A family story of a medal
After the war, my grandmother adopted Jack Beatty’s grave at the Margraten American military cemetery and cared for it, as did many Dutch people in the area.
Jack Beatty’s mother gave her the purple heart to thank her for caring for his grave. I think they must have corresponded, but no letters were found. I remember my grandmother taking English lessons especially for their trip to the United States when I was little.
My grandmother left me his purple heart when she passed away and it was one of the first items in my militaria collection. She received the medal from Jack Beatty’s mother when she and my grandfather visited her in California (this must have been in the early 1980s, I would guess).
The photograph first turned up when my dad was going through my grandparents’ paperwork. He sent me a scan of it, but didn’t mention the writing on the back. So, I thought Jack Beatty was a staff sergeant with the 69th Infantry Division. I had no reason to think he had been anything else because my grandmother never told me any specifics about him, and I don’t think I asked. In fact, I didn’t even know his name until I got the medal.
Discovering Jack was a paratrooper
As these things go, I only started to wonder about it when it was too late to ask her. Apparently, his parents called him Jack, but the engraving on the medal is ‘John M. Beatty’. Until I received the actual photograph, I always figured he had been with one of the units of which I had gotten insignia from my grandfather (1st Army and the 2nd Armored Division). This made sense because both had seen action in the area from which casualties were interred at the Margraten cemetery.
On the back of the photo is a text written by his mother to my grandmother. It says the photo was taken before he joined the paratroopers. He was with the 17th Airborne Division, 513th Parachute Medical Infantry Regiment, 1st Battalion Medic Detachment.
He was killed at ‘Weasel’ (Wesel) Germany on April 2, 1945 by a German sniper while giving aid to a wounded member of his platoon. The Purple Heart was sent to us (Jack’s parents).
The Purple Heart
The medal was a cherished family piece and was not kept in the same box with all the other American and German insignia from which I was allowed to choose one every now and then when sleeping over at my grandparents. But really only ever so often, because I never did get to collect them all before they both passed away.
After my grandmother passed away, I was given the remainder of the insignia and the purple heart. The medal was kept in its display case, which in turn was stored in its shipping carton.
My grandmother must have kept it in her bedroom closet because the box still smells of her cologne after all those years.
The provisional Margraten American Military Cemetery
With the photo to go with the medal, I thought it all came together, and I planned to pay a visit to Jack’s grave next time I visited Limburg. I knew his remains had been long since repatriated to the United States, but I still expected to find a marble cross with his name on it. But I didn’t. What happened? Did I mis-remember the family stories?
There are crosses of other Beatty’s at Margraten, but I soon realized none of them was his. In 2020 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.
The grave my grandmother cared for must have been at the provisional military cemetery, which was created in November 1944. As the Ninth United States Army pushed into the Netherlands from France and Belgium, American casualties from the area, and also those that fell in Germany were buried here (as Americans could not be buried permanently in enemy territory). Within six months more than 10,000 American casualties were interred at the cemetery.
In the late 1940s the Americans started exhuming, repatriating and reburying fallen US service personnel from across the Netherlands. Over half the American dead were repatriated to the US with the rest re-interred in the expanded Margraten cemetery.
The current cemetery at Margraten was dedicated in 1960 and officially opened by Queen Juliana of the Netherlands.
The grave in the United States
In May 2026, I read “The Margraten Boys” by Peter Schrijvers. It is the story of how the village of Margraten was deeply involved in the creation of the cemetery, as well as its maintenance, protection and the adoption program after the war. The book contains many stories of families that took care of the graves, from one generation to another. It contains a lot of history of the provisional cemetery, and how it was closed after Memorial Day 1948 in order to start the immense operation of repatriation of the remains of soldiers whose families had chosen to bury their sons in the United States.
It appears that my grandmother was one of the local girls who adopted a grave for only three or four years. It is unclear if she already corresponded with Jack’s mother during those years, but going by Peter Schrijvers’ book, this seems unlikely. Local adopters had trouble locating the GIs’ relatives and were even obstructed by the US government on grounds of privacy protection. But the Dutch people were resourceful, and many long-lasting friendships and correspondence with families overseas developed.
Further searching revealed the location of the new grave in the United States. His remains were returned from Margraten and interred at Golden Gate National Cemetery in 1948.
His gravestone also gives us his actual date of birth, August 25, 1916, and confirms the other details I had found online. The grave is located at San Bruno, San Mateo County, California, section C, site 828.
