Ritchard Whitaker Article

8/12/2019 Ritchard Whitaker Article

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Several years ago, I read with greatenthusiasm RAID, a book by RichardBaron, Abraham Baum, and RichardGoldhurst. It is a true story about aWWII U.S. Army raid 40-plus milesbehind German lines, covering the dis-tance from Aschaffenburg to Hammel-burg. This raid was conceived and or-dered by GEN George S. Patton Jr.,then commanding the U.S. 3rd Army.

Although the reason for this raid wasconcealed from the task force and its

commander until H-hour, it was an at-tempt to liberate some 1,200 U.S.Army POWs, one of whom was LTCJohn Waters, General Pattons son-in-law.

When the raid failed, speculationabout LTC Waters relationship to thearmy commander entered into criti-cisms that the operation was ill-timed,poorly planned, undermanned, anddoomed to failure from the beginning.

It was not until the operation byTask Force Baum had begun, thatCPT Abraham Baum, leading the raid,

learned from MAJ Stiller, GEN Pat-tons aide, that LTC Waters was be-lieved to be in the camp and that hewas GEN Pattons son-in-law. At thispoint, CPT Baum wondered if his mis-sion had any chance of success.

The task force included 300 men and53 vehicles, including tanks, tank de-stroyers, and halftracks.

I thought that it would be good tocommemorate the 50th anniversary ofthis famous 4th Armored Division raid,

and proceeded to call the authors andsome of the key participants regardinga 50th reunion in Hammelburg, Ger-many. In a later telephone call, MAJAbe Baum, the leader of the raid, wasdelighted to hear that he had not beenforgotten and wished he had been noti-fied earlier so he could have planned toattend. There were no funds providedby the military for this purpose.

MAJ Baum sent me a list of 29 offi-cers and men who received the Silver

Star for this action, and I would guessthat there were five times as manyBronze Stars awarded, in addition toprobably 150-200 Purple Hearts tothose wounded and killed in action.Baum got three.

Baum also was personally awardedthe Distinguished Service Cross byGEN Patton himself. His certificationreads: For the brilliant leadership hedisplayed while in command of TaskForce Baum. The mission of this taskforce had led them far behind enemylines with only a small force. The dar-ing of this movement threw the enemyinto a panic, believing that all this terri-tory was being overrun by our troops.Communications were disrupted andlarge enemy forces were needlesslyshifted from more important strong-points, facilitating a later drive by an-other combat command of this divisionthrough Hanau and to Hernfeld.

I spoke with the books co-author,MAJ Richard Baron, via telephone,and he informed me that as far as heknew there would be no reunion, as it

was too late to plan one. It seemedironic since the original mission wasplanned in less than 24 hours! Baronwas awarded the Bronze Star for hisefforts during the escape.

T/SGT Charles O. Graham, who ledthe antitank platoon, also did not wishto participate, even if there was a reun-ion. He was awarded five Silver Starsand two Bronze Stars during his Armycareer. LT Nutto, who commanded aplatoon of tanks, also elected not to

participate.

By March 26, 1945, units of Pattons3rd Army, in particular the 4th Ar-mored Division, arrived near Schwein-heim after four days of hard fightinginside Nazi Germany. They paused inthe hills overlooking the German-heldtowns of Aschaffenberg and Schwein-heim. This was to be the opening sceneof Pattons biggest military blunder.

Patton ordered the raid after havingbeen ordered to the north by GENOmar Bradley. He knew that his son-

in-law, LTC John Waters, was beingheld approximately 70 kilometers tothe east, in Oflag XIIIB, a prisoner ofwar camp for officers overlooking theold Frankish town of Hammelburg.LTC Waters had been captured by ele-ments of GEN Erwin Rommels AfrikaKorps during the battle for the Kasser-ine Pass two years earlier. Military in-telligence had been tracking his intern-ment and had informed Patton that hewas in the Hammelburg lager, a fewmiles east of Frankfurt.

Major Abraham Baum, at left, in April

1945, shortly after the ill-fated raid on a

German prisoner-of-war camp 40 milesbehind enemy lines.

Above, Baum with the author in October

1995.

TASK FORCE BAUMand the

HAMMELBURG RAID

Reliving the Incredible Adventure

of a Young Captain

Ordered to Rescue

General Pattons Son-in-Law

by Richard Whitaker

20 ARMOR September-October 1996


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This proved to be too tempting forGEN Patton, and he immediately is-sued verbal orders for the now-infa-mous raid, despite the fact that he hadbeen ordered to turn 3rd Army northand vacate his former positions to GENPatch, whose 7th Army was to thesouth, on Pattons right. GEN Pattonclaims he received verbal permissionfrom GEN Omar Bradley prior to or-dering the mission, but in Bradleysbook,A Soldiers Story,he does not re-member it that way.

The raid took place in spite of imme-diate protests by two of Pattons subor-dinates, MG William M. Hoge, com-manding 4th Armored Division, andGeneral Manton Eddy, both of whomthought this mission was ill-timed,poorly conceived, and undermanned ill-timed in that it came following sev-eral days of hard fighting by the samegroup of men who had just been giventhe orders to liberate the camp. Thesemen had crossed the Rhine River onMarch 24th, and had just arrived at theMain River on the 26th after continu-ous fighting and going without sleepfor days.

The men selected for the missionwere from units of the famed 4th Ar-mored Division, Pattons favorite, oneof only two divisions in Europe inWWII to have been awarded a Presi-dential Unit Citation by PresidentFranklin Roosevelt. The man selectedto plan and choose the units sent on theraid was LTC Creighton Abrams, thenthirty years old and in command ofCombat Command B. LTC Abrams se-

lected his old friend, LTC Harold Co-hen, a battle-hardened veteran com-manding the 10th Armored InfantryBattalion, to lead the raid, and orderedhim to hand-pick his own men. How-ever, Cohen was to be medically ex-cused from the mission.

(Apparently, LTC Cohen had a severecase of hemorrhoids. He was removedfrom the assignment by GEN Pattonhimself who, after personally inspect-ing the inflamed area, remarked, That

is some sorry ass!1

)

Cohen then immediately selected hisown replacement with Abrams ap-proval.

