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Vernon Baker, Medal of Honor recipient, dies

By Richard Goldstein / New York Times News Service

Published: July 15. 2010 4:00AM PST

Vernon Baker, the only living black veteran awarded the Medal of Honor for valor in World War II, receiving it 52 years after he wiped out four German machine gun nests on a hilltop in northern Italy, died Tuesday at his home near St. Maries, Idaho. He was 90.

The cause was complications of brain cancer, said Ron Hodge, owner of the Hodge Funeral Home in St. Maries.

“I was a soldier and I had a job to do,” Baker said after receiving the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for bravery, from President Bill Clinton in a White House ceremony on Jan. 13, 1997.

But in the segregated armed forces of World War II, black soldiers were usually confined to jobs in manual labor or supply units. Even when the Army allowed blacks to go into combat, it rarely accorded them the recognition they deserved. Of the 433 Medals of Honor awarded by all branches of the military during the war, not a single one went to any of the 1.2 million blacks in the service.

Climate of racism

In the early 1990s, responding to requests from black veterans and a white former captain who had commanded black troops in combat, the Army asked Shaw University, a historically black college in Raleigh, N.C., to investigate why no blacks had received the Medal of Honor during World War II. The inquiry found no documents proving that blacks had been discriminated against in decisions to award the medal but concluded that a climate of racism had prevented recognition of heroic deeds.

Military historians gave the Army the names of 10 black servicemen who they believed should have been considered for the Medal of Honor. Then an Army board, looking at their files with all references to race deleted, decided that seven of these men deserved to be cited for bravery “above and beyond the call of duty.”

Four of the men — Lt. John R. Fox of Cincinnati; Pfc. Willy F. James Jr. of Kansas City, Mo.; Staff Sgt. Ruben Rivers of Oklahoma City; and Pvt. George Watson of Birmingham, Ala. — had been killed in action. Two others — Staff Sgt. Edward A. Carter Jr. of Los Angeles and Lt. Charles L. Thomas of Detroit, who retired as a major — had died in the decades after the war. Those six received the medal posthumously at the White House ceremony in 1997.

Baker, the lone survivor, was greeted with a standing ovation as he entered the East Room to the strains of “God Bless America” played by the Marine Corps Band.

‘Up on the hill’

As Clinton placed the Medal of Honor around his neck, Baker stared into space, a tear rolling down his left cheek. “I was thinking about what was going on up on the hill that day,” he said later.

That day was April 5, 1945. Baker, a small man — 5 feet 5 inches and 140 pounds — was leading 25 black infantrymen through a maze of German bunkers and machine gun nests near Viareggio, Italy. Baker observed a telescope pointing out of a slit. Crawling under the opening, he emptied the clip of his M-1 rifle, killing two German soldiers inside. Then he came upon a well-camouflaged machine gun nest whose two-man crew was eating breakfast. He shot and killed both soldiers.

After Capt. John F. Runyon, his company commander, who was white, joined the group, a German soldier hurled a grenade that hit Runyon in his helmet but failed to explode. Baker shot the German twice as he tried to flee. He then blasted open the concealed entrance of another dugout with a hand grenade, shot one German soldier who emerged, tossed another grenade into the dugout and entered it, firing his machine gun and killing two more Germans.

Enemy machine gun and mortar fire began to inflict heavy casualties and the platoon had to withdraw. Seventeen of the men in the platoon had been killed by time the firefight ended.

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[TORO]

All I can say is God Bless and Rest in Peace
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[edro20]

Suffice to say that there is not one "person" in our entire government today that would make a wart on that man's butt. Nuff said.
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