The Screaming Eagle that fought with the Soviets

It is June 6, 1944. D-Day. Under the cover of darkness and a cloudy and gloomy sky, many C-47s fly over the English Channel approaching the coast of Normandy. Inside the C-47s are brave young men about to fight against the German occupiers of France. In one of them, 16 paratroopers from the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division wait to jump. One of those young men is Technical Sergeant Joseph Beyrle. An athletic young man, his brothers in arms know him as Jumping Joe. Approaching the coast, the planes encountered dense fog, causing the formation to loosen. As the fog clears, heavy anti-aircraft fire begins and several of the C-47s are seriously wounded.

Under fire, Joe's C-47 rapidly descends to 400 feet. Too low, but now there is no choice but to jump. He gives himself the order “Get up! Connect!" and before he knows it, Joe is out of the plane on the brief descent to French soil. As he descends, he briefly sees the melee with planes and parachutes on fire. There isn't much time left and Joe sees himself falling straight toward the roof of a church. Joe hits the roof and slides down, and crashes heavily to the ground. Dodging the fire, Joe had missed the drop zone. However, this did not prevent him from navigating the terrain, reaching his destination and executing his orders alone.

The main task that had been given to Beyrle and his unit was to undermine the electrical substation near Sainte-Marie-du-Mont. After completing this task, Beyrle independently carried out several more acts of sabotage within a few days. It was during one of these acts that he was captured by German soldiers. His family was of German descent and this. It angered the Germans to learn why a man of German blood would fight for the Americans. After calling one of his interrogators a son of a bitch. Joe was knocked out. After recovering, he was moved to various camps until he was finally transferred to Stalag III-C, a camp in Limburg, Germany.

Joseph Beyrle considered it his duty to escape. He made a plan to join the Polish resistance or the Soviet army and fight alongside them. He made several escape attempts, including one in which he and his friends, Brewer and Kemp, mistakenly boarded a train headed to Berlin instead of Poland. In Berlin, of course, they were found and detained by the Gestapo for a week and then returned to Stalag III-C. Devastated, but with their spirit intact, they decided to escape once again. His hopes were high. The three had heard over a smuggled radio that the Soviet army was about to enter Germany.

It was the year 1945. The 3 men decided to hide in barrels in a car that was going to take them out of the field. But as they left the camp, tragedy occurred and the cart overturned, spilling the contents of the 3 men on the ground. The 3 men fled. But that day only Joseph survived. After running through the fields for several days and hiding in a barn, he heard the sounds of T-34s and knew it was a Russian tank division. Full of energy, he ran towards the tanks, raised his hands in the air and shouted: "Amerikansky Tovarish!" which meant "comrade American!" It is said that the tank commander who met him was none other than Alexandra Samusenko, the first female tank commander in history.

Instead of asking for help returning home or shelter, Joseph asked to be able to join the division and fight alongside the Soviets. Alejandra agreed. A couple of days later, Joseph Beyrle found himself traveling in a Lend-Lease Sherman tank that had been supplied to the Russians on their way to Berlin. In a surprising twist of fate, he was in the battalion that liberated his former camp, Stalag III-C. At the camp headquarters, he broke into the safe and recovered his prisoner card, which at the time was the only identification document he possessed. Joseph planned to march to the gates of Berlin.

But that wasn't meant to happen. He was wounded in battle and taken to a Soviet hospital. Upon hearing about the brave Americans fighting in his army, Marshal Zhukov visited him and gave him some documents that Joe did not understand, but they told him they would take him wherever he wanted to go. Joe headed to the US embassy. The embassy already suspected that Joe was presumed dead. There was even a funeral for him at his church. However, Joe was eventually sent home. In 1946, Joseph married JoAnne Hollowell. In a final twist of fate, the marriage was performed by the priest who had performed Joe's "funeral." On the 50th anniversary of D-Day, his unique service earned him medals from U.S.

President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin at a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden. To this day, the

eagle

he shouted and who

fought

alongside the Soviets is considered a hero around the world. If you like this video, and we hope you do, please consider supporting us on Patreon. We need more sponsors to help us make more videos like this. If not, subscribe and share this video. Anything you can do to help would be great.