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.

Written by Will Armstrong, History Associates Incorporated

19-year-old Seaman Apprentice Doug Hegdahl wasn’t your everyday Prisoner of War.  Assigned to an ammunition handling room aboard the guided missile cruiser USS Canberra, Hegdahl was blown overboard by the blast of the ship’s guns as they fired on North Vietnamese positions in April 1967.  As his ship sailed on, he was left adrift in the Gulf of Tonkin without a flotation device.

A North Vietnamese boat eventually picked up Hegdahl, who quickly dumbfounded his captors. With no identification, they assumed he was a covert operative, refusing to believe his true story.  Hegdahl, however, began playing dumb.  By playing up his humble rural South Dakota roots and claiming to be completely illiterate, he made himself appear useless to the North Vietnamese.

The Vietnamese moved Hegdahl from prison to prison before he ultimately wound up at the notorious “Hanoi Hilton.”  It would prove to be a huge mistake for the North Vietnamese.  There, Hegdahl met USAF Lt. Joe Crecca, an F-4 pilot who had been shot down in November 1966.  Assuming that Hegdahl, so young and apparently useless to the enemy, would be a logical candidate for early release, Crecca helped him memorize the names and other vital information of more than 250 prisoners held in North Vietnam.

Hegdahl continued to keep his true aptitude hidden from his captors, who began referring to him as “The Incredibly Stupid One.”  So unconcerned were they about Hegdahl’s activities that they allowed him to roam free around the prison courtyard—where he mentally recorded his most minute observations.  While the North Vietnamese observed Hegdahl mindlessly sweeping the sidewalks, his fellow prisoners listened to the coded messages embedded in his sweeps.  His American cellmate, Navy Lt.Cmdr. Dick Stratton, observed him disabling five North Vietnamese trucks by putting dirt in the gas tanks.

In August 1969, Hegdahl was indeed released by his captors.  Of the three American POWs released that day, Hegdahl was the only one who was considered a legitimate “early release” by his comrades back in the Hanoi Hilton.  Lt.Cmdr. Stratton, his superior, had ordered him to go.  What the Vietnamese thought would be a propaganda coup quickly turned sour, when the unassuming Doug Hegdahl promptly revealed the names of his fellow POWs to American intelligence officials.  He was the first to expose the harsh living conditions and brutal treatment that were a part of life at the Hanoi Hilton.  At the Paris Peace Talks in 1970, he was present to confront his former captors directly.

After the war, Hegdahl served as a Navy survival instructor.  He has never forgotten the list of names.  Said his former cellmate, Dick Stratton, “’The Incredibly Stupid One’, my personal hero, is the archetype of the innovative, resourceful and courageous American Sailor…As long as we have the Dougs of this world, our country will retain its freedoms.”

The National Museum of Americans in Wartime honors the service of Doug Hegdahl and all other Americans who have served the cause of freedom.

“Gentlemen, we had better get prepared.”

Written by Carly Swaim, History Associates

As the face of the military changes, so does the face of the military family. Peter Madsen, a retired Army aviator, knows this well. Shortly after his wife, Specialist Juliet C. Madsen, left for Iraq, he advised “This is a world where our mothers, sisters, daughters, and wives go to war. Gentlemen, we had better get prepared.”

After her husband retired from the military, Juliet went on active duty as an Army medic, in hopes of furthering her medical career.  After learning that she would be deployed for Operation Iraqi Freedom in early 2004, her husband and three children moved to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in order to be closer to Juliet before her departure.

With Juliet’s deployment, Peter Madsen faced new responsibilities both as a home-front spouse and a single parent. In the early days of Juliet’s absence, Peter remembers feeling panicked. “I cried,” he said. “I had no idea how to get the kids to school on time let alone how to feed them on a daily basis.” Juliet had left him a list of reminders, but Peter quickly learned a few things on his own as well. “Lesson #1,” he wrote, “Just because they have changed the name to ‘Spouses’ Club’ from ‘Wives Club’ does not mean men are welcome.” Lesson number two concerned his eleven year old daughter and the realization that “girls do not go to barbershops.” Amid piles of laundry, his children intimated their desire to eat something other than pizza, so while Juliet cared for the wounded in Iraq, her husband slowly learned the nuances of taking on both parental roles. Peter knows the difficulty of being a home-front husband, acknowledging that “sociologists and psychologists would have an absolute blast in my home. I could write a book about what not to say to young children.”

