Bedford Boys - One American Town's Ultimate D-day Sacrifice

by Alex Kershaw

June 6, 1944: Nineteen boys from Bedford, Virginia--population just 3,000 in 1944--died in the first bloody minutes of D-Day. They were part of Company A of the 116th Regiment of the 29th Division, and the first wave of American soldiers to hit the beaches in Normandy. Later in the campaign, three more boys from this small Virginia town died of gunshot wounds. Twenty-two sons of Bedford lost--it is a story one cannot easily forget and one that the families of Bedford will never forget. The Bedford Boys is the true and intimate story of these men and the friends and families they left behind.Based on extensive interviews with survivors and relatives, as well as diaries and letters, Kershaw's book focuses on several remarkable individuals and families to tell one of the most poignant stories of World War II--the story of one small American town that went to war and died on Omaha Beach.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War II, War, Military History, Military Fiction, American History

Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Alex Kershaw is the author of the widely acclaimed best sellers Against All Odds, The First Wave, The Bedford Boys, The Longest Winter, The Few, #TheLiberator, the basis for the Netflix drama, and Escape from the Deep, as well as biographies of Jack London, Raoul Wallenberg and Robert Capa. His latest book is Patton's Prayer, published May 2024.

Reviews

[Dem · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

Some months ago my 16 year old son asked me Mum if there was another War and Ireland had to contribute troops would I be drafted ? The hairs stood on the back of my neck as this was something I had never ever thought about as Ireland had been neutral in the past wars and while thousands of young Irish men volunteered to fight the Germans alongside the British in World War II conscription was not a factor. I dread the empty nest syndrome when College comes into play But what must a parent feel when a Child is drafted in Wartime to fight...........for me it just doesn't bear thinking about and when I saw this book I felt I needed to read it as this small town had lost so many to War


June 6, 1944: Nineteen boys from Bedford, Virginia--population just 3,000 in 1944--died in the first bloody minutes of D-Day. They were part of Company A of the 116th Regiment of the 29th Division, and the first wave of American soldiers to hit the beaches in Normandy. Later in the campaign, three more boys from this small Virginia town died of gunshot wounds. Twenty-two sons of Bedford lost--it is a story one cannot easily forget and one that the families of Bedford will never forget.

The book is well written and the war scenes well depicted and gut wrenching but the author focuses more on the human element of the story with so many interviews from family members and surviving soldiers and letters home from men that would never return. So many young men died instantly on D. Day and as one of the Interviewees stated the heroes were not only the ones who died but also the ones who came home and lived with these images for the rest of their lives.

A worthwhile and engaging read that focuses on the sacrifices made by these men and their families and a book that will stay with me.

[JD · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good, yet sad book about the young men from Bedford, VA, who lead the way on Omaha Beach in the first wave and suffered horrendous losses. Most signed up for the National Guard before the war to get some extra income during the Depression years, and the book follows them from this time where the friends, brothers and cousins of this community embarked on their journey into history. It follows their training in the USA and their shipment to Britain where they became one of the best trained units in the army during their 18 months based there. The landing on Omaha Beach is only a small part of this book and the descriptions of the scene is very graphic and holds nothing back. Most of the men were killed within minutes of landing and only a lucky few survived. The book also covers the people left behind on the home front and what they endured which bring something extra to this book, and covers all the survivors' and loved ones lives after the war.

Alex Kershaw is one of the great story-tellers and I have read a few of his books now, and he gives excellent portrayals of the young men involved and this is heart-breaking in the end as most of them dies. Highly recommended and very readable!!

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

“It was ‘one of those amazing miracles which characterize war’.”

I think that with THE BEDFORD BOYS author Alex Kershaw has taken an event that has been written about a lot and given a particular angle on it that is worthy of your attention. WW II and D-Day will long loom large in history, and in reading this text I gained a different, and new, appreciation for the sacrifices of that generation.

In brief, this book is about a group of soldiers from Bedford, Virginia. These soldiers were in the unit that was the first wave on D-Day. You can imagine the rest…

This text is filled with minutia of the period. Virginia in the 1930s and England in 1942/43 are made alive in the little details that Mr. Kershaw seamlessly weaves into the text. It is the little details that make this reading experience so good. Scattered throughout the book are also many nuggets about WW II that are vastly interesting. Again, it’s the particular that illuminates the larger event. So many little facts or personal anecdotes scattered here or there that I was thrilled to find. WW II was such an enormous event, we will always be learning something new about it. There are so many stories, so many powerful personal stories to tell about that event. THE BEDFORD BOYS shares a lot of them!

