The men of Company A, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th U.S. Infantry Division were part of the first wave of troops that landed at Omaha Beach at 6:30 a.m. on 6 June 1944. Their objective was to capture the D-1 Exit, a “draw” or small valley, leading off the beach.
Initially, 103 of them left the small town of Bedford, Virginia – presently the site of the National D-Day memorial – when the local National Guard was called up in 1940.
On D-Day, 34 were still with the company, and, of these, 19 died in a matter of minutes after the ramps of their LCVPs dropped in the surf in front of the German defenses at Omaha’s Dog Green Sector (four more would perish later in the Normandy campaign).
Among the Bedford Boys lost that morning were A Company’s commander, Captain Taylor N. Fellers, and Frank Draper, Jr., a star athlete from the wrong side of the Norfolk & Western railroad tracks. Experienced National Guardsman and company top sergeant John Wilkes was killed, as was Earl Parker, who left behind a daughter he never saw. Both Holback brothers – Bedford and Raymond – and Ray Stevens died. Ray’s twin, Roy, survived both the landing and the war.
The town, population 3,200 in 1944, suffered the greatest proportion of losses of any single town
in the United States during World War II. Montage courtesy National D-Day Memorial.
