The only U.S. soldier to have fought for the Soviets in WWII Oleg Yegorov Joe Beyrle fought Nazis in the ranks of both the American and the Soviet army during WWII. Getty Images, Public Domain Joseph Beyrle, nicknamed Jumpin’ Joe, managed to break out of German captivity 3 times, as well as survive a Gestapo interrogation. The man also met Marshal Zhukov and developed a Russian’s love of buckwheat. “This whole story reads like a World War II fiction, that’s way too much”, says the host on YouTube’s Potential History of fate that befell Joseph Beyrle - an American paratrooper who’d ended up with the Red Army in 1945. And he’s right. You couldn’t make this stuff up!