LM#49--80th Anniversary - Triumph and Sacrifice on D-Day: The Bedford Boys

Transcript

WEBVTT

00:00:02.604 --> 00:00:06.774
It was D-Day, the 6th of June 1944.

00:00:06.774 --> 00:00:15.314
The drums of liberty had been quiet across most of Europe for the last four years.

00:00:23.062 --> 00:00:36.284
Welcome to the Theory to Action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time, to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life.

00:00:36.284 --> 00:00:40.314
Now here's your host, David Kaiser.

00:00:42.862 --> 00:00:43.886
Let's go right to the book.

00:00:43.886 --> 00:00:51.179
Let's go right to the book.

00:00:51.179 --> 00:01:10.406
By 6.45 am the first wave of boats had deposited Company A on the beach and pulled away Lt Ray Nance and 17 other headquarters staff, including the medic, cecil Brendan and Bedford boys John Reynolds and John Clifton.

00:01:10.406 --> 00:01:19.287
They came in exactly as planned, 19 minutes after the rest of Company A Nance's craft hit bottom.

00:01:19.287 --> 00:01:28.871
The British boatman standing in a few feet to Nance's right in the steel compartment at the front of the craft, pulled a lever to let the ramp down.

00:01:28.871 --> 00:01:31.447
The ramp lowered but then stopped.

00:01:31.447 --> 00:01:33.447
Get it down, shouted Nance.

00:01:33.447 --> 00:01:36.668
The bowman yanked the lever again and again.

00:01:36.668 --> 00:01:38.546
Finally the ramp started to fall.

00:01:38.546 --> 00:01:43.481
Nance gave it a shove Up, and at him, mates cried.

00:01:43.481 --> 00:01:44.022
The bowman.

00:01:44.022 --> 00:01:47.864
Nance took two steps down the ramp and jumped into the water.

00:01:47.864 --> 00:01:48.766
Gave it a shove Up, and at him, mates cried.

00:01:48.766 --> 00:01:50.406
The bowman Nance took two steps down the ramp and jumped into the water.

00:01:50.406 --> 00:01:51.927
A wave crashed down, almost submerging him.

00:01:51.927 --> 00:01:58.593
He began to wade forward, his sodden pack pulling him down, rifle above his head.

00:01:58.593 --> 00:02:03.236
The next thing he knew he was lying winded on the cold sand.

00:02:07.400 --> 00:02:08.042
Nance looked around.

00:02:08.042 --> 00:02:09.463
He couldn't see any other men from Company A.

00:02:09.463 --> 00:02:12.811
Feeling terribly isolated, he struggled up on the beach.

00:02:12.811 --> 00:02:15.842
Soon he realized what had happened to Company A.

00:02:15.842 --> 00:02:21.719
Corpses lay strewn across the sands and bumped against each other in the shallows.

00:02:21.719 --> 00:02:24.782
Suddenly he was not alone.

00:02:25.443 --> 00:02:37.534
Men appeared nearby To the right, one of Nance's runners, to the left, his radio operator, john Clifton, company A's Casanova, crawling His radio still on his back.

00:02:37.534 --> 00:02:39.296
The radio was useless.

00:02:39.296 --> 00:02:41.262
It made him a sitting target.

00:02:41.262 --> 00:02:42.989
He should dump it fast, thought Nance.

00:02:42.989 --> 00:02:45.808
Keep moving, keep moving, shouted Nance.

00:02:45.808 --> 00:02:47.983
I'm hit, cried Clifton.

00:02:47.983 --> 00:02:50.127
Can you move, asked Nance.

00:02:50.127 --> 00:02:52.151
Clifton didn't answer.

00:02:52.151 --> 00:02:55.383
Nance ducked and then looked up again.

00:02:55.383 --> 00:02:57.852
Clifton had disappeared.

00:02:57.852 --> 00:03:03.186
Nance spotted four other men huddled down behind a steel tank obstacle.

00:03:03.186 --> 00:03:05.151
Spread out, shouted Nance.

00:03:05.151 --> 00:03:12.203
The words had barely left his mouth when a mortar round landed, killing three of the men and severely wounding the other.

00:03:13.467 --> 00:03:15.331
Nance couldn't see a single German.

00:03:15.331 --> 00:03:20.723
He fired a few rounds towards the bluffs, but then another mortar shell exploded nearby.

00:03:20.723 --> 00:03:27.895
A piece of shrapnel took a chunk out of his rifle just a few inches from his face.

00:03:27.895 --> 00:03:34.650
The Germans were so accurate with those things, nance recalled they could put one in your back pocket if they spotted you.

