John Baer: Beginnings & WWII

John Baer was born in 1920 in Bolivar, Pennsylvania - a brickyard and coal mining town of 700 people along the Conemaugh River, 60 miles east of Pittsburgh.

He graduated high school in 1938, from a class of 12, and went to Penn State to study journalism.  John became the Managing Editor of the Daily Collegian and president of the Journalism Society.  He was known for his quiet, yet curious, tenacity - qualities that served him well as a photographer.  At the Daily Collegian John met his future wife, Louise Fuoss, the Women’s Editor and Matrix Girl - an honor given to the undergraduate who had done the most for the college.  Life was looking good.

Then came Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941.  John was drafted in February 1942, one semester short of graduation.  After Officers Candidate School he was assigned to the 644th Tank Destroyer Battalion.

In February of 1943 John returned to Penn State to marry Louise and take her with him to Fort Lewis, Washington, where he continued his training.  Tanks, machine guns, rifle ranges, night maneuvers…gradually the men of the 644th became a fighting unit.

January 1, 1944, on his first trip to New York City, John boarded the H.M.T. Aquitania in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.  Off to war.

The 644th landed on Utah Beach on July 11, and  was attached to the 8th Infantry Division. They fought their way across Europe: Normandy through the Ardennes (Battle of the Bulge) into Germany.

On May 1, 1945 the 644th moved into the Schwerin area and in a matter of days the US Army took 245,000 prisoners. The battalion history talks about seizing carloads of Lugers and P-38s and looting supplies of cigars and alcohol.  John got a Leica camera from a German prisoner of war.

On May 7 the unconditional surrender of the German Third Reich was signed at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force at Reims, France.

On May 7 Lieutenant John Baer turned 25.