Here are some moments/thoughts in the text that stood out to me.
This sentiment just shook me…"In the homes that have been darkened by the death of a solider, or have welcomed back the shattered remnants of youth, the burden of war’s tragedy is little lightened by the reassurance that it might have been worse.”
The statistics from the invasion force on D-Day are just staggering: 175,000 men, 11,000 planes (not including strategic bombers), 6,939 boats (the largest armada in history).
Consider this sentiment, shared with the author by a family member of one of the Bedford Boys lost on D-Day. “You lose a son, you never get over it. That’s what war is really about.”

Some other great strengths of this text include:
Mr. Kershaw does a nice job alternating between the families of deployed soldiers on the home front (mostly women) and the boys on the front lines. It makes for a complete picture.
Also of note is how viscerally D-Day is rendered. We are given first hand accounts by survivors. It is harrowing.
I would also be remiss if I did not mention the photographs in the book. They are not of high quality, but they hit home for the reader that war is fought by people who are uncomfortably similar to you and I. Oftentimes I think when reading history we try to put some distance between ourselves and those we are reading about. Never do that!
I found myself tearing up while looking at the pictures.
They all looked like younger versions of my deceased grandfathers.
They were my grandfathers.

THE BEDFORD BOYS was not a book I expected to like as much as I did. But it stuck with me. I picked it up at the library, but ended up buying a copy, because I want to own it! In talking about a particular group of people, Mr. Kershaw covered the nation. I will be reading more of his works.

I end with this thought from the book that sums it up better than I could.
“Here was a generation that had fought and won a ‘good’ war and then possessed the dignity to keep quiet about their sacrifice.”

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

"[National Guard unit] Company A clambered onto trucks. They were 'in for the duration.' The buck a day had saved them from poverty. Now it had bought them a ticket to the frontlines. As the trucks neared their camp for the night, the Bedford boys did not sing or joke as usual. 'We kept our feelings to ourselves,' recalled Lieutenant Ray Nance. 'There wasn't much to say. The president had laid it on the line. We were going to war.'" -- the sobering day after the Pearl Harbor attack of 7 December 1941, on page 22

The quiet community of Bedford in central Virginia was a relatively small farming and factory town of approximately 3,800 folks in the mid-1930's. During that time many of the local young men signed on with their region's National Guard unit - Company A of the 116th Regiment of the 29th Division - sometimes out of patriotism but more so to earn a reliable dollar a day (equivalent to $22.80 in 2025) which helped to supplement their often-financially shaky families during those waning days of the Great Depression. Just when a number of them were ready to muster out "the date that will live in infamy" occurred to fast-track America's entry into World War II, and the unit was quickly shipped to basic training and then stationed in war-torn England. Thirty-three men of Company A were among the first wave of U.S. troops to disembark at Normandy during the lauded but problematic D-Day campaign in June 1944, and ultimately twenty-two of them perished there in action. Author Kershaw paints an effective literary collage of the town, its brave 'boys' (plus some of their family members and/or spouses), and the often-horrific combat experiences during Operation Overlord - similar to the severe 'war is hell' opening fifteen minutes of the cinematic Saving Private Ryan, for a largely accurate point of comparison - in his tragic but engaging The Bedford Boys.

[Jay Schutt · Rating 5 out of 5]

The horror of being in the first wave of assault on Omaha Beach on D-Day and how it affected one small Virginia town.

[A.L. Sowards · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book and its focus on a relatively small group of men and the families they left behind. Most of them joined the national guard during the depression for the extra money. Company A was from small-town Bedford and included cousins, brothers, and friends. They were federalized before the US got into the war, and after Pearl Harbor they were in for the remainder of the conflict. After extensive training, they hit Omaha beach on D-day as part of the first wave. Not everyone died, but most did. This could have been a depressing book. Instead, I found it to be a poignant reminder that freedom is not free.

A few highlights from the book:

Training was long. When an American evangelist erected a sign in Ivybridge [the village in England where they were training] asking “where will you spend eternity?” someone scrawled “in England” across it.

The night before D-day, on the ship taking them across the channel, one man took out a picture of his baby girl. “If I could just see her once,” Parker said, “I wouldn’t mind dying.” He never did see her. He died in Normandy.

