The Bedford Boys: One American Town's Ultimate D-day Sacrifice [Hardcover]

Alex Kershaw (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2003

On June 6, 1944, nineteen boys from Bedford, Virginia--population 3,000--died in the first bloody minutes of D-Day when their landing craft dropped them in shallow water off Omaha Beach. They were part of the first wave of American soldiers to hit the sands of Normandy. Later that day, two more soldiers from the same small town died of gunshot wounds. Twenty-one sons of Bedford killed--no other town in America suffered a greater one-day loss. It is a story that one cannot easily forget--and one that the families of Bedford will never forget. It was, and still is, Bedford's longest day.The Bedford Boys is the intimate true story of these young men and their friends and families in Bedford. It portrays a neighborhood of soldiers before and during the war--from the girlfriends they left behind to the buddies they made in basic training, from anxious barracks in England to the bloody beaches of Normandy. Based on extensive interviews with survivors and relatives as well as on diaries and letters, Alex 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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This accessible and moving group biography portrays the men of Company A, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division, who were part of the first wave at Omaha Beach in WWII. Initially, 103 of them left the small town of Bedford, Va.-now the site of the national D-Day memorial-when the local National Guard was called up in 1940; 34 were still with the company on D-Day. Of these, 19 died in a matter of minutes and three more perished in the Normandy campaign. Men lost ranged from the company commander, Captain Taylor N. Fellers, from a wealthy Bedford family, to Frank Draper Jr., a fine athlete and soldier from the wrong side of the tracks. Long-time National Guardsman John Wilkes died as the company's top sergeant, while Earl Parker left behind a daughter he never saw. Both Holback brothers and Ray Stevens died, while Ray's twin Roy Stevens was one of the handful of survivors. Kershaw (Jack London) includes combat sequences that give a vivid private's- eye view of the particular hell that was Omaha Beach, while one of the most moving portions of the book is the simultaneous arrival in Bedford of nine "We regret to inform you..." telegrams. A capsule history of Bedford before the war, its role as part of the home front during it and its current place as (controversial) memorial site are all covered, but the book's central focus is on the town where a good many survivors remain whose memories have not faded and whose emotional wounds have not healed.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

On June 6, 1944, Allied armies launched their massive invasion of Europe--D-Day, in other words. Among the thousands of soldiers headed for France were 34 men from the town of Bedford, Virginia, aboard Empire Javelin, a British troopship. Nineteen of them were killed in the first minutes of combat, when their landing craft dropped them into the water off Normandy. Two more were killed later in the day from gunshot wounds. No other town in the U.S. endured a greater one-day loss. Kershaw's book is more than just another war story; here is an in-depth account of this blue-collar town and its 3,000 people. The soldiers included three sets of brothers, a pool-hall hustler, husbands, farmers, and a couple of "highly successful Lotharios." Kershaw describes in painful detail how the next of kin were notified of the soldiers' deaths via Western Union telegrams and how the news devastated their lives. Drawing on interviews with survivors and relatives, newspaper clippings, letters, and diaries, Kershaw has chronicled one community's great sacrifice. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press; 1st Da Capo Press Ed edition (April 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306811677
• ISBN-13: 978-0306811678
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #406,879 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Alex Kershaw is the New York Times best-selling author of several popular WW11 titles. He is a British born journalist.
His work emphasizes the human face of war.

Please visit alexkershaw.com for his full bio and some great web-sites devoted to his books. He would be happy to answer any questions and sign books and help in any other way.

You can also catch up with him and his work at his facebook page - alex kershaw, author's page. He blogs at www.alexkershaw.com and provides video/images/posts on facebook.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well written history of a tragedy, May 15, 2003

By 

Robert Busko (North Carolina) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Bedford Boys: One American Town's Ultimate D-day Sacrifice (Hardcover)

June 6, 1944 has been written about extensively by American authors almost from the moment it happened. The invasion to free western Europe has filled perhaps more pages than any other event in history. Beyond books, D-Day has been the subject of more movies than one can count. Among the most famous films about D-Day was The Longest Day and a generation later Saving Private Ryan. What else can be said about the invasion of Europe?

Somehow, the story of the young men from Beford, Virginia has been overlooked. When you read the book you'll ask the same question I did....Why didn't Stephen Spielberg make his movie about WWII using this story instead of the fictional story of Private Ryan. When you read the Bedford Boys by Alex Kershaw you'll ask the same question.

Bedford, Virginia is a small blue ridge mountain town of 3000. Before WWII jobs were scarce. Most of the men of the town joined the national guard unit to augment their meager incomes. Most earned a dollar a day for the days they trained. When the war started their unit became part of the 116th Infantry, one of the most battered units in Europe. On D-Day twenty-one of Bedford's sons would die on the beaches of Normandy. No other town of any size would suffer such a devastating loss. Twenty-one sons, brothers, fathers, boyfriends all lost; lost as completely as anyone can be lost....erased with the sweep of an hour hand. It boggles the mind even today nearly 60 years later.

Alex Kershaw does a wonderful job of bringing these young men to life. These young soldiers aren't just characters on the stage of history. As you learn about them, wome in more detail than the others, they become real people. The book follows them from prewar Bedford, through training, and on the a blood stained beach in France. The book is brutal. The book is poetic. You won't soon forget it.

