John W. Beach: Korean War Military Policeman in Japan

By Matthew M. Peek, Military Collection Archivist, State Archives of North Carolina

John Wayne Beach was born on September 3, 1934, in the town of Newton in Catawba County, NC, to John Henry and Mary Edna Taylor Beach. John’s mother Mary died of tuberculosis in 1945. John W. Beach and his sister Shirley were sent to live with their father’s sister Ethel Lemmons and her husband James in Newton. John W. Beach would attend high school at Newton-Conover High School in 1952.

After he graduated high school, Beach was enlisted for active service with the rank of Private in the U.S. Army in Charlotte, NC, on June 27, 1952, during the Korean War. He attended basic and advanced individual training (AIT) at Fort Jackson, SC, where he was serving in Company I, 61st Infantry Regiment, 8th Infantry Division, during training. Beach earned his primary Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) at Fort Jackson on November 7, 1952.

KOR 28.F5.1: Small studio portrait of U.S. Army soldier John W. Beach of Newton, NC, taken at Fort Jackson, SC, in 1952 during the Korean War. Photograph taken while Beach was serving in Company I, 61st Infantry Regiment, which was a training unit at Fort Jackson. Photograph printed on a shareable card format by the Army, with Beach’s full name, home address, and military unit, written in pencil by Beach on a lined template on the back of the photograph.

KOR 28.F5.2: Photograph of U.S. Army soldier John W. Beach of Newton, NC, standing outside on the sidewalk in front of a military library building at an unidentified Army base during the Korean War [circa 1952–1955].

Beach was sent to Camp Crawford, Japan during the Korean War, where he served as an Army military policeman in the Military Police Detachment, 8016th Army Unit, in the Headquarters Regiment at the camp. Camp Crawford was located in the city of Sapporo on the island of Hokkaido. He remained stationed overseas for just over two years and three months between 1953 and 1955.

KOR 28.F5.7: Photograph of U.S. Army soldier John W. Beach of Newton, NC, wearing his Military Police uniform, standing guard at Gate One at Camp Crawford in Sapporo, Japan, sometime between 1953 and 1955 during the Korean War. Photograph taken while Beach was serving as a military policeman in the Military Police Detachment, 8016th Army Unit, at Camp Crawford.

KOR 28.F5.8: Photograph of U.S. Army soldier John W. Beach of Newton, NC (left), wearing his Military Police uniform, and PFC Kandrock [spelling?] of New York, standing guard at Gate One at Camp Crawford in Sapporo, Japan, sometime between 1953 and 1955 during the Korean War. Photograph taken while Beach was serving as a military policeman in the Military Police Detachment, 8016th Army Unit, at Camp Crawford.

John Beach was promoted to the rank of Corporal on June 19, 1954. He would return to the United States around the end of April or first week of May 1955. Beach was sent back to Fort Jackson, where he was discharged from active Army service on May 5, 1955, and assigned to the U.S. Army Reserve. He remained in the Army Reserve until being honorably discharged on June 30, 1960.

KOR 28.F5.9: Photograph of four U.S. Army officers and soldiers, all wearing heavy wool coats and winter hats, standing outside in the snow next to a sign for the U.S. Army Post Military Police Station at Camp Crawford in Sapporo, Japan, sometime between 1953 and 1955 during the Korean War. The Quonset hut used as a police station is pictured in the background. Pictured is John W. Beach of Newton, NC (far right), while he was serving as a military policeman in the Military Police Detachment, 8016th Army Unit, at Camp Crawford.

After his active Army service, John Beach attended and graduated from Lenoir-Rhyne College in Hickory, NC, earning a BA in English and History in 1959. He taught English and history at a junior high school in Virginia for a year, before returning to Morganton, NC. There, he worked as a staff writer and sports editor for the Morganton News Herald newspaper. John Beach married Betty Pitts Rockett on May 27, 1961, in Morganton. The two would divorce in January 1972. John Beach would work as a probation officer for the state of North Carolina, and in private business. Eventually, he became the city editor of the Hickory Daily Record newspaper. Later, Beach became the editor for the Observer News-Enterprise newspaper in Newton, NC.

John Beach remarried to Frances Beach, but the two divorced in January 1977. John Beach moved in 1977 to Oxford, NC, becoming the editor of the Oxford Public Ledger newspaper. He would remarry to Dorothy Beach and the two lived in Oxford until his death. John W. Beach died on September 1, 1993, and was buried in Meadowview Memorial Park in Oxford, NC.

You can explore more about Beach’s military service during the Korean War era through the John W. Beach Papers (KOR 28) in the Korean War Papers of the Military Collection at the State Archives of North Carolina.

Resources

1. Finding aid for John W. Beach Papers, KOR 28, Korean War Papers, Military Collection, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N.C. https://axaem.archives.ncdcr.gov/findingaids/KOR_28_John_W__Beach_Papers.html