Living Legacies: James Bedell

By Nathan Kroon The Oceana Echo Volunteer Correspondent

This week, 79 years ago, America and its allies invaded France. In the early hours of June 6, 1944, we led the charge to liberate continental Europe from the unspeakable evils of Nazi occupation. The Oceana Echo presents to you a man who fought to free the world in those darkest days of history and has since worked tirelessly to make the free world a little brighter.

Examine a map of the county, and one will find the residence of James “Jim” Bedell, where Claybanks and Benona township lines compete for a view of Stony Lake. Locals know him for his humor, homemade wooden gifts, and as an organizer of the Stony Lake Men’s Breakfast. Jim enjoys an active and independent lifestyle in his 34th year of retirement. In commemoration of D-Day, and in exchange for help starting his rototiller, Jim accepted an interview to describe his experiences in the Second World War - and beyond.

Born in 1927 to a poor family, Bedell’s mother would die in childbirth within five years. His father worked on an enamelware production line during the Great Depression in Vigo County, Ind. Bedell was the middle child of five, with two younger brothers and an older brother and sister. Fortunately, his father remarried and his new stepmother, Jenny, stayed at home to care for them. The family was sustained by early food programs. “I did not get much out of school,” Bedell admitted. By the 10th grade, the shadow of the draft loomed over him. The U.S. had been thrust into the World War II. “I knew I was going into the army anyway, so I didn’t care much.” He hung out with two other hardened troublemakers whose preferred pastimes involved underage drinking and pitching hedge apples at streetlamps. Frequent warnings from the police, who often spoke with Bedell’s father, had no effect. The trio was finally detained one night for drunkenness and breaking curfew while out chasing girls. It was the last straw.

“I was 17 and I was out of control,” Bedell began in his distinctive Indiana accent, “and so the judge and my parents thought it would be best if I went into the Army. You could do it at 17 if you could get parental approval. They thought that would be the best thing.” It was then September of 1944. “[I reported] first of all to Camp Atterbury, Indianapolis, where I received clothing and some immunizations. I was there for only about four days. [I then went] to Fort McClellan, Ala. where I took seventeen weeks of basic training.” Surprisingly, Bedell enjoyed this rite of passage, which most servicemen consider brutal. “I was proud to be in the Army, and I decided I would become a good soldier.” He soon qualified as an expert in marksmanship. “I was bulletproof and not afraid of anything. I volunteered to become a paratrooper and went to Fort Benning, Ga. where I took five weeks of parachute training. Bedell described the configuration of his lesser-known equipment. “You have a reserve parachute tied around your stomach, a Griswold bag in which the rifle was packed in two pieces and that was strapped to your stomach also. [My most memorable experience was] being in an airplane and knowing I was going to be out the door shortly!”

Once Bedell earned his wings, he boarded a troopship in New York for the nine-day crossing to Le Havre, France. He was assigned to reinforce the 508 Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, which was then in Belgium recovering from the Battle of the Bulge. The 508 PIR had seen extensive action and was decorated for its valiant actions on D-Day before it parachuted into Operation Market Garden while “Jimmy Bedell” was still signing his name on army enlistment rolls. He described his initial role in the 200-strong H Company. “I was a rifleman—you don’t go any lower than that,” he clarified humorously. Bedell would parachute into battle with the iconic M1 Garand, the first standard-issue semi-automatic rifle in history. Bedell joked about how his officers preferred a shortened version of the Garand: the M1 carbine. “The carbine was a… not a very good weapon, but it was carried by officers because it was light. The M1 weighed 9 ½ lbs.”

The official history of the 508 PIR recorded Bedell’s first missions in Europe. “For the remainder of the month, regular training problems were held. Many reinforcements had come to the 508th and the old problem of getting them ready for combat was paramount once again.” Bedell recalled these practice drops, but his most exciting mission could not be found in the history books.

“I was only in harm’s way one time, and it was something in which I volunteered. The German army was in full retreat. They left a tank, a tank commander and a crew of two other people, and their job was to cover the retreat. [The German unit] decided they didn’t want to do that—they wanted to surrender. They could have surrendered to a nearby infantry company, but they didn’t want to surrender to regular infantry. They would surrender to parachute infantry -but we didn’t know -- it could have been a trick.” The call went out for volunteers to capture the enemy tank. Bedell was one of 18 who accepted the mission, led by Lieutenant Nance. The tank blocked a road through a village. Bedell parachuted into the surrounding fields, assembled his M1, and advanced on the town. The G.I.s surrounded the tank before Nance called for the Germans to surrender. “The commander came out of the hatch with his hands up. That was when we knew it wasn’t a trick.” The Germans did not speak English, but one thing was clear. “They were afraid they would be captured by the Russians, and they were very happy to be surrendering to the U.S.” Jim covered the flank while the POWs were led behind American lines. “We took them three miles or so to another infantry company and gave them the prisoners. We then went back to an airfield and were picked up and flown to Germany.”