One of the book’s more poignant moments showed the woman working at the Western Union station at Bedford. She waited for the message to end, expecting the machine to fall silent. But it did not. Line after line of copy clicked out of the printer. Within a few minutes, as Teass watched in a “trance-like state,” it was clear that something terrible had happened to Company A.

Bedford Boys is a fitting tribute to the men and to their families. Worth reading for the insight into the time, as a reminder of the terrible cost of war, and to remember the sacrifices made by the men of Bedford.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Books about D-Day never get repetitive for me. I revisited this book after reading it before. The event was so encapsulating that I just can't be written about enough. Alex Kershaw relies on first person interviews for the bulk of the book which gives combat scenes a visceral quality. The story encompasses the young men from the small community of Bedford, Virginia who are part of division that invades Germany during D-Day. Of the twenty-two men from this community nineteen of them die within seconds of hitting the beach. Kershaw exams their life from the time they sign up as National Guardsman to the time they die. Their loves, their hopes, their training and their humor. The chapter on "The First Wave, and "Everyman Was a Hero" are very intense as Kershaw takes you down to the water line, as bullets whiz past your ear and you wait for the ramp to drop. It's a three hundred yard dash to the base of the Normandy bluffs for protection as they navigate a field of mines to get there. This part of the book is very intense as Kershaw describes the German MG-42 machine gun that spits out 25 rounds a second, and the Nebelwerfer a mortar weapon that when fired shot out very large shrapnel the size of a shovel blade which sliced men in two. Within one hour 2500 men will die on this part of this beach called Omaha. What the nineteen American's from Bedford went through can't be calculated nor the pain is unimaginable. This is a good read but sad about brave men who made the ultimate sacrifice.

['Aussie Rick' · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good and interesting account of a group of men from A Company, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division, who were part of the first wave at Omaha Beach in 1944. I found the book easy to read and captivating, following these men from enlistment and training to the beaches at Normandy. A deeply touching book about a bunch of normal people from the small town of Bedford and what happened to them and their families, highly recommended.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing and sad book. My great uncle, Gordon Henry White, Jr. was one of the Bedford Boys. He and other men from Bedford were in the first company to hit the beaches on D-Day. He died that day along with most of the men in his company. This was a great glimpse into the lives of these families and the small town that suffered so much. It gives first hand accounts from the few survivors of the initial attack and talks to the families about what it was like for them before, during, and after the war.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 Stars for a somber, hard hitting story about one of the first units to hit Omaha beach on D-Day. If you have seen "Saving Private Ryan", you will get an idea of what they met at the water's edge. To read about the men and their families, before, during and after brought it so close to home. I recently drove by Bedford, VA but didn't want to stop until I read this book. I'll be back that way again soon and will stop to really appreciate the National D-Day Memorial.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

So very sad, but a great reminder of the sacrifices of others so I could be free.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such an interesting, but sad story. My pap pap fought in D-Day, so this was interesting hearing about other men who fought (and some who died) during that horrible time.

*Several curse words throughout*

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a heartbreaking read. Knowing that this story follows one town and the loss of 22 men on (or very shortly after) D-Day in one particular unit is so tough. I cannot imagine the grief that community had to deal with. This book is researched and written very well. I definitely felt sad and tense during the majority of it. This is an important read about how sacrifice in the Armed Forces ripples out from the nuclear family and essentially touches everyone on some level.

[Shane Gower · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sad, compelling, and important. The story this book tells is infinitely relatable to anyone who lived in a small town in America. My Grandfather served in the war and grew up in a very similarly sized town in Maine. I remember hearing their stories of how the war impacted the town. I can't imagine the impact on the town if 19 of its own had died in one day. This is what happened to Bedford, VA and why the author chose the title he did. I recently travelled to Bedford, VA to visit the National D-Day Memorial located there. While perusing the gift shop, my eye caught this book and so I bought it. Having toured the memorial, and driven around the small town of Bedford, the story was so much more meaningful and heartbreaking. In many ways this story symbolizes what the war was all about. The sacrifice made by the people of this town was great and we owe them a great deal. This book does a great job of following the boys through training at Fort Meaded, in Florida, in New Jersey, and then the agonizing months in England waiting for their chance at combat. The author brings several of the Bedford boys to life so that when they die on the beach you feel the impact even more. Company A was chosen to be the first to hit the sands at Omaha Beach where casualties would be the highest. Most of the Bedford boys were in Company A and so many died soon after hitting the beach on D- Day, some without ever having fired a shot at the enemy. The author does a nice job interviewing the families of the Bedford boys as well as those few who survived to show how the war impacted the community and what led to the building of the memorial. Bedford was chosen by the US Congress as the site for the memorial because it had way more of its citizens die per capita on D Day than any other Allied town or city in the world. It was hard to put this book down, but if you are interested in it, please visit the National D Day Memorial in this town. The Memorial is very large and magnificent and well worth one's time. It makes the book even more relatable and compelling. It's hard to explain but when I got out of the car and looked at the Memorial with its "Overlord" arch, it's marble replica of a Higgins Landing craft, and the bronze soldiers struggling up a faux beach with water around them surrounded by the glorious Blue Ridge mountains and peaceful quiet of a small town, I just got goose bumps. The whole thing is just perfect, I think the Bedford boys would approve. Great book and great story!

