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.
World War II/Asiatic-Pacific Theater/Guadalcanal Campaign (1942-43)
From Month/Year
August / 1942
To Month/Year
February / 1943
Description The Guadalcanal Campaign, also known as the Battle of Guadalcanal and codenamed Operation Watchtower by Allied forces, was a military campaign fought between 7 August 1942 and 9 February 1943 on and around the island of Guadalcanal in the Pacific theatre of World War II. It was the first major offensive by Allied forces against the Empire of Japan.
On 7 August 1942, Allied forces, predominantly American, landed on the islands of Guadalcanal, Tulagi, and Florida in the southern Solomon Islands with the objective of denying their use by the Japanese to threaten the supply and communication routes between the US, Australia, and New Zealand. The Allies also intended to use Guadalcanal and Tulagi as bases to support a campaign to eventually capture or neutralize the major Japanese base at Rabaul on New Britain. The Allies overwhelmed the outnumbered Japanese defenders, who had occupied the islands since May 1942, and captured Tulagi and Florida, as well as an airfield (later named Henderson Field) that was under construction on Guadalcanal. Powerful US naval forces supported the landings.
Surprised by the Allied offensive, the Japanese made several attempts between August and November 1942 to retake Henderson Field. Three major land battles, seven large naval battles (five nighttime surface actions and two carrier battles), and continual, almost daily aerial battles culminated in the decisive Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in early November 1942, in which the last Japanese attempt to bombard Henderson Field from the sea and land with enough troops to retake it was defeated. In December 1942, the Japanese abandoned further efforts to retake Guadalcanal and evacuated their remaining forces by 7 February 1943 in the face of an offensive by the US Army's XIV Corps, conceding the island to the Allies.
The Guadalcanal campaign was a significant strategic combined arms victory by Allied forces over the Japanese in the Pacific theatre. The Japanese had reached the high-water mark of their conquests in the Pacific, and Guadalcanal marked the transition by the Allies from defensive operations to the strategic offensive in that theatre and the beginning of offensive operations, including the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, and Central Pacific campaigns, that resulted in Japan's eventual surrender and the end of World War II.
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. 
