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.
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.
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.
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
- 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