RIP Maynard L. Beamesderfer | 1924-2016
Pathfinders – Team E
501st Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Maynard L. Beamesderfer was a pathfinder with the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. On June 5, 1944, he boarded a Douglas C-47 (Chalk 20) with Team E, composed of elements of the 327th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion (PFAB). Their role was to mark the landing zone coded “E” near Hiesville. Dropped at 00:27, the paratroopers encountered enemy fire.
Sergeant Maynard L. “Beamy” Beamesderfer didn’t yet know it, but eight of the twenty American paratroopers on the stick were killed within minutes of landing in France. Despite this, he attempted to reunite the scattered elements of his team to prepare for the arrival of American gliders as part of Operation Chicago. With no news of his comrades-in-arms, he hoped they had headed towards one of the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment’s main objectives, the Barquette Lock. With a handful of men, at 3:50 a.m. (ten minutes before the scheduled time) and under fire from German machine guns and mortars, he managed to activate the Eureka beacon and the signal lamps intended to guide American planes en route to landing zone “E.”
His mission accomplished but with no news of his missing team members, he then headed towards the Barquette and encountered along the way the famous sappers of the 1st Demolition Section, Regimental Headquarters Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. With Sergeant Jake McNiece, and despite his unfamiliarity with explosives, he participated in the destruction of bridges over the Douve River near the town of Brévands. But his lack of experience in C2 cost him his second injury of the war, after being burned on the shoulder by a German bullet that grazed him. He was shocked by the blast of one of the bridges, having not moved far enough away from the explosives. Although he didn’t suffer any serious injuries, he was unable to continue fighting.
“I only had minor scratches compared to what I saw that day,” explains Maynard L. Beamesderfer. “When you see one of your friends, you look at him and suddenly half his head is blown off, or another one is hit in the stomach, he’s holding his stomach and you can see in his eyes that he’s not going to survive. Things like that, you can’t really explain to those around you. There are no images.”
A few days later, on June 11, 1944, Maynard participated alongside the paratroopers of the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment in the famous bayonet charge commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Cole. He was then engaged in the fighting to liberate Carentan before being placed in reserve and sent back to England to have his unit reconstituted.
Maynard L. Beamesderfer then participated in Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands in September 1944, and then in the Battle of the Bulge.
He returned to Normandy with his wife in 1994 to attend the 50th anniversary of D-Day.
He died on August 12, 2016, in Santa Teresa, New Mexico (United States).
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