THE HAMMELBURG AFFAIR
Eighty years ago, an extraordinarily gutsy Jewish officer led one of the most controversial missions of WWII.
It was 10 am on 25 March 1945 when General George S. Patton arrived at the 4th Armored Division’s headquarters. Among the officers who greeted Patton was 24-year-old Major Abraham Baum. Tall and red-haired, Baum had been a pattern-cutter for women’s blouses before the war.
Patton took Baum to one side. The Third Army commander had requested that a task force be sent seventy miles behind enemy lines to liberate a POW camp. Baum had been chosen to lead it.
“Listen, Abe – it is Abe, isn’t it?”
Baum nodded.
“I thought so. You pull this off, and I’ll see you get the Congressional Medal of Honor.”
“I have my orders, sir. You don’t have to bribe me.”
Patton neglected to mention why the task force was being assembled – among the “Kriegies,” as POWs were known, at Hammelburg, was Patton’s son-in-law, Colonel John Waters.
At 5 p.m. that day, Baum gathered his force—some three hundred men and 54 vehicles, including 10 medium Sherman tanks. Air support had been promised but was not guaranteed. There was just enough fuel to get to Hammelburg and back, no more.
Task Force Baum set out later that evening. The next day, Patton wrote to his wife: “Last night, I sent a column to a place…where John and some 900 prisoners are said to be. I have been nervous as a cat…as everyone but me thought it too great a risk. I hope it works.”
On the afternoon of 27 March, Baum stopped his tank on a hillside above Hammelburg. He and his men had fought almost nonstop to reach the camp, losing more tanks and brave men the further they penetrated enemy territory.
Over sixty years after the raid, Baum told me during an interview in his home in San Diego: “I was elated by the fact that I got there. It was a miracle in itself. But I had understood that there were supposed to be three hundred POWs. And out run fifteen hundred. That overwhelmed me. It was unbelievable. I could have thrown up when I saw them. I was frustrated and exhausted, and we hadn’t had any rest for two days. It was sickening to see the condition of some of the POWs – skeletons of men. It was doubly sickening because I knew damn well I couldn’t take those men back, and even if I did take some with me, I wasn’t certain whether we were going to make it.”
Baum had been wounded by shrapnel, and half of his force had been lost. Soon, he found himself addressing hundreds of joyous American POWs. It was a heartbreaking moment for Baum.
“If you want to go back into the camp,” he said, “go back into the camp. Do so if you want to take off on foot and try to get back. But I can’t possibly take more than fifty or sixty of you.”
Men gasped. Just moments ago, they had thought their war was over, that they had been liberated. Determined to give it a go, dozens of men climbed onto the remaining vehicles in Baum’s column. Colonel Waters, Patton’s son-in-law, was not among the POWs. Ironically, he’d been injured that day and could not be moved.
What was left of Baum’s force left Hammelburg after dark, leaving thousands of bitterly disappointed P0Ws behind. Baum and his beleaguered task force tried to get back to American lines, still some seventy miles away. Sadly, as it started to get light on 28th March, they were surrounded by German forces.
Then, a “hellfire” of artillery, mortar, and machine gun fire engulfed the force from all directions. Half-tracks and tanks exploded in flames.
A frantic radio operator sent a message: “Task Force Baum surrounded. Under heavy fire. Request air support.”
It was Task Force Baum’s last communication.
“Every man for himself,” shouted Baum.
Men took off. Germans with sniffer dogs approached. Baum hid in the undergrowth and threw away his dog tags – they would have shown that he was Jewish.
A German closed on Baum who tried to pull out his pistol, but, Baum told me, his hand was so wet he could not “shoot it.” A German bullet hit him in the groin, “greasing [his] left nut.” He fell to the ground and was then escorted to Hammelburg, where he was placed in the camp infirmary.
Baum and Colonel John Waters would be liberated by US forces almost a week later, on 5 April, by the 14th Armored Division. The “Hammelburg Raid” had been an unmitigated disaster. Of the eleven officers and 303 men in Baum’s force, 32 were killed, and 256 were wounded, captured, or missing. Only fifteen managed to get back to US lines. “I can say this,” Patton would later concede, “that throughout the campaign in Europe, I know of no error I made except that of failing to send a Combat Command to take Hammelburg.”
Patton’s only regret, it appeared, was that he had not sent enough men to rescue his son-in-law. Fortunately for “Old Blood and Guts,” the “Hammelburg Raid” was only discovered by the press a couple of weeks later, by which time other events filled the headlines. “It was a story that began as a wild goose chase and ended in tragedy,” recalled General Omar Bradley, Patton’s good friend and commander. “I did not rebuke him for it. Failure itself was George’s own worst reprimand.”
What of Baum? When I interviewed him decades after the war, before he passed away in 2013 at the age of 91, he said he held no grudges. He had retired after a long and successful career in the garment business and proudly showed me framed photographs of Patton and others from the Allied top brass. He told me that he became a lifelong friend of Waters, who became a general.
Baum smiled as he also told me how he ended up being taken to the very same hospital as Waters in April 1945. He knew Patton would sooner or later visit his son-in-law, and, sure enough, one day that last spring of the war, the Third Army commander arrived at the hospital. He awarded both Waters and Baum the Distinguished Service Cross.
Patton had promised Baum the Medal of Honor. But to receive that medal, an investigation would have been required. Patton wanted none of that.
Baum told me he knew he was in the “driver’s seat.” Patton owed him.
Baum asked to rejoin his unit.
“You can’t,” said Patton. “You’re a [former] POW. You can’t go back. You can’t return to fight in the same theater. You can only fight in Japan.”
“No. I want to go back with the troops.”
Patton still refused.
“You’re George S. Patton, aren’t you?” Baum said.
“Get the hospital commanding officer in here,” Patton told an aide.
The commanding officer soon appeared.
“No paperwork,” said Patton. “I’m going to send somebody to pick up Abe.”
Patton left the room. His aide stayed behind and leaned close to Baum.
“You know that Task Force Baum has been classified Top Secret,” said the aide. “Use discretion in discussing it.”
“That goes without saying.”
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Nice article. A huge reluctant fan of Patton. When I was young (paper route), I had a customer who was in the Third Army. Missing some of his toes. He hated Patton.
There's a great book on the Hammelburg raid, simply titled "Raid!" (1981). Abe Baum is one of the three authors.