August 25, 2025 • 28 mins
Alrighty, let’s dive into a little history magic! This episode takes us back to the heart-wrenching yet inspiring tale of the Bedford boys during D-Day. We’re chatting about the National D Day Memorial, which honors their incredible sacrifice and the small Virginia town that felt such a massive loss. Seriously, it’s wild how this tiny community sent 44 young soldiers to Normandy, with 20 of them not making it back. Jenn and I revisited this story, and honestly, it hit even harder the second time around. So, grab your favorite snack and let’s explore this emotional journey together—trust me, you don’t want to miss it!
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🎥 Video from Bedford, Virginia
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to Talk with History.
I am your host Scott, and mywife and historian Jen and I are
taking a couple weeks off aswe gear up for some fantastic new
content coming in the fall.
I thought I would revisit someof our most popular podcast episodes
during our break, and thefirst one that comes to mind is our
episode about the National DDay Memorial and the story of the
Bedford boys during World War II.
(00:24):
I re listened to this episodeand it was even better the second
time.
The first time listening toit, you just end up in awe of this
amazing memorial in rural Virginia.
And the second time, you canfeel the emotion and the drama of
what Bedford, Virginiasacrificed when it sent its young
men to the beaches of Normandy.
(00:45):
The day I left for Bernie ArmyToday we journey back to the momentous
chapter of history that isWorld War II.
The year is 1944 and the worldis ensnared in the throes of War.
(01:08):
The U.S. military IndustrialComplex is operating at never before
seen levels.
And the size of our army andNavy is at historic highs.
The Normandy beaches are aboutto witness one of the most significant
military operations in history.
And from the small town ofBedford, Virginia, a group of young
soldiers is thrust into theepicenter of a colossal event that
(01:32):
the world will finally learnthe name of D Day.
Join us as we delve into theinspiring story of how the bravery
and sacrifice of the Bedfordboys ignited a community's determination
to memorialize not just theirsacrifice, but that of all who stormed
the beaches on that fateful day.
So just.
(01:52):
Jen, this is.
We, we went to Bedford,Virginia, Virginia.
And for.
Just kind of give people somecontext, you know, if you kind of
know where the Norfolk, D.C.area is from Norfolk, if you kind
of go about four hours due west.
Yes, that is where Bedford,Virginia is.
(02:13):
There's not much there.
No, it's a rural community.
It's a very rural community.
Like three hours due west is Appomattox.
Keep going for another hour.
Eventually you'll hit Bedford.
Yes, very rural community.
And the reason that we wentthere was actually the two star admiral
that I work for brought it upbecause he's from Bedford, Virginia.
(02:33):
He's, hey, I'm going out thereto do this like memorial thing at
a, at a D Day at the NationalD Day Memorial.
And that kind of stuck in mybrain because I was like, oh, that's
great.
That's kind of in our radius.
Sure.
That we can make it out to.
So I can't remember cominghome and telling you.
He's like, hey, we need tocheck this out.
So we had gone and done somekind of Western Virginia, Kentucky,
(02:56):
Eastern Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky.
History, history.
And on the way back, we swungthrough Bedford, Virginia.
So what is significant aboutBedford, Virginia?
And why is the National D DayMemorial there?
And it's not just a D DayMemorial, it's the National D Day
Memorial.
(03:17):
So let's caveat that, that youand I did not expect what we found.
Not at all.
We thought your admiral hadmentioned it to you.
So we thought, oh, we'll hitthat up.
That'll be a good littlehistory thing to talk about.
Maybe we'll do a reel for Instagram.
We thought it might be just alittle plaque or monument in the
middle of town, the townsquare or something like that.
(03:38):
And we were blown away by whatwe found.
And we made an entire videofor Veterans day.
It's on YouTube right now, ifyou would like to see it.
Bedford, Virginia today.
6,500 people.
1944, 3,200.
It's a small rural community,but the men that stormed the beaches
(04:03):
of Normandy that day, Therewere over 150,000 Allied troops on
a 50 mile stretch of beach.
44 of them were from Bedford,Virginia and 20 would die.
So per capita, it was thelargest loss of life in any United
(04:27):
States of America city.
And that is why the nationalmonument for D Day is in this small
rural town.
And it is an impressive fluidmotion monument.
And it takes up the space ofprobably the size of the World War
(04:49):
II memorial on the Mall, ifnot bigger.
It's probably bigger.
I mean, eventually I kind of.
Once we, you drive up to itand you don't expect it to be so
big.
We drove up to it, we're like,oh my gosh, this is bigger than we
thought.
Then we got there, we're like,we started walking around.
Holy cow.
It's sunken down so you can'treally see it until you walk upon
(05:11):
it.
And then you look down andit's a recreation of what that must
have looked like that day fromthe Higgins boats.
And those are the boats thathave the drop down drawbridge that
come off of the assault shipsto getting onto the beach.
They have statues of mengetting onto the beach, to falling
(05:35):
on the beach and maybe, youknow, getting injured or even killed
on the beach.
And then to overcoming anobstacle, climbing up it together.
And it's just one fluid motion.
And they have the hedgehogskind of in this water feature.
And those hedgehogs are likethose middle, those metal kind of
like they look spike balls yeah.
(05:57):
Like a spike ball that theylined along the beaches to get.
Keep them from ships.
Coming up.
Picture Saving Private Ryan.
Yes.
Right.
And everybody's seen that.
So they have recreations ofthose as you drive up.
There's actually a hedgehog.
And I told you, hey, let'sstop and film that.
That's neat to have it, notknowing that there was going to be
two recreated in this waterfeature to kind of show you what
(06:18):
that must have looked like.
And again, it.
It's not 50 miles of beach, soit's not like going to Normandy,
but.
But it's a recreation of asculpture honoring what those men
did.
And there's another feature inthe water that kind of shoots off
sprays of water.
Yeah.
Throughout the kind of water area.
It looks like bullets.
(06:39):
Looks like bullets hitting the water.
It's.
It's really neat how they kindof recreate the feel.
Yes.
Of that scene.
Yes.
And so you get.
