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The Old World’s Medieval Untouchables and Other Random Historical Facts

Khalid Elhassan March 17, 2020 33 min

Pancho Villa - Mexican Revolution — General Pancho Villa before a firing squad in 1912. Wikimedia

14. Marine Sergeant Bea Arthur

Bea Arthur’s US Marine enlistment photo. National WWII Museum

Bea Arthur downplayed her WWII contributions, denying having served and steering questioners away by pointing out that others had done far more. However, the documentary record shows that in 1943, aged 21, she had enlisted in the US Marine Corps under her birth name, Bernice Frankel. She worked as a typist and truck driver, and moved up the ranks from private to staff sergeant, before her honorable discharge in 1945.

Bea Arthur US Marine ID photo. Wikimedia

It was while serving in the Marines during the war that she met and married her husband, Robert Arthur, whose last name she took. The marriage was short-lived, but she kept the name and became Beatrice “Bea” Arthur. In hindsight, admirers of her no-nonsense character would probably nod their heads at the aptness of Maud or Dorothy Zbornak having been a Marine sergeant.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.