Town of Losses Honors D-Day

Presidents have marked the day standing atop the cliffs of Normandy. They have visited the cemeteries in northern France where the soldiers lie buried, and they have walked the once-bloody beaches.

On Wednesday, 57 years after D-day, President Bush turned to the little town on the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains that bore the greatest American burden.

Bedford’s loss on the beaches that day--19 dead in the first 15 minutes, 21 by the end of the day--was the greatest per capita of any community in the United States. And it was here that Bush dedicated the National D-day Memorial on Wednesday.

He recalled the order that Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower issued that day--”nothing short of complete victory”--and said: “The order of the day is gratitude.

“Today we give thanks for all that was gained on the beaches of Normandy,” he said. “We remember what was lost, with respect, admiration and love.”

A father and son died in the landing. So did 33 pairs of brothers from this town.

“Upon this beautiful town fell the heaviest share of American losses on D-day,” Bush said. “This is the place they left behind. And here was the life they dreamed of returning to.

“They did not yearn to be heroes. They yearned for those long summer nights again, and harvest time, and paydays. They wanted to see Mom and Dad again, and hold their sweethearts or wives, or for one young man who lived here, to see that baby girl born while he was away.”

They were part of a force of 154,000 soldiers who made a treacherous charge on the beaches under fire from German troops atop the cliffs. The successful invasion was a turning point in World War II. It forced a Nazi retreat and led to the German defeat 10 months later.

Walter Ehlers, wearing the Medal of Honor he was awarded for his actions in the invasion, talked in an interview about moving ashore to back up a unit pinned down by German fire. He was a 23-year-old staff sergeant from Kansas. He talked about the man who was shot down trying to blow up a barbed wire fence. And then he talked about his brother Roland.

They had fought side by side in Africa. Together, they invaded Sicily. Both were sent across the English Channel on June 6, 1944, in separate units. Roland died on D-day, Ehlers said quietly.

Bush, who leaves Monday on his first trip to Europe, said the war taught that “when there is conflict in Europe, America is affected and cannot stand by.”

The losses--among the 9,758 Allied casualties were 6,603 American troops--were felt in communities across the United States.

But Bedford became a symbol: The bloodiest fighting was on Omaha Beach, and the Virginia National Guard sent in one of the two first assault regiments, the 116th Infantry Regiment of the 29th Division. Company A, based in Bedford, population 3,200 in 1944, was there.

The company began the day with 170 soldiers. By day’s end, 91 men in the company had died, 64 were wounded and only 15 were able to continue fighting. Roy Stevens made it home, his twin brother, Ray, did not. They were from Bedford. And those who made it home did so wondering why they survived and their comrades fell.

Behind a bridge from which Bush spoke stood a towering sculpture--four soldiers scaling a cliff, one of them falling back, apparently shot.

Facing those sculpted soldiers and their cliff, among the crowd of 16,000, were dozens of elderly men. They drew more than occasional glances. Some were hatless, others wore ball caps, and some wore the military-style caps of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

When the veterans of D-day were asked to stand, they rose. Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man,” commissioned in 1942 to rally American morale, rang out. The audience applauded for two minutes.

“It is sometimes fashionable to take a cynical view of the world,” Bush said. “But when the calendar reads the 6th of June, such opinions are better left unspoken. No one who has heard and read about the events of D-day could possibly remain a cynic.”