The Story of US Paratrooper Sgt Joe Beyrle

Joseph Beyrle was a paratrooper from Muskegon, Michigan. He was born in 1923, graduated high school in 1942, and turned down a baseball scholarship to the University of Notre Dame and instead joined the army to serve in the parachute infantry.

Beyrle served in the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Division, also called the Screaming Eagles. He specialized in radio communications and demolition.Prior to the start of the Normandy invasions, Beyrle jumped twice into occupied France to coordinate, provide arms, and money to several French resistance units. He then jumped into France on D-Day, destroyed a enemy gun emplacement, was captured, escaped, and captured again. He was beaten nearly to death, his uniform and dog tags were taken from him. A German soldier attempted to infiltrate US lines dressed in Beyrle's uniform and was killed.

The US War Department believed Beyrle had been killed in combat and notified his parents. His mother refused to believe her son was dead and continued to ignore the calls from the family to accept his death.

Beyrle was then placed in the POW camp Stalag-III C in Alt Drewitz, in Western Poland. Here, Beyrle made his third bid for freedom in January 1945. This time, he made it. As he snuck East, the Soviets advanced West and Beyrle ran into a Russian tank battalion in the 1st Guard Tank Army. Photo at left is Beyrle as a POW. You can tell from his look that he was likely highly uncooperative with the German Camp Guards.

Beyrle waved a pack of Lucky Strike Cigarettes and called out the only Russian words he knew, “Amerikansky tovarishch!” (American comrade). Alexandra Samusenko (the same age as Beyrle, 22), the only female Russian tank commander, would soon be convinced by the American soldier she saved to let him fight by her side on their advance to Berlin—a common enemy for two young soldiers in anything but common positions.

Beyrle spent a month fighting alongside his new battalion. On what must have been an incomparably cathartic day, they liberated Stalag-III C, the last prison camp Beyrle was held in. In early February, Beyrle was wounded in an attack from German bombers and transported to a hospital in Poland. There, Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov, interested in, obviously, the only American in the hospital, came to speak with him and learn his story. He soon gave Beyrle official papers to locate and rejoin U.S. troops.

From the hospital in Poland, Beyrle hopped into a convoy back to Moscow, to seek out the American embassy. Unfortunately, his story had already taken a dark turn that would make the rest of his journey home difficult.

Beyrle’s dog tags had been found in Normandy soon after D-Day, on what is now presumed to be a dead German soldier. His family, back in Muskegon, Michigan, had been informed of the death of their brave volunteer in September 1944.

Needless to say, the American embassy didn’t believe he was who he claimed to be. After persistence and insistence, Beyrle managed to get the embassy to take his fingerprints and his identity was indeed confirmed. On April 21st, 1945, Beyrle returned home to Michigan. World War II and his long journey were coming to an end.

In 1994, to mark the 50th anniversary of D-Day, Beyrle was honored at the White House by both U.S. President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin. For the next ten years, Beyrle received a lot of publicity in both the U.S. and Russia for his amazing journey and the symbol of cooperation he was for the post-Cold War countries. He died in 2004, at the age of 81.