National D-Day Memorial

One small, rural community made the greatest sacrifice during the Second World War. As a result of the Normandy Campaign, Bedford, Virginia lost more boys per capita, than any other town in the United States.

The memorial commemorating one of this nation's most culturally significant historical events is located not in our nation's capital or a major metropolitan area but a rural south-central Virginia town. The decision to place the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia, was made not by distant politicians or interest groups but by an organization that arose from and was deeply rooted in south-central Virginia. During the D-Day invasion, Bedford lost twenty-three men, known as the "Bedford Boys," the highest per capita loss in the nation.

Despite the national level of prominence afforded the memorial and its broad mission to commemorate the sacrifice of all Allied nations, the monument reflects as much about the collective memory of the rural American county that it overlooks as it does about the collective national memory of D-Day. Much scholarly study has been devoted to American World War II memory sites, particularly those positioned on a "national" stage and subject to considerable interpretation and controversy. The context surrounding the collective memory of D-Day in this rural county reveals much about its eventual relationship to the memorial.

Able Company was part of the 116th Infantry Regiment of the Virginia National Guard, under the command of the 26th Infantry Division. Units in the regiment's company level were primarily from the same local regions and communities. Most of the men of Able Company were from Bedford County, Virginia. The 26th division activated on February 3, 1941, as the nation prepared for war and set sail for Scotland in September 1942. Upon arrival in Scotland, it commenced preparations for the invasion of Europe. The 26th Division would be one of nine Allied divisions to land on D-Day, and Able Company would be in the first wave to land on Omaha Beach. Landing essentially by themselves, separated from other 116th Regiment companies, and given the overall ineffective pre-invasion plans to weaken German defenses, Able Company would land on a strongly defended beach in the face of seasoned German troops. The result as the landing craft gates dropped was unavoidable. Within minutes, nineteen out of thirty-five Bedford men were dead or missing in action. Four more would die elsewhere during the battle. A small quiet county in Virginia would lose twenty-three of its sons as part of the D-Day and Normandy campaign. The devastating news started arriving through unofficial channels on July 10, raising the community's anxiety. However, it would be nearly six anxious weeks after June 6 before "official" word of tragedy and loss would reach the town. Official news began arriving via the Western Union telegraph located in Green's Drugstore in downtown Bedford starting July 16. Over the next four days, Bedford would receive eighteen telegrams that would permanently cast a shadow over the town's memory of D-day.

Given the extent of loss, compounded by the number of notices that came to the town over a four-day period, it is hard to comprehend the depth of shock and mourning that settled on Bedford – mourning still visible today. Commemoration and celebration of the success of the Normandy invasion were absent in Bedford in 1944. However, small somber and personal memorial events did occur over time. Nine bodies of Bedford men that died on D-Day were eventually repatriated between 1947 and 1948, receiving burial in Bedford County cemeteries. In 1949, a plaque was dedicated at the Bedford County Courthouse to remember all Bedford citizens who died in WWI and WWII. On June 6, 1954, the tenth anniversary of D-Day, a formal memorial emerged in front of the county courthouse in downtown Bedford. A simple plaque mounted on a stone block cut from the cliffs overlooking Omaha Beach commemorated the town's tragedy. The stone was a gift to Bedford on behalf of France by the French Naval attaché to the French Embassy. The 29th Division commander on D-Day, Charles Gerhardt, presided over the dedication, and a large crowd of more than 5,000 people attended.

While the memory of D-Day had not vanished, the cultural climate of America through the period of the Cold War, the Vietnam and post-Vietnam periods, and into the '80s saw Americans preoccupied with those events and immersed in a period of national division with little interest in WWII commemoration. However, by the mid-'80s, Americans had begun recalling WWII memories. Veterans slowly began to recount their memories, most notably in Studs Terkel's 1984 book The Good War. The 40th anniversary of D-Day and then-President Reagan's Point du Hoc speech further prompted American remembrance.

With D-Day remembrance returning prominently to contemporary national memory space, the memorial located in Bedford, Virginia, was elevated to a national memorial on September 23, 1996. Originally envisioned as a simple monument in Roanoke, it ultimately became situated in Bedford township after the town heard of the project and offered a site for the memorial. Conceptual and financial support for the project also received national attention drawing celebrities including Stephen Ambrose, Steven Spielberg, and Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schultz.

The overall artistic, architectural, and landscape designs of the site function to memorialize and educate visitors regarding the complexities and challenges the Allied invasion faced and the lessons D-Day produced. The memorial exhibits three principal areas, each set at three gradually ascending elevations. Jooyoun Lee, the author of "Yasukuni and Hiroshima in Clash? War and Peace Museums in Contemporary Japan," in Pacific Focus, describes how museum routes are arranged to provoke particular emotional effects and lead visitors to specific conclusions, giving them "a point from which to view" a particular event. This viewpoint is evident in the design of the memorial.