00:03:34.650 --> 00:03:43.425
Tracer files spurted towards Nance, kicking up sand, ricocheting off the stones, stitching the hard beach with bullets.

00:03:43.425 --> 00:03:47.963
The Germans had spotted him and were zeroing in.

00:03:47.963 --> 00:03:50.448
The machine gun snarled again.

00:03:50.448 --> 00:03:52.692
He was definitely the target.

00:03:53.173 --> 00:03:57.067
The fire came from the bunker just to the right of the draw, halfway up the bluffs.

00:03:57.067 --> 00:04:03.548
Nance positioned his body so he was facing the machine gun head on, providing less of a target.

00:04:03.548 --> 00:04:07.262
If he'd get hit it would be quick a shot to the head.

00:04:07.262 --> 00:04:08.906
He looked at his rifle.

00:04:08.906 --> 00:04:09.807
It was useless.

00:04:09.807 --> 00:04:11.793
Wet sand had gotten into the workings.

00:04:12.900 --> 00:04:16.307
Nance held his breath as the sound of bullets got louder.

00:04:16.307 --> 00:04:18.632
Then his body began to shake with terror.

00:04:18.632 --> 00:04:20.603
Another burst of bullets.

00:04:20.603 --> 00:04:22.706
He looked to his right.

00:04:22.706 --> 00:04:28.165
A Company, a rifleman, was up on his feet, sprinting trying to escape the machine gun volleys.

00:04:28.165 --> 00:04:32.560
Nance recognized the runner it was 22-year-old John Reynolds.

00:04:32.560 --> 00:04:36.814
Reynolds stopped, knelt down, raised his rifle to return fire.

00:04:36.814 --> 00:04:39.120
He never got to pull the trigger.

00:04:39.120 --> 00:04:41.165
Nance saw him fall dead.

00:04:42.588 --> 00:04:45.673
Finally the bullets stopped spitting around the beach towards Nance.

00:04:45.673 --> 00:04:48.725
Perhaps the Germans had found another runner?

00:04:48.725 --> 00:04:52.413
There was no retreat for any man on D-Day.

00:04:52.413 --> 00:04:54.423
He had to push on.

00:04:54.423 --> 00:04:59.033
Nance crawled forward, aiming for a cliff face 300 yards away.

00:04:59.033 --> 00:05:04.992
Suddenly his right foot felt like Frank Draper Jr had hit it with a baseball bat.

00:05:04.992 --> 00:05:07.367
Part of his heel had been shot away.

00:05:07.367 --> 00:05:11.610
Bullets again stitched the sand, again heading in his direction.

00:05:11.610 --> 00:05:13.947
They came so close, recalled Nance.

00:05:13.947 --> 00:05:18.831
Then, suddenly, when I thought there was no more hope, I looked up in the sky.

00:05:18.831 --> 00:05:23.007
I didn't see anything up there, but I felt something settle over me.

00:05:23.007 --> 00:05:24.987
I got this warm feeling.

00:05:24.987 --> 00:05:29.184
I felt as if somehow I was going to live.

00:05:29.204 --> 00:05:32.973
Nance lay as still as he could, hoping the machine gunner would think he was dead.

00:05:32.973 --> 00:05:37.309
But even corpses were now targets for the Germans above Dahl Green.

00:05:37.309 --> 00:05:40.322
That machine gunner just wouldn't let me be.

00:05:40.322 --> 00:05:50.327
He'd send a line of bullets my way, pass on to another target, then come back for more for me again, like playing cat and mouse.

00:05:51.288 --> 00:05:56.103
Nance tried in vain to dig a shallow foxhole in the sand and shingle with his hands.

00:05:56.103 --> 00:05:58.769
Then he spotted a tidal pool.

00:05:58.769 --> 00:06:01.762
It looked deep enough for a man to disappear beneath the surface.

00:06:01.762 --> 00:06:06.913
Nance crawled as fast as he could, slithering into the pool's tepid waters.

00:06:06.913 --> 00:06:09.708
He filled his lungs and ducked down.

00:06:09.708 --> 00:06:15.165
Suddenly a bullet pierced the strap on his World War I binocular case.

00:06:15.165 --> 00:06:17.346
Nance ducked down again and again.

00:06:17.346 --> 00:06:22.302
Sometime later, when he came up for air, there was a soldier from New York not far from him.

00:06:22.302 --> 00:06:24.822
The machine gun bullets returned.

00:06:24.822 --> 00:06:31.076
Nance turned his face to turned his face to head them on.