The families faced further adjustments later in 2004 when Peter learned that his wife had suffered a stroke after being hit by an IED.  The Army evacuated Juliet with the same soldiers that she had helped treat earlier that day. The love and support she received during her recovery inspired Juliet to help wounded soldiers by sewing quilts, which she auctions in order to raise funds for injured veterans. Juliet’s deployment and return gave Peter a new appreciation for life as well.  As a father and as a husband he learned to “start each day with ‘I love you’ and end it the same way.”

The National Museum of Americans in Wartime honors the service of the Madsen family and all other Americans who have served the cause of freedom.

Source: Quotations from Andrew Carroll’s Operation Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Home Front in the Words of US Troops and Their Families

On Friday, March 20, the Secretary of the Army, Pete Geren, will present the first Lt. General Richard G. Trefry Lifetime of Service Award to our own Board member—-Lt. General Richard G. Trefry.  Talk about a distinguished career.  They’re not only giving General Trefry a new permanently established award, but they are naming it after him!

General Trefry’s 33-year Army career began as a young enlisted man in World War II and ended after six significant years as Inspector General of the Army. After retirement, General Trefry served in the White House as the Military Assistant to the President of the United States.

General Trefry holds a B.S. degree in Military Science from the United States Military Academy, West Point, is a graduate of the Command and General Staff College, and the Army War College. He currently serves as a Senior Fellow for the Institute for Land Warfare in the Association of the U.S. Army and is Program Manager of the Army Force Management School at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. General Trefry teaches and speaks frequently at service schools, public and private organizations, and at public and private schools and colleges.

General Trefry is one of the most dedicated Trustees of the National Museum of Americans in Wartime.  He said, “As part of our national remembrance, I support the plan to establish an institution where we can see how American men and women fought, but also touch the steel of armor and hear the sounds of war and feel the battlefield beneath our feet.”

Check out General Trefry’s complete bio on the West Point Web site – http://www.westpointaog.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=599.

Written by Carly Swaim, History Associates

Born in Lynwood, Pennsylvania, twin brothers Vincent and Richard Krepps joined the Army together in 1949. Both served in the Second Infantry Division, 82nd Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion, and were sent to Korea in early 1950. Private Vincent Krepps drove an M19 self-propelled gun, while Richard, or Dickie, served as a cannoneer.

Only thirteen days after arriving in Korea, Vincent found himself on the frontlines near the Naktong River. Assaulted by heavy enemy artillery fire, Vincent’s unit received orders to retreat. In the mêlée, enemy troops surrounded them. Armed with only a hand grenade, Vincent left the cover of his damaged M19.  Hours later during the retreat, an abandoned tank blocked the road.  Amid heavy North Korean fire, Vincent ran two hundred yards to the tank, steered it off the road, and performed emergency repairs before driving the vehicle through an enemy road block in search of American aid.  Careening down the road, Vincent drove miles before spotting another friendly detachment.  The unit rushed heavy tanks to Vincent’s encircled battalion, but most of the men had been killed or taken prisoner. Vincent Krepps received the Silver Star for his actions.  Following this ordeal, Vincent reunited with Dickie, who had also experienced combat with his M16 halftrack crew. It would be the twins’ last moment together.  After a short period of time, both brothers received orders to return to the front lines.

In the fall of 1950, Chinese forces entered Korea.  During the American retreat at Kuna-ri, they captured Dickie Krepps.  After learning of Dickie’s capture, his family did not hear anything from their son.  As a POW, Dickie had been placed in North Korea’s Camp 5, one of the most notorious wartime prisoner camps. However, rumors of deplorable POW camp conditions had not yet reached the United States, and the Krepps family had already received a glimmer of hope from an unlikely source: in 1951, the family spotted a picture of Dickie in the local newspaper. Released as propaganda by the Chinese Communists, the picture revealed eleven POWs, one of whom was Dickie. Despite the heartbreaking look on Dickie’s face, his family knew that he was alive.

