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By Jay King
HOMETOWN NEWS
With American soldiers fighting in two countries against an elusive enemy, it is perhaps hard for most contemporary Americans to understand the magnitude of the Second World War and the sacrifices the nation’s citizens were asked to make during that long and bloody conflict.
Despite the intervening years and the decrease in the number of living veterans who fought in that war, there are still members of what has become known as The Greatest Generation who remember those dark days and what it was like to live through them. Lyman’s John Horace Beauford Sr. is just such an individual.
At 85, Beauford is a veteran of the famed 86th “Black Hawk” Infantry Division, one of the front-line units that led Gen. George Patton’s dash across a crumbling Germany at the close of the war. Drafted in 1943, he went first to Ft. Jackson outside Columbia before being transferred to Camp Toccoa in Georgia. He was then transferred to Ft. Hood, Texas where he began training in the 663rd Tank Destroyers.
At the tender age of 18, Beauford found himself in uniform and leaving behind a pregnant wife and facing the imminent prospect of combat. Just before leaving Texas to ship out to Europe, he saw his 6-month-old son for the first time, along with his wife. He did not see them again for more than a year until after the war was over.
Arriving in France just four days after D-Day, the young soldier observed the grim cost of the invasion with bodies still littering the beach and knocked - out vehicles and equipment scattered along the strand.
“The fighting was still close to the beach,” Beauford recalls. “Some of the dead were still visible.”
Shortly after arriving, his unit was broken up and he was sent to La Havre to join the 86th Infantry. From there he and his comrades went into heavy combat in a hard-fought campaign known as The Watch on the Rhine. His unit was responsible for pinning down German units so other units could make amphibious assaults across the German frontier and begin the final push to defeating Nazi Germany.
Beauford remembers that fight well and remembers his unit taking casualties. His platoon occupied a two-story house and would exchange fire with the Germans from an upstairs window. Beauford clearly recalls the practice of holding up a lampshade to the window to see if it was clear to take a peek.
“Eventually the Germans cottoned on and shot holes in that lampshade,” he says.
With the Allies crossing over into Germany proper, the Germans threw everything they had to slow the advance and heavy fighting accompanied the 86th for much of its dash across the not-quite-defeated country. The second major engagement Beauford was involved in was the battle for the Ruhr pocket, a prolonged bout of heavy combat that saw many of the 86th’s soldiers killed or wounded and a good many awarded decorations for valor. Beauford’s Bronze Star for gallantry came out of this action, even though it would take more than 50 years to get that decoration.
(Beauford’s youngest daughter, Rene, contacted Sen. Lindsay Graham’s office five years ago with the help of state Sen. John Hawkins and managed to have Beauford’s medal presented to him on his 80th birthday.)
Asked about his closest call with death, Beauford remembers a night march in which his unit pulled up for a rest break. There was no smoking unless soldiers covered themselves with their ponchos, so Beauford and a buddy got close to the bank and covered themselves to catch a smoke.
Beauford remembers feeling something hard and cold press into the back of his neck. Reaching up, he felt the barrel of a rifle. He started to raise his hands over his head – still while under the poncho – when he heard, “Nein, Nein – cigaretten.”
It turns out three German soldiers were more interested in surrendering and having a smoke themselves than in capturing or shooting two American GIs. Beauford says those soldiers went on to provide valuable intelligence about German positions in the area, information that could well have saved American lives.
Proud of his service in Europe, Beauford says in the years since he has tried to pass along the knowledge of what it was like in combat in World War II to younger generations. Up until becoming legally blind a few years ago. he would regularly go into schools to speak to students about his experiences, and he still tries to participate in parades and other holidays to represent the veterans of his generation.
One of the remarkable things about Beauford’s story is that after helping to win the war in Europe, his division was sent back to the States in preparation for the invasion of Japan. Beauford was at sea in the Pacific heading west when the atomic bombs ended the war. Diverted to the Philippines, he served out the remainder of his service until he was discharged in April of 1946.
Returning to civilian life, Beauford worked for the Pepsi Bottling Company until getting a job with Milliken Trucking, a job he held from 1948 until his retirement. Father to four children, three of whom survive, Beauford says he would do it all over if asked.
“I’m a military person,” he says. “I love the military and I’ll talk to any young person and encourage him to go into the service.”
That patriotic spirit has passed down through the Beauford family to his granddaughter, a Navy lieutenant and F-18 fighter pilot who was recently asked to join the Navy’s prestigious “Top Gun” fighter combat training program. Beauford says she hasn’t decided yet whether to join the three-year program because if her unit is deployed again, she’d miss out on being with her current comrades.
Full of stories about his service, Beauford continues to share what it was like to fight in the most destructive conflict the world has ever seen.
“I gave my all in all,” he says. “I love my country and I’d do it again if I had to.”
jking@hometown-news.com
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