Local vet elected as president for WWII association

The 65th Division World War II Association elected Emil F. Beck of Odessa for the coming year as its 55th president at its annual meeting held in Sheffield, Ala.

The Association, chartered in 1951, five-years after the division was disassembled by the Army in August 1945, after the war in        Europe was won May 8, 1945.

The division served under Gen. George S. Patton Jr. in the third army.

They began their march through Europe by assaulting the Siegfried line between the border of France and Germany in March 1945.

They were the closest division to Berlin before being directed to turn south toward Austria, capturing that country before the war ended.

At its peak, the division held 15,000 soldiers while in combat. It also rescued several concentration camps in southern Germany.

The association still has about a 1,000 members all across the United States.

Beck will serve as president of the association through September 2009, they will meet in West Point, N.Y.

Beck has arranged for the group to come to Odessa for the mid-winter meeting in February 2009.