Bless Them All...

"Understand this about D-Day, dear reader.  The air bombardment of German fortifications was crucial, even if not as effective as hoped, and the naval attack on German defenses was essential, even if it did not silence most of the German guns, but at H-Hour when the landing craft lowered their ramps the success or failure of the greatest amphibious attack in the history of warfare, the event upon which the success of the Allied effort in World War II depended, all came down to the Bedford Boys and thousands of men like them scrambling in chest high water, weighed down with equipment and ammunition, and the water they splashed into was crimson with their blood and that of their buddies.  And they advanced.  Bless them all. Bless them all."

-- Alan Gropman, Distinguished Professor of National Security Policy at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, in his Washington Times Weekly book review of Alex Kershaw's The Bedford Boys: One American Town's Ultimate D-Day Sacrifice.

D-Day Still Relevant

“...the combined forces of 12 nations assaulted the shores of France in what remains the largest most complex joint operation in military history.

“In the battles that unfolded during what more than one commentator has called ‘the longest day,’ 154,000 troops of the Allied Expeditionary Force, supported by 11,000 ships and boats and 28,000 aerial sorties, secured the foothold on the Norman coast that allowed the subsequent projection of the military-industrial base of the United States onto the European continent.

“D-Day mattered on June 6, 1944, on May 8, 1945, on Sept. 12, 2001, and it matters today. That is why, in the fall of 1996, Congress warranted the establishment of the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, the community in the country that, per capita, lost more young men than any other in the country. Since the memorial’s dedication on the 57th anniversary of D-Day, the memorial has been much in the news.”

-- William A. McIntosh, President, NDMF, Roanoke Times, May 8, 2002
 
 

“Of the 170 men in this company (Company A), 91 were killed and 64 were wounded. Only 15 were able to keep fighting . Of the 35 Bedford soldiers, 19 died in the first 15 minutes. Two more died later in the day. Two more were killed in the following weeks as the allies pushed inland through the hedgerows.

“No place in America suffered a higher per capita loss in the assault on Fortress Europe than Bedford, according to war historians. That’s why it was chosen as the home of the national memorial to all who fell. As former Secretary of the Army John O. Marsh said at the groundbreaking, ‘Memories are best kept by those who love the greatest and by those who lost the most.’”

-- John Lang, Washington Times Weekly, June 5-11, 2000
 
 

“Bob Slaughter, chairman of the D-Day foundation who fought during the invasion, called the memorial a symbol of freedom. ‘It will remind people that freedom is not cheap,’ Slaughter said. ‘These men did so much and they should not be forgotten.’ Dedication of the completed memorial is scheduled for June 6, 2001, the 57th anniversary of the invasion.”

-- Kia Shant’e Breaux, The Associated Press, May 29, 2000