ANOTHER REASON 'HIS' WAS THE GREATEST GENERATION

Have you noticed the smile of a golfer tapping in a birdie over your bogey?  That’s the infectious smile of Bill Beavers. 

That smile made him a top salesman for Greensboro’s Cliff Weil Wholesale, from which Bill retired in October, 2008, with fifty-five years of service.  Actually he requested retirement in 1992 but was coaxed into a sixteen-year ‘soft retirement’.

I guess it is hard to break away when you’re winning trips for your entire family to Hawaii, Acapulco, Puerto Rico, Alaska and the Bahamas.  And don’t forget those sales meetings Bill was forced to attend -- at the Doral, Pinehurst, Homestead, Greenbrier, etc.

Backing up a bit, Beavers was raised in a Christian home, and made his profession of faith at Asheboro Street Baptist Church at the age of ten.  His family lived in Raleigh, NC during his middle school years, “I golfed about every day at Carolina Pines.” 

He worked as Assistant Golf Professional at Gillespie Golf Course after graduating from Greensboro High School.  In the throes of WW II, he worked briefly as a welder in Wilmington before joining the Army.

“I signed up for Combat Engineers to use my welding experience, but a guy with a bird on his shoulder said I was going to the Army Air Corps.”  Soon, Beavers was off to Keesler Field, Biloxi, MS for Basic Training.

“When the company commander learned I was a scratch golfer, he and I golfed while others were taking serious hikes!”  Is there any doubt, golf is in Bill’s DNA?

Next came B-17 Gunnery Training at Las Vegas and Overseas Training at Tampa, where Waist Gunner Beavers and his crew were issued their brand new B-17 Flying Fortress.

B-17 Call Sign "Dottie" In Action

For a break-in flight they flew to Foggia, Italy, where they joined Squadron 340, 97th Bomb Group, 15th Air Force, tasked with, “Destroy Germany’s ability to wage war.”

Bill Beavers In Italy - 1944

“Our first combat mission was quite a learning experience, we were attacked by five German fighter planes.”  Bill’s crew soon progressed to Lead Crew, making them first plane over targets.

“On about our 30th bombing mission -- Ploesti, Rumania -- we had an engine shot out, a second engine failed, and eventually the third lost power.  We flew hundreds of miles on one engine before crash-landing.”  “We were praying to make it over the Adriatic Sea to safer haven in Italy before ditching.”

Bill was wounded in the crash and awarded a Purple Heart.  Later, the Air Medal with several Oak Leaf Clusters was added to his military decorations, along with five bronze battle stars.

“The most dangerous place to be in WWII was in a bomber over Germany,” according to BOMBERS OF WWII, by Jeffrey L. Ethell.       

With a new pilot and different B-17, Bill and several of his original crewmen soon returned to action.  Beavers completed 56 combat missions, but the 57th did not go exactly as planned.

Let’s go back to the night before Mission #57.  “A strange guy none of us knew, came into our barracks talking about a time when his parachute failed to open.”  “He showed us how to unsnap the parachute, allowing it to open, should the ripcord happen to fail.”

Bill now insists, “That strange guy could have been an Angel of the Lord!”

The next day, while bombing railroad yards in Augsburg, Germany, anti-aircraft flak took out their #2 engine and wounded the bombardier.  “We’ll have to bail out,” ordered the new pilot, not feeling they could gain sufficient altitude to cross back over the Alps. 

Bill and his experienced buddies suggested they try for safe harbor in Switzerland, which was just minutes away. 

“The cockpit was quiet until someone yelled that the pilot and co-pilot had already jumped!”  “We were all scared to death to jump.  Our Tail Gunner was a big guy from Texas, he had always insisted we not worry, he would personally kick our butts out, one by one.” 

“When his time came, the Texan froze and we had to boot his butt out,” jokes Bill.

Airmen are well-trained on ‘bailing out’, Bill followed all the instructions, but his parachute failed to open.  Then he remembered the strange guy from the night before and followed his instructions.  Whether by coincidence or providence, he landed safely. 

The bad news, Bill was welcomed to Fussen, Germany by the Nazi Wehrmacht.  Via boxcar and foot, he was taken to a POW Camp at Nuremburg.  Each day on their journey Allied Forces bombed or strafed the POW convoy.  “We figured to be killed, we just didn’t know by whom!”

From Nuremburg, Aviation POWs were marched to Frankfort’s Dulag Luft, a Luftwaffe Interrogation Camp. 

After a ten-day march, the POWs found themselves in Moosburg’s Stalag 7.  “The German guards didn’t have much to eat themselves, so we had less.  We pilfered and lifted what we could along the roadside and villages.  I can tell you, raw radishes will set your mouth on fire!”

The MIA Telegram Sent to Bill Beaver's Parents

Stalag 7, about twenty miles northeast of Munich, was built in 1939 to house 10,000 prisoners.  When liberated in April, 1945, one report said it housed 7948 officers and 6944 enlisted POWs, from every Allied country.  Up north a ways, Adolph Hitler committed suicide on April 30.

“I will never forget those tanks rolling in and the guards rolling out -- it was thrilling.”  General Patton spent May 1 visiting with the liberated POWs.

Staff Sergeant Beavers, who had lost fifty pounds, was flown to Camp Lucky Strike, near La Havre, France, for medical attention, then by Liberty Ship to New York.  He volunteered for KP Duty aboard ship and was made Mess Sergeant, “That way, I could eat all day, I was perpetually hungry!”

After the War, Bill returned to Gillespie Golf Course in Greensboro as Assistant Pro for several years, before joining Cliff Weil Wholesale in 1953.

He undoubtedly invoked that infectious smile again to win and woo the hand of Mary Martin, whom he married on June 26, 1955.  The Beavers had two children, Randy, who died as a young adult, and Melody, who lives in Matthews, NC.  Ashleigh is the only grandchild.

Beside Bill’s POW conundrum -- there was one other -- he once made a par four hole-in-one.  The problem -- Mary was in the hospital expecting their first child, so who could he tell?

Interestingly, General Jimmy Doolittle was the first Commanding Officer of Bill Beavers’ 15th Air Force, and the Enola Gay’s Paul Tibbetts once commanded Beavers’ Squadron 340.

Bill Beavers and his Wife Mary 

Even though Beavers and his crew left their B-17, it continued on to Switzerland, just as the crew had suggested – the rest of that story will be continued by a Swiss researcher, THE DAY THE BOMBER CAME.