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after me.” Allen Huddleston outside Company A’s recreation room, Ivybridge, 1943. Allen Huddleston.
    “What have I gotten into?” New Yorker John Barnes, who joined Company A as a replacement in early 1944. John Barnes.
    “A first-class fighting force.” Bedford boys from Company A after twelve months of rigorous training in England. Front row, right to left: Earl Newcomb beside Roy Stevens. Back row: right to left, John Wilkes, Andrew Coleman, Jack Powers, unidentified soldier, Gordon Henry White. Elva Newcomb.
    Bob Slaughter of Com– pany D, one of a miraculous few who landed on D-Day on Omaha Beach and was still fighting at the war’s end. Photograph taken in Germany, March 1945. Bob Slaughter.
    Boat Team Number Five, one of seven Company A boat teams that were scheduled to land on Omaha Beach. Photograph taken near the D–1 “sausage” a few days before D-Day. Standing in the back row, left to right: Clyde Powers, Harold Wilkes, unidentified soldier, Lieutenant Edward Gearing, Roy Stevens. Bottom row, fifth from left: John Barnes. John Barnes.
    The top brass. Allied Supreme Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower, pointing, and General Bernard L. Montgomery, far right, chief architect of Overlord, watching invasion practices in March 1944. National Archives.
    “The greatest armada the world has ever seen.” Landing craft similar to ones used by Bedford boys are shown in foreground, LSTs (Landing Ship Tanks) behind them, in an English port just prior to the invasion. National Archives.
    HMS Empire Javelin at anchor before D-Day. The Javelin would transfer the 1st Battalion of 116th Infantry to within twelve miles of France, where the Bedford boys would then take the LCAs, visible hanging from davits along her sides, to the shores of France. Bob Sales.

    “The Limey.” Sub-lieutenant Jimmy Green, British naval officer in command of the flotilla of landing craft that took Company A to Omaha Beach. Jimmy Green and Kevan Elsby.
    Russell L. Pickett, flamethrower in Boat Team Number Five, from Soddy Daisy, Tennessee. Russell Pickett.
    Wounded GIs from the first waves on Omaha Beach. National Archives.
    One of an estimated 2,500 American casualties on Omaha Beach. National Archives.

    “Dear Mom and Dad.” A “V-gram” from wounded Clyde Powers to his parents in Bedford explaining where his brother Jack was buried in France. Eloise Rogers.
    The enemy. German soldier killed by Bob Sales in Normandy on June 30, 1944—the day Roy Stevens was almost killed by a German “bouncing Betty” mine. Bob Sales.
    Below: The ruins of the French city of St. Lô. The prime objective of surviving Bedford boys after D-Day was finally liberated in late July, 1944, after huge losses by both Germans and Americans. National Archives.
    “With Profound Regret.” Letter from the War Department to Mrs. Alice Powers confirming that her son Jack Powers was killed on D-Day. Eloise Rogers.
    “I can’t remember whose name came first.” Twenty-one-year-old Elizabeth Teass, who worked in Bedford’s Western Union telegram office when news of the town’s tragic loss came over the wires. Elizabeth Teass.
    “They gave me the will to go on.” Letter from first grade pupil Booker Goggin to his teacher Ivylyn Schenk, sent in July 1944, a few days after Booker learned that his teacher’s husband John was dead. The letter reads: “Dear Mrs. Schenk, I am sorry to hear about your husband. I wish I could come to see you. Come to see me. I hope you will be my teacher next fall. With love, Booker.” Ivylyn Hardy.
    “Some found happiness.” Roy Stevens with his wife Helen in front of their new home in Bedford just after their marriage on Groundhog Day, 1946. Roy and Helen Stevens, and Virginia Historical Association .
    “The daughter he never got to touch.” Earl Parker’s daughter, twelve-year-old Danny, in her scout uniform at the unveiling of Bedford’s memorial stone in 1954. Mary Daniel Heilig and Virginia Historical