Secrets in Stone: A D-Day Hero’s Legacy at 1860s Fort Larned

At the National Parks’ Fort Larned in Kansas, there is a direct connection to World War II’s D-Day written on the walls, literally! Carved in stone is the name Beverly “Bev” Manlove. A local boy, Beverly joined the army’s elite 101st Airborne Division and took part in the Normandy Invasion. Although he went down with his airplane on June 6, 1944, two of his friends survived and, in a strange twist of fate, stormed the beaches!

Disclaimer: Any opinions expressed are solely my own and do not represent the National Park Service. The purpose of this post is to document my life as a seasonal employee in the service and to educate others.

Paratroopers at Point Du Hoc

D-Day: going into the unknown

Shortly after midnight, in the early morning hours of June 6, 1944, Allied forces began Operation Overload — D-Day. The skies above Normandy, France, lit up with German anti-aircraft ammunition and flames. Hundreds of transport aircraft flew overhead as they brought in more than 23,000 American, British, and Canadian soldiers. Most of these men, over 18,000, were paratroopers, with the rest being glider infantry. Whether they would land behind enemy lines by parachute or by glider, they came prepared.

For one Douglas C-47A Skytrain, of the 96th Troop Carrier Squadron, neither the crew nor paratroopers onboard would complete their primary objectives. The paratroopers belonged to I Company, 3rd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. Piloted by 2nd Lt William H. Zeuner, the plane made a pass over its drop zone but did not issue the green light to jump in time.

Shot down over the English Channel

Jumpmaster 2nd Lt Floyd R. Johnston, in official testimony, stated that the plane seemed to be hit on its first pass.¹ Once the green light came on, however, he looked out and saw nothing but open water — the English Channel. He ordered the pilot to turn around for another run. On the coast near Saint-Pierre-du-Mont, amid bursting shells and as machine gun bullets zipped through the air, Johnston jumped and was first to exit the aircraft. After landing on the ground, he scanned the sky but saw no trace of the plane.

Besides Johnston, three other paratroopers made it out and survived. They were Pvt Leonard S. Goodgal, Pfc Raymond L. Crouch, and Pfc Niels Christiansen. Goodgal recalled that after his parachute opened, he saw the plane on fire, and looking down, prepared for the worst:²

I jettisoned my leg bag, and as much other equipment as I could, and landed in shallow water just off the beach — I was completely lost.

Of the servicemen onboard the plane, 19 lost their lives — 15 paratroopers and 4 aircrew. The survivors had no time to contemplate or to mourn. They were in enemy territory and in just a few hours, the beach landings would begin.

Goodgal and Crouch found each other in the water. Together, they waded ashore sometime after 1 am and tried to work out their position. A sheer cliff at least 100-feet high faced them. To their backs was the English Channel. Deciding to walk along the beach west, the two men set off, drenched and exhausted, in hopes of trying to find a way up the cliffs. Aerial bombs and naval bombardment rocked the ground above them. Then, as dawn broke, landing craft carrying American soldiers came into sight. The paratroopers waved to get their attention, but to no avail. The craft carried men of the 2nd Ranger Battalion and was heading straight for Pointe du Hoc.

Fighting alongside US Army Rangers

At Pointe du Hoc, the 2nd Ranger Battalion had a difficult objective. An assault force of 225 rangers was to scale the 100-foot cliffs and destroy a German gun battery. At their disposal were ropes, grappling hooks, and ladders. Unbeknownst to them, the enemy had moved the guns inland. Still, the Germans defended their fortified positions, from where they rained down grenades and small arms fire onto the Americans.

Paratroopers Goodgal and Crouch approached the rangers in action. Immediately, they began taking care of the wounded. Soon after, an officer spotted them, who they later found out was Col James E. Rudder — commanding officer of the rangers. “Stick with me,” the colonel told the paratroopers, who followed him up a rope to the cliff top.

For two days, the Americans at the pointe fought hard. Thrust into the action, the paratroopers defended the rangers’ command post, which was in a perilous situation. Small pockets of Germans would emerge from underground bunkers and tunnels and launch attacks. The rangers had fire support from ships off the coast but after calling in strikes, many of the shells landed uncomfortably close by. The command post needed to be more visible for the navy gun crews. Goodgal and Crouch, and a few rangers, volunteered to spread an American flag on the cliff face.

Eventually relief came. The paratroopers stayed with the rangers for another two days, before deciding to rejoin their unit. Once they got back, their friends had a hard time believing their D-Day experience, with Goodgal recalling:³

The company had been hit pretty hard… Nobody seemed too interested in hearing our crazy story.

The exploits of the two men gained significant attention only decades after the war. Army historians were aware of the paratroopers’ presence at Pointe du Hoc as early as 1946, when they appear as a brief nameless blurb in an official history of the engagement. ⁴ For the longest time, only veterans knew the full story, told countless times at reunions of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment and the 2nd Ranger Battalion. Finally, in 2001, historian Christopher J. Anderson published an article about this D-Day escapade in the magazine World War II, which reached a wide audience.⁵ More recently, YouTuber Snafu Docs made a video discussing the topic in 2020.

