 |
| Sgt. Harry Beightol was the nose gunner on B-24 Marty the Rubble Maker https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/21839574/harry-marshall-beightol http://thepastpresented.com/index.php/tag/ssgt-harry-m-beightol/ |
Harry Marshall Beightol never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.
Harry was born on June 5, 1920 in Westfield, New York. His parents Vernon and Nellie were born in Pennsylvania and New York, respectively. His father worked as a farmer and a furniture factory inspector. Harry had three older sisters, four older brothers, and one younger sister. By 1940 Harry was still living at home. He had completed four years of high school and worked as a helper mechanic. At some point he married Mary Jane Wood.
He was drafted into the army in December 1942 and volunteered for the Army Air Forces where he became a staff sergeant in the 722nd Bombardment Squadron, 450th Bombardment Group, 15th Air Force, which was equipped with B-24 Liberators. The 459th BG was sent to the Mediterranean in December 1943. It was used for strategic bombing of targets in Italy, France, Germany and Eastern Europe.
Sgt. Beightol's 50th mission was on May 12, 1944. It was supposed to be his last mission before going home. The target that day was harbor installations at San Stephano, Italy. He was flying in B-24 42-52096 which was nicknamed Marty the Rubble Maker. Two minutes after dropping its bomb over the target, Sgt. Beightol's B-24 was damaged by a flak hit that knocked off the left rudder. The plane dropped into a dive which the pilot stopped in time for nine chutes to bail out over the ocean. Landing ten miles out to sea in sixty degree water, none of the crew of ten survived.
Michael G. Moscow wrote a very detailed account of the final flight of Marty the Rubble Maker here.
Sgt. Beightol's grave is at Mayville Cemetery in Mayville, New York.
This is one of the final 100 stories (90) to be written as part of this project which ends on September 2, 2020, the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. At that time more than 1,370 men and women will have been profiled. The project will live on in an expanded program to write the stories of all 400,000+ US World War II fallen. Visit www.storiesbehindthestars.org to learn more. We welcome your continued support and interest and encourage you to help write some of these stories.
Last year on this date I profiled Silver Star hero Charles Farnum, 442nd Infantry Regiment. You can read about Charles here.
On behalf of the fallen, if you would like to see more people become aware of this project to honor the WW2 fallen, be sure to share with others on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks for your interest!
I created this video to explain why I started this project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXt8QA481lY.
Please consider joining the public Facebook group to increase the exposure of this project. Go to: WW2 Fallen 100
No comments:
Post a Comment