This Military Service Page was created/owned by
HM3 Bill Mann (DevilDoc)
to remember
Marine SSgt Henry Bauer (Hank).
If you knew or served with this Marine and have additional information or photos to support this Page, please leave a message for the Page Administrator(s) HERE.
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.
Description The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg. was fought on the Ryukyu Islands of Okinawa and was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific War of World War II. The 82-day-long battle lasted from early April until mid-June 1945. After a long campaign of island hopping, the Allies were approaching Japan, and planned to use Okinawa, a large island only 340 mi (550 km) away from mainland Japan, as a base for air operations on the planned invasion of Japanese mainland (coded Operation Downfall). Four divisions of the U.S. 10th Army (the 7th, 27th, 77th, and 96th) and two Marine Divisions (the 1st and 6th) fought on the island. Their invasion was supported by naval, amphibious, and tactical air forces.
The battle has been referred to as the "typhoon of steel" in English, and tetsu no ame ("rain of steel") or ("violent wind of steel") in Japanese. The nicknames refer to the ferocity of the fighting, the intensity of kamikaze attacks from the Japanese defenders, and to the sheer numbers of Allied ships and armored vehicles that assaulted the island. The battle resulted in the highest number of casualties in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Based on Okinawan government sources, mainland Japan lost 77,166 soldiers, who were either killed or committed suicide, and the Allies suffered 14,009 deaths (with an estimated total of more than 65,000 casualties of all kinds). Simultaneously, 42,000–150,000 local civilians were killed or committed suicide, a significant proportion of the local population. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki together with the Soviet invasion of Manchuria caused Japan to surrender less than two months after the end of the fighting on Okinawa.
My Participation in This Battle or Operation
From Month/Year
March / 1945
To Month/Year
June / 1945
Last Updated: Mar 16, 2020
Personal Memories
Memories Wounded at the Battle of Okinawa. He commanded a platoon of 64 men and only 6 survived the brutal siege.