Charles Elbert Beals

The database page for Charles Elbert Beals

28 Feb 2003 REMEMBERED ACROSS THE YEARS

Notes On 7 July 1970, D Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry, was conducting a move to contact against North Vietnamese Army units operating in the Thua Thien/Quang Tri provincial border area. As the lead platoon worked its way up-hill toward the suspected enemy, the point was engaged with rocket-propelled grenade fire. The platoon leader saw the point man, SP4 Lewis Howard, and an assistant machine gunner, SP4 Charles E. Beals, wounded by the first RPG rounds. Before Beals could be moved to cover, he was hit in the back and the neck by at least three machine gun rounds. Both men lay in the contested area between the entrenched NVA and the advancing US troops. Immediate attempts by the remainder of the platoon to recover Beals and Howard were forced back by heavy enemy attack. Over the next six hours the balance of D Company made additional efforts to force the enemy from the area but intense enemy fire continued and the US troops withdrew without recovering the two men. D Company lost four men in the fighting: SGT Gerald Lee Risinger, Jeffersontown, KY, body recovered CPL Michael Joseph Grimm, Carthage, NC, body recovered SP4 Charles Elbert Beals, French Lick, IN, missing in action SP4 Lewis Howard, Macon, GA, missing in action Beals' wounds were believed to have been fatal and the initial Missing in Action classification was changed to Died while Missing/Body not Recovered with a casualty date of 08 July 1971 - the date a Presumptive Finding of Death was approved by the Secretary of the Army. SP4 Howard was continued in MIA status until 11 September 1978, when the Secretary of the Army approved a Presumptive Finding of Death.

The point-of-contact for this memorial is his brother, Donald Beals Shelbyville, Indiana dbeals@ivytech.edu  28 Feb 2003

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With all respect
Jim Schueckler, former CW2, US Army
Ken Davis, Commander, United States Navy (Ret)
Channing Prothro, former CAP Marine
Last updated 02/28/2003