Maj. Beaumont Freed Is Report
Chicago Paper Carries His Name
Maj. Fred Beaumont, 40, Council Bluffs, taken prisoner at Kasserine Pass, North Africa, Feb. 17, 1943, was among those liberated by the U. S. 3rd army south of Braunau, Austria, according to unofficial information received here.
His wife, Mrs. Virginia Beaumont, 304 Glen avenue, said Saturday she received a telephone call Friday from a friend at Fort Sheridan, Ill., who stated that Maj. Beaumont’s name was listed in a Chicago Sun newspaper item as among those liberated.
The caller said that the story mentioned Maj. Beaumont and Capt. Tom Corcoran of Rock Rapids, were in charge of a group of prisoners found in the woods five miles south of Braunau, where they had been hiding for four days.
Mrs. Beaumont said that she has not received any word from the war department of her husband’s reported liberation.
A check by The Nonpareil with the Chicago newspaper resulted in a reply that the “name of Maj. Fred Beaumont of Council Bluffs appears on a list of prisoners of war released by Patton’s 3rd army south of Braunau, Austria yesterday.”
Edward D. Ball, Association Press correspondent with the U. S. 3rd army reported in a dispatch that the army found 21,000 allied prisoner including 4,100 American airmen, Friday in a woods five miles south of Braunau. They had been abandoned by the Germans after being marched into the Bavarian redoubt. All were ravenously hungry and suffering effects of several days in the woods.
The Americans appeared, for the most part, in fair physical condition. The starved and diseased Russians, Poles and Czechs were in a pitiful state, the press dispatch stated. It added that the list of liberated included Sgt. Howard Beaman of Casey, but did not mention any other Iowans.
Maj. Beaumont, who is private life was a practicing physician and surgeon here, was attached to a medical unit of the 168th infantry when taken prisoner. Mrs. Beaumont said that the last prisoner of war camp her husband was stationed in was at Krems, Austria, with a group of airmen.
Source: The Council Bluffs Nonpareil, Council Bluffs, Iowa, Sunday, May 06, 1945, Page 2 (photo included)
