ST. MARIES - Vernon Baker provided comfort to a neighbor who had just lost his father and volunteered his labor to a newcomer the first time they met.

He was gracious and humble - a hero not only for his courageous attack on German forces in World War II, but also for the way he honored the 19 men from his platoon who died during that April 1945 battle.

Such were some of the memories that were shared Saturday with more than 600 people at Baker's funeral near this North Idaho town. Baker, the only living black soldier to receive the Medal of Honor for his valor during the war, died at home July 13 from complications of brain cancer. He was 90.

Baker lived in a mountain valley 45 miles south of here since the late 1980s. His funeral was the largest gathering in St. Maries in Baker's honor since hundreds turned out for a fall 2004 fundraiser to help defray the medical expenses from his initial cancer treatment.

Soldiers, airmen, National Guardsmen, Legionnaires, members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and others from across the country, attended the funeral at the Church of the Nazarene. The Idaho Honor Guard provided military honors, from a rotating two-man honor guard at Baker's urn throughout the service, to a rifle salute and taps in a nearby field afterward.

The most poignant moments included neighbor Bill Fletcher recounting how the first phone call he received after his father died was from Baker. "It helped soften the blow to my heart and the pain I was feeling," Fletcher said.

Bill Shields, who met Baker shortly after buying a piece of property nearby, recounted Baker offering him the use of his phone, his shower and "he offered to help me dig a post hole," Shields said. "What a nice gesture from a man I didn't know."

Baker's Medal of Honor came 52 years after he led a suicidal assault that helped the Allies breach the Gothic Line and drive the German Army out of northern Italy. He later recounted how his white commander deserted him and his men during that April 1945 battle.

No black soldiers received the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for battlefield valor, during that era. An Army study initiated in the early 1990s concluded Baker and several other men had been denied the award because of racism.

Six other black World War II veterans received the medal posthumously at the 1997 White House ceremony where Baker received his overdue honors from President Bill Clinton.

Baker was born in Cheyenne, Wyo., on Dec. 17, 1919. His parents were killed in an automobile accident when he was 4, and he and his two older sisters were raised by their grandparents.

He was rebuffed when he first tried to join the Army in April 1941.

"The recruiter told me, 'We don't have any quotas for you people,'" Baker said. He persisted, entered the Army in June 1941 and was sent to Officer Candidate School the following year. He went to Italy in the summer of 1944 with the 370th Regimental Combat Team - the first black unit to fight for the United States during World War II.

Soldier's honors

Vernon Baker earned the Purple Heart, Bronze Star and, for the battle along the Gothic Line, the Distinguished Service Cross. The second lieutenant was the most highly decorated black soldier in the Mediterranean Theatre at the end of the war.