Like I said, it's like a fluid monument.
It's.
It's really powerful and impressive.
The sculptures of the men arevery detailed.
So you see their faces, andthere's some of the men who are,
(07:01):
like, outstretched, holdingon, reaching for somebody else, kind
of yelling, showing you that,like, these men were basically pushed
to their limits that day.
And some of them gave all thatday out of 150,000, over 10,000 will
die that day.
And so they show kind of thefive beaches that kind of have it
(07:24):
spread around in a circle ofthe five beaches.
And they're labeled Utah,Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword.
And then around those fivebeaches, kind of in a circle that
encompasses the monument orall these flags to the Allied nations
because of those 10,000 menthat died that day.
They came from all differentnations, allied nations.
(07:44):
And there's about 4,000,4,400Americans who died that day.
10,000 total Allied troops.
So we talk about the flags ofall those nations.
There was like, 50, even more.
Yeah, there was a lot.
So many.
You forget all these countriesthat came together with.
I mean, you think of theUnited States, you think of Britain,
(08:06):
you think of Russiaeventually, but it really was all
these other allied nationsthat sent troops and helped support.
Yeah.
And it had been, I think,January earlier that same year in
1944, when the UN hadbasically said, hey, we are the Allied
nations.
And they had kind of made thisproclamation and signed some sort
(08:26):
of official document.
You know, again, not a historian.
So it.
When they sit, we say the nowAllied nations.
I believe there was 26 nations.
Now, I don't know if there was26 at D Day, but there were 26 allied
nations at that point in time.
That's amazing.
Well, like I said, it lookedlike a lot of flags.
(08:48):
The area is 50 acres, believe it.
Or not, of the monument.
Of the monument.
It's.
It.
The.
The cool part is, is it reallydoes kind of.
It gradually gets just feelingbigger and bigger and bigger.
Right.
If you kind of walk from the beginning.
Right.
There's a flagpole with the.
So the flagpole with a statue.
(09:08):
And that's.
The statue is of the wing ladyof Victory.
If you go to the Louvre, shehas the wings, Nike.
And she has her face blown off.
And she's wearing a helmet,and her face is blown off.
It's from France, and it's agift from the French.
And the significance of thatstatue, that kind of starts the whole
thing.
First of all, they're stormingthe beaches of France.
(09:30):
But that statue was from WorldWar I in one of those towns there
in.
Along the beaches.
Oh, really?
And that is how it got blownapart during World War II.
Oh, I didn't know that.
So that city casted it againwith all of the trauma damage and
(09:51):
sent it to Bedford, Virginia.
That's really neat.
And I don't think they reallypoint that out as much as maybe they
could have.
I know.
Even at the statue, becauseone of the things I like that you
pointed out was it kind of flipped.
Felt like it was arepresentation of victory.
But the sacrifice through victory.
Yes, because her face is blown away.
Because her face is blown away.
But she's still standing therewith a sword.
(10:12):
And this strong pose of thisperson looks victorious, but at the
same time, there is such sacrifice.
Yeah.
Tremendous loss.
So that's the first thing yousee that you see.
If you're kind of walking fromthe front over towards the Overlord
Arch.
And then.
And then as you walk past thisarch, this stone arch that says Overlord
(10:35):
on top of it, then you come,then you.
Then you see kind of what is.
I'll call it, like below alittle cliff.
Right.
Because the men, the statuesthat they made climbing an obstacle.
It looks like they're climbinga waterfall.
It's about, what, 20ft?
Yes, yes.
About 20ft tall.
So you walk through.
You could walk through thisarch, and then all of a sudden, you
(10:57):
see the rest of the memorialdown below you, which is the beach
scene with the circle of flags.
And then even beyond that,there's more that we'll talk about
in a little bit.
Yes.
So you have to remember whenThese men stormed the beaches of
Normandy.
They had to get to the nestswhere the Nazis were to disengage
(11:17):
their machine guns.
So they have to climb theseobstacles to even get there.
So basically it's not justhitting the beach, getting across
the beach where there is no,there's nothing to hide behind on
the beach.
So you're basically barren,vulnerable along this beach until
you get to where these Nazinests were.
Yeah, the machine gun nests.
And basically you can getclose to them and then you have to
(11:39):
climb them to, to get, youknow, to overtake them.
Before you get to that area,though, there is a sculpture of a
man grabbing a man and pullinghim along.
Yeah.
Picking him up like this.
This man has fallen and hisfriend is picking him up and.
Yes, and it doesn't look likethat man has died.
It looks like he's beeninjured and the other man is grabbing
(12:00):
him and pulling him along.
And I, I, it's again, it'sanother one of those active fluid,
very detailed.
And I could see the weddingring on his hand.
And it's interesting about thewedding ring on his hand is.
It's almost rubbed, rubbed down.
So it looks gold, but it's notquite as Bronze.
Yes, bronze.
The patina is different on it.
And so I don't know if that'semphasized, but it struck me as something
(12:25):
that you would notice toremind us that these men are average,
normal men of America.
They are husbands and fathersand sons and brothers who did this.
They weren't a typical career soldier.
They were men who weredrafted, who joined up, who learned
how to do this.
(12:46):
And they're the ones who werestorming the beaches of Normandy.
And then they're brothers in arms.
So they're all on, they're allin this together and they're helping
each other and, and helpgrabbing each other.
And that again, that's one ofthe very first monuments, before
we get to that, Overlord Archand Overlord, just so everyone understands,
(13:06):
is the operational code namefor this operation.
So it was Operation Overlord.
When you hear D Day, it'sbasically, that's the day, the day
of the operation.
No one knows when D Day isgoing to happen unless you're like,
h, Europe.
And so people will just callit D Day.
And now we know it is June 6, 1944.
(13:26):
But before that, no one knewthe date.
Right.
And then Operation Neptune ispart of D Day.
Neptune is the whole water assault.
Right.
It's the ship assaults.
It's how the ships were, themovement of the ships to get the
men and the crafts to thebeaches, and then Overlord is the
entire land operation.
(13:47):
So together they are the D Day.