He was 24-year-old CPT AbrahamAbe Baum. At this point, Patton mo-tioned for the young captain to stepaside and stated to him, Listen, Abe,you pull this off and Ill see to it thatyou get the Congressional Medal ofHonor!1 CPT Baum was a tough,scrappy, hands-on officer from NewYork City with questionable qualifica-tions to be heading a raid this far be-

hind enemy lines. For one thing, hewas Jewish, and capture meant uncer-tainty when the letter H, signifyingHebrew, was discovered on a soldiersdogtags. He had been a patternmakerby trade and, because of this, had beenassigned to the Army engineers uponhis enlistment. Army enlistment per-sonnel apparently did not know he wasa patternmaker of clothing; he was as-signed to the engineers because theythought he was a metal patternmaker.This stroke of luck eventually got him

assigned to the Armys Officer Candi-date School at Fort Benning, Georgia.

CPT Baum was far from being under-qualified, however. At this point in thewar, he had been one of the first to ar-rive at Bastogne. Baum had earned twoBronze and two Silver Stars.

The units assigned to accompany himon the mission were C Company of the37th Tank Battalion, commanded by2LT William J. Nutto, consisting of 10Sherman tanks, and a platoon of five

light tanks from D Company, com-manded by 2LT William Weaver. Therewas also a platoon of three self-pro-pelled assault guns, under the com-mand of T/SGT Charles O. Graham.These were Shermans adapted to carrya 105-mm gun that could be used as anantitank weapon or as an artillerypiece. The balance of Task ForceBaum, as it later became known, con-sisted of 27 halftracks carrying Com-pany A of the 10th Armored Infantry,under the command of CPT RobertLange, together with a recon platoon ofnine men and three jeeps, and medical

and maintainance personnel with an in-terpretor, PFC Irving Solotoff. Also as-signed to the column was an additionaljeep carrying MAJ Alexander Stiller,one of Pattons most trusted aides, whohad served with Patton as a tanker inWWI.

Back in the hills overlooking Schwein-heim, an artillery barrage ended at2100 hours, and the platoon selected byCohen to lead the breakout through themain street of town began moving. Af-

ARMOR September-October 1996 21


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ter proceeding only 200 yards, theycame under fire, and a Panzerfaust (ba-zooka) stopped the lead Sherman in itstracks and blocked the street. CPLLester Powell drove his jeep forward,entered the burning tank, and drove it

out of the way, also rescuing the sur-viving tankers. During this action, hewas hit by enemy fire, and when heawakened in a hospital in England, hewas told he had been awarded the Sil-ver Star for his bravery and a PurpleHeart for his wounds.

At 2300, the situation grew worse.Another tank was hit and abandoned,causing further delay. At this pointMAJ Stiller joined CPT Baum andsaid, Were late.

Baum replied, I might not be able toreach Hammelburg before dawn... Weneed the cover of darkness.

Is there another way to Hammel-burg? Stiller asked. Baum shook hishead no, and stared at the major, stillwondering why he was included in themission.1Abrams and Cohen had beentold the reason, but they had not passedit on to Baum. Both had thought themission very risky and foolish.

The assignment of MAJ Stiller hadcaused CPT Baum to question whowas actually in command, and to won-der what the aide to a famous generalwas doing on a combat mission aboutto proceed over 40 miles behind enemy

lines. The answer to Baums questioncaused him to turn cold. Its importantto General Patton, said Stiller, whoexplained that LTC Waters was in thecamp.

Whos Colonel Waters? askedBaum.

Hes Pattons son-in-law. Didnt youknow that?

After hearing this, and knowing that300 men were about to risk their livesfor one man, he considered pulling theplug and aborting the mission. How-ever, after collecting himself, Baumhoped that the rest of the men wouldsee it as he did, a job to be done. Atthis point, he ordered his men to pro-ceed through the town of Schweinheimwithout pausing. Thus began one of themost daring sagas in U.S. military his-tory.

After clearing the town, the columnstretched out over a mile. Baums nexttask was to find the main east-westhighway, Route 26. After passingthrough the small villages of Haibach-

Grnmorsbach, they soon passedthrough Bessenbach, and then Keil-berg. After reviewing the order ofmarch as the column passed by, Baumthen sped ahead, and after several turnson the narrow, winding road out ofKeilberg, came to his first objective,the main road to Hammelburg.

It was now 0230 hours. Now onRoute 26, Baum had just accomplisheda very difficult leadership test. Leadingan armored column in daylight is diffi-cult enough; leading one at night in un-familiar territory, over a complicated

route, is even more challenging. Asthey proceeded to their next objective,the town of Laufach, Baum ordered thetanks to run over several telephonepoles along the highway. He also or-dered some lines cut by hand for addedprotection. Then one of his men no-ticed that, in several of the towns alongthe route, white sheets were hangingfrom the windows as a sign that theyhad surrendered. At this point, the taskforce leaders realized that the lines hadnot been cut soon enough.

As they sped on in the early dawnhours outside of Laufach, the road

passed by a military parade ground. Alarge contingent of German troopswere taking morning exercise. Afterspraying these troops with a hail ofmachine gun fire, it again became ap-parent that the mission was no longer asecret and worse yet, their exact posi-tion was now known to the enemy sur-vivors. They next came upon a detach-ment of troops marching along the roadwho immediately surrendered to thelead tank unit, headed by LT Weaver.They were ordered to throw down their

weapons so that the tanks could driveover them, rendering them useless. Thisscene was repeated again a short dis-tance further along and the Germanswere told to march toward the ap-proaching American Army in the west.

