Synopses & Reviews
June 6, 1944: Nineteen boys from Bedford, 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 Bedford Boys is the true and intimate story of these men and the friends and families they left behind.
Based on extensive interviews with survivors and relatives, as well as diaries and letters, Kershaw's book focuses on several remarkable individuals and families to tell one of the most poignant stories of World War II the story of one small American town that went to war and died on Omaha Beach.
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"[A]ccessible and moving....Kershaw includes combat sequences that give a vivid private's-eye view of the particular hell that was Omaha Beach..." Publishers Weekly
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"Kershaw does a reasonably good job of detailing the lives and deaths of these unfortunates....Still, the enterprise seems a second-tier offering in the face of the Ambrose/Brokaw industry and one drenched in clumsy sentimentality at that." Kirkus Reviews
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"Drawing on interviews with survivors and relatives, newspaper clippings, letters, and diaries, Kershaw has chronicled one community's great sacrifice." George Cohen, Booklist
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"A powerful reminder of the human cost of war." The Washington Post
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"The poignant story of twenty-one young men...who died in the D-Day invasion." USA Today
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"Few books describe the costs of war so soberly and so vividly." People
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"There are scores of accounts of D-Day, but Kershaw...gives a new perspective....The story of the Bedford boys is worth telling." The New York Times Book Review
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"An exhaustively researched, poignantly rendered account...an excellent, fact-packed chronicle...a literary memorial." Virginian-Pilot
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"Kershaw follows these young men from the time they joined the National Guard until they met their tragic end. Unlike the authors of other war books, he also highlights the families and hometown these young men left behind....Strongly recommended." Library Journal
Synopsis
Based on extensive interviews with survivors and relatives, as well as diaries and letters, Kershaw focuses on a small Virginia town that lost 22 of its sons on D-Day.
Synopsis
Gripping... It's through books like this that those brave men, who fought so others could be free, live on. --Dallas Morning News
About the Author
Alex Kershaw is a journalist and screenwriter. He is the author of the widely acclaimed biography Jack London, and more recently, Blood and Champagne: The Life and Times of Robert Capa. He lives in Vermont.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
The Bedford Boys
Maps
1 D-Day, H-360 1
2 Going to War 7
3 Moving Out 23
4 Cruel Seas 41
5 England's Own 53
6 "29, Let's Go!" 67
7 Slapton Sands 81
8 The Sausages 93
9 The Empire Javelin 111
10 The First Wave 121
11 Dog Beach 129
12 "Medic!" 139
13 Every Man Was a Hero 149
14 Bedford's Longest Day 165
15 Bocage 173
16 The Longest Wait 189
17 His Deep Regret 197
18 Coming Home 209
19 Memorial 225
The Bedford Boys and D-Day 239
Bibliography 241
Notes 243
Index 263