Following the war, Dickie did not appear on any POW lists. In 1954, the U.S. Government informed the family that, according to the North Koreans, Dickie had died in June 1951. Vincent could hardly bear the pain of losing his twin brother, and for years sought to learn more about Dickie’s imprisonment.  He contacted veteran after veteran for information, until finally, in 1998, Ronald Lovejoy told Vincent that he had stayed in the same make-shift hospital as Dickie. Lying on the cold floor, they had talked and comforted one another in the abysmal conditions. One morning, Dickie did not reply. Their captors took Dickie’s body outside and stacked it with others.  After nearly fifty years of waiting for Dickie to reemerge, Vincent found comfort in the fact that his twin brother did not die alone. Unfortunately, many families of POWs have not had the same consolation. However, Vincent Krepps demonstrates that the POWs of “the Forgotten War” have never really been forgotten.

The National Museum of Americans in Wartime honors the service of Vincent and Dickie Krepps, and all other Americans who have served the cause of freedom.

Would you like to see one of the world’s largest privately-owned collections of military vehicles, including 70+ operational tanks? The National Museum of Americans in Wartime (NMAW) is inviting interested MilBlog Conference attendees to experience vintage military vehicles (World War I forward) up close, on display and in demonstration.

Who: MilBlog Conference attendees are invited

What: Personal viewing of 110+ operational, vintage military vehicles; refreshments.

When: 9:00-11:00 AM, Sunday, April 26.

Where: The collection is housed in Prince William County about 40 miles south of Washington.

How: NMAW will provide directions for those with cars.  If enough milbloggers respond, we will try to arrange round-trip transportation.

RSVP: If you can join us or have questions, please send us an email and don’t forget to include the number of guests.

Written by Carly Swaim, History Associates

Lt. Clara Lewandoske, a U.S. Army nurse, had been working continuously during her first few months in Paris in 1917. At Evacuation Hospital #1, her ward often saw some of the war’s most recently and badly wounded soldiers. For this reason she did not immediately recognize the handsome older man going from bed to bed. Finally she took notice and realized that General John J. Pershing had come to check on the wounded men. His own orderly had broken his leg and occupied a bed in one of the three rooms that Clara oversaw. General Pershing visited every man in the hospital and asked if they desired anything.  One patient with severe head wounds asked the General for a glass of lemonade. To Clara’s surprise, the beverage arrived later in the day for the whole wing.

Lt. Lewandoske had been a nurse prior to World War I.  After America declared war on Germany, she immediately signed up with the Red Cross and was assigned to the Army Nurse Corps. Soon after arriving in France from Milwaukee, she felt and heard the distant German bombardments on Bastille Day. The next morning, the wounded poured into the hospital and the number of patients jumped from around one hundred to over 3,000.  Lewandoske tended to horrible injuries, and placed men in every open space in the hospital after the beds and stretchers were all occupied.

Few American women witnessed World War I in the same way as nurses serving overseas.  U.S. censorship kept American citizens isolated from the horrors in Europe.  What Clara’s family, friends, and colleagues back home knew of the war was worlds away from her experiences in Evacuation Hospital #1.  When working in the Jaw Ward of the hospital, Clara treated horribly disfigured men. After feeding them through tubes, they often pulled out their field mirrors and stared blankly at their gnarled faces. Clara remembered President Woodrow Wilson becoming as white as a sheet when he and his wife visited her ward. Badly shaken, the pair quickly returned to their hotel following the visit.

Lt. Lewandoske was probably one of the first women to survey the battlefield at Reims.

After the Armistice, she snuck under barbed wire to visit the trenches where men like her patients had experienced a brutal new era of warfare. Ignoring dangers from the live shells that likely covered the combat zone, Clara explored the devastated battlefield.  Following this trip, she returned to Paris and heartily joined the wild celebrations in the street. After the war, she married 2nd Lt. Arnold S. Hoke, himself a war veteran who had witnessed the horrors at Champagne, Aisne-Marne, and Meuse-Argonne.

The National Museum of Americans in Wartime honors the service of Lt. Clara Lewandoske Hoke and all other Americans who have served the cause of freedom.