On June 6, 1944, Joseph Beyrle and 24,000 other soldiers parachuted into Normandy, but he accidentally landed on the roof of a church in a German-controlled village.

Beyrle, a paratrooper born in 1923 from Muskegon, Michigan, USA, once turned down Notre Dame University's scholarship to enlist.

Prior to the landing on the Normandy coast, France, Beyrle was stationed in Ramsbury, England, and often carried out missions behind the enemy's front lines, such as twice invading the Nazi occupied area of France to

On the morning of June 6, 1944, before more than 5,000 Allied warships landed at Normandy Beach, thousands of paratroopers jumped into controlled German territory and suffered great casualties, but Beyrle was lucky to live.

John Beyrle, son of Beyrle and US ambassador to Russia for the 2008-2012 term, said his father tried to get in touch with his teammates but failed.

Along with the other prisoners, Beyrle was gradually brought east as the Allies regained more and more French territory from Germany.

Shortly thereafter, in the autumn of 1944, Beyrle continued to plan on escaping from a POW camp in Poland.

The guard turned his back while Beyrle and his fellow inmates climbed over the barbed wire fence.

Beyrle escaped a "life after death" when the Nazi Army (Wehrmacht) asked Gestapo to hand him over, then took him back to Stalag-III C camp in Alt Drewitz village, western Poland.

This time, Beyrle hid in a garbage disposal bin, then escaped the pursuit using a compass toward the Soviet cannon fire.

The head of the battalion that Beyrle sought for help was Alexandra Samusenko, the only female commander of the Soviet army, who had received the Red Star Medal and was then 22, the same age as Beyrle.

According to Beyrle's story, the Red Army soldiers were surprised, but in the end he persuaded Samusenko to save his life and allowed him to fight with the battalion before a common enemy in Berlin.

Beyrle and his new comrades liberated Stalag-III C, the last camp he was imprisoned.

However, this time period lasts only a month.

Marshal Georgy Zhukov, the deputy commander-in-chief of the Soviet army, visited the hospital and paid attention to the only American there.

However, Beyrle's journey back to his homeland continued to be hindered.

The US Embassy in Moscow does not believe he is Beyrle, even doubting whether he is a German spy or not.

At home, veterans who fought for the two countries' army returned to normal life, working for a company, getting married, building a family, and telling war stories for their children.

In 1994, on the 50th anniversary of the Normandy landings, Beyrle was honored by then US President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin at the White House.