The remainder of 508 PIR arrived ahead of their comrades. The station was Frankfurt, captured by General George Patton on March 29. H Company was placed on sentry duty. “We guarded the railroad and the trucks that were bringing supplies. I don’t know if we were guarding it against the Germans or against G.I.’s who were stealing stuff!” The company protected bakeries, dairies, and the Supreme Allied Command headquarters, which was being established in the famous IG Farben building. Bedell reflected on life for Germans in the bombed-out city. “It was very much destroyed. [Civilians] were still living there, and they were very happy to see us because, once more, they were still fearful that the Russians would come.” The 508 PIR would remain at this post for 18 months, more than a year after the end of World War Two. “You were very busy all the time doing guard duty. You didn’t have any time off. You constantly trained to be ready in case there was anything else.”

In those turbulent times, the Soviets executed a takeover of many war-torn European countries, including Poland and the eastern half of Germany. These were quickly reduced to communist rule, which would last nearly half of Jim’s extensive lifetime. “Our mission was to reassure the civilians. We paraded all the time so we would be seen and so they would feel safe. The division came home, and we stayed. When we [the regiment] came home, [the civilians] were really upset because they thought that the Russians would come after we left.” These citizens were spared the fate they dreaded. Frankfurt became part of West Germany, and the Americans would return to defend it from communism two years later, in 1948, during the Berlin Airlift. However, Jim would witness these events from the United States. Upon returning in 1946, he was stationed at the 82nd Airborne headquarters in Fort Bragg, N.C. for the balance of his enlistment.

The 36 months he spent in service to his country set Bedell on a better path in life. His parents and the judge were proven right. In his own words, “I was not a good person when I entered the Army, but my first sergeant straightened me out.” Now a reformed man, he used his G.I. bill to earn a Bachelor of Science in Education at Indiana State University. He first taught at Monticello Public Schools for a sixth grade class of 38 students. His favorite subject was U.S. history, especially the colonial period. The 6th graders shared his enthusiasm. He described them as bright and eager to learn. One memorable teaching aid was his 16-millimeter film projector. In 1950, there were no televisions or even overhead transparency projectors. Monticello students were not the only learners, however. Four years later, at age 28, the troublemaker who once didn’t get much out of school was awarded a Master’s degree in education by Purdue. With it, he moved directly into the role of principal for the Valparaiso School District. Valparaiso included seven elementary schools, two middle schools, and a high school with an annual graduating class of around 2,000 students. “I wasn’t qualified, but that was the only choice they had,” he recalled while laughter rolled. “I enjoyed most of it, but the thing that was very difficult was dealing with non-functioning families.”

Even in the 1950s, family structure proved the key determining factor in whether a student (and indeed a school) succeeded or struggled. Family issues manifested themselves in behaviors with which Bedell was all too familiar. “I knew all the tricks.” He did not share specific cases but instead offered hope for those of us who struggle with a difficult past. “I’ve been very fortunate; I forget all the bad things.”

Jim oversaw an early pilot program for individualized learning decades before standardized testing overtook the educational landscape. “The name of the program was Individually Guided Education. I had a different elementary school. It was an experimental thing. The community did not like that program. They didn’t understand what was going on, well, I shouldn’t say the community— some of them. It was hard work for the teachers. They had to do a lot of planning. I worked on that program for maybe four years. When I left, the program left also.”

Jim served as principal until 1989. In these four decades of experience, the most noticeable change to the school system was undoubtedly “The amount of record-keeping that was required. They were teaching the kids to pass the standardized testing, and they were not teaching the whole child. The idea was [only] to improve the standardized test scores.” At the close of a fulfilling 34-year career, Jim and his wife Jane retired and moved to Oceana County. Jane also served her community as a schoolteacher, although in a different district. Bedell volunteered as a tutor at New Era for the first six years of retired life. He continues to promote and help plan the monthly Stony Lake Men’s Breakfast. If our readers desire to learn what it means to be a good neighbor in these modern days of isolation, they need do no more than greet Jim Bedell.

Jim Bedell has lived the exemplary life of a model citizen. In uniform, he fought to defend our civilization from the greatest evils of his time. In the schoolhouse, he worked to preserve the next two generations by enlightening and equipping their minds. In his second full career of retirement, Jim has unceasingly cultivated this corner of our world into one in which it is worth living. The Echo has been privileged to present to the public James Bedell, a member of the greatest generation.

Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die. Romans 5:7