Joseph R. Beyrle (russian: Джозеф Вильямович Байерли;
romanized: ''Dzhozef Vilyamovich Bayyerli''; August 25, 1923 – December 12, 2004) is the only known American soldier to have served in combat with both the
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...
and the
Soviet Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...
in World War II. He took part in
Mission Albany, the airborne landings of the 101st Airborne Division on June 5–6, 1944, as a member of the
506th Parachute Infantry Regiment
The 506th Infantry Regiment, originally designated the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment (506th PIR) during World War II, is an airborne light infantry regiment of the United States Army. Currently a parent regiment under the U.S. Army Regi ...
. He was captured by the Germans and sent east as a prisoner of war.
After several unsuccessful attempts, Beyrle escaped from the German
Stalag III-C
Stalag III-C was a German Army World War II prisoner-of-war camp for Allied soldiers. It was located on a plain near the village of Alt Drewitz bei Küstrin then located in the Neumark of the province of Brandenburg (now Drzewice, Kostrzyn nad O ...
in January 1945 and joined a Soviet tank battalion under the command of
Aleksandra Samusenko
Aleksandra Grigoryevna Samusenko (russian: Александра Григорьевна Самусенко, uk, Олександра Григорівна Самусенко, Oleksandra Hryhorivna Samusenko; 1922 – 3 March 1945) was a Soviet T-34 ...
. Wounded, he was evacuated and eventually made his way to the United States in April 1945. Beyrle died in 2004 and was buried at
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington National Cemetery is one of two national cemeteries run by the United States Army. Nearly 400,000 people are buried in its 639 acres (259 ha) in Arlington, Virginia. There are about 30 funerals conducted on weekdays and 7 held on Sa ...
.
Early life
Joe was the third of seven children born to William and Elizabeth Beyrle, whose parents had come to America from Germany in the 1800s. He was six years old when the Great Depression struck. His father, a factory worker, lost his job; the family was evicted from their home and was forced to move in with Joe's grandmother. Some of his earliest memories, Beyrle later told his children, were of standing in government food lines with his father. His two older brothers dropped out of high school and joined the
Civilian Conservation Corps
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was a major part of ...
, an unemployment work-relief program, sending home enough money to allow the rest of the family to stay together. An older sister died of scarlet fever at age 16.
US Army
Upon his enlistment, Beyrle volunteered to become a paratrooper, and after completing basic airborne infantry training at
Camp Toccoa
Camp Toccoa (formerly Camp Toombs) was a basic training camp for United States Army paratroopers during World War II west of Toccoa, Georgia. Among the units to train at the camp was the 506th Infantry Regiment. The regiment's Company E ("Easy ...
he was assigned to the
506th Parachute Infantry Regiment
The 506th Infantry Regiment, originally designated the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment (506th PIR) during World War II, is an airborne light infantry regiment of the United States Army. Currently a parent regiment under the U.S. Army Regi ...
of the
101st Airborne Division, the "Screaming Eagles". Beyrle specialized in radio communications and demolition, and was first stationed in
Ramsbury, England, to prepare for the upcoming
Allied invasion from the west. After nine months of training, Beyrle completed two missions in occupied France in April and May 1944, delivering gold to the
French Resistance
The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...
.
On 6 June,
D-Day, Beyrle's
C-47 came under enemy fire over the Normandy coast, and he was forced to jump from the exceedingly low altitude of 360 feet (110 meters). After landing in
Saint-Côme-du-Mont,
Sergeant Beyrle lost contact with his fellow paratroopers, but succeeded in blowing up a power station.
He performed other sabotage missions before being captured by German soldiers a few days later.
Prisoner of war
Over the next seven months, Beyrle was held in seven German prisons. He escaped twice, and was both times recaptured. Beyrle and his fellow prisoners had been hoping to find the
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...
, which was a short distance away. After the second escape (in which he and his companions set out for Poland but boarded a train to Berlin by mistake), Beyrle was turned over to the
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...
by a German civilian.
Beaten and tortured, he was released to the German military after officials stepped in and determined that the Gestapo had no jurisdiction over prisoners of war. The Gestapo were about to shoot Beyrle and his comrades, claiming that he was an American spy who had parachuted into Berlin.
Beyrle was taken to the
Stalag III-C
Stalag III-C was a German Army World War II prisoner-of-war camp for Allied soldiers. It was located on a plain near the village of Alt Drewitz bei Küstrin then located in the Neumark of the province of Brandenburg (now Drzewice, Kostrzyn nad O ...
POW camp
A prisoner-of-war camp (often abbreviated as POW camp) is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured by a belligerent power in time of war.
There are significant differences among POW camps, internment camps, and military prisons. ...
in
Alt Drewitz, from which he escaped in early January 1945.
He headed east, hoping to meet up with the Soviet army. Encountering a Soviet tank brigade in the middle of January, he raised his hands, holding a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes, and shouted in Russian, 'Amerikansky
tovarishch! ("American comrade!"). Beyrle was eventually able to persuade the battalion's commander (
Aleksandra Samusenko
Aleksandra Grigoryevna Samusenko (russian: Александра Григорьевна Самусенко, uk, Олександра Григорівна Самусенко, Oleksandra Hryhorivna Samusenko; 1922 – 3 March 1945) was a Soviet T-34 ...
, reportedly the only female tank officer of that rank in the war) to allow him to fight alongside the unit on its way to Berlin.
Beyrle began a month-long stint in a Soviet tank battalion, where his demolitions expertise was appreciated.