Baums task force raced through Hainand Rechtenbach, then approachedLohr, the largest town since leavingSchweinheim, and also the mid-waypoint on the route. Baum decided tomove Nuttos Shermans, with their75mm guns, to the front of the columnin case the city had been warned and

fortified. This proved a prescient deci-sion. As the column approached theoutskirts in the early morning light,they spotted an overturned heavy truckwith telephone poles piled around it,blocking the main road ahead. At thisroadblock, another Panzerfaust struckthe lead tank and disabled it, but thecrew escaped and scrambled to therear. A second Sherman then used itsmain gun and machine guns against theroadblock, scattering the soldiers man-ning it. The Shermans proceeded intothe roadblock, clearing a path for thetask force and scattering the defenders

after bulldozing the truck aside. Aftercontinuing a short distance and scan-ning the town with his binoculars,Baum decided to try to bypass the city,thus avoiding further resistance. Afterdoing this, he ran head-on into a truckconvoy coming from the opposite di-rection and hauling 88mm antiaircraftguns. With LT Weaver back on point,he ordered his crew to let them haveit! As Weaver swept by in his tank,Conquering Hero, he was shocked tosee that the 88s were manned by young

LTC John K. Waters, seen at left in 1961 as a LTG, was in the Hammelburg prisoner-of-war camp in March 1945. Captured at Kasserine Pass in North Africa two years earlier,

he was the son-in-law of General George S. Patton, Jr., then commanding the U.S. 3rd

Army. Pattons troops were approaching within 40 miles of the camp when Patton orderedCPT Abraham Baum to lead a raid on the camp.



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girls. They had been trained for thisduty because all the available menwere at the various fronts.1

On March 26th, 1995, as I approachthe town of Lohr down the scenic road

which slopes rather steeply into thisHansel and Gretel town, I can envi-sion the roadblock and am surprised tofind yet another roadblock of a differ-ent sort. It is a full-blown street fair,and it turns out to be a nice treat as theold strasse through the village is filledwith the bright colors of spring and thewonderful odor of many locally pro-duced cheeses and smoked meats. It ishere that I mail my first postcard tomyself. It will bear the postmark ofLohr and a 50th Anniversary date ofthe day when Task Force Baum washere. The route Baum selected aroundthe town was located just above thetown, and was just visible from below.It was in Lohr that General Hans vonObstfelder, responsible for all Germanground forces in the southern region,was summoned from his office by anaide who said the Americans were onthe upper road. Seeing that they werebypassing Lohr and heading towardGemnden, he immediately called forreconnaissance planes to follow thecolumn and instructed his troops inGemnden to prepare to dynamite abridge to block the route.

As LT Weaver was leaving the Lohr

area, he began to overtake a Germantrain on his left. The train consisted ofboth freight and passenger cars. Somesoldiers were waving at him! Theystopped waving as the 75mm guns andmachine guns of Conquering Herobegan to point toward them. At thismoment, the doors to the boxcars slidback to reveal small antiaircraft gunsaimed at the tanks. Luck again was onthe American side as the road droppedsuddenly below the railroad bed. Thetanks were now able to fire on thetrain, but the reverse was not possible.The fire from the task force struck a

freight car loaded with ammunition,which blew up, and after firing addi-tional rounds into the engine, two engi-neers jumped out, leaving the damagedtrain to its own demise.

A short while later, a train approach-ing from Gemnden appeared to have achance to cross the tracks in front ofthe column and block the task force,but another Sherman fired two 75mmrounds into the engine and derailed thetrain just short of the crossing.

As Weaver and thecolumn nearedGemnden, anotherjuicy target appeared.This time it was atugboat hauling five

barges through thelocks on the riverMain. After firinghigh explosive and in-cendiary rounds intothem, the barges ex-ploded. Continuingfurther, another vitaltarget appeared along-side the road, thehuge railroad mar-shalling yards on theoutskirts of Gemn-den. Baum ordered allof his tanks to fire onthis bonus target.They destroyed twomore trains, unknow-ingly disrupting theunloading of the Ger-man 7th Division, whowere trying to get tothe front. In addition,they destroyed severalmore locomotives andthen followed up byordering a nearbyAmerican spotter plane to call in an airstrike on this valuable target.

Approaching Gemnden, Baum again

halted to survey the bridge across theriver and into town. He sent the reconplatoon down the hill to verify that thebridge was intact. As LT Hofner ap-proached the old bridge, he spotted a

pile of dozens of land mines which theGermans had just started to bury in theroad. After throwing out smoke gre-nades, Hofner and his men began toss-

ing the stacked mines off the road andbegan firing across the bridge into tar-gets in the town. For this effort, Hofnerearned a Silver Star.

As soon as the road was cleared,Baum put Nuttos medium tanks in thelead, and they started across with LTHofners platoon of infantry. From histurret, Nutto heard the fire from thefirst Panzerfaust, then another and an-other. There was also 75mm antitankfire coming from an old castle over theriver and above the town. At this point,the lead tank was hit and rolled to astop just five yards from the bridge,blocking the column. Nutto watched asthe stunned platoon leader, LT Ray-mond Keil, helped his badly burnedcrew out of the tank. At this point,panic ensued and the lead tanks ser-geant broke and ran for the rear, yell-ing, Ive had it, Ive had it!

At this point, Baum ran up as Nuttoheard another whoomp from apanzerfaust. Looking up he saw it wob-ble and strike the asphalt in front ofthem before exploding and showering

LT Nutto, whocommanded

Baums medium

tanks.

Above right,

the Roman

bridge atGemnden,

and the castle

where the Ger-mans had sited

their 75mm an-titank guns.



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them with steel fragments and searingphosphorus. He also felt the fragmentspierce his body, and then watched asBaum went down. Baum struggled tostand up while bleeding from his right

knee and hand. As the two menmoved back to receive first aid, Baumwatched as Elmer Sutton, leading theinfantry platoon, made it across thebridge with two more men running af-ter him. Suddenly, the Germans blewthe bridge and the two men vanishedforever.

It is March 26th, 1995. While stand-ing above the roadside overlookingthe bridge, which has long since beenrebuilt, it is starting to rain and again Iam reminded of what must have beengoing through the minds of the menwho watched as their comrades died.

The bridge still has the original foun-dation erected by the Roman army al-most 2000 years ago. The bombed-outcastle also survived and is still stand-ing in the mist above the city.

The town is strangely quiet, with noone in sight on this lazy Sunday after-noon. Then a policeman drives up tosee why we are stopped here. Realityreturns, and we press on along Baumspath.

On March 27th, 1945, at 1100 hours,Baum is also backing out of the town.He has sent a recon probe to look for

another road out of the village. AfterBaum consulted his map, Stiller askedhim if he wanted to go back.

We dont quit, Baum said, addingthat the enemy had no idea of wherehis unit was heading.

