About book The Bedford Boys: One American Town's Ultimate D-Day Sacrifice (2004)
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!
Review title: Band of Bedford brothersf you are driving on Route 29 through south-central Virginia, you may come across a sign pointing you toward the National D-Day Memorial and wonder why it points you toward the small town of Bedford, Virginia a few miles west of Lynchburg. Alex Kershaw's history tells why--over 30 of Bedford's finest young men volunteered and served, most in the same unit, and many never came home from France's shoreline after that fateful June 6th battle. But the greater, and more interesting, part of Kershaw's story is about the men before the war, why they joined (perhaps not with the patriotic fervor you might expect), and the families they left behind. Some were married, some engaged, some single, some barely old enough to enlist, some approaching 30 with family responsibilities at home. Their stories are poignant, and the holes they left in the community are powerful indicators of a sense of shared purpose and responsibility that are missing in today's big cities and sprawling suburban developments.Stephen Ambrose has mined this territory many times, and Kershaw captures the same feeling on a smaller scale. If you have roots in or have driven through Bedford and wondered why the memorial is there, after reading The Bedford Boys you can answer: because this is right where it belongs.
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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.
—Mahlon
Bedford was a small town in Virginia who lost 22 men in the Normandy landings, nineteen of them died within seconds of hitting the beach and three more were killed in the next few days. This is a powerful and emotional look at that sacrifice and reality of war.The US came into the war late, Pearl Harbor being the point of no return. National Guard units, such as the one at Bedford, started training for war, were shipped to the UK and it so happened that the men from Bedford, as part of the 116th Infantry, were amongst the first lethal wave of troops to land on Omaha beach. Many of them lasted mere minutes under German machine gun fire that had not been bombed into silence as part of the bigger plan.This book takes us from the formation of the unit pre-war in Bedford (many joined because they needed the money to keep their families fed during times of severe austerity) through the training, D Day itself and then the aftermath. Based on diaries, letters and interviews we very much see the guys as individuals and as we grow to know them, we also know not many of them made it back, I was constantly flicking to the death list at the back and most of them were on it.These were young guys at the very spearhead of the D Day landing and they bore the brunt of it. Their stoic, brave approach was astonishing as was the utter shock in Bedford as they started to realise how many of their sons were not coming back.Brave men and an incredible sacrifice.
—Nick Brett
If you know nothing of the sacrifices of the young people (and their families) who served during WWII protecting our freedoms, YOU MUST read this book. The soldiers, the nurses, the families suffered losses even if they survived. If you know of that sacrifice you will still learn more.This book was hard for me to read at times. A well told true story of families and young ladies losing the loves of their lives. What was harder, a wife or girlfriend losing their love,or a sibling losing their brother?I don't know, but the heart-rending sorrow of a parent losing a son tops anything you can imagine.My oldest brother was MIA, Missing in Action, in WWII during the campaign in The Netherlands in September of 1944 and was eventually declared KIA,Killed in Action,in early 1945. I and my 6 surviving siblings were damaged.My Mom, was strong, she had to be, my Dad was NEVER the same again. He was gassed in WWI and never had much capability to smell or taste after that, but losing his oldest son and a favorite nephew in WWII devastated him.You will feel a part of some of these families when you read this, then VISIT the DD MEMORIAL in Bedford, Virginia.
—Ted Duke