You know, and it was fun, too.
For the video, I had found some.
It's.
You can find it on YouTube.
There's a bunch of channels that.
That have it.
Some colorized footage of.
Of a bunch of D Day footage,landing footage.
And that was neat to kind ofwork that in there.
And.
And this.
This move.
This video is a little bitmore of a moving video with the music
(14:11):
and everything like that.
And so it was neat to be ableto show that and then for us to be
able to kind of show theviewer, you know, this National D
Day Memorial, that wasabsolutely incredible.
I mean, we had talked.
We had said if you took thisand plopped, you know, took it out
of Bedford and put it inWashington, D.C. with the mall, with
all the other monuments, itwould be on class, you know, world
(14:33):
class, just like the rest ofthose over there.
And it wouldn't.
It would be fit right in.
Yeah.
It's.
It's so impressive.
And so let's talk a little bitabout the Bedford boys.
Yes.
And who they are, and thenwe'll talk more about the monument.
And I want to kind of stressit's a national monument, but it's
not getting any state orfederal funding.
And I want to talk about that.
Yeah.
And the.
The reason that the Bedfordboys kind of became known was because
(14:56):
of this loss that youmentioned earlier.
And it was the highest percapita in the country at the time.
And they had become kind ofthis national symbol even then during
World War II.
So 34 Virginia National Guardsoldiers from Company A, 116th Infantry
Regiment, 29th InfantryDivision, were based in the town
of Bedford before the war.
(15:18):
And then Company A wasdecimated within hours at the landing.
19 men were killed during thatfirst day of invasion.
Four more would die during therest of the Normandy campaign.
And because of that, Bedfordsuffered the highest per capita.
Per capita of.
Of loss.
Now, I also want to stressthat this inspired Saving Private
(15:45):
Ryan.
Yeah.
And people will ask me, well,I thought Saving Private Ryan was
based on another story ofanother gentleman's family.
And that is true.
There was a man in New York who.
His four brothers were killed,or they thought they were killed,
and they sent for him to gethim back to his mother.
(16:05):
What inspires Saving Privateryan is on July 17, 1944, the telegraph
machine in Bedford, Virginia,started going off with, our nation
is sorry to inform you, and itwouldn't stop.
And the young Girl sitting atthe telegraph machine was writing
(16:27):
20 of these telegraphs on July 17th.
So you think this happenedJune 16th?
Yeah.
A month and a half later.
Month and a half later.
This is when.
And that is what.
If you remember the beginningof Save a Private Ryan, when the
lady is typing out all thetelegrams and she's seeing they're
all coming to the same family,and then she brings it to her officer
(16:50):
in charge and the officer incharge calls.
That is what inspires thatmoment in Saving Private Ryan is
what happened in Bedford,Virginia, when the telegraph operator
got all 20 of these telegraphs.
It was like a little deli,like she was working.
She worked the telegraphmachine that's also at the little
drugstore.
(17:10):
And all of a sudden they startcoming through.
And again, a town of 3200.
Everybody knows everybody.
Sure.
So she's getting thesetelegrams, knowing she probably went
to school with all these boys.
So that's the part that StevenSpielberg, when he heard about this,
inspired that part of the movie.
And then he gave money to thememorial because at the time, they
(17:35):
were fundraising to build thewhole auditorium in the name of his
family member who served inWorld War II.
Yeah.
And that was, again, I think,another thing that they kind of,
maybe in a different part ofthe memorial would have been neat
for them to point out.
I don't know.
I mean, at a memorial likethat, it's always.
It's an interesting balancefor what you show and what you emphasize.
(17:59):
Yes.
And how much do you know goinginto it?
Yeah, right.
And how much are you learning there?
Of the Bedford boys?
Three sets were brothers.
There were twins, Roy and Ray Stevens.
Ray was killed during the landing.
Roy survived, Clyde and Jack Powers.
Jack was killed.
Clyde was wounded butsurvived, and Bedford and Raymond
(18:20):
Hoback, who both were killed.
So you're also getting.
That's another thing thatSpielberg, with the brothers connection,
where families were hearingabout both of their boys also emphasized
the story for Saving Private Ryan.
Nine of the Bedford boys areburied in Bedford.
Eleven of them are still in Normandy.
So then that Americancemetery, that's in Normandy.
(18:43):
Eleven of them are there in France.
And the memorial gets 60,000visitors a year, and only half are
from Virginia.
Yeah, I believe it.
I believe it.
And again, it was one of thesememorials that wasn't that I had
never really heard of it,because who really like the average
(19:05):
Joe, Even the average historynerd probably isn't going to be familiar
with Bedford, Virginia, andwhere the National D Day Memorial
is.
Everybody's thinkingWashington, D.C. and the World War
II memorial.
There's.
But I just got lucky that thetwo star admiral that I currently
work for is from Bedford, Virginia.
I know.
(19:25):
And he brought it up during anall hands call.
He's saying, oh yeah, I'mgoing to be out next week because,
you know, I'm traveling out tomy hometown where, you know, they
want me to say something forit was Memorial Day, you know, from
my hometown where they havethe National D Day Memorial.
And in my head I just kind ofpulled out my phone and I kind of
typed it in and that's why Iwanted to come and tell you about
it because it's one of thosethings kind of like when we were
(19:48):
talking about Pueblo, Coloradoand all the Medal of Honor recipients
from there.
What's in the water inBedford, Virginia.
I know, it's crazy.
It's crazy.
So even though it has the termNational D Day Memorial on it, it's
not funded by the federalgovernment and the federal government
has never funded it, althoughthey got permission from Clinton
(20:10):
at the time, who waspresident, to put national on it.
And then in our video you cansee the, the quote from George Bush,
who will dedicate it 2001 whenhe's president, because that's when
it opens.
But it fundraising tookapproximately seven years.
It's $25 million to complete.
And one of the biggestdonators was Charles Schultz.
(20:33):
Really?
Yep.
Of the peanuts.
Oh my gosh, yes.
He donated over a million dollars.
And then with his donating, hevolunteered to head up a fundraising
campaign as well.
