Edward Beavers was born on November 22, 1918, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He attended Calhoun College and Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, before enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Corps in July 1941. Beavers went on active duty to begin the Aviation Cadet Program of the U.S. Army Air Forces on December 18, 1941, and was commissioned a 2d Lt and awarded his pilot wings on October 9, 1942. Lt Beavers deployed to England in April 1944, and joined the 503rd Fighter Squadron of the 339th Fighter Group as a P-51 Mustang pilot in July 1944. He was credited with the destruction of 5 enemy aircraft in aerial combat between July and November 1944, and he was Killed in Action by flak over Cologne, Germany, on November 27, 1944. Captain Beavers' remains were returned to the United States in May 1948, and he was buried at the Dunmore Cemetery in Dunmore, Pennsylvania.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.