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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.
Sadly there was a large loss of life on Omaha Beach where D-Day could easily have failed and many Americans paid the ultimate price.
I don't think the OP was trying to take away the cost extracted in getting ashore it shows that places of small populations like this country town the losses had a far more reaching affect on them than say a city the size of Chicago or Illinois.
Here is another look at figures and how war touches many, in WWI Australia had a population of just 5 million 416,809 men enlisted of these the latest figures given for KIA/MIA is 62,000/14.87% with 156,000 WIA/POW 37.42%. So the war touched allot of families here. The population of the USA in 1917 was 103 million.
For the town of Bedford the losses only equated to .733 % this figure is really irrelevant, and I stress its the loss to the families and communities who's sons were so very important to the continuance of that country town and there were plenty of other small communities who shared the same distress.
The whole lot of the conflicts every one of them costs both our countries and others allied to the cause the flower of their youth to keep oppression and tyrants in check the best we can do is to honour them eternally for what they gave us and sacrificed themselves.
Sorry Mark I sincerely did not mean to hijack your post it becomes so very real when faces appear and how in an instant they are gone.......RIP.
The loss at Beford was felt keenly enough that they expressed themselves by successfully lobbying to have the National D-Day Memorial created in Bedford.
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Bob
I wasn't suggesting, in any way, that Mark was.Quote:
Originally Posted by CINDERS
I was making the point that my late father told me from an early age that D-Day could easily have failed on Omaha Beach.