Was one of those ones that youand I were caught so completely flat
footed when we showed up andwe were lucky.
And you guys are going to hearabout the other history stuff.
(20:55):
We were doing that that week.
You know, we, we were withoutthe kids.
So we were running around likecrazy doing cramming as much history,
filming and seeing and youknow, all this stuff.
And then we, we drove over thehills of Virginia kind of down into
this little rural town.
We're like, oh, you know,what's this?
And there's some fair going on.
It looks like it's, it's tinyin the middle of the town that we
(21:18):
didn't get a chance to go visit.
It's some pumpkin festival,something like that.
Yes, it's Halloween, Halloweentime, time frame.
And we get, we pull up therelike, oh, this is bigger than I thought.
We start walking around and wewere just absolutely flabbergasted.
And then even again, wehaven't even gotten to the other
part of the memorial.
Yet.
No talked about it yet.
If you see our.
My face in the video, we arecompletely, completely blown away
(21:41):
because like I said, we werenot expecting what it is.
So on the backside behind thearch of the flags and the sunken
down area, there is a wallthat, of course, has the message
that Eisenhower sends out thenight before.
If you ever read OperationOverlord, Dwight Eisenhower the night
(22:05):
before says, you know, theeyes of the world are upon you.
And he closes with, you know,may God bless you in your endeavor
tomorrow.
And then there's a statue ofEisenhower, and it looks almost like
the replica of the statue ofhim from his burial place in Abilene,
Kansas, which we stopped at.
And so he's standing thereunder a little portico, and on the
(22:29):
ceiling of the portico is atile representation of Operation
Neptune.
It's really beautiful.
Yeah.
And we actually did a decentjob of actually showing that in the
video.
So if you're curious, becauseI was.
I kind of wandered down thereas you were filming up above, and
I came back and found you.
I was like, hey, you need tocome see this.
And so in the video, weactually dedicate a decent amount
(22:51):
of time to showing thatbecause it's.
It's all tile.
So they.
They built the whole D Daylanding scene.
And it's basically from thecoast of England to the coast of
France.
Right.
So you're seeing kind of theship passages, and they show the
lanes on the kind of the archceiling of this.
But they built it all out oftile, and they did a great job.
(23:12):
It's beautiful.
It was really neat.
And so it's.
It's neat that that's aboveIke, you know, as he's standing there,
and the statue is looking inthe opposite direct.
He's kind of at one end of the memorial.
So he's looking towards the beaches.
The beaches.
And he's looking towards theactual Operation Overlord Arch.
Yes, again, because he waswhat, the Supreme Allied Commander.
(23:33):
Yes.
Of the Pacific force.
Of the Pacific force.
So he was in charge of.
Of those operations.
Yeah.
Operation Overload was his.
Yeah.
And I stress as well that heliked to be called General Eisenhower.
Even after his presidency, hepreferred to be called General Eisenhower
instead of President Eisenhower.
It was just an amazing experience.
I recommend anybody who.
(23:54):
Who is interested in seeingsomething like this or paying tribute
and honoring those veterans onD Day, the ones that were there.
And it's a tribute to thosewho did not return.
And it's basically honors those.
Everyone who participated inthe invasion.
And, you know, rarely hashistory been so greatly impacted
by a single 24 hour period.
(24:17):
And this does a very good jobof honoring all of the men that did
that, but mostly the loss thatthe small rural town of Virginia
felt.
And I think it's a greatrepresentation of America and what
America gave that day, becauseit was the normal, average, everyday
(24:37):
man and everyday family thatwon that war.
And that was.
You know, there's another kind of.
Off to the side, there'sanother dedicated memorial to the
Bedford boys.
It's a soldier kind of lookingat that rifle stuck on the ground
with a helmet on top, which isneat because you see all the names
there.
But I think even George Bush'squote that when he was dedicating
(25:00):
it, the quote that we put onthere was, this is.
I'm summarizing because Idon't remember word by word, but
this is the correct place tohave a moral like this.
It's not in a large city, butin an average rural Virginia town
where people from everywhere,just like here, were sacrificing
(25:22):
that day.
The weapon into the groundwith the helmet and the dog tags
is called a battlefield cross.
And so I explained what thatis on Instagram.
But most people who servealongside someone else who is killed
(25:42):
will make a makeshift memorialto them.
Because most of the times wecan't go back to funerals, we can't
honor them.
We have to keep fighting.
We're there in theater.
And so when you lose someonein arms, those are the memorials
that we make back at eitherour headquarters or where we're stationed
or where we're barracks, andhelps us have a way to honor that
(26:06):
loss.
Because again, very rarely areyou going to be able to make it back
to a funeral when you losesomebody in combat.
So it's their weapon shovedinto the ground, muzzle first, and
then you, you drape their dogtags over it and you put the helmet
on top.
And it's called thebattlefield cross.
Yeah, yeah.
Again, if you want to.
To visit this, there's not toomuch around in that area.
(26:29):
However, if you want tocombine it, if you're going out to
see Appomattox Courthouse, youknow, the Appomattox Courthouse at
Appomattox Courthouse.
If you had listened to pastepisodes, we actually have a past
podcast and past video aboutAppomattox Courthouse in Virginia.
It's kind of along that same road.
So again, an hour west ofAppomattox Courthouse is where essentially
(26:51):
where Bedford is.
The National D Day Memorial.
Yes.
So it's.
If you want to combine it withsomething else, I highly encourage
you guys.
Appomattox is of course supercool Civil War stuff and then you
get out to somewhere for someWorld War II history.
So what history fan is notgoing to enjoy that trip?
It's incredible.
Exactly.
Thank you.
And we want to say HappyVeterans Day.
Yes, Happy Veterans Day.
(27:12):
This podcast is being releasedon Veterans Day, so this is in honor
of all those veterans thathave served before us.
I hope you enjoyed that lookback at one of my favorite podcast
episodes.
This one surprised me after Ipublished it because we had more
(27:34):
people reach out specificallyto tell us how much they were moved
by it, enjoyed it, and more.
If you have a favorite episodeyou think deserves a revisit, let
us know.