00:06:31.076 --> 00:06:33.521
He told the New Yorker to do the same.

00:06:33.521 --> 00:06:35.144
The bullets moved away.

00:06:35.144 --> 00:06:39.338
Nance and the New Yorker scrambled across the last yards towards the cliff.

00:06:39.338 --> 00:06:42.194
At last they felt shingle beneath them.

00:06:42.194 --> 00:06:46.949
Nance collapsed, blood pouring from his foot, but at least he was safe.

00:06:46.949 --> 00:06:48.994
He looked out to sea.

00:06:49.595 --> 00:06:51.358
I recognized two dead officers.

00:06:51.358 --> 00:06:54.403
They were face up a lot lying in the water.

00:06:54.403 --> 00:06:56.913
A lot of men were caught by the tide.

00:06:56.913 --> 00:07:00.802
Had we been on dry land a lot of men would have made it.

00:07:00.802 --> 00:07:04.401
The tide had crept up behind Nance, drown and Company.

00:07:04.401 --> 00:07:07.310
A men who no longer had the strength to crawl.

00:07:07.310 --> 00:07:10.637
Among them, it is thought, was Raymond Hoback.

00:07:11.519 --> 00:07:14.857
Nance had trained them, he had tried to be good to them.

00:07:14.857 --> 00:07:26.651
He had read their last love letters and as he lay now on the blood stained pebbles below Verville-sur-Mer, he still felt responsible for them.

00:07:26.651 --> 00:07:28.451
Every last one.

00:07:28.451 --> 00:07:30.512
I was their officer.

00:07:30.512 --> 00:07:31.797
It was my duty.

00:07:31.797 --> 00:07:47.240
They were the finest soldiers I ever saw, and that was a quote from an excellent book titled the Bedford Boys by Alex Kershaw.

00:07:47.240 --> 00:07:52.862
The subtitle is One Town's Ultimate D-Day Sacrifice.

00:07:52.862 --> 00:07:58.329
The subtitle is One Town's Ultimate D-Day Sacrifice.

00:07:58.329 --> 00:08:04.910
And, of course, today is D-Day, the 6th of June 2024.

00:08:12.850 --> 00:08:17.089
So many years after those boys from Bedford, virginia, stormed up the beaches and the cliffs on the coast of Normandy, france.

00:08:17.089 --> 00:08:35.110
19 boys from Bedford Virginia, with a population of just 3,000 in 1944, died in the first bloody, harrowing minutes of the D-Day landings.

00:08:35.110 --> 00:08:42.639
They were the first Americans to hit the beaches of Normandy as they were part of Company A of the 116th Regiment of the 29th Infantry Division.

00:08:42.639 --> 00:08:57.721
Later in the campaign, three more boys from this small Virginia town died of gunshot wounds 22 total sons of Bedford lost.

00:08:57.721 --> 00:09:03.660
Alex Kershaw does a great job capturing their story.

00:09:03.660 --> 00:09:09.442
It's one of the most heartbreaking stories you can read about World War II.

00:09:09.442 --> 00:09:23.801
He does a great job of introducing the men to you, their backgrounds, their likes and dislikes, and you grow fond for these men as they grew up in small-town America during the Great Depression.

00:09:23.801 --> 00:09:27.020
Let's go back to the book.

00:09:30.456 --> 00:09:44.783
The next morning, july 17, 1944, just after 8 am, 21-year-old Elizabeth Taze was dropped off near Green's Drugstore on the corner of North Bridge and Main Streets.

00:09:44.783 --> 00:10:04.826
She entered the store past the soda fountain and a couple of teenage soda jerk workers there, then the prescription counter, and finally walked through booths to her small Western Union office at the rear of the store, a polished wooden booth behind the cosmetic counter.

00:10:04.826 --> 00:10:10.667
Tess had worked at Green since 1942 after graduating Bedford High School.

00:10:10.667 --> 00:10:17.148
At several booths customers chatted and sipped freshly brewed coffee.

00:10:17.148 --> 00:10:21.465
Many Bedford men gathered there every morning and recalled tastes.

00:10:21.465 --> 00:10:40.688
Businessmen came by and it was as if we were all a big family Lawyers, doctors, the town's undertaker, harry Carter, several regulars browsed the morning papers and discussed the news Coca-Cola had produced its billionth gallon of Coca-Cola syrup.

00:10:40.688 --> 00:10:48.668
Over 100 children had died in a fire in Connecticut started by inept fire eaters at a circus.

00:10:48.668 --> 00:10:56.969
In France, the 29th Division was fighting desperately in the outskirts of St Louis after a month of deadly stalemate.

