Elden Richard Baumbach

Elden was born in Merced, California on 12 September 1924. He spent his childhood in northern California with his parents, Fred and Rachel (Lenhart) Baumbach, and two younger brothers, Delano and Darrel. Elden’s early years were spent in Sacramento’s diverse Georgianna Township, surrounded by neighbors from India, Portugal, China, the Philippines, Switzerland, Italy, and Japan.

In the 1930s, the Baumbachs relocated to Stockton, and Elden enrolled at Stockton High School at the end of the decade. He applied himself to the vocational program and earned enough credits to graduate in three and a half years, with the class of February 1942.

Three months after graduation, Elden enlisted in the Marine Corps. After entering the service at San Francisco on 23 May 1942, the seventeen-year-old Elden headed south to San Diego for boot camp, and in July was taken up on the rolls of Company D, First Battalion, 6th Marines. He was probably pleased with this assignment: his cousin, Oliver C. Baumbach, was also a member of the 6th.

Eldon learned the role of a heavy machine gun crewman, and the personal quirks and habits of other green Marines with names like Clarence Drumheiser, Robert “Jimmie” Hatch, John Gillen, and Wayland Stevens. By October, Private Baumbach was on his way overseas; one year out of high school, he was a combat-blooded veteran of the Guadalcanal campaign. He spent several months in New Zealand with his Second Marine Division comrades and was promoted to Private First Class in the summer of 1943.

A heavy machine gun was the cornerstone of a good defensive position, and this was the situation that Baumbach found himself in on 22 November 1943, the last night of his life. Several guns from his company were emplaced in support of Baker Company, 6th Marines on the southern coast of the little island of Betio; the First Battalion was working to trap the Japanese in a hopeless situation, and the Japanese were determined to break out.

The Japanese knew what the murderous fire of a water-cooled Browning could do, and their first attacks centered around taking out these vital weapons. The first attack took the Marine gunners by surprise. A group of bayonet-wielding soldiers descended on PFC Baumbach’s gun in the opening moments; one jumped on Baumbach and stabbed him through the chest. Private Wayland Stevens witnessed the chaos:

We were waiting for orders to get our positions when the counterattack began.

We all hit the deck and started for cover. At that time, Baumbach was killed, and at the same time, Drumheiser was killed. John Gillen set up his gun and after firing a few bursts he was also killed and one of the other fellows took over, and he was wounded and had to leave and then I moved over and took over.

At that time, I saw on the side of the bunker one of the squads trying to set up their gun and after a few seconds I saw one of the boys go down by machine-gun fire, and later learned it was the boy Hatch. At this time I was relieved of the gun and sent to help another squad.

The fighting continued through the night, over and around the bodies of Elden Baumbach and his buddies. The following morning, a burial party set out to find the fallen. Stevens participated in this event, too:

Several of the boys in the platoon went up and picked up the boys that were killed and buried them in the same location, leaving one dog tag on the body and the other on the marker that we placed on the grave.

We dug the graves just about four feet deep and before burying any of the boys, we searched them for their personal effects and also to make sure they had identification tags.

At the time we buried them, we found ourselves some trash wood that we inserted into the ground and then finding some old mess gear we scratched in the names of the dead boys on the mess gear and hung this equipment over the board that signified the grave of the Marine dead. One of the identification tags we left on the body and the other dog tag we just loosely hung the chain over the top of the board and just placed the mess gear bearing the scratched identity of the deceased on that.

After the war, Stevens recalled burying the bodies of Baumbach, Drumheiser, Hatch, Gillen, Jack Hill, and Jacob Cruz in the vicinity of the counterattack, and was able to pinpoint the location on a map.

Officially, Elden was buried in “#13, Grave D, East Division Cemetery” alongside some thirty other Marines. This site, also known as “Row D,” was obliterated by base construction not long after the battle, and the remains of all Americans buried therein were declared permanently non-recoverable.

The “Row D” burial site went undiscovered until the spring of 2019, when an archaeological expedition led by non-profit organization History Flight excavated the site and recovered human remains.

Elden Baumbach was identified from the History Flight recovery and officially accounted for on 4 February 2020.

CENOTAPHS
Honolulu Memorial, Tablets of the Missing

FINAL BURIAL
Pending decision of next of kin.