Carl Beck won’t be at Normandy a week from Friday, the 70th anniversary of the morning he parachuted behind German lines in the wee hours just before Allied forces stormed French beaches on D-Day.
But he’ll be thinking about it, and wishing he were there, like he was for the 40th, 50th and 60th anniversaries, parachuting out of transport planes like he did on June 6, 1944.
“I’ve told all my friends in Normandy, I’m just going to hang loose this year,” says Beck, 88, who trained at Toccoa and fought through France, Holland and Belgium as a member of the 501st Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. “My French friends are awfully disappointed.”
Though his hearing isn’t what it used to be, Beck is as tall, thin and erect as he was in 1944, with a booming voice and a quick smile. He speaks often to school groups and other organizations, and recently addressed the Atlanta chapter of Jewish War Veterans and 400 members of the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association.
A former commander of the Atlanta World War II Roundtable, he also swears in new members of the organization every month at a restaurant in Toco Hills, always starting with a joke — “Don’t steal the silverware, they count it” — before reminding the aging audience that “freedom is not free.”
On a recent visit at his home, just outside Decatur, he recounted names and hometowns of friends who died and spelled names and towns in France, Holland and Belgium as if the letters were part of the name.
For his appearances, he dons a replica of his old tunic, adorned with a Purple Heart. Bronze Star, French Coix de Guerre, Belgian Forreguerre and Dutch Order of Wilhelms, and pulls out maps that allow him to point to places where friends died.
“Our job was to hold the Douve River, D-o-u-v-e, and secure and hold the dam. Soon after I hit, I found my friend Robert Johnson from down in Oklahoma. We had these clickers. We wandered around, and every time we’d move, they’d shoot.”
Later, “we went to this little town of Baupte, B-a-u-p-e,” and “met some guys from the 82nd. Each time I go back, these people say, ‘You are our liberator.’ They loved us and still do.”
He talks about his best friends, Joe Allwyn “pronounced all-wine” and Bones Watts from La Jolla, Calif., “the kid of our platoon and a real character. In Holland he picked up some binoculars, raised up and looked, and a sniper got him.”
He told the lawyers “stories as only a member of oour greatest generation could,” said spokesman Chris Kelleher.
Beck gives back to the community by “going out to numerous schools to educate the children about World War II,” said Lee Weinstein, the Roundtable’s commander.
“Carl is the face of what we hope to do,” said Bill Dean, chief fundraiser for an effort to restore Camp Toccoa as a tourist spot. “We got a $25,000 donation from Tom Hanks. We’re going to need $8 million. We owe it to men like Carl to get this done.”
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