This has been Walk WithHistory production.
Talk With History is createdand hosted by me, Scott Benny.
Episode researched by Jennifer Benny.
(27:55):
Check out the show notes forlinks and references mentioned in
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Make sure you hit that followbutton in that podcast player and
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Welcome to Talk with History.
I am your host Scott, and mywife and historian Jen and I are
taking a couple weeks off aswe gear up for some fantastic new
content coming in the fall.
I thought I would revisit someof our most popular podcast episodes
during our break, and thefirst one that comes to mind is our
episode about the National DDay Memorial and the story of the
Bedford boys during World War II.
(00:24):
I re listened to this episodeand it was even better the second
time.
The first time listening toit, you just end up in awe of this
amazing memorial in rural Virginia.
And the second time, you canfeel the emotion and the drama of
what Bedford, Virginiasacrificed when it sent its young
men to the beaches of Normandy.
(00:45):
The day I left for Bernie ArmyToday we journey back to the momentous
chapter of history that isWorld War II.
The year is 1944 and the worldis ensnared in the throes of War.
(01:08):
The U.S. military IndustrialComplex is operating at never before
seen levels.
And the size of our army andNavy is at historic highs.
The Normandy beaches are aboutto witness one of the most significant
military operations in history.
And from the small town ofBedford, Virginia, a group of young
soldiers is thrust into theepicenter of a colossal event that
(01:32):
the world will finally learnthe name of D Day.
Join us as we delve into theinspiring story of how the bravery
and sacrifice of the Bedfordboys ignited a community's determination
to memorialize not just theirsacrifice, but that of all who stormed
the beaches on that fateful day.
So just.
(01:52):
Jen, this is.
We, we went to Bedford,Virginia, Virginia.
And for.
Just kind of give people somecontext, you know, if you kind of
know where the Norfolk, D.C.area is from Norfolk, if you kind
of go about four hours due west.
Yes, that is where Bedford,Virginia is.
(02:13):
There's not much there.
No, it's a rural community.
It's a very rural community.
Like three hours due west is Appomattox.
Keep going for another hour.
Eventually you'll hit Bedford.
Yes, very rural community.
And the reason that we wentthere was actually the two star admiral
that I work for brought it upbecause he's from Bedford, Virginia.
(02:33):
He's, hey, I'm going out thereto do this like memorial thing at
a, at a D Day at the NationalD Day Memorial.
And that kind of stuck in mybrain because I was like, oh, that's
great.
That's kind of in our radius.
Sure.
That we can make it out to.
So I can't remember cominghome and telling you.
He's like, hey, we need tocheck this out.
So we had gone and done somekind of Western Virginia, Kentucky,
(02:56):
Eastern Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky.
History, history.
And on the way back, we swungthrough Bedford, Virginia.
So what is significant aboutBedford, Virginia?
And why is the National D DayMemorial there?
And it's not just a D DayMemorial, it's the National D Day
Memorial.
(03:17):
So let's caveat that, that youand I did not expect what we found.
Not at all.
We thought your admiral hadmentioned it to you.
So we thought, oh, we'll hitthat up.
That'll be a good littlehistory thing to talk about.
Maybe we'll do a reel for Instagram.
We thought it might be just alittle plaque or monument in the
middle of town, the townsquare or something like that.
(03:38):
And we were blown away by whatwe found.
And we made an entire videofor Veterans day.
It's on YouTube right now, ifyou would like to see it.
Bedford, Virginia today.
6,500 people.
1944, 3,200.
It's a small rural community,but the men that stormed the beaches
(04:03):
of Normandy that day, Therewere over 150,000 Allied troops on
a 50 mile stretch of beach.
44 of them were from Bedford,Virginia and 20 would die.
So per capita, it was thelargest loss of life in any United
(04:27):
States of America city.
And that is why the nationalmonument for D Day is in this small
rural town.
And it is an impressive fluidmotion monument.
And it takes up the space ofprobably the size of the World War
(04:49):
II memorial on the Mall, ifnot bigger.
It's probably bigger.
I mean, eventually I kind of.
Once we, you drive up to itand you don't expect it to be so
big.
We drove up to it, we're like,oh my gosh, this is bigger than we
thought.
Then we got there, we're like,we started walking around.
Holy cow.
It's sunken down so you can'treally see it until you walk upon
(05:11):
it.
And then you look down andit's a recreation of what that must
have looked like that day fromthe Higgins boats.
And those are the boats thathave the drop down drawbridge that
come off of the assault shipsto getting onto the beach.
They have statues of mengetting onto the beach, to falling
(05:35):
on the beach and maybe, youknow, getting injured or even killed
on the beach.
And then to overcoming anobstacle, climbing up it together.
And it's just one fluid motion.
And they have the hedgehogskind of in this water feature.
And those hedgehogs are likethose middle, those metal kind of
like they look spike balls yeah.
(05:57):
Like a spike ball that theylined along the beaches to get.
Keep them from ships.
Coming up.
Picture Saving Private Ryan.
Yes.
Right.
And everybody's seen that.
So they have recreations ofthose as you drive up.
There's actually a hedgehog.
And I told you, hey, let'sstop and film that.
That's neat to have it, notknowing that there was going to be
two recreated in this waterfeature to kind of show you what
(06:18):
that must have looked like.
And again, it.
It's not 50 miles of beach, soit's not like going to Normandy,
but.
But it's a recreation of asculpture honoring what those men
did.
And there's another feature inthe water that kind of shoots off
sprays of water.
Yeah.
Throughout the kind of water area.
It looks like bullets.
(06:39):
Looks like bullets hitting the water.
It's.
It's really neat how they kindof recreate the feel.
Yes.
Of that scene.
Yes.
And so you get.
Like I said, it's like a fluid monument.
It's.
It's really powerful and impressive.
The sculptures of the men arevery detailed.
So you see their faces, andthere's some of the men who are,
(07:01):
like, outstretched, holdingon, reaching for somebody else, kind
of yelling, showing you that,like, these men were basically pushed
to their limits that day.
