The Simple Sounds of Freedom : The True Story of the Only Soldier to Fight for Both America and the Soviet Union in World War II [Hardcover]

Thomas H. Taylor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 17, 2002

One of the most amazing stories of World War II is also likely to be among the last.

As the twentieth century closed, the veterans of its defining war passed away at a rate of a thousand per day. Fortunately, D Day paratrooper Joseph Beyrle met author Thomas H. Taylor in time to record The Simple Sounds of Freedom, the true story of the first American paratrooper to land in Normandy and the only soldier to fight for both the United States and the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany.

It is a story of battle, followed by a succession of captures, escapes, recaptures, and re-escapes, then battle once more, in the final months of fighting on the Eastern Front. For these unique experiences, both President Bill Clinton and President Boris Yeltsin honored Joe Beyrle on the fiftieth anniversary of V-E Day.

Beyrle did not strive to be a part of history, but history kept visiting him. Twice before the invasion he parachuted into Normandy, bearing gold for the French resistance. D Day resulted in his capture, and he was mistaken for a German line-crosser—a soldier who had, in fact, died in the attempt. Eventually Joe was held under guard at the American embassy in Moscow, suspected of being a Nazi assassin.

Fingerprints saved him, confirming that he’d been wounded five times, and that he bore a safe-conduct pass written by Marshal Zhukov after the Wehrmacht wrested Joe, at gunpoint, from execution by the Gestapo. In the ruins of Warsaw his life was saved again, this time by Polish nuns. Some of Joe’s story is in his own words—a voice that will be among the last and best we hear firsthand from World War II.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This is the riveting story of Joe Beyrle's amazing World War II odyssey. An unassuming kid from Muskegon, MI, who joined the famed 506th regiment of the 101st Airborne Division (called the Screaming Eagles), Joe proved to be a tough paratrooper who made two secret drops into France months before D-day. But like many of his comrades, he was left alone and disoriented in the French countryside after his D-day drop. He was captured, escaped, was recaptured, and underwent a vicious interrogation that led to a cracked skull. He was then thrown into a boxcar full of American POWs and shipped east. Thus began a hellish journey that eventually led to his escaping the German stalags and joining a Soviet tank battalion on the eastern front making him the only soldier to have fought in both the U.S. and Soviet armies. Incredibly, this is the first time Beyrle's story has been made public, and Taylor tells it with true "Airborne" pride. Taylor himself is a highly decorated Screaming Eagle of the Vietnam era whose father was Gen. Maxwell Taylor, the legendary leader of the 101st during the European campaign. Taylor skillfully intermixes Joe's ordeal with the 101st's battles against the Germans, from D-day to Bastogne. He has carefully corroborated the details of Joe's adventures with other POWs and available documents. Fortunately, Beyrle is still alive to enjoy the recognition his unbounded courage deserves. This book belongs in all World War II collections. Jim Doyle, Sara Hightower Regional Lib., Rome, GA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The hero of this as-told-to war memoir, Joseph Beyrle, was fortunate to have survived World War II. A paratrooper in the famed 506th Paratroop Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, the unit featured in the Band of Brothers book (1992) and movie, Beyrle's is predominantly a POW story. Before capture, the then 18-year-old had jumped twice into France to deliver money to the Resistance, but his war took a worse turn when he was captured on D-Day. Taylor (the son of the 101st's commander, Maxwell Taylor) seemingly transmits the ensuing account as-is, not doubting improbable details; indeed, Taylor positively requests of the reader a "small indulgence . . . for accuracy of times and places." He then relates an incredible odyssey of Beyrle's escape attempts, survival in several POW camps, and ultimate escape to the advancing Russians, with whom he volunteered to fight and was subsequently wounded. Despite the presentation's compositional bumpiness, it carries Beyrle's courageous war mettle directly to the avid audience for stories concerning the legendary 101st. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1St Edition edition (September 17, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375507868
• ISBN-13: 978-0375507861
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #294,667 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars amerikanski tovarisch!, December 30, 2003

By 

Chapulina R (Tovarischi Imports, USA/RUS) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Simple Sounds of Freedom : The True Story of the Only Soldier to Fight for Both America and the Soviet Union in World War II (Hardcover)

