[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 85 (Wednesday, June 16, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Page S7157]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      IN RECOGNITION OF JOE BEYRLE

 Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I rise to recognize Joe Beyrle, a 
World War II veteran and long-time friend from Norton Shores, Michigan. 
Joe Beyrle's service during the war was truly extraordinary.
  As an eighteen-year-old in 1942, Joe Beyrle enlisted in the Army, 
later volunteering for the parachute infantry. Joe quickly 
distinguished himself as a member of the 101st Airborne Division 
stationed in England. Early in his service Joe was twice chosen to make 
dangerous jumps into Nazi-occupied France while fitted with bandoliers 
filled with gold for the French Resistance. Joe's last jump into France 
was on the night before D-Day with the objective of destroying two 
wooden bridges behind Utah Beach. However, while on his way to 
accomplish this mission, Joe was captured by the Germans.
  On June 10, 1944, the parents of Joe Beryle received a letter from 
the United States Government informing them that their son had perished 
while serving his country in France. On September 17, 1944, family and 
friends held a funeral mass for Joe at St. Joseph's Church in Muskegon, 
Michigan. However, Joe was still alive and being held in a POW camp. A 
dead German soldier wearing an American uniform and Joe's dog tags had 
been mistakenly identified as Joe.
  Joe was eventually able to escape from his captors and later joined a 
Russian tank unit to continue the fight against the Germans. Joe fought 
with the Russians until an injury forced him to be sent to a Moscow 
hospital. When he finally regained his strength, Joe went to the 
American Embassy in Moscow and was eventually sent back to the United 
States. On September 14, 1946, almost two years after the funeral mass 
in his honor, Joe Beyrle married his wife, JoAnne, in the very same 
church.
  I ask to have printed in the Congressional Record an article which 
appeared recently in the Detroit Free Press regarding Joe Beyrle. The 
article highlights in greater detail the extraordinary experience of 
Joe Beryle during World War II. I know my Senate Colleagues will join 
me in honoring Joe Beyrle on his tremendous sacrifice and service to 
our nation.
  The article follows:

      World War II Vet Holds on to a Special Appreciation of Life

                          (By Ron Dzwonkowski)

       Memorial Day has to be a little strange for Joe Beyrle, 
     even after all these years. He pays tribute to the nation's 
     war dead knowing that, for a time, he was among them. Even 
     had a funeral with full honors.
       ``Oh, what parents went through,'' says Beyrle, (pronounced 
     buy early.) ``My mother would never talk about it. My dad 
     wouldn't at first. But I finally talked to him at some 
     length. The emotions . . . well, it was quite a talk.''
       Beyrle, who will turn 76 this summer and lives in Norton 
     Shores, south of Muskegon, was among the hundreds of 
     thousands of young Americans who enlisted in the Armed Forces 
     to fight World War II. A strapping 18-year-old, he passed up 
     a scholarship to the University of Notre Dame and volunteered 
     in June 1942 for what was then called the parachute infantry.
       By September of '43, Beyrle was in England with the 101st 
     Airborne Division.
       His commanders must have seen something of the rough-and-
     ready in the young man from western Michigan, for Beyrle was 
     twice chosen to parachute into Nazi-occupied France wearing 
     bandoliers laden with gold for the French Resistance. After 
     each jump, he had to hide for more than a week until he could 
     be returned to his unit in England.
       Then came D-Day. Beyrle's unit jumped into France on the 
     night before the invasion, assigned to disrupt Nazi defenses 
     for the huge frontal assault.
       The going was rough. Beyrle saw several planes full of his 
     comrades go down in flames before he hit the silk from 400 
     feet up, landing on the roof of a church. Under fire from the 
     steeple, he slid down into a cemetery and set out for his 
     demolition objective, two wooden bridges behind Utah Beach.
       Beyrle never made it. He was on the loose for about 20 
     hours while the battle raged on the beaches, and he did 
     manage to blow up a power station and some trucks, slash the 
     tires on the other Nazi vehicles and lob some grenades into 
     clusters of Hitler's finest. But then he crawled over a 
     hedgerow, fell into a German machine gun nest and was 
     captured.
       What followed was a long ordeal of brutality and terror as 
     the Germans herded the American POWs inland while being 
     hammered by Allied bombs and artillery. Beyrle was hit by 
     shrapnel, but had to shake it off so he could apply 
     tourniquets to two men whose legs were blown off. He escaped 
     once for about 16 hours, but ran back into a German patrol.
       Somewhere in all this chaos, Beyrle lost his dog tags, 
     those little metal necklaces that identify military 
     personnel. They ended up around the neck of a German soldier 
     who was killed in France on June 10, wearing an American 
     uniform, probably an infiltrator.
       In early September, the dreaded telegram arrived for 
     Beyrle's parents in Muskegon, the one that includes the 
     nation's ``deep sympathy for your loss.''
       The body believed to be Joe Beyrle was buried in France 
     under a grave marker bearing his name. A funeral mass was 
     held on Sept. 17, 1994, at St. Joseph's Church in Muskegon. 
     Beyrle's name was inscribed on a plaque honoring the 
     community's war dead.
       Joe Beyrle, meantime, was being hauled by train all over 
     Europe, locked in about a half-dozen POW camps, beaten, 
     interrogated and nearly starved. But he never quit trying to 
     escape, and finally managed it in January 1945, as the Nazi 
     war machine was starting to crumble under the onslaught of 
     Americans on the west and Russians from the east. Beyrle 
     hooked up with a Russian tank unit and fought with them for a 
     month before he was wounded and shipped to a hospital outside 
     Moscow.
       When he was able, Beyrle made his way to the U.S. embassy 
     in the Russian capital, but he had a terrible time convincing 
     officials of his identity, especially since he was listed as 
     dead. He was actually arrested and grew so frustrated that he 
     jumped one of his guards in an attempt to escape.
       Fingerprints finally proved that Joe Beyrle was alive and 
     well.
       The next telegram to Muskegon carried a much happier 
     message.
       On Sept. 14, 1946, Joe Beyrle married his wife, JoAnne, in 
     the same church where his funeral mass was held two years 
     earlier. The same priest presided at both. Almost 53 years 
     later, JoAnne says with a smile that her husband's war 
     stories ``get better every year.''
       This weekend, Beyrle will rejoin the 101st for ceremonies 
     honoring its war dead at Arlington National Cemetery. Then 
     he's off to Europe to walk once again over the ground where 
     he fought and bled for freedom. He will even visit the grave 
     that for months was thought to hold his body.
       ``Some of them aren't's even sure what war I'm talking 
     about,'' he said. ``They really don't understand that I felt 
     it was my duty to volunteer, and what went on and what it was 
     like. I tell them that if it wasn't for what we did, they 
     would all be marching the goose-step today, and the first 
     question is, `what's the goose-step?'
       ``I grew up real fast. We all had to,'' Beyrle said. ``You 
     just learn to believe that somebody up there is looking out 
     for you. . . . I came home with such an appreciation of life, 
     and I don't think I've ever lost it.''
       He came home with a handful of medals, too, but doesn't 
     consider himself a hero.
       ``There were 200 guys in my unit that jumped into Normandy, 
     and 50 or 60 were killed in action right there, maybe 40 were 
     wounded; five or six were captured,'' Beryle says. ``I'm just 
     one of the lucky ones. The heroes are the guys who didn't 
     make it back.''

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