75 Years Ago

Thu Jun 6 12:26:47 EDT 2019

I lived in Lynchburg from 1981-84; my wife and I moved to Forest 1985-87.  We went thru Bedford many times during those years but never knew of the lives lost 75 years ago today.  It’s still a cute town nestled at that base of the Blue Ridge and in eyeshot of Peaks of Otter from just about anywhere around town.

National Geographic channel is running D-Day and WWII documentaries all this week (new shows run 8:00-11:00 pm).  1 of Tuesday’s shows stated that approx. 10,000 soldiers (US/UK/French) died at Normandy that day.  Last night’s show followed the Nazi downfall.  Between 1939 (invasion of Poland) and 1945, an estimated 24 million military-related personnel and 45 million civilians died.  These are staggering numbers that I can’t get my head around.  My Dad was serving in New Guinea and The Philippines for 3 years in radio/radar.  While the European theater seems to get most attention, the guys fighting in the South Pacific were equally heroes … some of those battles cost the US many lives, especially landings on islands close to Japan in 1944-45.  Dad’s been dead since 1997 and, except for few short conversations, he would not discuss his time in the Army Air Corp (precursor to USAF) so I’ll never be able to ask him more.  Seeing movies like Saving Private Ryan and recent documentaries, I am starting to understand why guys didn’t want to relive that horrible time.  We have a few pictures of Dad with his buddies and the “tent city” they lived in … and when it rained, they had a creek flowing thru the middle of their tent.

Jim King

 <http://www.smokymountainmodelworks.com/> www.smokymountainmodelworks.com

From: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> 
Sent: Thursday, June 6, 2019 11:14 AM
To: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Subject: Re: 75 Years Ago

Thanks for sharing Ken. A very touching tribute. Mike Weeks Seattle

On Thu, Jun 6, 2019 at 8:02 AM NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org <mailto:nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> > wrote:

"You are about to embark on the great crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you."

Those are the words that opened General Dwight D. Eisenhower's Order of the Day for June 6, 1944. This was distributed the day before to the troops massed in England who had been awaiting the day for months.

These troops had been preparing for months for what by far the largest naval armada ever, with well over 4,000 ships and 1,200 planes from England, Canada, and America to deliver the troops to Normandy. Supplies, arms, and weapons, the product of the massive American industry had been built, packaged, shipped, and now were preparing to support this massive operation.

The Norfolk and Western and Virginian both had huge parts in this operation; trains loaded with war materials and troops had been crowding the rails for months. Have no doubt about it, without America's railroads, this massive movement could not have happened. Both N&W and Virginian directly served the Port of Norfolk, a major east coast embarkation point. 

The N&W also has the distinction of serving the small town of Bedford, Virginia. Bedford, a town with a population in 1944 approximately 3,200, was formerly known as Liberty. On June 6, 1944, Bedford acquired a distinction in the history books that a place should ever have. The small town of Bedford is believed to have lost more men, per capita, than any town in American on the beaches of Normandy. Thirty-four men from this small town were part of the invasion, 23 did not come back. These men, as well as men from all over Southwest Virginia were part of the great crusade to liberate Europe from the Nazi tyranny as part of the 29th Division. Many had left Bedford by train to go to basic training. 

Early in the morning of June 6, thousands of paratroopers began dropping into France. The airborne troops suffered from confusion, missed landing zones and scattered groups. At 5:30 am on June 6, the naval guns began their bombardment. An hour later, the landing craft began their way to the beach, no sooner than the ramps dropped on the landing craft, the hail of German machine gunfire was intense, many men never made it off the landing craft alive. For our readers, to see and feel  what it might have been like are encouraged to watch the first 20 minutes of the movie "Saving Private Ryan." The people who actually experience the invasion have told me it is the closest depiction to what they saw and experienced that morning. It is, simply terrifying and horrific. Put yourself back at age 18 or so, By day's end, some 159,000 troops were ashore in Normandy. On June 6, alone, 4,414 Allied troops died, of those, 2,501 were Americans. The estimates of wounded or missing on both sides are almost impossible to determine. German casualties are also nearly impossible to calculate.

On Monday, July 17 in Green's Drugstore in Bedford, the 21-year old telegrapher, Elizabeth Teass began her regular work day by sending the message to Western Union that she was ready for messages. Western Union returned a message saying that Bedford had casualties. The telegrams started coming in, one after another. All of the messages began with the heartbreaking line "The Secretary of War desires me to express his deep regret that your…" 

Over the next few years, the "Bedford Boys" would begin to trickle home via the Norfolk and Western, arriving in the flag draped coffin, carefully unloaded from the baggage cars of the trains. 

Today, we offer tribute to the “Bedford Boys” and all those troops who paid the ultimate sacrifice during World War II to save the world. If, by chance, you see a veteran somewhere, regardless of when or where, please, go over and offer your thanks for their service.

Almost eerily, the Norfolk and Western Magazine Cover of September 1942 depicted Bedford:

With the caption: THE SCENE ON THE FRONT COVER, showing a peaceful community sheltered by protecting hills, seems to us to typify the America we know and love . . . to typify some of the possessions we are fighting to preserve in a war-inflamed world. The church spire pointing toward the sky, sunlight spreading its warmth across simple homes, woodland stretches unmarred by the devastation of bombs, a quiet valley where people may live calmly and happily, sharing the blessings of freedom... this is America. We must sacrifice to keep these things, and the four freedoms of common humanity set forth in the article on page 418.

The community pictured might be any one of a thousand similar American towns. It is, in fact, a scene along the Norfolk and Western-Bedford, Va., with the cloud-crested Peaks of Otter rising in the background.

Ken Miller

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