After turning north on a back road,Baum sent his second message back to10th Armored: Two tanks lost, two of-ficers and eighteen men wounded orkilled. Proceeding.1

A short while later, at a fork in theroad, another tank was lost after throw-ing a track. At this point, the woundedwere lifted out of the halftracks andplaced on the side of the road, wherethey would be found and given medicalaid. They were in no condition to con-tinue.

The unit had moved ahead only ashort distance when a lost Americanjeep from the 7th Division, carrying acombat propaganda team with a loud-speaker, wandered across Baums path.The team had seen the smoke from thebattle in Gemnden and, upon discov-

ering the tank tracks leading out of thecity, proceeded to catch up with thecolumn, thinking it to be one of theirown. They then began broadcasting inGerman, directing the message into thewoods towards some enemy soldierswho had outrun the column fromGemnden. The broadcast messagewas simple: it would be better to sur-render to the 7th U.S. Army than to theRussians, who were coming from the

east. About 100 of them walked out ofthe woods and began laying down theirweapons. Then one of Baums men in-formed the team that the task force wasnot part of 7th Army. The propagandateam immediately left to find their owntroops.

With Baum leaving in the oppositedirection, the abandoned Germans musthave thought the American rules forfighting a war a bit odd.

Moving to the north, the column cap-tured a lone paratrooper who was ab-sent without leave from his unit and

heading for home. After finding outthat he was originally from Hammel-burg, Baum and the interpreter, PrivateSolotoff, convinced him to lead themto a bridge in Burgsinn. The para-trooper proved to be a valuable asset.Several times along the route he con-vinced other smaller groups of Germansoldiers to surrender and walk towardsthe oncoming U.S. Army. The lastgroup to follow his instructions weremanning two camouflaged antitankguns. Further along the road to

Burgsinn, the task force chanced upona staff car containing a high-rankingGerman general, Oriel Lotz. Afterforcing him to mount the front of oneof the lead tanks to quell possible hos-

tile fire, they proceeded through Re-ineck and then across the narrow butintact Burgsinn bridge.

The town of Burgsinn is an olderwalled city and, had they been for-warned of Baums arrival, they couldhave easily blocked the main gate intotown, forcing another costly delay.Even after passing through the maingate, the streets are so narrow that anystalled vehicle would have created ad-ditional problems and further delay.Upon leaving Burgsinn, there is arather steep incline to negotiate on theroad to Grfendorf. Somewhere in the

wooded region between the two vil-lages, another unexpected event oc-curred. The task force encounteredseveral hundred conscripted Russianswho were working on the constructionof an autobahn bridge, guarded by agroup of German soldiers. Again, thecaptured paratrooper ordered them tothrow down their arms. Upon seeingthis, the Russians mobbed Baums jeep,shouting, Amerikanski, Amerikanski.The Russians wanted to do somethingfurther to help their liberators, and hav-ing armed themselves with the Germanrifles, they wanted to take the town.

Baum approved of this, but on onecondition they were to wait until af-ter the task force had passed through.In addition, the Russians wanted thegeneral. Baum again complied.1

On March 27th, 1995, driving out ofthe woods, which were spectacular tosee, the road again turns steeply down-hill and offers a splendid view of thetown of Grfendorf. As the main streetwound through the town, I was amazedto see how narrow the roadway was,and how easily it could have beenblocked. About halfway through thevillage, we spotted a cafe and stopped

for coffee and cake. Since the owner ofthe cafe was in his late fifties, I askedhim if he remembered the panzer raidof Task Force Baum. He became ex-cited, and immediately produced hiscopy of the RAID, the book by Baron,Baum, and Goldhurst. He told me thathe was a small boy, hiding in the base-ment below where we were standing,when the American tanks came rum-bling through. He watched them fromthe basement window, and it was asight he will never forget. Another man

The narrow city gate of Burgsinn, the only routethrough the town, remains much like Baums task

force found it in 1945.



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who had been sitting nearby got up totell me that he had also been a youngman in the town of Burgsinn when thecolumn passed by, and he recalledsimilar memories. After saying good-

bye and thanking them for their time, Ithen asked them if they would send mea postcard from their towns with ashort story of what they had seen, andthey both have complied. (I sent themeach a 4th Armored shoulder patch anda thank you card.)

Outside, as we were getting into ourcar, the cafe owner pointed to somesecond floor windows above the shopnext door, and explained that his neigh-

bors had draped a white sheet over thewindow sill in order to keep the Ameri-cans from firing on them. This workedfine until some SS troops came throughthe village later and, upon seeing thewhite sheets of surrender, proceeded toshoot the townspeople who had hungthem up! This proved to be a very so-bering experience, and at this point Iwished I had not eaten such a largepiece of cake.

After we crossed yet another tinybridge in the middle of town, the valleynarrowed as the road followed the rail-road and the river up out of town to-ward Weickersgrben. This was the siteof another crucial incident for TaskForce Baum.

As the task force left Grfendorf, asingle-engine German spotter aircraftflew up the valley behind them. Afterthe column had fired several hundredrounds at the aircraft, unsuccessfully,the pilot managed to fly out of range,

tipping his wings in defiance. As itturned out, the small plane had posi-tively identified and counted the re-maining vehicles 13 tanks, three as-sault guns, and 27 halftracks. Mean-

while and unknown to Baum, GeneralLotz had gotten free of the Russiansand phoned Grfendorf, passing on theinformation that the Americans hadtalked about nothing but Hammelburg.Among those forewarned of the col-umns destination was the camp com-mandant at Oflag XIIIB, General VonGoeckel, and other commanders in thearea, including Oberst (Colonel) CordVan Hoepple, area commander, andGeneral Bernhard Weisenberger at

Schweinfurt, positioned just east ofHammelburg.

At 1200 hours on March 27th, thecolumn had just passed throughMichelau and then over another smallbridge across the Saale River and northof Weickersgrben, their next destina-tion. At this point, the guide, who wasunfamiliar with this region, becameuseless, and after turning the columnup a dead-end road, needed to be re-placed. Baums next move was to sendhis driver, with Solotoff the translator,back to Weickersgrben with instruc-tions to find somebody who could getthem to Hammelburg. After speedingback into the town, they arrived at aninn.

