Hobey Baker: American Legend 

Hobey Baker was my great uncle, my grandfathers brother. My Dad was named after him. He was awarded the Croix de Guerre which was presented to my son, Christo Morse in 2012

My grandfather was Hobey Baker's personal armorer. I've actually have Hobey Bakers 75 mm trench art shell casing with a pic of a plane and all his locations roughly engraved on it. I've tried to contact his museum to gift it and got no response. I'm about to give it to the Kansas City WWI museum or Indianapolis as that was the area my grandfather was from. The story of my grandfather was that he started in the trenches, realized he was going to die there, when they asked for volunteers who could drive trucks/ambulances, he volunteered even though he never drove a truck and then realized that was extremely dangerous managed to get his foot run over (according to Grandma/wink wink) and then volunteered as a rear gunner on the early two seat planes. He said they died like flies but he noticed that the Germans tended toward the planes where the guns had jammed and they jammed a lot so usually somebody was vulnerable from that standpoint. The technology of the time including automatic weapon manufacture was so bad that the machine guns jammed because they were not built to close enough tolerances and many parts were subject to flaws, causing jams and the bullets themselves were the same and so you had multiple points in automatic weapons where there could be problems. As a rear gunner, he gained a reputation of never having his guns jam. He said he spent every waking hour trying to ensure that. He first said he would look over new weapons or ones scavenged from downed planes and he could tell ones that were better than others by working their action and looking closely at certain parts prone to problems. He would "work" on them to get ones that he liked and were just right. He would then also look at his bullets, run a file over every bullet feel for roughness??? and measure them and personally put them on the belts that fed the weapons. He would fire a few rounds prior to going up and check everything. Aces and most surviving pilots had armorers to make sure their guns didn't jam. Since my grandfather had gained some notice for his skills, he ended up with Hobey Baker. I don't know that particular story. So, he was with him up through the end according to family history. I have seen that he served but not details. I do know that he personally knew Eddie Rickenbacker (WWI ace) and since he lived in Indy, he, through Mr. Rickenbacker got a job at the Indy 500 during race seasons. He said that after Hobey Baker died he took the shell as a rememberance. His only comment on the death was that Hobey Baker felt like he hadn't really gotten a chance to fight. My perspective was that Hobey Baker sort of felt like a man out of time. So, any reputable WWI museum want a good piece of history. I'm game with an appraisal.

Very nice tribute. He was a class act. Thanks for sharing.

Visited his grave this morning. There were 39 hockey pucks on his stone.

Also he was the basis for the character "Hubble Gardner" in "The Way we Were"

he also refused to turn pro, in either hockey or football. he really should be more well known.

It is probably best that he lived in the era that he did, I don't think the guy could have handled screaming "tweens" or going on talk shows.

I think he commited suicide, I don't think he could handle having to go back home and go to work in a bank or whatever.