Operation Varsity
I tried to find out just when Beatty joined the paratroops and when he arrived in Europe. The 17th Airborne saw action at the end of war during the Battle of the Bulge, and Operation Varsity. This was the airborne operation to cross the Rhine in Germany. It was the largest single-day airborne drop in history, even to date. From what is written on the back of the picture, Jack was killed at Wesel by a German sniper on April 2 while caring for a wounded comrade. This was 9 days after the jump, as the 17th Airborne fought to take the city of Munster. It seems more likely that he was killed near Munster, as the Wesel area had been cleared of all German threats by then. So, it’s unlikely for him to have been shot there, even if he did stay behind at an aid station in Wesel.
17th Airborne Memorial, Fort Benning
Jack’s name also appears on the first of four bronze panels on the Memorial to the 17th Airborne Division’s Fallen, located at Sacrifice Field, Fort Benning, GA.
Picture from 17th Airborne Division Scions website.
Operation Varsity 17th Airborne Division memorial
Another memorial for the 17th Airborne Division, is located in Wesel, Germany. It is dedicated to the units and men of the 17th that participated in Operation Varsity.
The monument was erected next to a hotel
More info on American War Memorials Overseas
Digging into online archives
From the Los Angeles County CA Archives Military Records, I found the following details to aid my further research:
John M. Beatty, Army serial number 39227518 was born in Kansas in 1916 and enlisted as a private in the Army in Los Angeles on February 20, 1941.
Several other websites list him as killed in action and with the T/5 rank (Technician Fifth Grade), which is strange because this is a lower rank than on his portrait as a staff sergeant (T/3) in the 69th Infantry Division.
In the National Archives, the above details are confirmed and add that Jack had 4 years of high school education before joining the Army at age 24. It appears he worked between finishing school and enlistment. His civilian occupation is listed as ‘skilled occupations in manufacture of miscellaneous electrical equipment, n.e.c.’. He was single, without dependents.
M is for Melberne
In the National Archives in St. Louis, Missouri, the WWII Draft Registration Cards for California, provide some more information about his family situation when Jack enlisted: We learn that the M stands for Melberne, and that his place of birth was Topeka, Kansas. The draft registration card below also lists his home address, the names of his parents and his employer at the time.
They lived on 3336 Farnsworth Avenue, in Los Angeles. As far as I can tell, the original house is no longer there, but it’s still a residential area.
His employer, O’Keefe & Merritt Co. was a manufacturer of stoves and heaters. The company is no longer in business. Some remaining buildings of the Los Angeles plant are still visible, although originally it covered several acres.
Jack was 5’7, which is about 170 cm, so not very tall (but people were not as tall then), and he had brown eyes and brown hair.
At first, I wasn’t able to find anything about his service history. What he was trained for (how he came to be medic), when he arrived in Europe, what units he was with and when.
From the 69th Infantry to the 17th Airborne division
Instead of starting from the 513th PIR angle, I tried to find out for how long he might have stayed with the 69th Infantry Division. The pictoral history of the division lists a John Beatty as KIA and a ‘Fighting 69th Infantry Division Association’ bulletin clearly mentions Jack as one of its fallen comrades. He is marked with Sv. 272. I don’t know what ‘Sv.’ stands for, but 272 must be the division’s 272d Infantry Regiment. There is no mention anywhere of a transfer, collaboration or ‘loan’ of men of the division to the 17th Airborne. Going by the following dates from division’s order of battle, this couldn’t have been until after the Battle of the Bulge.
Interestingly, the 69th was activated only on May 15, 1943, more than two years after Jack’s enlistment on February 20, 1941, well before Pearl Harbor. This begs the question which division or other entity he was assigned to until then. The 69th arrived in the ETO at Winchester, Hampshire England on December 13, 1944 (D+234). They only arrived on the continent on January 26, 1945 and would enter combat on February 11, 1945. It seems that on February 7, 1945, the division was assigned to the V Corps, 1st Army. I was hoping that further research would reveal more about his service life, although it is likely that his service record was lost in the 1973 fire at the National Archives.
In June 2026, I finally found new records at the National Archives online that answered the buring question of when Jack joined the Airborne.
Actually, I found lots of new records mentioning Jack, once I figured out by chance that I should have tried searching for his Service Number split into smaller groups: 39 227 518. This lead me to lots of Morning Reports. These reports were daily, company-level documents used by the Army to track exact personnel status, daily strength counts, and unit locations. Acting as an “exception-based” system, they recorded changes like promotions, casualties, transfers, leaves, etc.
Morning reports are proving to be a great source of interesting details about Jack’s service career. I have tried to make a chronological breakdown of what and when he was mentioned for.
First off, it stands out that the earliest morning report I could find is dated 6 September 1943, so in spite of all this new information, there’s still a big gap from his enlistment in 1941, through 1942-43.
1943 – still with the “Fighting Sixty-Ninth”
6 September 1943, Camp Shelby, Mississippi, Co. “D” 369th Medical Battalion. Jack is listed as a S/Sgt, as one of 20 men reporting for a 15-day furlough. This means that at that point, he was still with the 69th Infantry Division, already a medic, and held the rank of Staff Sergeant.
