In 2009, I first wrote about John M. Beatty’s purple heart. When visiting the Margraten American Cemetary I could not find his grave, even though I knew my family had tended to it when she was young. There are crosses of other Beatty’s at Margraten, but I soon realized none of them was his. Earlier this year, I got this beautiful book “The Faces of Margraten”, but his name does not appear in the index either. So, it was time to start digging to find out more.

I took a trial subscription for ancestry.com and newspapers.com, hoping I could find out more about him. Most of all, what happened with his grave. Apparently, it was at the provisional cemetery at Margraten originally, but his body was exhumed and repatriated to California.

I also found out some other interesting stuff, but there’s still a lot of information missing about his service life. Especially how he ended up in the 17th Airborne, just prior to Operation Varsity.

If you have any books or other references about the 69th Infantry Division or the 17th Airborne Division, 513th PIR, can you help me?

Read the complete article about Jack Beatty