"We smelled all this flack bursting around, and shells going by, and didn’t get damaged; I think we had a couple bullet holes." - Staff Sergeant Joseph C. Beyer
Over the course of its history, the United States Navy Memorial Oral History Program has been guided by the following principle, “Our mission is to honor and preserve the stories of our Nation’s past, so that we may never forget the sacrifices made by our Veterans, and to pass their stories on to future generations of Americans.” With this mission, the program has sought to interview Veterans from all branches of service in an effort to create a living archive for future Americans. The Oral History Program has had the honor of interviewing hundreds of incredible Veterans who have served throughout different moments in our History. The story selected this month reflects the 70th Anniversary of the D-Day Normandy Landings and the liberation of Europe.
On a crisp winter day, a USNM film crew had the privilege of visiting a home in South Eastern Pennsylvania to interview a humble man with a fascinating story. Wearing his Flight Jacket, US Army Staff Sergeant Joseph C. Beyer, a Veteran who was flying in the skies over Normandy on June 6th, 1944, shared his story.
Beyer began his story by relating his insistence and persistence to be a part of the Air Corps, “They
give you a number of tests...and apparently I did rather well in the code aptitude tests, and I went into the interview after the tests and they said ‘We’re going to send you to the Signal Corps’, I said ‘What about the Air Corps’… I’d loved airplanes all my life...the Lieutenant comes and said ‘I can't promise anything.’” After waiting in anticipation for his assignment, he recalled, “…they put me on a train, traveling south...after a couple of days, I looked out and the station sign said Jacksonville…at the last stop, the guys down on the ground welcoming us had Air Corps patches on and I said ‘Praise the Lord, I made it.’” From his basic training site in Miami Beach, he would be sent to Sioux Falls, South Dakota for Radio School where he would eventually be assigned as a Radio Operator on a C-47. His training would prepare him for the war in the skies over Europe. From the States he would be ordered to England and training began for the Invasion of Normandy.
Staff Sergeant Beyer recounted the events of June 6th, 1944 as if the operation had happened yesterday. He recalled, “The paratroopers arrived at the base and they were quarantined…and eventually we got together. At first it was supposed to be one date and then it had to be moved back because of weather. We took off at midnight on D minus 6 hours so that we dropped our troopers over Cherbourg Peninsula, Carentan is the town that we dropped ours at…It was kind of a funny, unusual thing, we smelled all this flack that was bursting around, and shells going by, and didn’t get damaged; I think we had a couple bullet holes.”
To hear the inspiring story of Staff Sergeant Joseph C. Beyer, view his entire five part detailed experience that has been digitally archived by the Navy Memorial.
The United States Navy Memorial honors Staff Sergeant Joseph C. Beyer, featured within the series titled, Tales from the Navy Log, Story of the Month. Each month, this series honors a Veteran’s story recorded by the Stories of Service Program at the Navy Memorial. To learn more about this story and to explore the Navy Memorial Tales from the Navy Log Archive, visit the Navy Memorial Stories of Service site.