An American Screaming Eagle in the Soviet Army

Written by Janet Holsinger, History Associates Incorporated

When “Jumpin’ Joe” Beyrle parachuted into Normandy with the 101st Airborne “Screamin’ Eagles” on June 6, 1944, it was not his first jump into occupied France.  At the age of twenty, he had already taken part in two missions to deliver gold to the French Resistance.  Shortly after D-Day, he was captured by German paratroopers.  Over the next few months, Beyrle was shuttled between several German prison camps, where his captors interrogated and tortured him repeatedly.

When a German soldier carrying Beyrle’s dog tags was killed trying to infiltrate American lines at Utah Beach, the War Department declared Beyrle dead.  After hearing this news, his parents held a memorial service for him in his hometown of Muskegon, Michigan.  Then, four months later, his family received a postcard from Beyrle stating he was a POW, but still alive.

Beyrle and two other POWs began plotting an escape from the prison camp.  They used cigarettes to bribe a German guard into letting them cut a hole in the barbed wire fence surrounding the compound.  After escaping from the camp, the POWs met Germans who agreed to hide them and help them move west.  The next morning, however, the Gestapo caught and brutally tortured Beyrle and his fellow POWs for a week before turning them over to the German Army.  Beyrle was sent to prison camp Stalag IIIC, where he was sentenced to thirty days of solitary confinement in a cell so small that he only had room to sit, but not stand or lie down.

In January 1945, Beyrle staged another escape attempt.  This time, he succeeded.  Three days after being driven out of the prison camp in a 50-gallon wooden barrel, Beyrle encountered a Soviet armored unit which allowed him to fight alongside them, making him the only man to fight for both the United States and the Soviets against the Axis.  With the Soviets, Beyrle helped liberate Stalag IIIC, the same camp from which he had escaped a few weeks earlier.  While there, he collected his POW record and photograph to bring home.

After a couple more weeks of fighting, Beyrle was wounded and sent to Moscow, where he sought asylum at the US Embassy.  Placed under armed Marine guard, Beyrle learned that, officially, he had been dead for the last six months.  Struggling to find ways to verify his identity, he convinced the embassy to fingerprint him.  Once Washington confirmed the results, Beyrle was on his way home.

After returning to the states, Beyrle received an honorable discharge from the Army due to disabilities suffered during the war, and married his wife in the same church where his funeral Mass had been held two years earlier.

Joseph Beyrle’s POW photograph, Beyrle Family

The National Museum of Americans in Wartime honors the service of Sergeant Joseph Beyrle and all other Americans who have served the cause of freedom.