Chuck Baker, 89, opened a manila envelope a few days before Veteran’s Day and pulled out a stack of items. Inside was a newspaper clipping from the end of WWII in Europe, a photo of young men in uniform at Michigan State University, dog tags, uniform patches and a certificate showing he’d been honorably discharged.
Remembering how he enlisted during World War II, Baker said he grew up in Flint, Michigan. His two older brothers were already in the military – one fought the Japanese in the Navy and one served in the Infantry in Europe, he said–when Baker enlisted at age 17.
“I was in the service a week after I graduated [high school],” Baker said. “I was always interested in flying. I thought I was going to be a pilot.”
It was discovered that Baker had trouble with depth perception and was ineligible to be a pilot, he said. Instead he trained to become a bombardier. He said he trained first at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan, then at Wichita Falls, Texas and in February 1945 he was transferred to Lowry Air Force Base in Denver.
“I went through simulated bombing runs in the Denver area,” Baker said. “I was pretty closed to trained.”
As it turned out, the war ended quicker than his training, he said. Germany surrendered in the spring and Japan a few months later.
“The atomic bomb came,” Baker said. “Thank God. It probably saved my life. I would have been doing bombing runs over Tokyo.”
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He was honorably discharged on December 23, 1945, almost 70 years ago.
Baker returned to Michigan State where he said he earned a degree in business on the GI bill. He said he later found work with GMAC, the financing arm of General Motors, where he worked for 37 years. He was based in Sault Ste Marie, Michigan when he met his wife in 1953, he said.
“My wife was in London during the blitz [bombing by Germany],” Baker said. “She lived through that as a kid. She was impressed by American soldiers and wanted to marry one.”
They had five children, one a daughter who lives in Lake Forest, he said, where Baker moved three years ago. He joined Lake Forest American Legion Post 264.
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