Soviet Army
Beyrle's new battalion was the one that freed his former camp, Stalag III-C, at the end of January, but in the first week of February, he was wounded during an attack by German
dive bombers. He was evacuated to a Soviet hospital in Landsberg an der Warthe (now
Gorzów Wielkopolski in Poland), where he received a visit from Soviet Marshal
Georgy Zhukov
Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov ( rus, Георгий Константинович Жуков, p=ɡʲɪˈorɡʲɪj kənstɐnʲˈtʲinəvʲɪtɕ ˈʐukəf, a=Ru-Георгий_Константинович_Жуков.ogg; 1 December 1896 – ...
, who, intrigued by the only non-Soviet in the hospital, learned his story through an interpreter, and provided Beyrle with official papers in order to rejoin American forces.
Joining a Soviet military convoy, Beyrle arrived at the
U.S. embassy in Moscow in February 1945, only to learn that he had been reported by the U.S. War Department as killed in action on June 10, 1944, in France. A funeral mass had been held in his honor in
Muskegon
Muskegon ( ') is a city in Michigan. It is the county seat of Muskegon County. Muskegon is known for fishing, sailing regattas, pleasure boating, and as a commercial and cruise ship port. It is a popular vacation destination because of the expans ...
, and his obituary was published in the local newspaper. Embassy officers in Moscow, unsure of his
bona fides
In human interactions, good faith ( la, bona fides) is a sincere intention to be fair, open, and honest, regardless of the outcome of the interaction. Some Latin phrases have lost their literal meaning over centuries, but that is not the case ...
, placed him under Marine guard in the
Metropol Hotel until his identity was established through his fingerprints.
Post-military
Beyrle returned home to
Michigan
Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...
on April 21, 1945, and celebrated
V-E Day
Victory in Europe Day is the day celebrating the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces on Tuesday, 8 May 1945, marking the official end of World War II in Europe in the Easte ...
two weeks later in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
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, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
. He was married to JoAnne Hollowell in 1946—coincidentally, in the same church and by the same priest who had held his funeral mass two years earlier. Beyrle worked for
Brunswick Corporation
Brunswick Corporation, formerly known as the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company, is an American corporation that has been developing, manufacturing and marketing a wide variety of products since 1845. Today, Brunswick has more than 13,000 employ ...
for 28 years, retiring as a shipping supervisor.
His unique service earned him medals from U.S. President
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
and Russian President
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...
at a ceremony in the
Rose Garden of the White House marking the 50th anniversary of
D-Day in 1994.
Death and legacy
Beyrle died in his sleep of heart failure on December 12, 2004, during a visit to
Toccoa, Georgia
Toccoa is a city in far Northeast Georgia near the border with South Carolina. It is the county seat of Stephens County, Georgia, United States, located about from Athens and about northeast of Atlanta. The population was 9,133 as of the 202 ...
, where he had trained as a paratrooper in 1942. He was 81. He was buried with honors in Section 1 of
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington National Cemetery is one of two national cemeteries run by the United States Army. Nearly 400,000 people are buried in its 639 acres (259 ha) in Arlington, Virginia. There are about 30 funerals conducted on weekdays and 7 held on Sa ...
in April, 2005.
Beyrle and his wife JoAnne had a daughter, Julie, and two sons. The elder son, Joe Beyrle II, served in the 101st Airborne during the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...
. His son
John Beyrle
John Ross Beyrle (born February 11, 1954) is an American diplomat. A career Foreign Service Officer and specialist in Russian and Eastern European affairs, he served as List of Ambassadors of the United States to Russia, Ambassador of the United S ...
served as the
United States Ambassador to Russia
The ambassador of the United States of America to the Russian Federation is the ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary from the United States of America to the Russian Federation. Since September 4, 2022, Elizabeth Rood is serving as the ...
2008–2012.
On September 17, 2002, a book by Thomas Taylor about Beyrle, ''The Simple Sounds of Freedom'', was published by
Random House
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...
. A Ballantine paperback version, ''Behind Hitler's Lines'', came out June 1, 2004.
In 2005, a plaque was unveiled on the wall of the church in
Saint-Côme-du-Mont, France, where Beyrle landed on June 6, 1944. A permanent plaque was dedicated at the site on July 5, 2014.
An exhibition devoted to Joe Beyrle's life and wartime experiences was shown in Moscow and three other Russian cities in 2010.
The exhibition opened a four-city American tour at The
National World War II Museum
The National WWII Museum, formerly known as The National D-Day Museum, is a military history museum located in the Central Business District of New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S., on Andrew Higgins Drive between Camp Street and Magazine Street. The ...
in
, with showings in Toccoa and
Omaha in 2011, and Beyrle's hometown of Muskegon in June 2012. A permanent installation of the exhibition is now on display at the USS Silversides Museum in Muskegon.
File:J. Beyrle3.jpg, The German record with Beyrle's details as a prisoner of war
File:J. Beyrle p 27 telegram.jpg, The US War Department telegram sent to Beyrle's family, incorrectly telling them of his death, September 1944
File:JRBI-med doc russ.jpg, Beyrle's Soviet medical chart detailing his wounds
Awards and decorations
Notes
External links
NBC Nightly News Obituary, Dec. 2004
Joseph Beyrle – Soldier and Hero who fought for the USA and USSR
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beyrle, Joseph
1923 births
2004 deaths
United States Army personnel of World War II
Soviet military personnel of World War II
Burials at Arlington National Cemetery
American prisoners of war in World War II
World War II prisoners of war held by Germany
Military personnel from Michigan
People from Muskegon, Michigan
United States Army soldiers