"March 16, 1943
"Dear Mother:

"I guess that you have foud out by now that I am missing in action but not killed, just captured. I was lucky at that. Five hundred were captured at the same time and I am now in Germany in a prison camp. I went six days without anything to eat before I was caught. I was fighting hand-to-hand and was so bloody when captured that the Germans asked me if I had been painted with red paint."

Pvt. Beard endured life as a POW for over two years, finally regaining his freedom in the early spring of 1945. By then, the once-mighty Nazi war machine was in such disarray it had neither the strength nor the will to offer much more than token resistance as the Allied troops rapidly swept across Germany.

In early May that year, his mother received a letter (dated April 12) from him, telling of his release. A brief mid-May article in The News stated, "He gave no details concerning his release but stated that he is in the best of health and hoped to be home soon."