Violent But True Bed Time Stories: Thomas Baker

Quite a few of our stories happened during World War 2. The story of Thomas Baker is no different. Violence was Thomas' unofficial middle name, and the Japanese forces on Saipan learned that the hard way.

During the battle of Saipan, Baker started out using a bazooka on an enemy strong point that allowed his company to finish the assault. Days later, Thomas Baker had not had his fill of killing enemy soldiers yet, so he manned a machine gun. Happiness is indeed a belt fed weapon. Baker killed twelve soldiers while manning said machine gun. For his next party trick, he snuck up behind six Japanese soldiers who were lying in wait to ambush the next group of Americans they could find. According to the citation for his Medal of Honor, he "destroyed all of them," not killed all of them, no, he destroyed the enemy by superior fire and maneuver. God loves the infantry kids!

A few weeks later Baker would get his fill. On July 7th his unit was surrounded by a large force of Japanese, numbering between three and five thousand. Thomas Baker dug himself into a fighting hole and slew multitudes of bodies. He went on killing till his ammunition had run dry. That wasn't the end of Baker though as he employed America's two favorite past-times, baseball and killing the enemies of the United States. Swinging his rifle like a baseball bat, Baker killed as many as he could until his rifle broke. During all of the killing, someone got a lucky shot and wounded him in the abdomen. While his friends helped him get out of the fray, one of them was shot. Baker decided no more men should die. He demanded to be leaned up against a tree and left. The following morning, there was one dead enemy soldier for every one round Thomas Baker had left in his .45.

Thomas Baker was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions on Saipan.