Solotoff found the owner, Karl Str-zenberger. After telling Solotoff that hiswife was due to give birth this verynight and he was the only one to helpher, he asked to be excused from actingas a guide. This request fell on deaf

ears. The situation was now desperateand the task force was stalled and waybehind schedule.

After leading the column back up thecorrect road to Highway 27, and after

arriving at the intersection to Hammel-burg, the innkeeper again asked to beexcused to return to his wife, and thistime he was allowed to go home. Afterseeing the entire column pass by, he re-alized the consequences he faced if theSS found out about his involvementwith the Americans. So, after returningand aiding in the birth of a new son, hewent into the woods, where he re-mained until the end of the war.

It was raining again as we passed bya covered bus stop in Weickersgrben,where my friend John Dirks noticedthree men standing and smoking, seek-ing shelter from the rain. We wonderedif they knew of the raid and Herr Str-zenberger? The answer was an excitedyes! One of the men was among theRussians freed by CPT Baum and hismen. He had elected to remain in thearea after the war. He said we wereonly 50 meters from the home of HerrStrzenberger. A few minutes later,ringing the innkeepers doorbell, I feltmuch the same anticipation as Solotoffmust have felt. A member of the familyanswered; not Karl, but his grandson,who invited us in to meet the family Karls sons, Herbert and Edgar. After

explaining the reason for my pre-viously unannounced visit, (Abe Baumhad told me to look up his friend Karlwhen I passed through), we were im-mediately escorted into the familyroom where we were given a glass oflocal wine and treated like royalty.

It was at this point that we learned ofKarls passing. We were saddened, butalso delighted to meet Klara, hiswidow and the mother of Herbert,Edgar, and Walter, the son who wasborn on this day 50 years earlier. Karlhad died in 1991. The family told methat Walter would be coming later ifwe wanted to stay and meet him, butour schedule depended on availablelight for additional photographs, so wethanked them for their hospitality and,after presenting them with 4th Armoredpatches, moved on towards Hammel-burg.

Task Force Baum is now in the hillsoverlooking Hammelburg and at the in-tersection of a road that led south overthe Reussenberg hills and toward thelager. It was not far from this point that

At left, the bridge at the village of Grfen-

dorf , where SS men shot civilians who dis-played white flags. Above, the author with

Frau Strzenburger, widow of Karl, and

their son Edgar.



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Hauptmann Richard Koehl, leading acompany of eight panzerjaegers (tankhunters), had positioned himself. Hehad been alerted by one of the phonecalls that General Lotz had placed afterescaping from the Russians. He set uphis guns near the railroad station, about1,000 yards from the road that CPTBaum would have to pass on his wayinto the camp. He seemed to be in anideal location for an ambush, but thetask force was traveling at high speedwhen it reached this point, and all therounds fired by Koehls 75mm gunsmissed their targets.

Baum sent T/SGT Grahams assaultguns 500 yards up the hill to fire onKoehl and protect the rear of the col-

umn. Unfortunately, this section of theroad turned up rather steeply toward asaddle at the top on the ridge, and be-fore all of the column had passed by,they took casualties from Koehls anti-tank guns. Slowed by the incline, twomore tanks were knocked out and thehalftrack carrying CPT Lange was hit.He was seriously wounded. Three ofhis men placed him on another vehicleand headed up over the ridge to safety.

While Koehl was firing on the col-umn, Baum was racing up and downthe road in his jeep, trying to getstalled vehicles off the road and trying

to restore order. Now Grahams gunswere in position on the ridge andstarted to return fire. Capable of firing8-10 rounds per minute, Grahams gunsscored three knockouts on Koehlspanzerjaegers and also wiped out a fueland ammunition column of six trucksmoving toward Koehl. Unfortunately,Baums unit had been shot up badly,losing two mediums and one light tank,five halftracks, and two jeeps. Now outof range and over the hills crest, thetask force regrouped at the sight of alarge French memorial cross, erectedby the French government after WWIto commemorate the French soldierswho had perished in Hammelburg.Baum now had his first view of OflagXIIIB. It lay on the reverse slope about1,700 yards away.

As remaining light was growingshort, Baum left Grahams assault gunsand a rifle platoon behind to protect therear and to provide covering fire fromabove and into the German positionsoutside the camp. He arranged the re-maining 11 tanks into a desert forma-tion (spread out side by side), with the

infantry following close behind. Withthe final goal in sight, they headeddownhill towards the camp. When theywere about 200 yards from the wirefence, the Germans began firing.

We were met at the Schloss HotelSaalach by Herr Oberstleutnant (LTC)Taube of the Hammelburg InfantryTraining School, and drove to his of-fice. The Infantry Training School wascelebrating its 100th year in Hammel-burg. In Colonel Taubes office, we hadcoffee and were introduced to LTCBradford, the U.S. Army liaison officerassigned to the school; Hans Schnebel,the schools librarian and historian; andPeter Martin, a history instructor, whoacted as our translator and guide. Ashort time later, we found ourselves atthe saddle, standing in the road next tothe French cross monument where wehad our first view into the compoundfrom the point at which CPT Baum andhis men first saw it.

Standing at the location of Grahamssupport position near the cross, welooked back down the panzerstrasse

(tank road) and saw an overview of thesteep winding route the task force tookcoming up from the base of the moun-tain.

We returned to our van and pro-ceeded to the first camp buildings thatBaums men approached. They are stillin use as Infantry School support andsupply buildings. During the time ofthe raid, these buildings were adminis-trative buildings, located just inside thecompound fence.

Baums unit responded to the enemyfire which commenced about 200 yards

out from the wire fence. Then the tanksbroke through the wire. General VonGoeckel, the officer in charge, surren-dered his entire command to a sur-prised POW, Colonel Paul R. Goode.During the initial melee, LTC Waters,the primary objective of the raid, wasseverely wounded by a German soldier,carried back into the compound, andhidden by a Serbian medical officer.He later learned that the bullet hadmissed his lower spine by a fraction ofan inch. During all the confusion that



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began with the American entrance intothe compound, MAJ Stiller had beenrunning from building to building,searching for LTC Waters. When hefound him, he was already in the oper-ating room, fighting for his life, and inno shape to travel. After speaking withhim, and verifying his condition, he leftin search of Baum.

