Beyond the Call: Commander Lawson Paterson “Red” Ramage off Taiwan, 1944
Welcome to Beyond the Call, where history, leadership, and heroism come alive. Today’s story explores Commander Lawson Paterson “Red” Ramage off Taiwan in 1944, a powerful account of courage and responsibility in combat. If you enjoy learning more about military history and extraordinary individuals, you can find more articles, podcasts, and resources at Trackpads dot com. The story begins in darkness at sea.
Before we continue, I want to mention the Medal of Honor book series that accompanies this work. These books tell the stories of America’s Medal of Honor recipients in a serious, readable, and historically grounded format, with each volume focused on a specific campaign, battle, or part of the war. They are available in color paperback, Kindle ebook, and matching audiobook editions. You can find them at Military Author dot me.
It is the small hours of the morning in the western Pacific, and a Japanese convoy is pushing northward off Taiwan, hoping night and distance will keep it safe. The ships move in a rough line of tankers and freighters, screened by escorts that listen and look for submarines. Out beyond them, the submarine USS Parche runs on the surface, a low shape knifing through the swells. On the open bridge, spray hits Commander Lawson “Red” Ramage in the face as he studies the dim silhouettes ahead. The sea feels very small that night.
Ramage knows that this is the moment his patrol has been building toward. Parche has already tracked the convoy through the darkness, working with another American submarine to set up a coordinated attack. Torpedoes have struck home and the first explosions have thrown the column into confusion, but the convoy is not yet destroyed and the escorts are fully awake. Searchlights probe the night, and guns begin to fire blindly at any hint of a target. Beyond the Call is the Monday feature of Dispatch: U.S. Military History Magazine.
To understand how he came to stand on that bridge, you have to go back to his beginnings. Lawson Paterson Ramage grew up in a small town in western Massachusetts, far from the blue water where he would make his name. He entered the United States Naval Academy and graduated in 1931, part of a generation of officers who would fight a very different war than the one they had studied. An eye injury from his time as a midshipman almost kept him out of the submarine service. It did not stop him for long.
Denied at first by the strict physical standards, Ramage studied the eye chart and used his good eye to pass a later test, securing his place in the submarine force. It was a small act, but it showed a determination that would define his career. He went on to serve in older S-class submarines and other ships in the interwar fleet, learning the sounds of machinery, the feel of a boat deep under the sea, and the habits of men under pressure. Those years did not bring headlines, but they hardened his skills. Quiet preparation filled his days.
When war came to the Pacific, Ramage was already an experienced submariner. He went on combat patrols, saw torpedoes fired in anger, and felt the pounding of depth charges close aboard. The undersea campaign against Japanese shipping demanded captains who could balance aggression with judgment, and his superiors learned that he was one of them. In 1944 he took command of the new submarine USS Parche, bringing his mix of technical knowledge and human understanding to a fresh crew. Command at sea was now his to carry.
On this patrol, Parche joined with another submarine to form a wolfpack tasked with hunting vital enemy shipping routes between the Philippines and Taiwan. Radar helped them find and hold contact, but the actual approach still meant pushing in close at night on the surface. Ramage planned an aggressive surface attack that would take Parche straight into the convoy. When his first salvo of torpedoes tore into the enemy column, the neat formation exploded into chaos. The battle had only begun.
In that chaos, most submarine captains would have chosen to dive deep and evade, trading further chances for damage in exchange for safety. Ramage saw something different: an opportunity to turn confusion into destruction. He made the unusual decision to keep Parche on the surface, where she could maneuver far faster than submerged. To protect his men, he ordered almost everyone below, leaving only a helmsman, a quartermaster, and a few key lookouts on the bridge with him. He accepted that the greatest danger would fall on that tiny group.
From the exposed bridge he drove Parche into the heart of the scattered ships. Searchlights snapped on, trying to pin the submarine in their beams as escorts and armed freighters opened fire. Ramage ordered sharp turns and sudden changes of course, using the boat’s speed to slide between shell splashes and the dark hulls of enemy vessels. A burning tanker cast an orange glow over the waves, turning the sea into a jagged pattern of light and shadow. That fire also lit new targets for Parche’s torpedoes.