And some of them gave all thatday out of 150,000, over 10,000 will
die that day.
And so they show kind of thefive beaches that kind of have it
(07:24):
spread around in a circle ofthe five beaches.
And they're labeled Utah,Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword.
And then around those fivebeaches, kind of in a circle that
encompasses the monument orall these flags to the Allied nations
because of those 10,000 menthat died that day.
They came from all differentnations, allied nations.
(07:44):
And there's about 4,000,4,400Americans who died that day.
10,000 total Allied troops.
So we talk about the flags ofall those nations.
There was like, 50, even more.
Yeah, there was a lot.
So many.
You forget all these countriesthat came together with.
I mean, you think of theUnited States, you think of Britain,
(08:06):
you think of Russiaeventually, but it really was all
these other allied nationsthat sent troops and helped support.
Yeah.
And it had been, I think,January earlier that same year in
1944, when the UN hadbasically said, hey, we are the Allied
nations.
And they had kind of made thisproclamation and signed some sort
(08:26):
of official document.
You know, again, not a historian.
So it.
When they sit, we say the nowAllied nations.
I believe there was 26 nations.
Now, I don't know if there was26 at D Day, but there were 26 allied
nations at that point in time.
That's amazing.
Well, like I said, it lookedlike a lot of flags.
(08:48):
The area is 50 acres, believe it.
Or not, of the monument.
Of the monument.
It's.
It.
The.
The cool part is, is it reallydoes kind of.
It gradually gets just feelingbigger and bigger and bigger.
Right.
If you kind of walk from the beginning.
Right.
There's a flagpole with the.
So the flagpole with a statue.
(09:08):
And that's.
The statue is of the wing ladyof Victory.
If you go to the Louvre, shehas the wings, Nike.
And she has her face blown off.
And she's wearing a helmet,and her face is blown off.
It's from France, and it's agift from the French.
And the significance of thatstatue, that kind of starts the whole
thing.
First of all, they're stormingthe beaches of France.
(09:30):
But that statue was from WorldWar I in one of those towns there
in.
Along the beaches.
Oh, really?
And that is how it got blownapart during World War II.
Oh, I didn't know that.
So that city casted it againwith all of the trauma damage and
(09:51):
sent it to Bedford, Virginia.
That's really neat.
And I don't think they reallypoint that out as much as maybe they
could have.
I know.
Even at the statue, becauseone of the things I like that you
pointed out was it kind of flipped.
Felt like it was arepresentation of victory.
But the sacrifice through victory.
Yes, because her face is blown away.
Because her face is blown away.
But she's still standing therewith a sword.
(10:12):
And this strong pose of thisperson looks victorious, but at the
same time, there is such sacrifice.
Yeah.
Tremendous loss.
So that's the first thing yousee that you see.
If you're kind of walking fromthe front over towards the Overlord
Arch.
And then.
And then as you walk past thisarch, this stone arch that says Overlord
(10:35):
on top of it, then you come,then you.
Then you see kind of what is.
I'll call it, like below alittle cliff.
Right.
Because the men, the statuesthat they made climbing an obstacle.
It looks like they're climbinga waterfall.
It's about, what, 20ft?
Yes, yes.
About 20ft tall.
So you walk through.
You could walk through thisarch, and then all of a sudden, you
(10:57):
see the rest of the memorialdown below you, which is the beach
scene with the circle of flags.
And then even beyond that,there's more that we'll talk about
in a little bit.
Yes.
So you have to remember whenThese men stormed the beaches of
Normandy.
They had to get to the nestswhere the Nazis were to disengage
(11:17):
their machine guns.
So they have to climb theseobstacles to even get there.
So basically it's not justhitting the beach, getting across
the beach where there is no,there's nothing to hide behind on
the beach.
So you're basically barren,vulnerable along this beach until
you get to where these Nazinests were.
Yeah, the machine gun nests.
And basically you can getclose to them and then you have to
(11:39):
climb them to, to get, youknow, to overtake them.
Before you get to that area,though, there is a sculpture of a
man grabbing a man and pullinghim along.
Yeah.
Picking him up like this.
This man has fallen and hisfriend is picking him up and.
Yes, and it doesn't look likethat man has died.
It looks like he's beeninjured and the other man is grabbing
(12:00):
him and pulling him along.
And I, I, it's again, it'sanother one of those active fluid,
very detailed.
And I could see the weddingring on his hand.
And it's interesting about thewedding ring on his hand is.
It's almost rubbed, rubbed down.
So it looks gold, but it's notquite as Bronze.
Yes, bronze.
The patina is different on it.
And so I don't know if that'semphasized, but it struck me as something
(12:25):
that you would notice toremind us that these men are average,
normal men of America.
They are husbands and fathersand sons and brothers who did this.
They weren't a typical career soldier.
They were men who weredrafted, who joined up, who learned
how to do this.
(12:46):
And they're the ones who werestorming the beaches of Normandy.
And then they're brothers in arms.
So they're all on, they're allin this together and they're helping
each other and, and helpgrabbing each other.
And that again, that's one ofthe very first monuments, before
we get to that, Overlord Archand Overlord, just so everyone understands,
(13:06):
is the operational code namefor this operation.
So it was Operation Overlord.
When you hear D Day, it'sbasically, that's the day, the day
of the operation.
No one knows when D Day isgoing to happen unless you're like,
h, Europe.
And so people will just callit D Day.
And now we know it is June 6, 1944.
(13:26):
But before that, no one knewthe date.
Right.
And then Operation Neptune ispart of D Day.
Neptune is the whole water assault.
Right.
It's the ship assaults.
It's how the ships were, themovement of the ships to get the
men and the crafts to thebeaches, and then Overlord is the
entire land operation.
(13:47):
So together they are the D Day.
You know, and it was fun, too.
For the video, I had found some.
It's.
You can find it on YouTube.
There's a bunch of channels that.
That have it.
Some colorized footage of.
Of a bunch of D Day footage,landing footage.
And that was neat to kind ofwork that in there.
And.
And this.
This move.
This video is a little bitmore of a moving video with the music
(14:11):
and everything like that.