A D-Day connection at Fort Larned

Making an unexpected discovery at work

While working at Fort Larned National Historic Site during the summer of 2025, as a seasonal museum technician, I made a historic discovery. It happened when I was doing research for a ranger talk that I would be presenting for Labor Day weekend. My topic: the many stone carvings on Fort Larned’s walls. Several carvings that stood out and caught my attention were from a “Beverly Manlove.” Beverly, as it turned out, was one of the paratroopers onboard the C-47A shot down near Point du Hoc on D-Day! He featured prominently in my talk, needless to say.

Fort Larned’s stone walls, just like the fort itself, contain a lot of history. The army built the fort to protect trade along the Santa Fe Trail and today, nine of its original sandstone buildings still stand. On the stone walls are hundreds of carvings from the fort’s military era, 1860 to 1884, and its ranching days, into the early 1960s. Leaving them behind were soldiers, civilian government employees, ranch owners, ranch hands, and visitors. Once the fort came into the National Park System in 1964, the buildings became protected and carving ceased — for the most part.

A happy childhood on the Kansas plains

On the walls one last name regularly pops up: Manlove. There are several different first names, including Wade, Ethel, and Beverly. This got me thinking, who was this family and why so many carvings? After a quick online search, I found my answer on Findagrave.com.

Beverly Manlove and his four siblings, Charles, Ethel, Wade, and Sarah, grew up nearby. Their parents moved to the area in the 1920s and bought a farm outside the town of Garfield. Owning Fort Larned at that time was the Frizell family, who had a son named Robert Reed Frizell, born 1923. Robert and Beverly Manlove, born 1922, were schoolmates and likely close friends. Whatever the case may be, the Manlove children spent enough time at the fort to leave their marks.

As for Beverly, he graduated from high school in 1940 and briefly worked as a gas station attendant in Larned. Then on August 31, 1942, he enlisted in the army at Fort Riley. At some point, he volunteered to be a paratrooper and earned his jump wings at Camp Toccoa, Georgia. The army’s airborne forces was a new concept and the thrill, along with extra jump pay, attracted many adventurous young men. Beverly’s regiment, the 506th Parachute Infantry, was made famous in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, which portrayed the men of Easy Company.

The military never did recover his remains. Initially listed as missing in action, a finding of death later changed Beverly’s status to dead. The army posthumously awarded him the Purple Heart and Bronze Star. His name appears on a tablet in the “Garden of the Missing,” inside the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer.

Finding Sgt. Manlove’s carvings

North Officers’ Quarters

The building with most of Beverly’s carvings is the North Officer’s Quarters, west of the visitor’s center. It is on officers’ row and contains four apartments divided into two sections. Each section housed the field grade officers of a company of troops, typically a captain and two lieutenants. These apartments continued to be occupied by ranch hands who worked on the property after 1884.

I was able to find his carvings on the backside and south end of the building. Rather shallow, they are difficult to make out. Also found in the same areas are carvings from his siblings. It seems like the Manlove children spent a lot of time around this structure. This might be because the Frizells lived in the former commanding officer’s house next door.

New Commissary & Post School

Another building marked by Beverly is the New Commissary. Situated southeast of the parade ground, it once housed the overflow of food and supplies from the Old Commissary. Later, in 1871, the army converted the north end of the building into the post’s schoolroom and library. This schoolroom and library were recreated and is furnished with benches, tables, blackboard, and books. It is open to visitors. The remainder of the building houses the park’s museum storage area — off limits to the public. This was my main working area.

One day, as I stood outside by the entrance to my workspace, I took time to scan the walls around the door frame. Lo and behold, I found “BEV. MANLO” carved on the corner of the building! Beverly took his time in etching his first name deep into the wall. When he got to his last name, it appears that he spent his energy and merely scratched the letters, with the last two having faded away.

1. Johnston’s testimony is found in the Missing Air Crew Report (MACR) for the Skytrain #42-100733, available at Fold3.com: https://www.fold3.com/image/28720248/42-100733-page-10-us-missing-air-crew-reports-macrs-wwii-1942-1947 (accessed April 6, 2026).
2. From a partial transcript from an interview with Leonard Goodgal, in Ian Gardner and Roger Day, Tonight We Die As Men: The untold story of Third Battalion 506 Parachute Infantry Regiment from Toccoa to D-Day (Osprey Publishing, 2010), p.165. Retrieved from: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Tonight_We_Die_As_Men/P-m6CwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=sgt+bev+manlove&pg=PA165&printsec=frontcover (accessed April 6, 2026).
3. Christopher J. Anderson, “Screaming Eagles at Pointe-du-Hoc,” in World War II, July 2001, vol. 16, pp.34-40; 92. Available at: https://www.proquest.com/magazines/screaming-eagles-at-pointe-du-hoc/docview/222312248/se-2 (accessed April 13, 2026).
4. Center of Military History [United States Army], Small Unit Actions (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1946), p.45. Available at: https://history.army.mil/portals/143/Images/Publications/catalog/100-14.pdf (accessed April 13, 2026).
5. See previous citation for “Screaming Eagles at Pointe-du-Hoc.”