[Mark Mortensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can easily relate to little All-American town of Bedford, VA as when I received my draft number for the Vietnam War, the population of my hometown was slightly less than Bedford’s 3,000 residents during World War II. The Bedford community was devastated when 19 young men were killed on D-Day, June 6, 1944, while taking control of the strategic sandy shore along Omaha Beach in Normandy, France.

The male youths, who gravitated to become members of the local National Guard, were caught up in the swell when President Franklin D. Roosevelt adhered to Congress and declared war. While each individual tried to digest the ramifications of war, as a group they were totally unaware that their future would role would be so historic. With no alternative, the boys, as new members of the U.S. Army, A Company, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division were quickly swept away for escalated extensive training in distant locations. The book is very griping at times. I was personally saddened to comprehend and read the accounts of some members, who looked forward to an emotional farewell visit home that never materialized. When the war was over Bedford counted 22 men who had given their life for our nation. Some were buried in France, while others were transported home for burial.

Author Alex Kershaw is a very professional writer. This book is a must for any WWII library.

[Mahlon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would have thought that since the publication of Stephen Ambrose's authoritative D-Day, subsequent author's would have little new to say about the epic battle that turned the tide of WWII in Europe. Luckily for us Alex Kershaw has managed to find a new angle.

The Bedford Boys focuses on Company A of the 116th infantry regiment, which was among the first units to land on D-Day. Company A was largely composed of residents of Bedford, VA. population 3000 in 1944, 22 Bedford Boys didn't return From Europe.

Kershaw relies on first person interviews for the bulk of the book, which gives the combat scenes a visceral quality. Kershaw takes you right down to the water line, as bullets whiz past your ear, and you wait for the ramp to drop. I have read many books on WWII, and these combat scenes are the best I've ever come across.

What sets Kershaw's narrative apart however is his ability to juxtapose the combat scenes with scenes from the homefront so as to give the reader a more complete understanding of the true cost of war.

The Bedford Boys is my #2 book of 2003, and my #5 book of the decade.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I tend to favor regimental histories, or personal memoirs of World War II experiences. I thought this paean to the lost men of Bedford, VA would be maudlin, or trite. I was wrong. Alex Kershaw completed meticulous research, interviewed countless townspeople, family members, and survivors, and researched the regiment so thoroughly that the reader feels he knows the members of Company A. Yes, I realized what was coming. But, Kershaw didn't dwell on the landing and the death of the soldiers from Bedford. Instead, he struck an excellent balance, talking of family, depression challenges, advanced training, and the thoughts of the soldiers. He captured the aftermath of the war, and the pain, sorrow, and slow recovery for many, but not for all. It is a very good read, and one worth the investment for someone wanting a better understanding of the social history of war.

[Sonny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was born and raised in Virginia, a state rich in history. Our country began there in 1607, and it's no surprise that the Old Dominion has more than its share of historic sites. When my son elected to attend university in southwestern Virginia, I made regular trips there over the years (he decided to stay and is now an English professor at the university where he studied). Because the stress of driving on I-64 from Norfolk to Richmond was quickly getting worse, I wanted to find a more relaxing drive to visit my son. The most direct and least stressful route was to take Route 460 from Suffolk to I-81 near Roanoke. This route takes the traveler through some important historical sites—Petersburg (battlefield), Appomattox, and Bedford, VA, the site of the National D-Day Memorial. While the little town of Bedford, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, might seem an unusual place to locate the National D-Day Memorial, there was a reason for doing so. Having visited the memorial, I wanted to know more about the men from Bedford who died on that day. I also had a good friend at church who was among the men who made the D-Day landing. I visited him often in his home to hear his story before he died at the age of 95 on April 28, 2012. As The Bedford Boys: One American Town's Ultimate D-day Sacrifice explains, nineteen boys from Bedford, Virginia—population just 3,200 in 1944—died on D-Day, many of them in the first minutes of fighting on Omaha Beach.

