Rank: Sergeant
Unit: 3d Squadron, 2d Armored Cavalry Regiment
Duty station: Pond Barracks, Amberg, West Germany
MOS: 19D – Cavalry Scout
Enlisted: 1 September 1979
Date of birth: 12 February 1961
Hometown: Suffock, Virginia
Campaign: Cold War
Died: 4 February 1983
Age at death: 21
Cause of death: Accident – asphyxiation from exhaust fumes
Location of fatality: Philippsreut or Bischofsreut, West Germany
Place of interment: Laurel Hill United Church of Christ Cemetery in Suffolk, Virginia
Click to open an external link to view Soldier’s grave site on the Find A Grave website.
Note: Online article from Germany discussed the incident that caused the loss of life for Michael P. Baldwin, Dennis L. McKoy, and Shaun E. Hicks
Eine Tragödie in eiskalter Winternacht Vor 40 Jahren starben drei junge US-Soldaten – Gedenkstein erinnert an sie – Heute Todestag. February 5, 2023, Reinhold Steiml, Passauer Neu Presse, Freyung, Germany
https://www.pnp.de/lokales/landkreis-freyung-grafenau/eine-tragoedie-in-eiskalter-winternacht-10473238
[Translation by Kenneth E. Madl]
Michael P. Baldwin – Dennis L. McKoy – Shaun E. Hicks. These three names are inscribed on a large granite boulder, a stone that stands between Schwarzenthal and Philippsreut on the state road. It commemorates a tragedy on a freezing winter night.
Overgrown, snowed-in in winter, quickly overlooked. Groomed, dressed up and with a burning candle in front of it in the summer months. It is a reminder of three young people who probably no one knows here in the Bavarian FOrest, men but who have left a void in the U.S., with their families. Baldwin, McKoy and Hicks are US soldiers who died a tragic death here at this spot. Exactly 40 years ago.
A few days ago he was seen again, Gerhard Praxl, who is the Freyung-Grafenau district chairman of the BKV, the Bavarian Comrades and Soldiers Association, and lives in the community of Haidmühle. With a broom and a shovel he has been at the memorial stone, has cleared it, cleaned, prepared. Because four decades ago today the tragedy happened.
Suffocated in jeep during patrol break
What were the young men from Jacksonville/Florida, from Pittsfield/Massachusetts and from Suffolk/Virginia doing here in Germany, in the Lower Bavarian Forest? It was the time of the Iron Curtain. One of the tasks of the three soldiers stationed near Regen at that time was to monitor the German-Czechoslovakian border.
At the beginning of February, the trio, all of whom were not even 20 years old, had been assigned to travel along this section of the border. It was about 70 kilometers from the March base near Regen in the direction of Bischofsreut alone, and the night of February 3 to 4 lay ahead of them. The snow was high, it was lonely and bitterly cold.
After several hours of patrolling, it was time to make a stop. Shortly behind Schwarzenthal they pulled over, parked and wanted to take a break for a while. And that’s when they made a fatal mistake. They turned on the heater, left the engine running, and put a tarp over the vehicle. It enclosed the jeep like a shell right down to the ground. As a precaution, they had cut a hole in the tarp and stuck the exhaust through it. But that turned into a death trap.
As the U.S. boys tiredly fell asleep in the comforting warmth, they didn’t notice that the gusty wind probably caused the tarpaulin to overlap the exhaust and become covered in snow on the outside. The exhaust gases could no longer escape.
Nothing more was heard from the three. At 2:24 a.m. they had sent their last radio message in the direction of Camp May. Then dead silence. In the truest sense of the word.
With the warmth came the death in the vehicle
The fact that they could no longer be reached made the night shift at the camp in March nervous, and the U.S. forces sent out a search vehicle. Its crew drove the patrol route and finally, early in the morning, spotted the half-snowed-in Jeep. Even the engine was reportedly still running. With the warmth, death had crept into the vehicle. It was so warm inside that – probably half asleep – one of the three had even taken off his shoes.
The exhaust fumes had poisoned the occupants. Two of the soldiers had died overnight, one was still showing weak signs of life when they were discovered. But all the desperate resuscitation attempts by the emergency doctor were in vain, and the man died a short time later in the Freyung hospital.
This tragedy had shaken the people in the Bavarian Forest. So did Erich Riedl and Manfred Gansmeier from the customs, who happened to pass by the scene and helped with the rescue. The mayor of Philippsreut at the time, Otto Damasko, was on the scene, speechless at what had happened.
That was in 1983. One year later, the U.S. forces had the memorial stone erected at the site of the accident, which was also promoted and supported by Otto Damasko.
The stone, which had weathered over the years, was renovated thanks to the BKV. Gerhard Praxl, as district chairman, and Norbert Eder, as district reservist spokesman, are the driving forces. In 2010, the renovation and consecration took place, during which the then pastor Kaiser described the stone as a “memorial between the past and the future”. The names and the inscription were also renewed by stonemason Günther Allesch from Mauth.