Home
What's New
Search Engine
Archives
Odyssey
Photo Gallery
Unit History
Unit Honors
TAPS
Voices Of Past
F&F Association
How To Submit

 
PFC BOYD E. H. BAKER

Burial Slated Friday For Former Paratrooper

Cleburne, Texas, Aug. 29 - Funeral services will be conducted here Friday for Pfc. Boyd Baker, who died Aug. 1 in Frankfurt, Germany, of accidental gunshot wounds received June 24. Burial will be in the Cleburne cemetery. Pfc. Baker served for three years as a paratrooper during the war and received his discharge. He re-enlisted in the Army in March and was sent to Germany.

Survivors include his wife (Madeline Beulah Obannon) and a son, Billy (William Boyd Baker), Cleburne, and his father, C. Harold Baker, Roswell, N. M.


[Dallas Morning News, August 30, 1946]

 
[courtesy of "Devas daughter"

Application for a rave marker and the resulting marker for Boyd E. H.  Baker in Plot 3-21 of the Cleburne Memorial Cemetery, Cleburne (Johnson county), Texas.

Boyd was born in Menard (Menard county), TX on 22 October 1918.  Confusion over his second middle name began from the outset.  Apparently taken from his father's own middle name of "Hurrell," it was written poorly here and misinterpreted as "Harrell" by some and even appears as 'Harold" on a few records.
   Boyd was inducted into the Army in Dallas, TX on 19 May 1943.  Following the completion of basic and jump school, he departed the U.S. on a troop ship, arriving in the ETO on 31 May 1944 where he was assigned to the First Airborne Task Force. 596th Airborne Engineering Company.
  Pfc Baker saw action during the Rome-Arno, Southern France, Ardennes and Rhineland campaign.  He was wounded in action and received the Purple heart which was awarded at Co 1, 77th Evacuation Hospital, APO 350.
   He returned to  U.S on a troop ship, arriving. on 27 November 1945.  He was discharged at the separation center in Fort Sam Houston, TX on 4 December 1945.
   He was married to Madeline [nee?] Baker in Johnson county, TX 4 March 1946 before re-enlisting in the army, again at Dallas. TX, two weeks later on 20 March at which time he had to revert to the grade of Private.
   He was sent back to Germany where he was assigned to Co F, 508th PIR.
  Once again a Pfc, he was struck by accidental gunfire on 24 June and succumbed to his wounds on August 1, 1946.