In the last years of the Great Depression, Bedford County in Virginia offered few opportunities for employment to the young men living there. Some of the men were farmers, while a few others worked in a manufacturing plant. One way to earn some extra money was through the local National Guard unit. "Each time we trained we got a dollar"—$2 each week for showing up made a difference. Most of the Bedford boys signed up, and when America entered WWII, they were shipped off to fight as part of the 116th Infantry, which saw hard combat in Europe. In September, the regiment was transported by rail to Tidworth in the southeast, where their training continued.

Perhaps two-thirds of the book takes place before D-Day. We are given a description of life in Bedford and the men prior to the war. Once the war starts, we read of the endless drills, life onboard the ship to England, and life in Britain, and the training they received in England. When D-Day arrives, Kershaw describes the landing on Omaha beach. He describes the overall battle and the carnage inflicted on the Americans, especially the boys from Bedford. The weather prevented the air and sea support that might have taken out the bunkers, many of the German machine gun nests, or even created craters on the beach where the Allied soldiers could have taken cover. Many of the boys die within minutes of landing. Some boys drowned, pulled down by the weight of jackets or radios; some are gunned down on the open beach by MG34 machine guns; some were saved by medics who helped the wounded. We’re given a soldier’s view of the particular hell that was Omaha Beach. Of the 34 men from Bedford still with the company, 19 died on D-Day alone; three more were lost before World War II ended. Even after the war, many of the survivors remained casualties, haunted by what they saw that day, many of them wracked with survivor’s guilt. The remainder of the book focuses on those back in Bedford as they learn of the tragedy that has struck their town. While the memories of those men lost have not faded, the emotional wounds healed slowly, if at all.

Kershaw does a good job of connecting the events, the soldiers and their families together. He does a good job of detailing the lives of the men involved and their loved ones. You get a real sense of how all of those involved felt as they went through these events. The account is both accessible and moving. Though he has his strong moments, Kershaw could be somewhat mawkish at times:

“It is not so much in Bedford that the spirits of its lost sons are most palpable, but rather a few hundred yards from the beach where they died, in the American cemetery overlooking Omaha”.
Alex Kershaw, The Bedford Boys: One American Town's Ultimate D-Day Sacrifice

Not the best history of D-Day; but not bad either.

[Feiraco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gripping account on how personal war was and will be. Since Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan it is well-known how much the first waves of soldiers suffered on Omaha Beach. It happened to be that a lot of the Bedford Boys were at the wrong place at the wrong time: the dog green sector at Vierville on June 6, 1944. Kershaw builds the story up in a traditional way, with all the training and preparations that the men went through. What I did not really expect, but appreciate, is the detailed description of the actual fighting and aftermath. In this way the book is a valuable military addition to the works of (among others) Ambrose, Ryan and Beevor.

[Matthew Eisenberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here's the thing---anytime you're telling the story of D-Day, and utilizing a bunch of first-person accounts to do so, I'm all the way in. I think D-Day is one of the most fascinating and crucial moments in world history. I believe WWII was the last "good war" we fought, I have tremendous admiration and appreciation for the men who fought it, and I think D-Day is illustrative of the courage, the skill, the resilience, the desperation, and the sacrifice that was required to win the war.

So I was bound to like The Bedford Boys, Alex Kershaw's book about the death of 19---nineteen---young men from the town of Bedford, Virginia (population 3000) in the first few hours of D-Day.

The Bedford Boys is a different type of D-Day book, because it focuses much attention on the town that the soldiers left behind. The descriptions of and anecdotes about Bedford offer an interesting glimpse into rural American life during the war, and illustrate that suffering and sacrifice occurred at home on a scale that rivaled the suffering and sacrifice (if not physical harm) of the actual combatants. Nonetheless, the most compelling parts of the book remain the moments immediately before and during the assault on Omaha Beach.

I enjoyed the book. But because it is about a large group of people from a small town, you don't learn enough about any of the individuals to feel close to them. So the book is more sweeping in narrative than personal. Meaning, the emotional impact, while there in a general sense, is lacking in the way that is present in Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers or D-Day, both of which I would recommend to you before The Bedford Boys.

