
services for Colonel Ralph Irvine Sasse, age 65, former
West
Point
football coach and WW I hero who led a battalion of tanks in
an
assault on the Hindebburg Line were held at Smith Funeral
Home,
25th & Market, Wilmington, October 18th,
1954. Burial was at Arlington National Cemetery, Washington,
DC.
Col.
Sasse died Friday night at his Rehoboth Beach home following a long
illness.
Born in Wilmingtom to the late George W. and Ella Comegys
Sasse on July 19 1889. His father was a Wilmington postman.
Sasse
was a graduate of Wilmington High School and then West Point
in
1916. From 1929 to 1932 he won wide recognition as coach.
He
had
started on the coaching staff as an assistant to Captain Biff
Jones and
became
head coach in 1930. Co.l Sasse's three year seasons as head coach
Army
won 25 games, lost 5, and tied 2. Army beat Navy all three of
his
years.
Notra Dame, Pittsburgh and Harvard were winner over Army twice.
Army
football players of recognition under Sasse were tackle Jack
Price,
guard,
Milt Summerfelt, and halfback , Jack Bucker.
After
leaving West Point he coached at Mississippi State 1933, and 1937
took
over as director of athletics at PMC in Chester.
In
WW II he was called to train mechanized troops. For duty in WW I he
was
awarded The British Distinguished Service Order for courage under
fire
at Hundenbure Line.
His
first wife, Kathryn Nicols Ringgold Sasse died in 1949, he remarried
Ella
Robertson Sasse who survives him, also a daughter Kathryn Grigon
of
Philadelphia and a granddaughter, Kathryn.
He
retired the Army in 1946 and opened Camp Arrowhead at Rehoboth.
Abstract:
18 October 1954, Wilmington Morning News. For Facebook
& www.delmarhistory.blogspot.com.
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