The design flows from the English Garden at the lowest elevation, representing pre-invasion planning in England. At the north end is a gazebo that houses a bronze sculpture of General Eisenhower. The Eisenhower Gazebo sculpture looks toward the Invasion Plaza, ultimately focusing on the Victory Plaza, the center of which contains the most prominent feature of the memorial, the Overlord Arch. The Invasion Plaza depicts the English Channel and battle phases of the invasion. Of particular note are the central sculptures in the plaza. Unlike in other national WWII memorials, the harsh realities of the landing and battle find emphasis by presenting realistic images of extreme struggle and bitter sacrifice. Three bronze sculptures, titled Through the Surf, Death on Shore, and Across the Beach, depict movement from a landing craft through the Invasion Pool to the beach. A final sculpture, Scaling the Wall, depicts the assault on Point du Hoc, the flow of which ascends onto the Victory Plaza.

The Necrology Walls, opposite of and facing the assault end of the Invasion Plaza, list the names of 4,415 Allied service personnel who died during the invasion. At the Victory Plaza, the flow of the artistic interpretation moves from Scaling the Wall to the Overlord Arch and ultimately to the Valor, Fidelity, and Sacrifice sculpture. Surrounding Victory Plaza are the flags of all the Allied nations that participated in D-Day and plaques commemorating the contributions of each respective nation.

While the memory of the Allied effort and contributions of all groups, including women and Black Americans, find commemoration throughout the memorial, the context of the D-Day landings not surprisingly influenced how the ideals of valor, fidelity, and sacrifice apply to memory. The sculptural interpretations depict the American citizen soldiers that landed on Omaha beach, and these interpretations related directly to the memories of the community that had sponsored the memorial's location. This element reveals a unique relationship differing from other prominent national WWII memorials. The National D-Day Memorial arose from the efforts of a local D-Day veteran, the sister of two fallen brothers, other D-Day veterans, and a county still in silent mourning after more than fifty years. No other prominent American WWII memory sites – including the National WWII Memorial in Washington, D.C.; the Valor in the Pacific National Monument (which includes the USS Arizona Memorial as well as memory sites in Hawaii, Alaska, and California); the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia; the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, DC; and the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, to name a few – can identify as deeply with a specific community as the National D-Day Memorial can with Bedford County, Virginia.

In recent years, banners continue to hang on downtown lamp posts with pictures of each soldier who fell on D-Day. Other banners show a picture of Green's Drug Store framed by the Overlord Arch, containing the phrase "Bedford Remembers." Images posted throughout town project a significant collective memory of D-Day that Bedford has. Keith Lowe describes an effect of this in his review of the Shrine of the Fallen in Bologna, Italy. Similar to Bedford, the pictures at that Shrine, while not perhaps as emotionally powerful as they may have been at one time, are still significant because as the community passes by them every day, the pictures…gaze down on the inhabitants…silently reminding them of who they are, and where they have come from."

Perhaps the most impactful site of memory in Bedford is the Company A Bedford Boys Tribute Center, dedicated in 2019. The center is a living memorial that evolved not from the National Memorial or local interests but from Ken and Linda Parkers' desire to memorialize Bedford's story further. When the Parkers learned of the story of Bedford, the unimaginable town's sacrifice led them to research and write a book detailing the personal side of Bedford's loss. In 2019, the couple relocated from Oklahoma and restored Green's Drug Store, which had sat vacant for several years. (As mentioned earlier, Green's received the telegrams confirming the soldiers' deaths, changing Bedford's memory and identity forever.) As Ken Parker related, it is one of Bedford's most historical sites, if not the most historical, relating to D-Day and its memory. It has since become a site of memory and mourning where families have consolidated intimate personal effects of each lost soldier and come to remember and heal privately. Given the intimate nature of the personal items – many being final letters, gifts, and final pictures before shipping out – this site profoundly impacts individual memory and identity for these Bedford families more than the memorial. These personal displays also allow visitors walking through the center to connect more intimately to the sacrifices made on D-Day and to the broader collective memory presented by the national memorial on the hill overlooking the town.

The collective memory surrounding the American ideal of righteous sacrifice as part of a noble crusade becomes embodied through the powerful influence of memories and identities of Bedford. The community, in turn, derives remembrance and identity from a national monument befitting of its sacrifice, one that it sees itself in and one with which it shares its memory. While the site speaks of a great WWII battle and the triumph of the Allies in a noble crusade, as Kate Lemay summarizes, "Sites of war are subordinate to memory and more often than not mourning." The National D-Day Memorial has been and remains such a site, but one whose elevated effect exists by the collective memory of the surrounding area, Bedford, Virginia.

(edited by Laura Bailey)

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