[Travis Stroup · Rating 5 out of 5]

Driving down the road in my little town I saw an old man out walking early in the morning. It struck me that he had an entire life of experiences, joys, sorrows, problems, and family that I would never know anything about. I thought how sad to have so many people around us that have experience in life that we can never access. Much more tragic is how the men from Bedford didn’t have a chance to live their lives and make their own experiences past their ultimate sacrifice.

Kershaw does a fantastic job at giving you the lives of the men and their families before, during, and after the war. The rage, guilt, anxiety, fear, hope, and hopelessness are all tangible in the recounting of their story.

A miracle that some of the men even survived at all. Reading some of the injuries that were sustained on the beach and the fighting that followed made my body hurt. A very surprising thing was how in tune the cooks were to the men. Company A’s cook Sargents purposely set up as close to the line as possible so the men at the front didn’t have to go as long without hot food. At one of the front lines, the men didn’t have to eat their prepackaged rations. The cooks made sure they had food ready around the clock. I scolded myself that I thought the cooks weren’t that important.

Deeply moving that men would die for their family, home, and country. It’s a shame that we don’t respect them more as individuals and as a nation. I can’t wait to go see the memorial in Bedford County.

[Jessie Gussman · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting book on D-Day, focusing mainly on the men from one town in Virginia who happened to be some of the first to step, and fall, on the French sand. Well documented with an extensive list of notes at the end, it is not an easy book to read, because of the sacrifice these men and this town made. The author included a description of D-Day in Bedford, VA that was a blessing to learn about. If it's true that there are no atheists in fox holes, then there are no atheists who have sons, brothers, husbands, or dads in fox holes. A challenging book.

[Madisson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the amazing story about the boys from the small American town of Bedford, Virginia who were part of Company A of the 116th Regiment of the 29th Division. They were among the first wave of American soldiers to hit Omaha Beach in Normandy on D-Day.

Alex Kershaw writes of the experiences and sacrifices, not only of the boys over there, but of their families and friends on the homefront as well. This account really brought the US Infantry's side of D-Day to life for me and the last half of the book has some of the hardest pages I've ever read. Really fantastic book.

[Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

We live in a different America than the Bedford Boys did. This is the story of the heroes of one community who helped save freedom. All involved are heroes not just the ones who died liberating France.

I cannot imagine what the families of these men went through in the years following the war. Their grief lives on even up til now.

Alex, you did a nice job telling us the story of the Bedford Boys. Thank you.

[steven zisk · Rating 5 out of 5]

History of D Day

Outstanding reading for those who love history. The unimaginable sacrifices of one small American community, and how this one day in history affected their lives, not only on that day, but for hundreds of days for years and years to come. God bless America, and the sacrifices that made my life possible.

[Sue Larson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written and a compelling reminder of the sacrifices that were made in the quest of peace and justice.

[emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was right. I cried so many times.

[Julie Tulba · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second Alex Kershaw book I've read this year (both WWII related) and I have to say he's fast becoming one of my favorite writers even though in both instances, they were both so incredibly tragic but especially The Bedford Boys.

While obviously I knew about the events of D-Day, I didn't really know much of the backstory, the events leading up to it. And by events I'm not talking about the Montgomerys, the Eisenhowers, or the Churchhills. But rather the group of boys (for so many of them were incredibly young) who were the first ones to storm the beaches at Normandy; the first group of soldiers to die on June 6, 1944; and the small little Virginia town that was never the same after they lost so many of their husbands and brothers in just one day. Bedford had the unfortunate distinction of suffering the highest one-day loss of any U.S. town (a population of only 3,000, it lost 21 men on June 6).

It was heartbreaking to read about the men whose lives were cut short much too soon but then even more so when reading about the survivors, the men who survived D-Day and the rest of the war but then suffered from immense guilt and PTSD for the rest of their lives, always wondering why they made it through when 21 of their fellow brothers did not. And of course the lives of their families who were never the same after they received those telegrams letting them know their loved one would never be coming home.

There are fewer and fewer WWII veterans still living but reading books like this helps to keep the memory and the unimaginable things they did alive.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author tells the story of boys from Bedford Virginia who as part of the National guard participated as part of Company A in the D-day invasion of Normandy on Omaha beach. The book covers individuals, families and actions during this time.

Alex Kershaw a premier writer of WWII does an excellent job writing about this select group which otherwise would get lost in the macro topic of D-day.

This is my fourth book I've read by the author. I enjoy his work and ability to tell a good story.

[Kenneth Flusche · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well Written WWII History written for and by Survivors in loving memories of the Dead