A Jacket, A Story, A Man.

Hello american friends,
I present to you a grouping purchased from the USA a few months ago, i bought it because the 100th infantry division liberated my town in december 1944 and fought hard during operation Nordwind just 1 mile from my little town in east of France.

The grouping consist of an ike jacket (1944 dated) with all its attributes, a cap with its 398thIR crest and a death notice card...
The all belonged to T/4 Bertram Max Baum, 398thIR, G co. 100thID. He was born in NY state in 1925, enlisted in january 1944 and has been affected to the century division. In october 1944 he landed in Marseille with the rest of the division. On november 20th he is seriously wounded in the Vosges Mountain near Raon l'étape, he will never see the front again and get the the purple heart. In september 1945 he get medical discharge. He finished his life in Lancaster (Pensylvania) with his wife Roselyn, he passed away at the age of 63 on november 5th 1988.

I found theses information on NARA and WW2memorial.com









Picture of him




Best regards from France.

YD

 

Nice find, thanks for sharing!

 

Excellent, I am glad you found these and will care for them. Very appropriate.

I wonder about the lower bar of ribbons. They seem to be in the wrong order by current standards. I wonder if the ordering was different in 1945 or if there was an understandable error.

What I see is (left to right):
WWII Victory ribbon, Army of Occupation ribbon and EAME Theater ribbon.

By today's standards should be (l to r):
EAME Theater ribbon, WWII Victory ribbon, Army of Occupation ribbon

according to this site:
Ribbons - Order of Precedence


Without looking it up, I would think the 100th ID earned the Presidential Unit Citation for the defense of Bitche in January 1945.

Thank you for sharing.

 

Thanks for comments,

Not exactly, the 398thIR earned the Presidential Unit Citation for the battle of Bitche, 4 months of battle near Bitche from December 1944 to 15 March 1945, the regiment liberated the town on 15 march 1945, after this, the soldiers of the regiment got the name of "Sons of Bitche" .
It is the 397thIR who earned the Citation for defending a little in (the town of rimling, i live next to this town) january 1945 during Nordwind operation.

If the ribbons are not in the good order i think it is because it dates from 1945.

 

Thank you for sharing the uniform as well as Mr. Baum's story. I am glad that his uniform is with someone who cares about the man who wore it and for whom it holds special meaning.

I think I have mentioned in a previous thread that I have a relative who fought in the area between Rimling and Sarreguemines during Nordwind. I hope to see more posts from you, Yankee Division. We don't often see many posts covering this area.

Here is link to the Marshall Foundation collection on the history of the 398th. The PDF titled Crossing the La Plaine has a very brief account of G Company on 20 November 1944 on pages 3 and 4.

 

To YD

I was just made aware of this post. I am the son of Bertram MARKS Baum. The Bio information that you posted is not completely correct. The picture you have is a picture of him, but the uniform is not his. He never had an "Ike" jacket uniform. He was in the 100 Division as a Private First Class. Bertram M Baum is 87 years old and is still alive. He resides in New York State. He did arrive with the 100th Division, but was only in France for a month until he was wounded. He was married to Roslyn, she passed away in 2007, they did live in Lancaster, PA from 1994 until 2007. The funeral card you have is for a Max Baum, he was not a relative of ours. I would be interested in hearing from you as to how you obtained the uniform and how you determined who it belonged to. Please contact me at EliotB@aol.com

 

Hello, I hope YD will be able to read your post and contact you.

 

I also hope that YD stops back in soon and contacts you. YD last logged in Sept. 19th, so hopefully it won't be too long before you get a response.

BTW, danab13, I am happy to hear that YD's information was incorrect and that your father did not pass away in 1988. The folks on this forum have a great amount of respect for our WWII veterans. Please pass on our thanks and appreciation to your father. Also, thank you very much for correcting the record here. Even the best intentions sometimes go awry.

 

Hello danab13,

Wow ! I'm very happy to read this !

I bought this Grouping on ebay.com, the seller written that the all have been find like this, he said that the soldier were in 398thIR Co.G.

After i got the grouping I did some searchs on NARA, national WWII memorial, and in the 100thID roster.
And I found this:

NARA - AAD - Display Full Records - Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File, ca. 1938 - 1946 (Enlistment Records)

World War II Honoree

And the same name in the roster.

All corresponded, this is how I made this conclusion.

I'm very happy to know that he is still alive !

 

The magic of the internet! I hope you fine people will be able to get in touch, if there is a problem to contact each other let me know,

 

So your Max Baum is listed here (search Baum)

Sons of Biche - 100th Infantry Division Roster, 1944-1945

with this information:

Baum Max ----- T/4 ---- 398-3B ---- New York NY

Looks like 3d Battalion Headquarters Company, 398th Infantry

which could be this guy (only max baum for NY,NY / other one is upstate)

NARA - AAD - Display Full Records - Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File, ca. 1938 - 1946 (Enlistment Records)

Somebody might be able to contact the funeral home for confirming information

JERE J. CRONIN, Inc
Funeral Directors
Brooklyn Heights, MA 4-1398 (?)

Brooklyn Heights in Massachusetts (adds to the confusion)

Hope this all turns out alright.

 

You are right,

I have at home this book:



And i just found the "good" Max Baum:




The seller written that it was Bertram M Baum, that's why i did a mistake but now we know the truth

 

And if you do the search that Earthican suggested on the 100th ID site, they are listed right next to each other:

View attachment 17488

I'm sure the Ebay seller made an honest mistake. A good lesson in fact checking, though. One can never be too careful.

 

But now, how could I know more about Max Baum ? Find a pic of him etc... Because I didn't find more about him.

 

I'll take this opportunity to correct my mistake. Brooklyn Heights is New York City (not Massachusetts), so it seems he returned and stayed there after the war.

The funeral was over twenty years ago so there would only be a slight chance that the funeral home would have a short biography of his life. Perhaps there was a death notice in a local paper.

Somebody might check census records (1950 - 1980) to find descendants.

Good luck.

 

One could also try to contact a local library or historical society. They may have access to newspaper archives.