00:10:56.969 --> 00:11:02.865
It was now 8.30 am in Bedford.

00:11:04.034 --> 00:11:16.921
Elizabeth Tace switched on the teletype machine for receiving telegrams and then pressed a button that sounded a bell 25 miles away in the main Western Union office from Central Virginia in Roanoke.

00:11:16.921 --> 00:11:21.403
All telegrams came to Bedford from this office.

00:11:21.403 --> 00:11:25.840
She then typed Good morning, go ahead, bedford.

00:11:25.840 --> 00:11:33.760
Words emerged on a strip of paper chattering out from the printer Good morning, go ahead, roanoke.

00:11:33.760 --> 00:11:35.667
We have casualties.

00:11:35.667 --> 00:11:40.563
Tase's heart sank as she read the first line of copy.

00:11:40.563 --> 00:11:46.586
The Secretary of War desires me to express his deep regret.

00:11:46.586 --> 00:11:49.201
Tace had seen those words before.

00:11:49.201 --> 00:11:56.128
By July 1944, telegrams announcing the death of a local boy arrived on average once a week.

00:11:56.128 --> 00:12:01.647
She waited for the message to end, expecting the machine to fall silent.

00:12:01.647 --> 00:12:04.000
But it did not.

00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:11.717
Line after line of the copy clicked out of the printer Within a few minutes.

00:12:11.717 --> 00:12:19.426
As Tace watched in a trance-like state, it was clear that something terrible had happened to Company A.

00:12:19.426 --> 00:12:28.013
I just sat and watched them and wondered how many more it could be.

00:12:28.013 --> 00:12:30.908
The telegrams kept coming.

00:12:36.756 --> 00:12:40.806
Tace fed the ticker tape into a small barrel of water where the adhesive on the back of the tape was moistened.

00:12:40.806 --> 00:12:49.618
Using a large thimble she then ran the tape onto pieces of Western Union stationary, snapping the tape every couple of inches to form a new line.

00:12:49.618 --> 00:12:50.679
The job required intense concentration and neatness.

00:12:50.679 --> 00:12:52.263
Elizabeth took pride in her work.

00:12:52.263 --> 00:12:56.096
Naturally I was in shock, recalled Taze.

00:12:56.096 --> 00:13:01.597
I was so afraid the news would be leaked before the addressees on the telegram were notified.

00:13:01.597 --> 00:13:09.197
I didn't want someone phoning up a relative, a mother say, and telling them before they had gotten the telegram.

00:13:09.197 --> 00:13:11.783
That would have just been terrible.

00:13:13.586 --> 00:13:20.028
For a long time the teletype machine clattered, spitting out telegram after telegram.

00:13:20.028 --> 00:13:25.465
When it finally stopped, tace thought the messages of condolences were over.

00:13:25.465 --> 00:13:29.283
But a few minutes later another stuttered out.

00:13:29.283 --> 00:13:44.054
I don't remember who came first or when she recalled, but I do remember there was a lot of Johns John Shank, john Wilkes, john Dean, john's John Shank, john Wilkes, john Dean.

00:13:44.054 --> 00:13:48.331
Just heartbreaking, I will say.

00:13:48.392 --> 00:13:54.059
When you listen to the audiobook the words just keep being read.

00:13:54.059 --> 00:13:59.059
But it's hard to listen to those words without breaking down.

00:13:59.059 --> 00:14:07.421
You put yourself in their shoes and there were so many times that I had to stop the audio book.

00:14:07.421 --> 00:14:19.880
And here I am 80 years after the fact and I don't know any of these men, but your heart breaks For people who you don't even know Going through such a tragedy.

00:14:19.880 --> 00:14:32.566
And World War II just devastated this small town, devastated small towns all across the country, but it really hit Bedford, virginia.

00:14:32.566 --> 00:14:36.140
Here's our last quote.

00:14:38.956 --> 00:14:45.308
A few days later, the following words appeared in the Bedford Bulletin Memororum.

00:14:45.308 --> 00:14:50.243
Do not say my sons are dead.

00:14:50.243 --> 00:14:52.379
They only sleepest.

00:14:52.379 --> 00:15:01.628
They loved each other, stayed together and, with their comrades, crossed together to that great beyond.

00:15:01.628 --> 00:15:03.821
So weep, not mothers.

00:15:03.821 --> 00:15:11.724
Your sons are happy and free, mrs John S Hoback.

00:15:11.724 --> 00:15:17.748
But the Hobacks did weep.

