Nathan B. Baskind
Biography: Nathan Bob Baskind was born on June 1, 1916, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and was the son of Abraham Baskind and Lena Shapiro Baskind. He graduated from Peabody High School in Pittsburgh where he was active in football. He then continued his education at Penn State College for two years before leaving to join the family business. He managed two branches of Peerless Wallpaper, located in New Castle, PA and Wheeling, West Virginia. In his spare time, Nathan was active in Jewish organizations and philanthropy in the Pittsburgh area.
Service Time: Nathan entered the service on January 26, 1942, at New Cumberland, PA. He was sent to basic training and it was during that time that we believe he was chosen to attend OCS (Officer Candidate School) at Camp Hood, Texas. He was part of the 3rd Class, 3rd Platoon and 4th Squad, graduating on October 3, 1942, as a 2nd Lieutenant. We know that he was then assigned to Company C of the 814th Tank Destroyer battalion and joined them in November at Camp Polk, Louisiana. Nathan would have probably served as a platoon leader and continued his training with the unit in military facilities including Camp Bowie and Camp Hood, Texas. We know from Morning Reports that by June of 1943, Nathan was awaiting reassignment at the 1st Replacement Depot located in Canestal, which is a small neighborhood in the city of Oran, Algeria. On the 16th, he was assigned to Company B of the 899th Tank Destroyer Battalion who was stationed at the City of Sebdou, which is approximately 130 miles southwest. The unit spent the rest of the summer and early fall training in the Algerian desert.
The 899th departed North Africa on November 1st and landed in Italy on the 10th, but this was only a stopover since only a short time later they left Italy on their way to England to prepare for the D-Day landings. The unit continued their training and on April 22, 1944, Nathan was transferred to Headquarters Company and then on June 13th, he joined C Company. Both C and HQ Companies were stationed at Danebury Stables, Hampshire, England, at the time.
Col. Cecil R. French (B Company, 899th) states in his short history of the unit:
“Company “A” and Company “C” landed on Utah Beach on D-Day (June 6th), with the remainder of the 899th arriving D plus 4 and 5. The 899th, the first TD Bn to land in France, teamed with four infantry divisions, including the Fourth Infantry Division, until D plus 11, when it was attached to the Ninth Infantry Division, its objective, Cherbourg. After cutting the peninsula and pushing on to capture Cherbourg with the Ninth, the 899th also assisted in cleaning up the remaining resistance on Cap de La Hague.”
A Press Release from Washington dated May 10, 2024, concerning Nathan and his circumstances:
“In June 1944, Baskind was assigned to Company C, 899th Tank Destroyer Battalion, as a platoon commander of four M-10 tank destroyers. According to historical war records, 1st Lt. Baskind and another man from his company were scouting ahead of their tank destroyers when enemy forces descended upon them in an ambush. The other soldier, heavily wounded, escaped the firefight and made his way back to the main U.S. force, believing Baskind was killed in the attack. Several attempts were made to retrieve Baskind’s body from the ambush point, but they could not locate his remains. (It is interesting to note that Lt. Basking wasn’t reported missing until June 26th Morning Reports. The unit was attached to the 9th Infantry Division at the time of these events)
Following the end of the war, the American Graves Registration Command (AGRC) was tasked with investigating and recovering missing American personnel in Europe. Investigators discovered a death and burial report for 1st Lt. Baskind among the foreign records recovered from the Germans, evidently filed after the war on May 29, 1945, in Meiningen, Germany. The record revealed 1st Lt. Baskind was captured and later died at a hospital for German air force personnel near Cherbourg on June 23, 1944. German forces then buried him in the military cemetery in the city. In early 1948, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) sent the U.S. Army one of 1st Lt. Baskind’s identification tags. It is believed the German government likely submitted the tag to the ICRC, along with a death and burial report, following the war.
In November 1957, the Volksbund, the German War Grave Commission, contacted the U.S. Army regarding 1st Lt. Baskind. While disinterring a mass grave of what were believed to be 24 Germans buried in the Cherbourg cemetery, a Volksbund team discovered one of 1st Lt. Baskind’s identification tags and remnants of an American-type shirt with a first lieutenant rank and tank destroyer insignia. The remains in the mass grave were commingled, and the German team was unable to separate them into individual sets. The German investigators therefore placed the remains in seven burial pouches and then re-interred them in the Marigny German War Cemetery, 40 miles south of Cherbourg. Subsequent attempts to identify the remains of 1st Lt. Baskind by U.S. and German investigators were not successful.
In 2023, the Volksbund and other interested private research organizations exhumed the commingled remains from Marigny War Cemetery for analysis. By February 2024, these researchers contacted DPAA to inform the agency that 1st Lt. Baskind’s remains had been analyzed by a private U.S. laboratory and sought DPAA’s concurrence. To verify Baskind’s remains, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System reviewed the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), Y chromosome DNA (Y-STR), and autosomal DNA (auSTR) analysis previously performed.
1st Lt. Baskind’s name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at Normandy American Cemetery, an American Battle Monuments Commission site in Colleville-sur-Mer, France, along with the others still missing from World War II. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.”
The photo above shows Nathan’s great-niece Samantha being presented with a flag, in honor of Nathan, at the burial of his remains on June 23, 2024.
In addition to the listing on the Walls of the Missing, a grave marker has now been placed in the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial at Colleville-sur-Mer, Département du Calvados, Basse-Normandie, France, Plot A Row 14 Grave 45. 1st Lt. Nathan B. Baskind received the Purple Heart posthumously for his ultimate sacrifice. He was awarded the WWII Victory Ribbon and the EAME Ribbon with credit for campaigns in Tunisia, Rome Arno and Normandy.
I want thank Nathan’s great-niece Samantha for providing photos and information used in this tribute. I also want to thank Find A Grave contributor ‘frogman” and “Andy” as well as ABMC (American Battle Monuments Commission) for the use of the grave marker image and photo of Nathan. Special thanks to the U.S. Army Regional Mortuary-Europe/Africa and the Volksbund for their tireless work in helping identify fallen servicemembers from both sides of the conflict. Thank you also to the Jewish-heritage Non-Governmental Organization Operation Benjamin for their dedication to the fallen of WWII. A special thanks to Paul Stevens for his help with the research.