And so it was neat to be ableto show that and then for us to be
able to kind of show theviewer, you know, this National D
Day Memorial, that wasabsolutely incredible.
I mean, we had talked.
We had said if you took thisand plopped, you know, took it out
of Bedford and put it inWashington, D.C. with the mall, with
all the other monuments, itwould be on class, you know, world
(14:33):
class, just like the rest ofthose over there.
And it wouldn't.
It would be fit right in.
Yeah.
It's.
It's so impressive.
And so let's talk a little bitabout the Bedford boys.
Yes.
And who they are, and thenwe'll talk more about the monument.
And I want to kind of stressit's a national monument, but it's
not getting any state orfederal funding.
And I want to talk about that.
Yeah.
And the.
The reason that the Bedfordboys kind of became known was because
(14:56):
of this loss that youmentioned earlier.
And it was the highest percapita in the country at the time.
And they had become kind ofthis national symbol even then during
World War II.
So 34 Virginia National Guardsoldiers from Company A, 116th Infantry
Regiment, 29th InfantryDivision, were based in the town
of Bedford before the war.
(15:18):
And then Company A wasdecimated within hours at the landing.
19 men were killed during thatfirst day of invasion.
Four more would die during therest of the Normandy campaign.
And because of that, Bedfordsuffered the highest per capita.
Per capita of.
Of loss.
Now, I also want to stressthat this inspired Saving Private
(15:45):
Ryan.
Yeah.
And people will ask me, well,I thought Saving Private Ryan was
based on another story ofanother gentleman's family.
And that is true.
There was a man in New York who.
His four brothers were killed,or they thought they were killed,
and they sent for him to gethim back to his mother.
(16:05):
What inspires Saving Privateryan is on July 17, 1944, the telegraph
machine in Bedford, Virginia,started going off with, our nation
is sorry to inform you, and itwouldn't stop.
And the young Girl sitting atthe telegraph machine was writing
(16:27):
20 of these telegraphs on July 17th.
So you think this happenedJune 16th?
Yeah.
A month and a half later.
Month and a half later.
This is when.
And that is what.
If you remember the beginningof Save a Private Ryan, when the
lady is typing out all thetelegrams and she's seeing they're
all coming to the same family,and then she brings it to her officer
(16:50):
in charge and the officer incharge calls.
That is what inspires thatmoment in Saving Private Ryan is
what happened in Bedford,Virginia, when the telegraph operator
got all 20 of these telegraphs.
It was like a little deli,like she was working.
She worked the telegraphmachine that's also at the little
drugstore.
(17:10):
And all of a sudden they startcoming through.
And again, a town of 3200.
Everybody knows everybody.
Sure.
So she's getting thesetelegrams, knowing she probably went
to school with all these boys.
So that's the part that StevenSpielberg, when he heard about this,
inspired that part of the movie.
And then he gave money to thememorial because at the time, they
(17:35):
were fundraising to build thewhole auditorium in the name of his
family member who served inWorld War II.
Yeah.
And that was, again, I think,another thing that they kind of,
maybe in a different part ofthe memorial would have been neat
for them to point out.
I don't know.
I mean, at a memorial likethat, it's always.
It's an interesting balancefor what you show and what you emphasize.
(17:59):
Yes.
And how much do you know goinginto it?
Yeah, right.
And how much are you learning there?
Of the Bedford boys?
Three sets were brothers.
There were twins, Roy and Ray Stevens.
Ray was killed during the landing.
Roy survived, Clyde and Jack Powers.
Jack was killed.
Clyde was wounded butsurvived, and Bedford and Raymond
(18:20):
Hoback, who both were killed.
So you're also getting.
That's another thing thatSpielberg, with the brothers connection,
where families were hearingabout both of their boys also emphasized
the story for Saving Private Ryan.
Nine of the Bedford boys areburied in Bedford.
Eleven of them are still in Normandy.
So then that Americancemetery, that's in Normandy.
(18:43):
Eleven of them are there in France.
And the memorial gets 60,000visitors a year, and only half are
from Virginia.
Yeah, I believe it.
I believe it.
And again, it was one of thesememorials that wasn't that I had
never really heard of it,because who really like the average
(19:05):
Joe, Even the average historynerd probably isn't going to be familiar
with Bedford, Virginia, andwhere the National D Day Memorial
is.
Everybody's thinkingWashington, D.C. and the World War
II memorial.
There's.
But I just got lucky that thetwo star admiral that I currently
work for is from Bedford, Virginia.
I know.
(19:25):
And he brought it up during anall hands call.
He's saying, oh yeah, I'mgoing to be out next week because,
you know, I'm traveling out tomy hometown where, you know, they
want me to say something forit was Memorial Day, you know, from
my hometown where they havethe National D Day Memorial.
And in my head I just kind ofpulled out my phone and I kind of
typed it in and that's why Iwanted to come and tell you about
it because it's one of thosethings kind of like when we were
(19:48):
talking about Pueblo, Coloradoand all the Medal of Honor recipients
from there.
What's in the water inBedford, Virginia.
I know, it's crazy.
It's crazy.
So even though it has the termNational D Day Memorial on it, it's
not funded by the federalgovernment and the federal government
has never funded it, althoughthey got permission from Clinton
(20:10):
at the time, who waspresident, to put national on it.
And then in our video you cansee the, the quote from George Bush,
who will dedicate it 2001 whenhe's president, because that's when
it opens.
But it fundraising tookapproximately seven years.
It's $25 million to complete.
And one of the biggestdonators was Charles Schultz.
(20:33):
Really?
Yep.
Of the peanuts.
Oh my gosh, yes.
He donated over a million dollars.
And then with his donating, hevolunteered to head up a fundraising
campaign as well.
Was one of those ones that youand I were caught so completely flat
footed when we showed up andwe were lucky.
And you guys are going to hearabout the other history stuff.
(20:55):
We were doing that that week.
You know, we, we were withoutthe kids.
So we were running around likecrazy doing cramming as much history,
filming and seeing and youknow, all this stuff.
