HomeMy WebLinkAboutCurtis Beckham, Brazos Valley HeroesBy Bill Youngkin
Special fo The Eagle
Curtis Beckham of Bryan survived two beach landings
and seven campaigns, from Sicily to Central Europe.
When asked if he was lucky to have survived with only
~' a broken shoulder, his response was, "It wasn't luck, it
Ei% was the hand of the Good Lord on my shoulder."
Beckham was born in Bedias, Texas, on August 16,
': 1921, and is now 86 years of age. "My Dad moved us a
', lot. We lived in places like Detroit, Michigan, Texas and
` Mississippi, where I was working when the war broke
out. I was drafted into the Army and inducted in August
of 1942 at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, which is where
I was separated from the service in September 1945.
It was raining the day I entered the Army and it was
raining the day I was discharged.
"The Army sent me to Ft. Bliss at EI Paso, then to
Ft. Polk in Louisiana and back to Ft. Bliss. I don't know
why they sent me back to Ft. Bliss, but the guys I was
training with in Louisiana were all sent to the Pacific. I
went to Europe, which to me was a lot better than the
jungles of the Pacific.
"We boarded atroop ship in Newyork Harbor, heading
to Oran, North Africa. On the way over we hit some
heavy storms. It was so bad that you could partially see
the propellers on the ship next to you when it headed
down into the waves. You talk about being seasick! We
were all so seasick. We landed at Oran on the day the
North African campaign ended. We began to train for
the invasion of Sicily and Italy. We invaded Sicily without
much resistance and then on to Italy, where we landed
at Naples.
"When I landed in Sicily I was a mortar man in
Company B of the 411 th Infantry. In Italy I was impressed
with how effective mortars can be when our outpost
reported abattalion-size unit of Germans approaching
our position. They were behind and coming around a
steep hill and regular artillery wasn't effective. But our
mortars poured down on the Germans over the hill and
stopped their advance."
"Shortly after this, we were loaded into a truck and
headed up and around a mountain. When we tried to
get around asix-by-six, the edge of the road gave way
and we rolled down the mountain, rolling over six times.
On the fifth roll, I was thrown out, suffering a broken
shoulder. My best friend who was next to me was killed.
I spent three months in the hospital.
"While at the hospital I saw Mt. Vesuvius erupt, which
was an impressive night. When I got out of the hospital I
was reclassified as a radio operator and became part of
a forward observer team. I went from being a thousand
to two thousand yards behind our lines to that same
distance in front of our lines. I carried a 76-pound radio
and ~uha+uvnr +ho lin~d........a ......,..-.,. '- ----~---'-- '
On the north side of Rome, Beckham's unit was
relieved and sent to train for the invasion of southern
France.
"When we invaded southern France, we went into
the beach on a LSI which contained about 200 men.
The LSI to our left hit a mine going in and that was the
end for all those men. The Germans there were mostly
boys and old men, as they had pulled their experienced
troops to defend against the Normandy Invasion. That
first day we captured over 2,000 Germans that we sent
to North Africa as prisoners."
From Southern France, Beckham's unit drove across
France to the Rhine River and eventually to the Ardennes
just before the Battle of the Bulge.
"When the Germans hit us with all those troops
and Panzer units, there was no stopping them. I also
remember the cold. It was 20 below zero at times.
It was amazing how much warmer you could get
if you could dig a trench in the snow and get out of
the wind. Thankfully, the Germans ran out of gas. That
and the 82nd coming to our aid changed things. We
began to push the Germans back and we did that until
we stopped at the Elbe River. There we had 20,000
Germans surrender to us to avoid the Russians.
"One thing about combat is you figure out real quick
who will stay with you and who won't, but you can't tell
that until the time comes. It was often surprising who
would stay with you and who wouldn't. It was the same
with officers. It didn't take long to figure out those you
would follow and those that would get you killed.
"I had a fresh new lieutenant one time that went by
the book and almost got me and several others killed.
After he got chewed out by the captain, he called us
together and apologized to us. You don't always go ';
by the book, you go by instinct. That happened in '.
Italy and I followed him all the way to the Elbe River.
He became one of the best officers you could hope to
serve under."
Beckham came home to New York Harbor in a storm,
unable to unload until the storm passed. He returned to
Camp Shelby and back to Texas, where he married and
was trained as a machinist. He worked as a machinist
for International Shoe for 35 years before retiring in
1985.
"I haven't said much about the war until now. I guess
thought people wouldn't believe me if I told them what
happened and that would have made me mad. So I said
nothing."
Curtis Beckham's name is found on the Brazos
Valley Veterans Memorial. If you want to have a name '!.
added to the Veterans Memorial, for more information,