American Hero in The Philippines

Lieutenant Alexander Ramsey “Sandy” Nininger, Jr.

30 October 1918 - 12 January 1942

Presented to the People of Fort Lauderdale,
Memorial Day 1994,
By the Sailboat Bend Civic Association

During the early days of World War II, The tentacles of the Japanese war machine were grasping the Asiatic-Pacific areas in an ever-tightening stranglehold. Allied bases were falling wherever the enemy cast his wildfire malignancy. It was only the valor of a few vastly outnumbered brave men who kept the conflict from becoming a complete rout.

After graduation from Fort Lauderdale High School, Alexander “Sandy” Nininger went on to the U.S.M.A. at West Point. Upon receiving his Army commission, he asked for duty in The Philippines and was assigned to Bataan where he was serving under General Douglas MacArthur when the Japanese invaded those islands.

Superior in numbers, supplies and weaponry, hordes of Japanese swept ashore and pushed inland, decimating everyone andd everything standing in their way…that is until they confronted the defending Philippine Scouts — all that stood between General MacArthur’s forces, who were readying fortifications near Manila, and the invaders.

Stalled by days of attacks and counter-attacks, the Japanese again began breaking through the American/Filipino lines. Sandy Nininger’s position was being overrun by the invaders. He rallied his men together to repel the attack. Still, seemingly unbeatable masses of enemy soldiers swarmed into the American positions. Then on Januarry 12, 1942, the Japanese enountered the unanticipated.

Single handedly, Sandy Nininger, the boy from Fort Lauderdale’s Sailboat Bend Area, charged into the enemy positions with a rifle, grenades and fixed bayonet, shooting snipers out of trees and destroying enemy groups in fox holes, he plunged forward. Then seizing a Japanese machine gun, he continued onward, killing at least forty enemy and forcing many others to retreat.

Sandy Nininger’s show of extreme valor agains superior forces that day so inspired other members of his unit, the legendary Philippine Scouts, to rally together and counter attack, completely smashing the Japanese onslaught and changed the course of the war during the darkest of dark days. General MacArthur later reported that the action on January 12, 1942, gave him the much needed time to organize the defenses of Manila Bay and Corregidor.

When they found Sandy later, mortally wounded and still clutching the enemy machine gun, the area around him was strewn with many dead enemy officers and soldiers. Upon hearing of Nininger’s various deeds, President Franklin Delanao Roosevelt bestowed upon Nininger, posthumously on January 29, 1942, the first Congressional Medal of Honor to be awarded during World War II.

Today, Lieutenant Nininger’s remains rest in an unmarked grave near a long forgotten battlefield half-a-world away from the banks of The New River flowing in front of this Statue where, as a boy, he played, fished and swam. Sandy’s spirit is here with us, and he will forever be the heart and the soul of each of Broward’s fallen servicemen, heroes all.