Clayton Baum

Clayton Baum was born in 1923 and lived in Ohio. In 1943, he was drafted into the Army, and a few days after D-Day, he entered France at Utah Beach in Normandy.

Technician 4th Grade Clayton B. Baum, U.S. Army, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in June 1923 into a family with one brother, Kenneth. He later moved to Brecksville, Ohio, where he graduated from Brecksville High School in 1941. After a semester at Kent State University, Clayton was drafted into the U.S. Army in February 1943 in Cleveland.

He completed basic training in Vancouver, Washington, and advanced training at Camp Sutton, North Carolina. He was deployed to England in October 1943, where he served as an arms instructor.

In mid-June 1944, he landed at Utah Beach in Normandy, France, and served with the Service Battery of the 268th Field Artillery Battalion, which carried 8-inch guns. Outside of Paris during the liberation, he was invited by a French family for dinner.

His campaigns included Normandy, Northern France, the Rhineland, and Central Europe. Clayton was discharged from the Army in December 1945 at Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania.

Following the war, Clayton attended Hiram College part-time and briefly worked with his father in the grocery business in Ohio. In 1947, he moved to California, where he held jobs in the grocery, real estate, and advertising industries and worked as a sales manager before retiring in 1987.

He married his wife, Eleanor, in August 1946, after proposing to her on Valentine’s Day. Their union lasted 74 years until her passing. They had three children.

Baum is credited with 8,000 volunteer hours with the La Mesa Police Department. In 2023, he was presented with the French Knight in the Order of the Legion of Honor—created by Napoleon Bonaparte—for his part in helping to liberate France during World War II.

At the ceremony, Baum said:
"I love America. It's one of the greatest countries. Take care of it, be proud of it, don't run it down."

Courtesy of losangeles.consulfrance.org