Beale was a USAAF officer in the Second World War who flew Consolidated B-24 Liberators from the Aleutian Islands and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

[2] In April 1958, CAT sent Beale to Clark Air Base in the Philippines, where he was assigned a Douglas B-26 Invader that had been painted black and had its markings obscured.

On April 19, 1958, Beale flew the bomber to Mapanget, a rebel-held Indonesian Air Force base on the Minahassa Peninsula of northern Sulawesi.

Beale flew his first AUREV mission on April 20, attacked Palu, the provincial capital of Central Sulawesi, with four 500 lb (230 kg) bombs followed by machine-gun fire.

[3] On April 21 he made a similar attack on the Indonesian Air Force base on the island of Morotai, damaging the runway and setting a line of fuel drums on fire.

[7] Beale attacked Ambon City, the provincial capital, setting on fire a military command post, a fuel depot and a Royal Dutch Shell complex.

[9] He first hit the airfield with a bomb in the middle of the runway, and then turned to attack the Royal Dutch Shell oil terminal in Balikpapan harbor.

He then aimed a bomb at a second British tanker,[9] the 8,139 ton MV Daronia, that belonged to another Royal Dutch Shell subsidiary, Anglo-Saxon Petroleum.

[9] With the last of his 500 lb bombs, Beale turned seaward and sank an Indonesian Navy Bathurst-class corvette, KRI Hang Tuah, killing 18 crew and seriously wounding another 28.

[18] On the afternoon of May 13 Beale and his B-26 attacked Ambon again, this time accompanied by an AUREV Consolidated PBY Catalina flown by CIA agent Connie W Seigrist.