The camp was in pandemonium, withprisoners running around everywhere.They were jumping on all the vehiclesand some were kissing Baums men.Others were asking for cigarettes, stillnot realizing that they were over 40miles from the American front lines!

Meanwhile, Baum was making a fewdiscoveries of his own. First, therewere far more men here than he hadplanned on rescuing, and he was nowseverely short of transport vehicles.Even if his original column had sur-vived the 16 hours of fighting andtravel it had taken to get there, theywould have still been far short of trans-portation vehicles. There were morethan 1,500 prisoners, and he would

only be able to accommodate and res-cue 200 or less. Far worse was the factthat no one seemed to be in charge ofthis unruly bunch! It was like TimesSquare on New Years Eve, Baum re-called later.

LT Richard Baron, one of the prison-ers and a co-author of RAID,came outof the compound and realized thatBaum had only a small task force.Since it was not supported by any addi-tional American forces, they wouldhave to fight their way out and back tothe west. Baron had been captured inAlsace-Lorraine while fighting with hismachine gun platoon, a part of the 45thDivision. While he realized the di-lemma the task force faced, he decidedthat leaving was still a better optionthan remaining at Hammelburg.

At about that time, Baum and Goodefound each other and were discussingwhose duty it was to inform the menthat only 200 or so would be able to goout with the column. Baum mountedthe hood of one of the vehicles and be-gan to shout for quiet. This was as dif-

ficult a task as he had faced up to thispoint, and it was only with extreme dif-ficulty that he was able to explain tothe excited crowd that only a few hun-

dred of them could leave with him. Atthis point, many of the stunned andconfused men stood paralyzed in frontof him. Slowly they began to move intwo directions, most back into thecamp from which they had just come,and several hundred onto the tanks andinto the halftracks. Among these wasLT Baron, who was one of the mensearching for a spot on one of thetanks.

As it was now dark, Baum thoughtperhaps this would provide cover forhis exit from the compound. He sentLT Nutto out with three tanks and threehalftracks to probe the roads for an es-cape route. After Nutto left, Baum reor-ganized the remaining task force withfive light tanks in the front, then fivehalftracks, and the assault guns withthe recon jeep and the remaininghalftracks in the rear. This was accom-plished just prior to moving to anotherassembly area to await the results ofNuttos probes.

Upon finishing the latest order of bat-tle and just prior to moving out, disas-ter struck again. An explosion occurredin the last tank in the column and blew

it up. The tank had been struck by apanzerfaust fired by an infiltrating Ger-man combat engineer who had gottenclose under cover of darkness.

In the time it took for Baum to reachthe new assembly area, the Germanswere also moving quickly. The officersand senior enlisted men quickly dis-patched soldiers and cadets to the vari-ous exit roads. They immediately sentmen to the south, to the small villagesof Hundsfeld and Bonnland.These small villages had been appro-priated by the German government to

be used in house-to-house infantrytraining. The villages had been vacantof civilians since 1895, but to Nuttothey looked just like any other sleepingGerman village. After passingHundsfeld, the first small village onhis right on the route south, he soonspotted a roadblock of felled treesacross the road, difficult to bypass inthe darkness. Shortly after Baum ar-rived to survey the situation, he orderedNutto back to the intersection inHundsfeld and then out toward the



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Reussenberg Woods, which were abovethe small valley they were in.

By now, the Germans were reacting.

They had spotted Nuttos change in di-rection, and a team of combat engi-neers was sent ahead, to the areaknown as Hill 340, near the Reussen-berg, to intercept them. As soon asthese engineers began firing on Nuttosunit, Baum heard them and raced to thetrouble spot in his jeep. It was anotherroadblock with supporting fire comingfrom the woods above. This forced yetanother change in direction for theprobe, this time to the west toward themain road at Hollrich.

This route passed Hill 427 on theirright flank and continued about four

miles into town. After passing throughthe town and with the main highway insight, Nutto radioed Baum with thenews. He was elated, replying, We aremoving up... We should be there intwenty minutes.1

LT Baron, who was riding on one ofthe probe tanks, recalls what happenednext. With Nutto back in his tank andon the main road just out of town, twopanzerfausts lit up the night, revealingGerman tanks, in addition to infantry!

One of the German rounds slammedinto Nuttos tank and knocked him

semiconscious. Then the second tankwas also hit. After waking up, Nuttofound himself on the road and a pris-oner of war.

The remaining halftracks and the sur-viving tanks made their way back to-ward the task force. This was a seriousblow to Baum, as he had just lost theirreplaceable Nutto and two moremuch-needed tanks.

At 0030 hours, Baums jeep ap-proached the town, where he ran into

the survivors coming back. He immedi-ately sent two tanks about a mile toprobe the next town of Hessdorf,which was also situated along the mainroad, Highway 27. At this point, he or-dered the remaining former POWs offand told them to wait with thehalftracks. In addition, he ordered themain column to continue on the routehe had just traveled and to wait for fur-ther instructions at a road crossingabout midway between him and the lat-est probe. Some of the POWs had con-sidered returning to the safety of the la-ger and were discussing this optionamong themselves.

At 0230 hours, as Baum and the twoprobe tanks were approaching the town

of Hessdorf, he glanced at the odome-ter in his jeep. It revealed that with allof the diversions, he had already trav-eled 52 miles since leaving Schwein-heim, and had been without sleep forover 100 hours. Then, suddenly, fromout of the darkness, a panzerfaust tookout another of his tanks. The survivingmen scrambled up on the remainingtank and headed for the intersection be-low the Reussenberg Woods.

After joining up with the main bodyonce more, Baum decided to retire un-til daylight when they would be able toforce their way out across country and

around any roadblocks. It would be fu-tile to attempt any more this night; thelosses had already been too high. Hethen ordered his men up to Hill 427and onto a semi-flat area adjacent tothe woods. Using the woods as coverto the rear, he fanned the assault gunsand the remaining tanks out toward thevalley below and toward the lager.Next, he ordered the men to refuelprior to dawn and prepare to destroythe remaining empty and damaged ve-hicles.

