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

Deeply moving. Well written. Horrible. Kershaw again provides an eminently accessible, personal story, not belaboring the beach--a story told often and well in the past--but bringing a new and awful poignancy to the context in community and family of each of a commander's casualty report numbers.

He still hit one of my pet peeves by using the phrase "dead and wounded," which as a soldier and war veteran I find an offensively trite and naive lumping of two very different things under one heading--to a man under fire, and to his family, "wounded" and "completely unharmed" are more similar than are "wounded" and "dead." BUT he only did it once, and it really is a legitimate phrase, as it is the commander's way to track effective fighting show more strength and attrition. I just find it more appropriate for a book about the generals in the headquarters than a book about the men in the experience. Off my soapbox.

That was the only criticism. I loved the book, but it broke my heart. I found it particularly novel and important because WWII is perceived as being the classic Just War, with unanimous public support. It was not. Like every war, it had its detractors, and rightly so, for as horrific as wars are. Like every war, men on both sides committed atrocities and it is no service of history or of the memory of those who fought and died to mythologize the horrors of WWII, or to edit public and political dissent to American involvement out of the history books. Kershaw provided us with a non-evaluative, uncensored history of the social context, including the social dynamic of conscientious objectors and the criticisms of the administration, the commanders, the policies, the war, and even the survivors, by the families of the bereaved.

This book was a touching and excellently told account of an event unfathomably tragic regardless the strength of the justification or the accomplishment. True tale of Pyrrhic victory. show less

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, show more 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. show less

4/5

The story of a National Guard infantry unit based out of the small town of Bedford, Virginia with around 3,000 people. 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 four 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. This books does a great job of telling their story.

"I realized it didn't make ay difference whether one was a superior soldier, was more religious, or better character. People were being killed randomly and they could not help themselves." These were the words of a survivor of D-Day, one of the few from the village of Bedford, West Virginia. Nineteen men from Bedford died on D-Day, the most from anywhere in America.

This is the story of the men of Bedford who joined the National Guard to help them survive the Great Depression, who went to war, then to England where they trained hard for eighteen months then went to die on Omaha Beach in Normandy. The story was well-written, moving and deeply troubling. It is the terrible story of War. I recommend this book.

As I read each name of the Bedford Boys I couldn't help but flip through the memorial section to see if that soldier survived. I will always prefer books that focus on the individual soldiers and their stories over those that try to generalize the strategy.This is a very well written account of one region's sacrifice on DDAY as a part of "the greatest generation."

I highly recommend The Bedford Boys for those readers interested in learning history, but who need to feel personally connected to the historical characters in order to enjoy the "story". The book reads like a story, but provides a detailed account of the experiences of both the homefront, a small Depression-hit town in Central Virginia, and the inexperienced, young GI going off to war. It also gives a higly detailed account of the military plans leading up to D-Day and the reality of the events as they unfolded that morning. Prior to this reading, most of my information was from watching Private Ryan. This book is consistent with the historical version of that film, but shows it from the perspective of young, scared teenagers, at the show more mercy of the larger military machine looking at the grand picture of the invasion. This would be a great book for a high school history class to consider, especially an honors or AP level. show less

Amazing story of one town's participation and sacrifice in the D-Day assault. It was so interesting getting the back stories and then following these boys into the battle.