Omaha Beach and the Bedford Boys (#271)
Today’s post covers another aspect of the D-Day invasion -- the soldiers of Company A, 116th Infantry Regiment of the 29th Infantry Division, also known as the Bedford Boys. On D-Day, 35 soldiers of the tiny town of Bedford would board landing craft headed towards Omaha Beach. By the end of the day, only 16 would still be alive. And 4 more would die before the end of the Normandy campaign.
This year, I am doing a series on leaders and leadership in the European Theater of Operations (ETO) in World War II. This is 19th in the series. Check out the blog to see them all or go to the links at the bottom of this article to see the most recent ones.
The Bedford Boys
In 1940, Bedford, Virginia was a small town of 3,200 people nestled in the heart of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. A small agricultural and manufacturing center, the town is 25 miles from the larger towns of Roanoke and Lynchburg.
One of the American units at the forefront of the D-Day landings was a National Guard infantry unit based out of the small town of Bedford, Virginia — Company A of the 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Division. When the company assaulted Omaha Beach that morning, there were 35 Soldiers from the town assigned to the unit. By the end of the day, 19 of the Guard Soldiers would be dead with 4 more dying before the end of the campaign. On that day, the town of Bedford suffered the greatest proportion of losses of any town in the United States. These heroic soldiers were immortalized as the Bedford Boys. Due to their sacrifice on Omaha Beach the town became the site of the National D-Day Memorial.
During World War II, the 29th Division was made up primarily of men from Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The 116th Infantry Regiment was comprised mostly of Army National Guard companies from across Virginia. The National Guard companies were augmented with draftees from across the United States after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Prior to the United States joining the war, the National Guard infantry companies were drilling in their hometowns. That changed on February 3, 1941, when the 116th, to include Company A in Bedford, was mobilized for federal service. After training in the United States at Fort Meade, Maryland; Fort A.P. Hill (now known as Walker), Virginia,; and Fort Bragg (now known as Liberty), North Carolina, Company A boarded the converted luxury liner Queen Mary for England in October 1942.
Once arriving in England, Company A and the 116th continued to train, even as other U.S. forces began seeing combat in North Africa, Italy and the Pacific. The Bedford Boys would stay and train in England for 21 months before getting the call to spearhead the D-Day landings.
As the date for the invasion neared, the training pace intensified. The regiment completed exercises at Slapton Sands in southern England and was the first regiment of the 29th Division to complete training at the U.S. Army’s Assault Training Center. For a time, the unit also took responsibility for part of England’s coastal defense.
On May 18, 1944, the Soldiers of Company A moved to their marshaling area near Dorchester, England. As they waited to board the British troopship Empire Javelin, they were finally briefed on their objective: Normandy, France. They also learned that they were in the first wave of the initial assault force. By this time, there were 35 original soldiers from Bedford still with the company.
As the pre-invasion bombardment ended, the Bedford boys transferred from their troop ship to landing craft about 2 miles out from the beach. After a choppy ride into the Normandy coast, the ramps dropped, and the Bedford Boys waded ashore on the far western end of Omaha Beach, known as Dog Green. The only unit to their west was a group of Rangers who were supposed to fight eastward and link up with the group that landed at Pointe du Hoc.
The machine gun and artillery fire from the German defenders was intense — in less than 10 minutes after the first boat hit the beach, Company A was essentially destroyed. Within an hour, only a few Soldiers from Company A were able to continue. The survivors crawled across the sand and stayed huddled behind the seawall. Once the beach was secure, Company A had suffered more than 90 percent casualties (casualties are killed, wounded, and missing in action), with only 18 Soldiers from Company A’s initial 230 men unhurt.
The small community of Bedford, with a population of around 3,200, lost more men per capita than any other town in America during the war. The sacrifice of the Bedford Boys deeply affected the community and left an indelible mark on the town's history. The names of the Bedford Boys — Abbott, Carter, Clifton, Draper, Fellers, Gillaspie, Hoback, Hoback, Lee, Parker, Powers, Rosazza, Reynolds, Schenk, Stevens, Wilkes, White, Wright, and Yopp — came to symbolize the sacrifice of all Americans on D-Day.
To honor all the men that fought on D-Day, the National D-Day Memorial was opened in Bedford on June 6, 2001. Serving as the national memorial for American D-Day Veterans, it was built as a tribute “to the valor, fidelity and sacrifice of Allied Forces on D-Day, June 6, 1944” and to capture the sacrifice of one town that gave more than its share to the Allied victory.
Conclusion
I was recently interviewed for the Slow Smoked Business Podcast with Jarrod Morgan. We got to talk BBQ, business, leadership, and PBR. It was a lot of fun. Here is the link to the show. Or click on the image.
The last five blog posts on leaders and leadership from the World War II European Theater of Operations are:
Interested in bringing your team to Leadership Experience that uses historic case studies, like the Bedford Boys during D-Day to enhance your team’s leadership today? TFCG offers the D-Day, Market-Garden, and Battle of the Bulge Leadership Experiences in Europe. TFCG also offers the Eisenhower, Currahee!, the War in the Pacific Museum, and Pearl Harbor Leadership Experiences in the United States. Send me an email and we can start the discussion today about building better leaders in your organization using a historic Leadership Experience. Or click on one of the pictures to learn more about that specific program.
In the meantime, go on the offensive and use the story of the Bedford Boys on Omaha Beach to inspire you this week.