When Paul Baade answered his last call, those who had known him almost to the end could scarcely believe that this splendid figure of man and soldier was gone. Few of us who entered the Army through the East Sallyport at West Point in June 1907 had changed as little as had our classmate. As wholesome as his native Indiana, his life was an epitome of Duty, Honor, Country. In the near forty years of active service to September, 1946, and the subsequent retirement years in Santa Barbara, California, his service as cadet, officer, and citizen was comprehensive, full, and distinguished.
His cadet years of military-academic routine were accented by three on both the baseball and hockey squads, management of the latter as a first classman, rare escape to the Northfield Conference as class delegate, cadet lieutenant’s chevrons and their replacement by the degrees of “B.A.” and “A.B.”—not to be confused with the degree of Bachelor of Science won on 13 June, 1907. Then began the commissioned service of unusual scope warranting the details that w ill make him live again to the thousands who served with or under him.
The new lieutenant joined the 11th Infantry at Fort D A. Russell (now Warren), Wyoming. There he brought the devoted comrade of all the years to come, his cadet girl, Margaret Craig, daughter of Josiah W. and Elizabeth Potter Craig, after their marriage in June, 1912. at Alliance, Nebraska. She was to know and fill the full measure of the Army wife.
To Texas City with the regiment in February 1913, on Border patrol to August 14; then to the 8th Infantry in the Philippines for three years, and to its scion, the 54th Infantry, at Chickamaugua Park, Georgia: Paul was moving to the sound of the guns. There, as a new major, he headed the Sixth Division’s Foreign Officers’ School. Briefly with his regiment at Camp Wadsworth, South Carolina, he sailed for France with the advance party of the 81st Division in July ’18, and was quickly in action. With the 322d Infantry in the occupancy of the St. Die Sector, Vosges, and on to Verdun, Paul fought as a lieutenant colonel in the bitter actions east of the Soin-medieu Sector and in the Meuse Argonne. After the Armistice he was at Laignes, France, until June 1919, when he came home with his regiment, to Camp Lee.
Four years as PMS&T at Boston University, honor graduate at C&GS, four years in the office of the Chief of Infantry, graduation from the Army War College, and four years duty at USMA, preceded two years at Benning with the 29th Infantry. He was on the staff of the Sixth Corps Area for five months before a four-year detail on WDGS, G-4 Division, as assistant to the Chief of the Construction Branch.
Again the drums were sounding. Paul joined the 16th Infantry for the Georgia and Louisiana maneuvers, and becoming its colonel in June '40 for the maneuvers in northern New York, commanded it at Ft. Devens until he received his temporary star in July ’41. This took him to Puerto Rico to command Ft. Buchanan, the General Depot, and the Mobile Force there. July ’42 found him Assistant Division Commander of the 35th Division, guarding the southern California coast. A major general, AUS, in July ’43 and in command of the division, he moved it from San Luis Obispo to Camp Rucker and, in November ’43, through the Tennessee maneuvers, and thence to Camp Butner, North Carolina, until May ’44.
He landed his division on Omaha Beach 6 June, 1944. to join the Battle of Normandy on July 8 under the XIX Corps, First Army. He led the division through France and Germany until in April ’45 it was the closest American or British unit to the Reich capital. His service is implicit in the citation for the award of the Distinguished Service Medal in March 1945:
“For exceptionally meritorious service to the government in a duty of great responsibility from 13 August to 28 November 1944. During this period General Baade, commanding the 35th Infantry Division, brilliantly led his division in successful campaigns against an enemy of the United States resulting or aiding in the capture of Orleans, Chateaudun, Montargis, Joigny, Joinville, Nancy, Morhange, and other prominent locations in France. In one week of heavy fighting General Baade’s troops crossed three rivers, Moselle, Meurthe, and Le Sanon, and two canals in the vicinity thereof. General Baade’s service has been characterized by personal courage and valor. He has repeatedly appeared with the leading elements of his troops and by his presence stimulated them to a rapid advance enabling successive objectives to be taken with a minimum of casualties.”
On occupation duty in Hanover and Recklenhausen, he subsequently governed the Coblenz area until July ’45 when control was relinquished to the French. Staging through LeHavre, France, and Tidworth Barracks, England, he brought his division home in September ’45; and demobilized it at Camp Breckenridge, Kentucky, in December ’45; to become at once Director of Military Training, Army Service Forces, until his retirement, disability in line of duty, 30 September 1946.
That line of duty had won him from his own country the Distinguished Service Medal, two Silver Stars, the Legion of Merit, three Bronze Star Medals, the Purple Heart; from France the honors of Officer of the Legion of Honor and the Croix de Guerre; and from the Netherlands, Grand Officer Orange van Nassau. Their winning had taken hidden toll unsuspected by us who saw him from time to time—the same cheery, modest friend who never mentioned the growing disability. Critical deterioration forced him to hospitalization in Santa Barbara, and shortly air evacuation to Letterman Army Hospital at the Presidio of San Francisco. Immediate surgery disclosed an unrecuperable condition. Shortly before his death the next day, on 9 October 1959, he sent his last farewell to his assembled classmates—a gallant “I wave.”
Following Episcopal service at Myer Chapel on 15 October, Paul was laid to rest beside the beloved daughter and only child, Margaret Anne, whom Paul and Margaret had mourned since 8 May, 1928, when she had died a few months before her twelfth birthday.
Concurrently with the services in Washington, his fellow-townsmen in Santa Barbara held memorial service at the church he had served so well as vestryman, All Saints by the Sea. In the Botanic Gardens of which he was vice president, a memorial bronze has been placed in the new library wing. He served also on the boards of directors of the Channel City Club, of the Valley Club of Montecito, and of the Montecito Board.
Paul’s parents, Frederic C. and Anna Paul Baade, both of Fort Wayne, Indiana, since birth, have preceded him. Two brothers, Carl H. of Syracuse, N.Y., and Eric A. of Fort Wayne, survive.
In the lovely home in Santa Barbara, Margaret continues gallantly in the faith and sorrow that she and Paul had shared for more than thirty years—now hers alone and greater, but gended in the assurance that her two loved ones are together.
A classmate’s daughter exclaimed the last time she saw them, “How brave and beautiful Paul and Margaret have always been to me!” And so they are.
-W.