The Bedford Boys
One Virginia town of 3,000 lost nineteen of its sons in the first minutes of Omaha Beach.
The Verdict
D-Day's cost is usually counted in the tens of thousands; Alex Kershaw counts it in one small Virginia town. Bedford, population around 3,000, sent its National Guard company to Omaha Beach and lost nineteen men in the first minutes of the landing — proportionally the heaviest blow any American community suffered that day. Kershaw follows these farm boys and store clerks from the home-town drill hall to the waterline where most of them died, and the intimacy is devastating. It is why the National D-Day Memorial stands in Bedford and nowhere else.
Who Should Read It
Read it if you want
- D-Day's cost measured through one community
- Intimacy over scale
- The home-town story behind Omaha Beach
- Why Bedford holds the national memorial
Look elsewhere if you want
- The operational picture of the landings
- A broad campaign history
- Strategy over personal loss
Why We Rated It 4.4
Historical Context
The Bedford Boys (2003) tells the story of Bedford, Virginia, whose Company A of the 116th Infantry suffered devastating losses in the first minutes of the Omaha Beach assault on 6 June 1944 — the highest known per-capita D-Day loss of any US community. The National D-Day Memorial was sited in Bedford in recognition.
Events Covered
Read It Alongside
Where to Buy
ISBN: 978-0306813559
Read This Against
The same events seen from a different vantage point. The fullest understanding often lives in the space between accounts that don't agree.
Other Books About the Same Events
Frequently Asked Questions
- Why is the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia?
- Because the town lost an extraordinary number of its sons in the first minutes of the Omaha Beach landing, the heaviest proportional loss of any American community.
- Is the book about the battle or the town?
- Both, but its lens is the town — the men of Bedford and the families they left, before and after the landing.