00:15:17.748 --> 00:15:20.201
Things were never the same.

00:15:20.894 --> 00:15:27.448
That summer Lucille was barred from going to Bedford County Lake or doing anything that might have been fun.

00:15:27.448 --> 00:15:35.423
Her mother spent hours alone and rarely left the house Every evening felt like a wake.

00:15:35.423 --> 00:15:40.162
My sister and I were always trying to make everybody feel better.

00:15:40.162 --> 00:15:44.875
There was to be no laughing, no chatting.

00:15:44.875 --> 00:15:51.015
I was very close to my mother, so anything that hurt her hurt me and I felt helpless.

00:15:51.015 --> 00:15:55.967
Later that summer Lucille asked if she could go to an amusement park in Roanoke.

00:15:55.967 --> 00:15:57.918
Her parents said no.

00:15:57.918 --> 00:16:00.143
She thought she understood why.

00:16:00.143 --> 00:16:05.705
They were the only ones who lost two sons on D-Day.

00:16:07.476 --> 00:16:10.806
All across Bedford County, joy died that summer.

00:16:10.806 --> 00:16:24.647
Life seems so useless without you, darling, wrote Betty Wilkes in a memorial notice published with dozens of others from bereaved relatives and widows in the Bedford Bulletin.

00:16:24.647 --> 00:16:27.461
There is only hope.

00:16:27.461 --> 00:16:36.970
There's only one hope left now to meet you up there when there is no night but eternal rest and peace.

00:16:36.970 --> 00:16:38.316
Rest and peace.

00:16:40.239 --> 00:16:45.924
Families grieved behind closed doors, sharing their pain with relatives and God.

00:16:45.924 --> 00:16:49.109
People don't feel like going out and doing things.

00:16:49.109 --> 00:17:01.182
For a while recalled Marie Powers, a junior at Bedford High School who loved nothing more than jitterbugging in her saddle shoes, to Glenn Miller tunes at the dinner club dances.

00:17:01.182 --> 00:17:04.544
Most all the activities were discontinued.

00:17:04.544 --> 00:17:07.602
It was just a sad time.

00:17:07.602 --> 00:17:12.664
It was terrible, but people loved one another and people supported each other.

00:17:14.718 --> 00:17:24.240
By the time Powers returned to high school that fall the War Department had confirmed that in all 19 men from Bedford had been killed on Omaha Beach on D-Day.

00:17:24.240 --> 00:17:28.496
Three more Bedford boys had died later in the invasion.

00:17:28.496 --> 00:17:35.169
In cities close to Bedford where bloodlines also went back several generations.

00:17:35.169 --> 00:17:45.002
The slaughter had also taken a heavy toll 16 of Bob's sales buddies and Company B from Lynchburg had died on D-Day.

00:17:45.002 --> 00:17:52.003
18 of Bob's slaughters buddies and Company D would never go home to Roanoke.

00:17:53.378 --> 00:18:03.727
But no community in the state or in America, or indeed in any allied nation, had lost as many sons as Bedford.

00:18:03.727 --> 00:18:12.428
In a matter of minutes a couple of German machine gunners had broken the town's heart.

00:18:12.428 --> 00:18:24.166
Indeed, in a matter of minutes a couple of German machine gunners had broken the town's heart.

00:18:24.166 --> 00:18:35.441
So in today's Liberty Minute, on this 80th anniversary of D-Day, the 6th of June, remember and pray.

00:18:35.441 --> 00:18:45.511
Remember and pray for this small town of Bedford, virginia, who had lost everything that summer in 1944.

00:18:45.511 --> 00:18:53.805
Remember and pray for all those that never came home from the battles of World War II.

00:18:53.805 --> 00:19:09.934
Remember and pray for our country that what they fought for and died for, those ideals of liberty and justice for all and peace in our world, that those ideals will never be forgotten.

00:19:09.934 --> 00:19:17.634
God bless Bedford, virginia, and God bless the United States of America.

00:19:17.634 --> 00:19:47.193
Keep fighting the good fight ¶¶.

00:20:13.154 --> 00:20:13.757
Thank you for joining us.

00:20:13.757 --> 00:20:16.465
We hope you enjoyed this Theory to Action podcast.

00:20:16.465 --> 00:20:25.661
Be sure to check out our show page at team mojo academycom, where we have everything we discussed in this podcast, as well as other great resources.

00:20:25.661 --> 00:20:29.442
Until next time, keep getting your mojo on.

LM#49--80th Anniversary - Triumph and Sacrifice on D-Day: The Bedford Boys

Listen On

Recent Episodes