While his men were followingBaums latest orders, he summonedMoses, Graham, Weaver, and Stiller toa final pre-breakout conference and

was informed by Stiller that more ofthe POWs wanted to return to the lager.About this time, a group gatheredaround Colonel Goode as he stood onone of the tanks. In short order, he ex-plained that, due to the additional vehi-cle losses, there were still too many ofthem and they would be a burden tothe remaining task force trying to breakout and fight their way back to the U.S.lines. After this sober news, about 70of them elected to return with ColonelGoode and left at 0500 hours. This leftonly a dozen of the original POWs, in-cluding Richard Baron and a few of theofficers of the 45th that Baum then as-signed to replace the vacant slotsamong his own remaining infantry.

Colonel Bradford unlocks the gate atthe intersection where Baum lead thetask force up the road to Hill 427. Thegate is locked because this is a live fir-ing day and an artillery training exer-cise is scheduled to begin in an hour. Iam feeling a bit uneasy now, as I havebeen in this kind of situation early inmy Marine Corps training at CampPendleton and have heard of the acci-dents that can occur due to short orlong rounds. It is also raining, and a

cold winter wind is blowing up thehillside towards the ReussenbergWoods. We saw the exact spot wherethe task force was deployed and the ap-proximate position of the panzerjagerswaiting hidden about 1,500 yards downthe hillside. About 100 yards away,there was a burned-out personnel car-rier and additional target vehicles forthe artillery training school.

The panorama of the battlefield fromthe plateau is breathtaking. The sceneis also quite sobering, and I feel a sud-den sense of awareness toward the menof Task Force Baum.

It is almost as if I have stepped backin time 50 years and the drama is aboutto reach its final climax.

At 0500 hours on March 28th, 1945,the column of men returning to the la-ger is barely half a mile from the taskforce when they hear a familiar sound.It is the sound of tanks and men dig-ging in and preparing for battle. Unfor-tunately, the sounds are not comingfrom the task force, but from Koehlspanzerjager platoon! After waiting 10

The old cobblestone road that Baums task force took, looking back toward Hammelburg.



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hours for fuel and ammunition, theyare now maneuvering into position,waiting for daylight. Ironically, none ofColonel Goodes men returning to thesafety of the lager thought to send a

runner back to warn CPT Baum oftheir discovery. Could they have allbeen so dispirited and exhausted fromthe last 12 hours of emotional ups anddowns that they overlooked this criticalpoint? In the meantime, even more ac-tivity was occurring in the Germanranks. A team of 20 officers and cadetswere quietly positioning themselves inthe woods just above the plateau and tothe rear of where Baums men weremaking final preparations for thebreakout. These men had followed thetask force during the confusion andwere armed with panzerfausts. Just

prior to daybreak, they were in theReussenberg Woods and were wideawake with anticipation of the comingdawn. In the task force, however, someof the men had finally fallen asleep af-ter days of having none. Their sleepwould be short-lived.

The seriously wounded men whowere still with Baum, and who were inno condition to endure the journeyback to the front lines, were taken onstretchers to a nearby barn and made ascomfortable as possible with extrablankets. A large cloth red cross wasthen fashioned on the roof, visible in

daylight. Baum gave the order tomount up at about 0800 hours.

In the German headquarters, OberstHoepples aide awakened him at 0730hours and told him that the Americantanks were visible on the hillside justabove Koehls position and below theReussenberg Woods. At this point,Hoepple radioed coordinated instruc-tions to the various units surroundingthe task force. No one was to fire untilKoehls antitank guns opened up, andthen everyone was to fire at will!

At 0810 hours, CPT Baum was still

issuing the final commands to his menbefore the breakout. His radioman wastransmitting a situation report to theAmerican lines and advising them theymight require air support later. As thetanks roared to life and began movingtowards their preassigned positions,and with many of the men still on footand hurrying to mount vehicles, it hap-pened! A sheet of Hell engulfed theclearing... The ground shook with con-cussion after concussion... Geysers ofdirt and steel were thrown up... Trees

were falling over, and branches wereflying through the air and floating tothe earth... To Baum it seemed asthough a single enemy salvo had ut-terly destroyed his task force... Tankswere ablaze... Halftracks stopped sud-denly... and men were spilled out overthe ground. From his jeep and using hisfield glasses, he saw Koehls five anti-tank guns moving up the hillside to-ward him and firing faster than he hadever seen them fire before. They were,he thought, firing like semi-automaticrifles... Scanning across the slope in an-other direction, he saw five tanks firingtheir main guns as well as their ma-chine guns. All of the units were sup-ported by infantry, also firing and mov-

ing up rapidly. The fire was so intensethat Baum never had a chance to dealwith the panzerfaust fire coming fromhis rear. The one bright spot occurredwhen he saw many of his tankers re-turning fire... The attack was so over-whelming... and unremitting... and un-commonly accurate.1

Within three minutes of Baums orderto move, the entire clearing seemed tobe one single sheet of flame, every ve-hicle was hit... It was then he knew hehad lost his task force.1

Sidles was still on the radio, tappingout the final message from Task ForceBaum in Morse code: Task ForceBaum surrounded. Under heavy fire.Request air support. Sadly, severalrounds struck the barn sheltering thewounded and the stone walls support-ing it collapsed in on the men. It wasdoubtful that any had survived.

Every man for himself, Baumshouted as he leapt from his jeep andheaded into the woods. He soon foundcover with Sidles and Stiller. He

guessed that fewer than a hundred menhad made it to the woods. The last or-der shouted to his men was, Fanout...make your way west in groups oftwos and threes, and go your own wayso you wont be visible. Get as muchdistance between you and them beforethey get here. Get going!1

With these last hurried orders, TaskForce Baum had effectively disinte-grated. It was a great effort, and notwithout many successes. Although theprimary mission failed, the havoc cre-ated this far behind enemy lines hadoccupied the Germans for the betterpart of two days as they ran around incircles trying to figure out what was

going on. Meanwhile, the U.S. Armys3rd and 7th Armies were making rapidprogress.

In addition, there were so many actsof bravery and heroism that everyoneshould have gotten a medal. As itturned out, I am not sure that they didnot. I know of at least fifty SilverStars, one Distinguished Service Cross(Baums), and more than one hundredPurple Hearts, (Baum got three), aswell as Bronze Stars for everyone.(Baum got one also.)

