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Gunther Ruiz

Gunther Ruiz (1882-1913) was a Mexican Army colonel during the Mexican Revolution. He was killed at the Battle of Mesa Verde in 1913.

Biography[]

Gunther Ruiz was born in Mexico in 1882 to a Mexican father and a German mother, and he served in the Mexican Army during the Mexican Revolution and rose to the rank of Colonel. Ruiz commanded a column of armored cars, cavalrymen, and infantry who were sent to put down the 1913 Mesa Verde Uprising, but they were almost massacred at the Battle of San Ysidro. Ruiz retaliated by overseeing the slaughter of the revolutionaries who were hiding in the San Ysidro Caves, and he captured their leader Romulo Villega and forced him, under torture, to identify his revolutionary lieutenants, leading to their executions.

Battle of Mesa Verde[]

Gunther Ruiz train

Ruiz on the Mexican Army train

Ruiz later led an army train carrying 1,000 troops and heavy weapons to assault the rebel army near Mesa Verde, hoping to finish off Ricardo Santerna's rebel army before they could be joined by Pancho Villa or Emiliano Zapata's revolutionaries. The Army train was struck by a dynamite-laden rebel train as it travelled towards Mesa Verde at night, and Ruiz managed to survive the crash and snuck up on the rebel John H. Mallory, shooting him five times in the back. Mallory's friend Juan Miranda avenged him by empyting a Maxim gun's bullets into Ruiz, showering him with bullets and even pushing his body into a ditch.

Gallery[]

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