21 September 1943, 18 of them reported back for duty.
1944 – Parachute School and transfer to the 17th Airborne
4 January 1944, we are still at Camp Shelby, and Jack and one other man are again sent on a 15 day furlough. Both return on the 19th.
2 May 1944 from the Headquarters of the First Parachute Training Regiment at Fort Benning, Georgia: Jack and 30 other men are assigned to Co. “G”, 1st Parachute Training Regiment, as Parachute Class No. 123. All men are listed as infantry-trained. Jack, at this point, is not listed among the men who are medical-trained.
11 May 1944, the same men a transferred to Co. “F”, but remain in Class No. 123.
3 June 1994: In a special order from the HQ of the Parachute School, Jack no longer appears in the list of infantry-trained men, but in a small group of medical-trained men.
6 June 1944 (D-Day): Jack is listed among compay “C” men to be granted an 18-day furlough from 8 June – 26 June.
26 June 1944, Jack is listed in a roster of 17 men having been AWOL after a furlough. So, it looks like he did not return in time from his furlough.
29 June 1944: in the morning report of Fort Benning, Co. “C” 5th Bn 2d PTR, Beatty is still listed as AWOL, to Arr in Qtrs. (arrest in his quarters?)
14 July 1944, still at Benning, Beatty is with 18 men from Company “C” who are transferred to company “M”.
27 July 1944, Special Orders No. 125 lists Jack among all candidates as having qualified as parachutists. They are to be transferred to the AGF Replacement Depot at Fort Meade, Maryland on 30 July.
30 July 1944, the freshly qualified parachutists are sent to Fort Meade by train. Jack is now listed as belonging to Co. “D”, 5th Bn.
7 August: the Replacement Depots states that all men transferred in will remain attached unassigned to The Parachute School Fort Benning until arrival at final destination.
5 September 1944: morning report of the 224th Airborne Medical Company, 17th Airborne Division. Location noted as Marlborough. Jack and another man are listed as sick.
In September 1944, the U.S. 17th Airborne Division was stationed in England, with units headquartered near Marlborough in Wiltshire. Having arrived in the UK that August, the division was held in strategic reserve during Operation Market Garden and spent the month conducting rigorous tactical and flight training. Specific units, such as the 224th Airborne Medical Company, were camped at Manton Downs near Marlborough.
26 October 1944: Jack is again listed as being ill.
27 October 1944: a day later, he is listed as ill and taken to 130th Station Hospital.
1 November 1944: the Company morning report lists Jack as having been transferred to the 216th General Hospital on 29 October. The Admission Roster of the hospital mentions a diagnosis of ‘strain, medial collateral’. In plain English, this is a ligament injury on the inside of your knee. Another record mentions a diagnosis of ‘strain, anterior, cruciate’, which is also a knee injury that would have kept him out of action for a while.
14 December 1944: After about 6 weeks, Jack is listed as having returned to duty from the hospital on 13 December.
This is the last morning report I could find, and he was still a Staff Sergeant at this point.
The last document I found is the Honor List of the dead and missing from WWII of the State of California, from June 1946. This lists Jack as KIA with the rank of TEC5 (T/5), which is equivalent to a corporal. Or 2 grades below S/Sgt. This remains a mystery to be solved.
Still looking for more information
To me personally, his medal and picture are a constant reminder of the immense human sacrifice, more so than any other piece in my collection.
If anyone can help me to find out more about Jack’s service life, or any other details, I would be most grateful. Send me an email.
Wouter,
As a Purple Heart recipient myself I really appreciate this story and what your Grandmother did to honor Jack Beatty’s monument / grave. Do you by chance also have his Purple Heart Certificate? The reason I ask is because I would be happy to help get Jack Beatty registered in the Purple Heart Hall of Honor here in the US in New York. I personally know the administrator. https://www.thepurpleheart.com/
Hi Ken, that sounds great, but I don’t have the certificate. Only his engraved name on the medal and the photo sent by his mother.
When visiting the Margraten cemetery last year, I tried to locate his grave, but I only arrived shortly before closing time and only managed to find the grave of a John Beaty (with one T), also of the 69th Infantry Division. Maybe you can help me out with that?
Dear Wouter,
My dad was on the same squad with John Beatty and was there when he was killed.
After my father passed away in 1995, I found 3 other living survivors of his squad and interviewed them at length.
I wrote the story about what had happened to their squad.
I am my family’s historian.
My father’s name was Herbert H Wegelin Jr.
My name is Patrick.
Contact me at zenithboy88@aol.com
If you are interested in this info.
Regards
Patrick j wegelin