As I walk into the dense woods be-

hind the plateau, I envision the may-hem that had taken place here that fate-ful morning. Men running in all direc-tions, trying to remain alive and alsoattempting to escape. T/SGT Grahamwas one of a few who accomplishedthis feat. He eventually made it back tothe 7th U.S. Army sector after severaldays of close encounters with the en-emy. CPT Baum and LT Baron werenot as fortunate, however, and endedup back in the lager, thrown togetherby fate and still 25 years away from

The Hammelburg camps hospital, where Waters, and later Baum, were treated after the fail-

ure of the raid and capture of members of Baums force.



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telling the world in writing of this ad-venture.

As I take one last look around thefloor of the woods for a souvenir of

this moment in history, I remember thatCPT Baum was still thinking clearlyenough at this stage to throw his dogtags into the forest as he ran. He didthis because they were imprinted withthe letter H, for Hebrew, and he waswell aware of the many atrocity storiesthat had been told about Jews in Nazicaptivity. As it turned out later, he wasnever identified nor discovered by theGermans in the lager as the leader ofthe mission. It was not conceivable tothem that all this havoc had been cre-ated by a 24-year-old captain; they hadbeen searching for a much higher-rank-ing officer. It is unclear what happenedto Stiller after his capture and he is notmentioned again in any of the manu-scripts at my disposal.

About one hundred yards from theedge of the woods, I began to look inearnest for the dogtags which AbeBaum discarded 50 years ago in hopesof the ultimate treasure find, but it wasnot to be. As I walked out of thewoods, the others were waiting, and aglance at my watch told me that wehad only 15 minutes until the live-fir-ing began. Not wishing to reliveBaums encounter to the fullest, I has-

ten my pace. As we are driving out ofthe area, we are aware of German sol-diers in camo cover with radios and,yes, Panzerfausts too! The soldiers arepart of the training cadre and are wait-ing in foxholes for the artillery fire tobegin. Again, I am reminded of thetask force and how real this 50th Anni-versary tour had become.

Shortly after closing and locking thegate behind us, I hear the sounds of theguns firing in the distance, but my mis-sion has been completed.

In trying to establish a complete pic-ture of what happened, the followingcomments are of note:

Patton died denying publicly anyknowledge of his son-in-law being inHammelburg when he ordered the mis-sion. But on March 23rd, shortly beforeordering the raid, Patton had written aletter to his wife Beatrice: We areheaded straight for Johns place andmay get there before he is moved.Patton stated in his journal, publishedafter his death, I can say this thatthroughout the campaign in Europe, I

know of no error I made except that offailing to send a combat command toHammelburg. Additionally, in hisbook, War As I Knew It,after realizingthat the raid had failed, Patton states, I

made arrangements to reconstitute thetwo companies of the 4th Armored Di-vision, which we now knew was defi-nitely captured. After forcing a crossingover the Main east of Frankfurt, inwhich the captain in command wasslightly wounded, they continued theattack and reached the outskirts ofHammelburg (interesting that he refersto it as an attack). Here they ran intoelements of three German divisionswhich, as we had hoped, had beendrawn by their attack. (At this point, Ithink the general was stretching itsomewhat.) While some of the tanks...

and armored infantry engaged these di-visions, other tanks went to the prisoncamp, some six miles to the north, andreleased the prisoners. [Again, Pattondoes not mention Colonel Waters.]These tanks, accompanied by some1200 prisoners, rejoined the rest of theforce in the vicinity of Hammelburgand started back over the road they hadtaken. The following report was madeby my aide, MAJ Stiller, who was withthem but not in command [again nomention of Waters.] He suggested thatinstead of returning over the road al-ready used, the column strike north.

The officer in charge declined that ad-vice and the column stopped to refuel.While engaged in this refueling, theywere attacked by three regiments ofGerman infantry from three differentdirections and scattered. When the con-fusion had cleared, MAJ Stiller, thecaptain in command of the force, andfive enlisted men continued to fight un-til they had used up all their ammuni-tion and had their vehicles destroyed,when they surrendered.

This is the only mention of the raidthat the general saw fit to include in hisonly book on the war.

Because the mission was labeled TopSecret (GEN Pattons influence contin-ued until 24 years after his death in1946), it was 25 years before MAJBaum and MAJ Baron told their storiesin book form.

I am indebted to both of them fortheir help and information. Withoutthem I could never have made thisjourney back in time. I also believethat, although many of the men of 4thArmored died and suffered in vain, the

story of the individual heroism andcourage of these men remains as one ofthe great military feats of all time.

Endnotes1RAID, Baron, Baum, and Goldhurst, N.Y.,

Putnam and Sons, 1981.

2Personal Interview, Richard Baron, 5 Jan 95.

3Personal interview, Charles Graham, 7 Jan

95.

4Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks,

Pa., 1703-5008.

5The Hammelburg Affair, Martin Blumen-

son,Army,15 Oct 65.

6Personal interview, Abe Baum, February

1995.

7

War As I Knew It, George S, Patton, Jr.,Houghton Mifflin, 1947, pp. 280-281.

8Pattons Best,Frankel and Smith, Hawthorn,

1978, pp. 140-170.

9Baum, A.J., Notes on Task Force Baum,

4th Armored Division report, 10 Apr 45.

10The Mighty Endeavor,Charles MacDonald,

Oxford University Press, 1969, pp. 460-461.

1148 Hours to Hammelburg, Charles Whiting,

Ballantine Books, 1970.

12The Last 100 Days, John Toland, Random

House, 1966.

13Telephone interview and materials sent by

COL James Leach, DSC, 4th Armored Histo-rian.

14Telephone interview and materials sent by

SGT Sam Schenker, Secretary, 4th Armored

Division Association.


Richard Whitaker, A.A./B.S.University of California atSan Jose, is a 55-year-oldformer U.S. Marine Air Re-servist and ardent collector

and writer of military history.He has written articles onsmall and unusual battles forthe Medal Collector,the jour-nal published by the Ordersand Medals Society of Amer-ica. He lives in Los Gatoswith his wife, Christine. Hewould be happy to hear fromany of the other survivors ofthe raid on Hammelburg.

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Ritchard Whitaker Article