The Bedford Boys is well researched. While Kershaw's coverage of the landings is strong on details it is never the less accurate. He uses the narratives of the few survivors to great effect.

If your a student of history you'll most assuredly want to read this book. It is a landmark story.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Remembering Virginia town that lost so many on June 6, 1944, June 6, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Bedford Boys: One American Town's Ultimate D-day Sacrifice (Hardcover)

Alex Kershaw's "The Bedford Boys" is about people. It is a history of what war does to individuals and those left behind. We are told that 5,000 Americans died on June 6, 1944, D-Day, but that is a statistic. This narrative is about folks who died trying to cross the beach code named Omaha  Bloody Omaha. It is the names that make this volume uniquely harrowing, singularly distressing, exceptionally depressing. It is similar to the effect Maya Lin's Vietnam War Memorial in Washington has on people, 58,000 names memorialized in polished stone. Touch a name; contact a soul.
Bedford, Va, lost a higher percentage of its sons on D-Day than any community in America and that is the main reason the National D-Day Memorial was dedicated in the tiny village of Bedford in June, 2001. But 56-years of time and the presence of the president of the United States were not enough to salve the losses on Omaha Beach. Mothers and fathers were emotionally wounded by their losses, siblings permanently disheartened, widows and fiancees everlastingly scarred. Mr. Kershaw's book relentlessly reminds us that war is about humans.
The Bedford boys were shaped by the Depression, and the young men of Company A of the first Battalion of the 116th Regiment of the 29th Division had joined the National Guard in the 1930s for social purposes and also for the essential dollar-a-day they were paid when they were in training once each month and for two weeks in the summer. Many other Bedford inhabitants  more than 1500  served in the armed services during World War II, but Company A was special. These men had grown up, gone to school, played baseball, and worked together, dated each other's sisters, trained and deployed as a group, and were in the first wave to assault Omaha Beach at H Hour on June 6.
Of the 28 troops from Bedford who left the landing craft, 22 were killed, most before they reached the sand, by murderous machine gun fire. Nine others also from Bedford did not reach the beach: five because their landing craft sunk on the way to shore and four others who were in support capacity and did not get ashore on D-Day.
Mr. Kershaw tells of the men trying to swim or wade with packs of more than 60 pounds on their backs, desperate to get ashore while the Germans from barely damaged bunkers and pillboxes laced the beaches with deadly fire: "The Germans had cut Company A to ribbons but they were not satisfied. They now riddled wounded men with arms outstretched in supplication. They peppered soldiers who could not crawl and American teenagers risking their own lives to save them. The . . . machine gunners shot rescuers in the back. Snipers aimed for the forehead." In all,102 men from Company A were killed in the first wave, about one third of the company.
In time, these horrors were brought to Bedford. Back home, the letters stopped a few days before June 6, and when correspondence did not start again soon after the sixth, families agonized over the lack of news.
Elizabeth Teass, one of the town's few telegraph operators, six weeks later "switched on the teletype machine." She read "We have casualties," and read the "first line of copy. 'The Secretary of War desires me to express his deep regret.'" Elizabeth had seen these words before, about once each week, but this time the machine did not stop. "Line after line of copy clicked out of the printer. . . ."
Mothers, fathers, wives learned from Western Union that day, and on other days soon thereafter of the death of Leslie Abbot, Wallace Carter, John Clifton, John Dean, Frank Draper, Jr., Taylor Fellers, Charles Fizer, Nicholas Gillespie, Bedford Hoback, Raymond Hoback, Clifton Lee, Earl Parker, Joseph Parker, Jack Powers, Weldon Rosazza, John Reynolds, John Shenck, Ray Stevens, Gordon White, John Wilkes, Elmer Wright, Grant Yopp. Every name spoke trauma and tragedy.
Understand this about D-Day, dear reader. The air bombardment of German fortifications was crucial, even if not as effective as hoped, and the naval attack on German defenses was essential, even if it did not silence most of the German guns, but at H-Hour when the landing craft lowered their ramps the success or failure of the greatest amphibious attack in the history of warfare, the event upon which the success of the Allied effort in World War II depended, all came down to the Bedford Boys and thousands of men like them scrambling in chest high water, weighed down with equipment and ammunition, and the water they splashed into was crimson with their blood and that of their buddies. And they advanced. Bless them all. Bless them all.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Moving Book About One Towns Ultimate Sacrifice, April 22, 2003

By 

Jeffrey M. Hyder (Knoxville, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Bedford Boys: One American Town's Ultimate D-day Sacrifice (Hardcover)

June 6, 1944. Many books have appeared about this famous date in history. However, none quite like this one. It details the town of Bedford Virginia and the lose of 22 of its young men in Normandy. No other town in America gave as much as Bedford.

The book starts in pre-war Bedford and follows the yong men from training through battle to coming home. Sadly, most never saw Bedford again. The research that went into the battle chapters is impressive. It is some of the best battle writing I have read.

Having grown up in a town like Bedford, I could understand the small town feeling the boys grew up in. I highly recommend this book. You will not soon forget it.