|
| |
|
BIOGRAPHIES - Class of 1943
Ernest Ballard Beath Sr
In Memorium,
Ernest Beath,
USNR, JLS 1943
(1920-2001)
Ernest Ballard Beath Sr., a retired analyst with the National Security
Agency who served as a translator in World War II for Adms. Thomas C.
Kincaid, J.J. ‘Jocko’ Clark and John S. McCain, died February 8 of
complications from diabetes at his home in Cambridge, MD. He was 80.
Mr. Beath was born Feb. 20, 1920 in Kaiying, China to missionary parents
from Wisconsin. As a small boy, he loved to sail, once fabricating a tiny
boat out of plywood and tar, christening it the “Tarbaby” and sailing it
with a friend down the Huangpu River into Shanghai.
He graduated from the Shanghai American School in 1937 and then came to
the United States for college. After briefly attending Wake Forest
University in North Carolina, he transferred to the University of
Southern California, where he earned a degree in international relations.
Later he studied Japanese at the JLS at the University of Colorado in
Boulder.
The Navy Reserve put his language skills to good use during WWII,
assigning him to work as a translator on aircraft carriers in the South
Pacific. As an interpreter, he worked directly for Adms. Kincaid, Clark,
and McCain, translating enemy radio dispatches and interviewing prisoners
of war.
“Admiral McCain said he wasn’t going to sea without Ernie Beath; he
wanted him on his staff,” recalled Eleanor Poteat Beath, his wife of 55
years. “He’d listen to the reports and hear that the airplanes were
coming, and tell them to get ready.”
The young lieutenant’s work later merited several mentions by Admiral
Clark in his 1967 memoir, “Carrier Admiral”. Of one skirmish, the admiral
wrote: “We knew from Lieutenant Beath’s Japanese intelligence that over a
hundred planes had collected at Iwo and Chichi and were only waiting for
more favorable weather before heading south to attack our invasion forces.”
It allowed a preemptive move that blunted the Japanese attack, he wrote.
Mr. Beath’s service earned him two Bronze Stars and other medals and
citations.
After the war, he joined NSA and from 1964 to 1967 headed its Taiwan
Defense Command.
On retiring in 1974, he and his wife moved from Annapolis to Town Point,
MD to Cambridge, where he turned his attentions to restoring a 1791
farmhouse and sailing on the Little Choptank River.
But he didn’t retire his language skills.
For several years, he volunteered with the Project Read Program through
the Dorchester County (MD) Public Library, teaching English to Chinese
immigrants. He belonged to the NSA’s Phoenix Society.
Mrs. Beath writes that “We received the Coloradan just before he died.
He had all his `marbles’ ‘til the end so was very pleased to have me read
the article and hear about the picture of him in it.”
Obit from the Baltimore Times-Sun, February 11, 2001
And Mrs. Beath
Source: The Interpreter - The Japanese Language School Project
Archives, University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries Issue 5
August 15, 2000
This information was graciously provided by:
David M. Hays, Archivist
University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries
184 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0184
(303) 492-7242
[Back to Class of 1945]
[JLS]
These pages are dedicated the history of the graduates of the US Navy
Japanese / Oriental Language School, University of Colorado at Boulder,
1942-1946 and also attended USC.
This information has been made possible by
David M. Hays Instructor/Archivist of University of
Colorado at Boulder.
If you have information you desire to
share, please contact the webmaster.
To use the dropdown menu, click on the down arrow, highlight your topic,
and click go.
|
