My Grandfather’s Unit Was Overrun by Hitler Youth, Then Attacked by a Stuka Dive Bomber

Robert Beckhusen

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Piecing together fragments of the past, decades later. 

Jack Beckhusen, my grandfather, died 17 years ago at the age of 84.

He hadn’t been in great shape, and a lifetime of drinking and smoking took away his voice. But I remember as a boy, shortly before he died, sitting with my brother in his house along the Trinity River in southeast Texas as he wrote down his war stories, slowly and barely legibly, on a legal pad.

(This first appeared in 2017.)

Fifty-five years before his death, Beckhusen was a master sergeant — and the command sergeant major — with the 557th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion attached to the 84th Infantry Division “Railsplitters.”

The 557th arrived in France in August 1944, and the unit’s job was to protect and assist the infantry with M45 Quadmount and 40-millimeter anti-aircraft guns. Shooting down German aircraft was the gunners’ number one priority, but their weapons also helped provide covering fire for the infantry when they advanced.

One of his stories, in particular, stayed with me. Shortly before the end of the war, a German plane dived on his unit, fired and killed several U.S. soldiers. The plane was hit during the attack and crashed. Beckhusen only had enough strength to tell this story in short, scribbled sentences — and that was all I learned.

Unable to speak, he still appeared distressed while writing. He also wanted me and my brother to read it. It was the last story he wrote.

Recently, I discovered these soldiers’ names and the specifics of what happened because of an obscure, history of the unit written in 1959 by Clyde Boden, a second lieutenant and platoon commander in the 557th’s B Battery.

I’ve also learned more about my grandfather’s war history, which at times must have been terrifying.

April 1945 was the 557th’s hardest month — and one of the heaviest in terms of combat for the unit, according to Boden’s history. The unit confirmed it shot down at least 10 planes that month, but claimed double the number as possible kills. The battalion expended more than 6,000 40-millimeter shells and 113,000 rounds of .50-caliber ammunition.