This Military Service Page was created/owned by
HM3 Bill Mann (DevilDoc)
to remember
Marine SSgt Henry Bauer (Hank).
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Contact Info
Last Address E. St Louis
Date of Passing Feb 09, 2007
Location of Interment Resurrection Catholic Cemetery - Lenexa, Kansas
Henry A “Hank” Bauer was born in East St Louis, Illinois on July 31, 1922. The youngest of nine children, Bauer's father was an Austrian immigrant who worked as a bartender having earlier lost his leg in an aluminum mill.
After graduating from Central Catholic High School, Bauer went to workrepairing furnaces in a beer-bottling plant when his older brother Herman – who was playing in the White Sox farm system - was able to get him a tryout that resulted in a contract with Oshkosh Giants of the Wisconsin State League.Alternating between infield and outfield, he batted .262.
In January 1942, Bauer enlisted in the Marine Corps. He took basic training at Mare Island, California, where he also played for the camp baseball team.
But the easy life came to an abrupt halt. "One morning," Bauer told TIME magazine in 1964, "this sergeant came up to me and said, 'Why don't you volunteer for the Raider battalion?' I said okay. But the first thing they told me was, 'You've got to swim a mile with a full pack on your back.' I said, 'Hell, I can't even swim,' and they turned me down. I told the sergeant what happened. He said, 'You gutless SOB, go back down there.' So I told them I knew how to swim. They took me."
Bauer came down with malaria almost as soon as he hit the South Pacific. "My weight dropped from 190 pounds to 160 pounds," he said. "I was eating atabrine tablets like candy." Temporarily recovered (over the next four years, Bauer had 24 malarial attacks), he fought on New Georgia, was hit in the back by shrapnel on Guam. Next came Emirau off New Guinea, then Okinawa. Sixty-four men were in Platoon Sergeant Bauer's landing group on Okinawa; six got out alive. Hank himself was wounded again on June 4, 1945. "I saw this reflection of sunshine on something coming down. It was an artillery shell, and it hit right behind me." A piece of shrapnel tore a jagged hole in Bauer's left thigh. Also wounded that day was Richard C Goss, who was serving with Bauer. "There goes my baseball career," Bauer told Goss as they were evacuated together. Bauer's part in the war was over —after 32 months of combat, eleven campaign ribbons, two Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts.
His brother, Herman, was not so fortunate. He was killed in action in France with the 3rd Armored Division on July 12, 1944.
Bauer felt there was no future for him in baseball so he joined the pipe fitters' union in East St. Louis, and got a job as a wrecker, dismantling an old factory. But a roving baseball scout named Danny Menendez found him and offered him a tryout with the Quincy Gems, a Yankees’ farm club.
Bauer hit .323 at Quincy and promptly moved up to the Kansas City Blues, where he hit .313 in 1947 and .305 in 1948. Bauer played 19 games with the Yankees in 1948, he played 100-plus games in Yankees’ pinstripes for the next 11 seasons, plus nine World Series appearances.
During the 1960s, Bauer managed the Kansas City Athletics and Baltimore Orioles. In 1966 he led the Orioles to the World Series where they defeated the Dodgers in four games. Bauer then ran a liquor store for many years.
Hank Bauer died of cancer in Shawnee Mission, Kansas on February 9, 2007.
Some of the information in this biography was obtained from TIME magazine September 11, 1964. Further information was kindly supplied by Rebecca Collins, daughter of the late Richard C Goss, who did an interview for the Admiral Nimitz Museum and talked about Bauer.
Played for the NY Yankees (1948-1959) and the Kansas City Athletics (1960-1961) Managed the Athletics in both Kansas City and Oakland and Baltimore Orioles (1964-1968. Won 1966 World Series Championship with Baltimore.
Other Comments:
Served in the Pacific, contacted malaria, recovered and earned 11 campaign ribbons, two Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts. 32 Months of Combat .
Bauer enlisted in the Marine Corps shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and served in the South Pacific. During 32 months of combat, he earned two Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts, and was sent home after receiving shrapnel wounds to his leg and back.
At 26, Bauer was called up from the minor leagues to play for the Bronx Bombers. He went on to hit 164 home runs while compiling a lifetime batting average of .277 and being named to three All-Star teams. Bauer died Feb. 9, 2007 at 84.
Northern Solomon Islands Campaign (1943-44)/New Georgia Group Operation
From Month/Year
June / 1943
To Month/Year
October / 1943
Description This operation was fought during the Pacific war on this group of islands situated in the central Solomons. US forces invaded them as part of an American offensive (CARTWHEEL) to isolate and neutralize Rabaul, the main Japanese base in their South-East Area.
On 20 June 1943 a Raider battalion (, 5(f)) landed at Segi Point on the main island, New Georgia, and during the next two weeks there were other landings by US Marines and 43rd US Division on Rendova and Vangunu islands, and on western New Georgia, to seize a Japanese airstrip at Munda point. Despite the US Navy's intervention, which resulted in the battles of Kula Gulf and Kolombangara, 4,000 reinforcements were successfully dispatched to the commander of the 10,500-strong Japanese garrison, Maj-General Sasaki Noboru. Most reinforced Munda, which became the focus of Japanese resistance, and their night infiltration tactics unnerved the inexperienced US troops. Non-battle casualties, caused by exhaustion and ‘war neuroses’, increased alarmingly, and when the commander of 14th Corps, Maj-General Oscar Griswold, arrived on 11 July he reported the division was ‘about to fold up’. The 37th US Division was brought in, Griswold replaced the worst affected units, and he then launched a corps attack on 25 July. Fierce fighting followed but by 1August the Japanese, outnumbered and outgunned, had withdrawn inland. This time US Navy destroyers prevented more reinforcements reaching them when, on the night of 6/7August, they sank three Japanese transports (battle of Vella Gulf).
Munda now became the base of Marine Corps squadrons which supported landings on Vella Lavella on 15 August. These bypassed and isolated Sasaki's garrison now gathering on Kolombangara after further US reinforcements, elements of 25th US Division, had failed to destroy them on New Georgia. On 15 September Sasaki was ordered to withdraw. In a brilliantly organized evacuation 9,400 men out of the 12,500 on Kolombangara were rescued by landing craft, and the following month those on Vella Lavella were also evacuated.
The campaign proved costly for the Americans who had 1,094 killed and 3,873 wounded with thousands more becoming non-battle casualties. Excluding the fighting on Vella Lavella, 2,483 Japanese bodies were counted. Planned as a one-division operation, the Japanese garrison's ‘skill, tenacity, and valor’—to quote the campaign's official US historian—eventually made it one where elements of four had to be used. ‘The obstinate General Sasaki,’ the same historian concludes, ‘deserved his country's gratitude for his gallant and able conduct.’
Bauer came down with malaria almost as soon as he hit the South Pacific. "My weight dropped from 190 pounds to 160 pounds," he said. "I was eating atabrine tablets like candy." Temporarily recovered (over the next four years, Bauer had 24 malarial attacks), he fought on New Georgia, was hit in the back by shrapnel on Guam. Next came Emirau off New Guinea, then Okinawa. Sixty-four men were in Platoon Sergeant Bauer's landing group on Okinawa; six got out alive. Hank himself was wounded again on June 4, 1945. "I saw this reflection of sunshine on something coming down. It was an artillery shell, and it hit right behind me." A piece of shrapnel tore a jagged hole in Bauer's left thigh. Also wounded that day was Richard C Goss, who was serving with Bauer. "There goes my baseball career," Bauer told Goss as they were evacuated together. Bauer's part in the war was over —after 32 months of combat, eleven campaign ribbons, two Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts. 