Several years ago I read parts of Joe Beyrle's memoir, translated into Russian for the gazette Sovietskaya Zhizn'. "The Simple Sounds of Freedom" contains Joe's entire memoir and his exciting biography by Thomas Taylor. Mr. Taylor, a veteran and historian of the 101st Airborne "Screaming Eagles", is the perfect choice to tell Joe's story. Joe Beyrle was a small-town boy in 1942, gung-ho to prove the patriotism of his German-American family. He joined the Screaming Eagle "Currahees", and made a couple of harrowing jumps into occupied France to aid the Resistance. That was in preparation for the big day, D Day. Alas, Joe was captured almost as he touched ground in Normandy and missed his chance to fight. He survived beatings upon arrival at a POW camp, only to experience a most painful sight: the bullet-riddled body of his beloved CO, Robert Wolverton, hanging from a tree. Laughing guards were using the slain Currahee for bayonet practice. Later escaping, Joe was caught, tortured, and interned in a notorious concentration camp, Stalag 111-C. There he saw miserable Soviet prisoners, segregated, starved, freezing, worked to death. There was little the American krieges could do for them, except throw some bread over their fence on occasion. Again, Joe plotted escape, and finally succeeded, although two of his buddies perished in the attempt. In his emaciated condition, trapped behind enemy lines, Joe hoped to be rescued by the advancing Red Army. Meanwhile, at home in Muskegon, his family had received word of their son's "death in action" and were grieving his supposed loss. These events are interwoven in the book with the overall campaign of the 101st Airborne. Several chapters do not deal with Joe's story at all, but with his Currahee comrades' accomplishments during this crucial period of the War. I found this did not distract in the least from the biography; in fact, made it all the more interesting. And Thomas' macho style of prose quite enhances his patriotic pride in his Division! It is not until the last third of the book that Joe meets the Soviet column. Commanding the Sherman tank battalion was a Russian woman whose "five-syllable name was unpronouncable." Joe called her by her rank, "Major", and joined the infantry attached to her own tank. His new comrades called him "Yo", and came to appreciate his skill in demolitions. Major led from the front, which meant Joe got plenty of combat action. He accompanied her all the way to the banks of the Oder, prepared to go through the meatgrinder at her side, into Berlin. But then he was wounded, and had to be evacuated to Moscow. Fifty years later, he would be decorated by Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin as the only American soldier to fight for both the USA and the USSR. And he would think about Major and wonder how many of her battalion survived. "Proshchai tovarisch!" he writes. "If she is still alive, I'd go to Russia just to see her -- my major, my CO, my second Wolverton -- who was a woman." I enjoy books about World War ll, but this one touched me in a special way. Today Joe is retired, a veteran of the fast-dwindling Greatest Generation, my parents' generation, who fought Hitler. Ironically, the new generation of 101st Airborne Screaming Eagles fight on against another foe which faced the Soviet army... in Afghanistan.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Writing, March 7, 2003

By 

John P. Rooney "John" (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Simple Sounds of Freedom : The True Story of the Only Soldier to Fight for Both America and the Soviet Union in World War II (Hardcover)

"The Simple Sounds Of Freedom" by Thomas H. Taylor, Random House, New York 2002. The title of the book is derived from President Clinton's speech in France on the fiftieth anniversary of D Day.

This is a biography of Joe Beyrle but the book is also a record of praise for the 101st Airborne. Joe Beyrle, from Michigan, was part of the 101st Airborne when that division dropped into Normandy on D-Day, 1944. He was captured, escaped, capture again and shipped off to a German POW camp. After one escape, he is captured in Berlin, the capital city of the Third Reich; he is tortured by Gestapo. Joe is rescued from the Gestapo by the German Army, the Wehrmacht, of all people, who claim him as their prisoner. They were following bureaucratic procedures, a common trait in Nazi Germany. After regaining his strength, Joe Beyrle again escapes, and this time, he is close enough to reach the relative safety of Soviet lines. After identifying himself as an American, Joe decides to stay with the Soviet armored column in order to kill Germans. Thus, he fights on both the Western and Eastern fronts in Europe in 1944-1945, fulfilling the sub-title of the book, "...Only Soldier to Fight For Both America and the Soviet Union in World War II".

As a 101st Airborne combat veteran himself, the author was capable of an excellent job of bonding with Joe Beyrle, so as to produce an almost personal memoir direct from the Joe's memories. At times, it was difficult to distinguish between Beyrle and Taylor. At other times, particularly in Chapter Sixteen, entitled, "Bastogne", it was evident that it was all Thomas Taylor writing in praise of the division he loves, the 101st. From the viewpoint of a biography of Joe Beyrle, such chapters were unnecessary, but their presence rounds out the story and makes a better history of the time. By the way, the photo collection in the book shows Joe Beyrle aging in a remarkably similar fashion to the character of Private Ryan in the movie, "Saving Private Ryan".

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Curahee all over again!, November 4, 2002

By 

John Fraser (Houston, Texas United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The Simple Sounds of Freedom : The True Story of the Only Soldier to Fight for Both America and the Soviet Union in World War II (Hardcover)

This is the fascinating story of Joe Beyrle of the 101st Airborne Division Screaming Eagles in WWII, written by Thomas Taylor, a Vietnam era Screaming Eagle and the son of the commanding general of the 101st in WWII. Beyrle jumped into Normandy on D-Day and was captured by the Germans. He escapes and is re-captured several times before he joins a Soviet armored unit and fights the Nazis until the end of the war. This is the story of his suffering and triumph over adversity in many situations and circumstances.
It is an inspiring tale of survival and the human quest for freedom. This book is a page turner and I highly recommend it to all.