It's June the 6th, 1944.
D-Day.
Under cover of darkness and a brooding overcast sky,
many C-47s are flying over the English channel
approaching the Normandy coast.
Inside the C-47s are brave young men
about to take the fight to the German occupiers of France.
In one, 16 paratroopers
from the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division
are waiting to jump.
One of those young men is Technical Sergeant Joseph Beyrle.
An athletic young man,
he is known as Jumping Joe by his brothers in arms.
Approaching the coast, the planes hit dense fog,
causing the formation to loosen up.
As the fog clears intense anti-aircraft fire begins
and several of the C-47s are badly hit.
Under fire, Joe’s C-47 descends quickly down to 400ft.
Too low,
but there is no choice now but to jump.
The order is given
“Stand Up! Hook up!”
and before he knows it Joe is out of the plane
on the short drop to French soil.
Drifting down he briefly sees the melee
with planes and chutes taking fire.
There is not much time
and Joe sees that he is directly falling towards a church roof.
Hitting the roof and sliding down it,
Joe slams into the ground heavily.
Dodging fire he slipped into the night.
Joe had missed the drop zone.
His connection with his fellow paratroopers was lost.
Nevertheless, this did not prevent him from navigating the terrain,
reaching his destination, and executing his orders alone.
The main task that Beyrle and his unit had been given
was to undermine the electrical substation near Sainte-Marie-du-Mont.
After completing this task,
Beyrle independently conducted several more acts of sabotage within a few days.
It was during one of these acts that German soldiers captured him.
Joe was interrogated and mistreated.
His family was of German descent
and this infuriated the Germans
as to why a man of German blood would fight for the Americans.
After calling one of his interrogators an S.O.B. Joe was knocked out.
After recovering he was moved through several camps
until he was eventually moved into Stalag III-C,
a camp in Limburg in Germany.
Joseph Beyrle saw it as his duty to escape.
He made a plan to join either the Polish resistance
or the Soviet Army and fight alongside them.
He made several escape attempts including one
where he and his friends, Brewer and Kemp,
mistakenly got on a train heading for Berlin rather than Poland.
In Berlin they were, of course, found and detained by the Gestapo for a week
and then brought back into Stalag III-C.
Devastated, but with their spirit unbroken
they decided to escape once more.
Their hopes were up.
All three had heard on a contraband radio
that Soviet Army was on about to enter Germany.
It was 1945.
The 3 men decided to hide in barrels on a cart
that was to be taken out of the camp.
But on the way out of the camp,
tragedy struck and the cart tipped over,
spilling its contents of the 3 men on the ground.
The 3 men made a run for it.
But only Joseph survived that day.
After running through fields for several days and hiding in a barn
he heard the sounds of T-34s
and knew it was a Russian tank division.
Full of energy, he rushed right up to the tanks,
raised his hands in the air and shouted,
“Amerikansky Tovarish!” which meant “American Comrade!”
It is said that the tank commander that met him
was none other than Alexandra Samusenko,
the first woman tank Commander in history.
Rather than ask for help to get back home, or for shelter,
Joseph requested that he could join the division
and fight alongside the Soviets.
Alexandra agreed.
A couple of days later Joseph Beyrle found himself riding
a Lend-Lease Sherman tank
that had been supplied to the Russians on his way to Berlin.
In an amazing twist of fate,
he was in the battalion liberating his old camp, Stalag III-C.
In the camp headquarters he broke into the safe
and retrieved his prisoner’s card
which by that time was the only identity paper he possessed.
Joseph planned to march right up to Berlin’s gates.
But that was not destined to happen.
He got injured in battle and transported to a Soviet hospital.
Hearing of the brave American fighting in his army,
Marshall Zhukov visited him and gave him papers
which Joe didn’t understand
but he was told that it would get him wherever he wanted to go.
Joe headed to the U.S. embassy.
The embassy was suspicious as Joe had been presumed dead.
There had even been a funeral for him back home in his church.
Eventually though, Joe was sent home.
In 1946 Joseph got married to JoAnne Hollowell.
In a final twist of fate, the marriage was conducted by the priest
that had performed Joe’s “funeral”.
On the 50th Anniversary of D-Day,
His unique service earned him medals
from U.S. President Bill Clinton and President Boris Yeltsin of Russia
at a ceremony in the Rose Garden of the White House.
To this day, the screaming eagle that fought alongside the Soviets
is considered a hero around the world.
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