At one point a large transport turned directly toward the submarine in an attempt to ram. A surface ship ramming a submarine could crush the thin pressure hull or roll the smaller vessel under. Ramage had only seconds to react. Instead of fleeing outright, he swung Parche across the transport’s bow at a knife-edge distance, avoiding collision by yards while keeping himself in position to attack. It was a move that required absolute trust in the helmsman. It was also a move that kept them in a deadly crossfire.
Ramage answered that danger with still more aggression. As enemy ships charged or tried to escape, he ordered series of bow and stern torpedo shots that raked through the convoy from different angles. In one of the most daring moments, he fired “down the throat” at an oncoming ship, sending torpedoes straight toward the bow of an attacker at close range. Those shots demanded perfect timing and cool nerves, because any miscalculation could leave the submarine exposed at point-blank distance. The gamble paid off in ruined ships and burning oil.
The fight lasted for roughly three quarters of an hour, a long stretch when every minute meant new risks. Shells fell close enough to drench the bridge with spray, and fragments snapped through the air around the small group of men standing with their captain. Yet Parche somehow avoided a crippling hit while leaving a trail of wrecked ships behind. Tankers burned, freighters were left sinking or dead in the water, and the surviving convoy no longer had the shape or strength it had started with. Only then did Ramage turn his submarine clear.
Later, the official Medal of Honor citation would describe his actions as “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty.” In simple terms, that meant his courage stood out even among those who already risked their lives in submarines, and that he kept facing danger steadily rather than in a single brief flash. The citation spoke of bold penetration of a heavily escorted convoy and of a perilous surface attack carried through to the end. These phrases echoed the reality of a captain who chose to keep attacking when he could reasonably have broken off. They also captured how much responsibility rested on his shoulders.
The immediate results were clear on any chart: multiple enemy ships sunk or fatally damaged, a convoy shattered, and vital oil and cargo denied to a strained empire. That reduction in shipping made it harder for Japan to move fuel, reinforcements, and equipment to critical fronts. Within the submarine force, the patrol became a model for how intelligent aggression could multiply the impact of a single boat. Parche and her crew received a Presidential Unit Citation in recognition that this was not just one man’s night, but a collective achievement. The crew knew they had been part of something rare.
Ramage’s leadership showed itself not only in battle but in how he treated credit afterward. When he received the Medal of Honor, he did not present it as a personal prize. Instead, he had a certificate made for each member of his crew stating that he held the medal in trust for them and that every man on board shared in it. That decision turned a national award for individual heroism into a lasting symbol of crew solidarity. It spoke volumes about how he viewed command.
His naval career did not end when the guns fell silent in 1945. Ramage remained on active duty, rising through the ranks and taking on broader commands in the postwar Navy. He led submarine divisions and squadrons, bringing his wartime experience to the training and readiness of new generations of undersea sailors. Later he commanded larger surface formations and the United States First Fleet, guiding forces in a new era of tension and technology. Service remained the backbone of his life.
In his final years in uniform, he took charge of the Military Sea Transportation Service, overseeing the ships that quietly carried people and supplies around the world in support of American military operations. After decades at sea and ashore, he retired in 1969. He died in 1990 and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, where his grave stands among those of many other men and women who served. His journey from a small New England town to the highest levels of naval command had come full circle. The memory of his night off Taiwan did not fade with him.
Today his name continues to move through the world on steel and water. A guided missile destroyer, USS Ramage, carries his name into new oceans as part of the modern fleet. Buildings and spaces in the submarine community also honor him, reminding young sailors of the standard set by a diesel-boat captain in a very different war. Histories of the submarine campaign in the Pacific still point to his patrol as one of the boldest surface attacks ever carried out. Behind those honors stands a man who accepted risk, protected his crew, and pressed on when others might have turned away.
