[3] In 1939, when World War II started, he tried to enlist in the Royal Air Force to become a pilot, but was turned down and signed up for the Merchant Navy as a radio officer.
After three months training to become a radio officer, studying Morse code, Beckman was assigned to merchant vessels participating in the Battle of the Atlantic until 1942 and was torpedoed twice.
[4] He was posted to Bombay in 1942 and spent two years with the Mogul Line, crewing auxiliary vessels for the Royal Indian Navy across the Bay of Bengal, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.
Beckman tried his hand at several businesses and eventually went into partnership with John David Gold to start a men's clothes manufacturer, opening their first factory in Crawley in 1952.
While working for the Mogul Line, Beckman wrote many articles and short stories which were published in the Sind Gazette and Egyptian Mail amongst other newspapers.