And then we, we drove over thehills of Virginia kind of down into
this little rural town.
We're like, oh, you know,what's this?
And there's some fair going on.
It looks like it's, it's tinyin the middle of the town that we
(21:18):
didn't get a chance to go visit.
It's some pumpkin festival,something like that.
Yes, it's Halloween, Halloweentime, time frame.
And we get, we pull up therelike, oh, this is bigger than I thought.
We start walking around and wewere just absolutely flabbergasted.
And then even again, wehaven't even gotten to the other
part of the memorial.
Yet.
No talked about it yet.
If you see our.
My face in the video, we arecompletely, completely blown away
(21:41):
because like I said, we werenot expecting what it is.
So on the backside behind thearch of the flags and the sunken
down area, there is a wallthat, of course, has the message
that Eisenhower sends out thenight before.
If you ever read OperationOverlord, Dwight Eisenhower the night
(22:05):
before says, you know, theeyes of the world are upon you.
And he closes with, you know,may God bless you in your endeavor
tomorrow.
And then there's a statue ofEisenhower, and it looks almost like
the replica of the statue ofhim from his burial place in Abilene,
Kansas, which we stopped at.
And so he's standing thereunder a little portico, and on the
(22:29):
ceiling of the portico is atile representation of Operation
Neptune.
It's really beautiful.
Yeah.
And we actually did a decentjob of actually showing that in the
video.
So if you're curious, becauseI was.
I kind of wandered down thereas you were filming up above, and
I came back and found you.
I was like, hey, you need tocome see this.
And so in the video, weactually dedicate a decent amount
(22:51):
of time to showing thatbecause it's.
It's all tile.
So they.
They built the whole D Daylanding scene.
And it's basically from thecoast of England to the coast of
France.
Right.
So you're seeing kind of theship passages, and they show the
lanes on the kind of the archceiling of this.
But they built it all out oftile, and they did a great job.
(23:12):
It's beautiful.
It was really neat.
And so it's.
It's neat that that's aboveIke, you know, as he's standing there,
and the statue is looking inthe opposite direct.
He's kind of at one end of the memorial.
So he's looking towards the beaches.
The beaches.
And he's looking towards theactual Operation Overlord Arch.
Yes, again, because he waswhat, the Supreme Allied Commander.
(23:33):
Yes.
Of the Pacific force.
Of the Pacific force.
So he was in charge of.
Of those operations.
Yeah.
Operation Overload was his.
Yeah.
And I stress as well that heliked to be called General Eisenhower.
Even after his presidency, hepreferred to be called General Eisenhower
instead of President Eisenhower.
It was just an amazing experience.
I recommend anybody who.
(23:54):
Who is interested in seeingsomething like this or paying tribute
and honoring those veterans onD Day, the ones that were there.
And it's a tribute to thosewho did not return.
And it's basically honors those.
Everyone who participated inthe invasion.
And, you know, rarely hashistory been so greatly impacted
by a single 24 hour period.
(24:17):
And this does a very good jobof honoring all of the men that did
that, but mostly the loss thatthe small rural town of Virginia
felt.
And I think it's a greatrepresentation of America and what
America gave that day, becauseit was the normal, average, everyday
(24:37):
man and everyday family thatwon that war.
And that was.
You know, there's another kind of.
Off to the side, there'sanother dedicated memorial to the
Bedford boys.
It's a soldier kind of lookingat that rifle stuck on the ground
with a helmet on top, which isneat because you see all the names
there.
But I think even George Bush'squote that when he was dedicating
(25:00):
it, the quote that we put onthere was, this is.
I'm summarizing because Idon't remember word by word, but
this is the correct place tohave a moral like this.
It's not in a large city, butin an average rural Virginia town
where people from everywhere,just like here, were sacrificing
(25:22):
that day.
The weapon into the groundwith the helmet and the dog tags
is called a battlefield cross.
And so I explained what thatis on Instagram.
But most people who servealongside someone else who is killed
(25:42):
will make a makeshift memorialto them.
Because most of the times wecan't go back to funerals, we can't
honor them.
We have to keep fighting.
We're there in theater.
And so when you lose someonein arms, those are the memorials
that we make back at eitherour headquarters or where we're stationed
or where we're barracks, andhelps us have a way to honor that
(26:06):
loss.
Because again, very rarely areyou going to be able to make it back
to a funeral when you losesomebody in combat.
So it's their weapon shovedinto the ground, muzzle first, and
then you, you drape their dogtags over it and you put the helmet
on top.
And it's called thebattlefield cross.
Yeah, yeah.
Again, if you want to.
To visit this, there's not toomuch around in that area.
(26:29):
However, if you want tocombine it, if you're going out to
see Appomattox Courthouse, youknow, the Appomattox Courthouse at
Appomattox Courthouse.
If you had listened to pastepisodes, we actually have a past
podcast and past video aboutAppomattox Courthouse in Virginia.
It's kind of along that same road.
So again, an hour west ofAppomattox Courthouse is where essentially
(26:51):
where Bedford is.
The National D Day Memorial.
Yes.
So it's.
If you want to combine it withsomething else, I highly encourage
you guys.
Appomattox is of course supercool Civil War stuff and then you
get out to somewhere for someWorld War II history.
So what history fan is notgoing to enjoy that trip?
It's incredible.
Exactly.
Thank you.
And we want to say HappyVeterans Day.
Yes, Happy Veterans Day.
(27:12):
This podcast is being releasedon Veterans Day, so this is in honor
of all those veterans thathave served before us.
I hope you enjoyed that lookback at one of my favorite podcast
episodes.
This one surprised me after Ipublished it because we had more
(27:34):
people reach out specificallyto tell us how much they were moved
by it, enjoyed it, and more.
If you have a favorite episodeyou think deserves a revisit, let
us know.
This has been Walk WithHistory production.
Talk With History is createdand hosted by me, Scott Benny.
Episode researched by Jennifer Benny.
(27:55):
Check out the show notes forlinks and references mentioned in
this episode.
Talk With History is supportedby our fans@thehistoryroadtrip.com
our eternal thanks go out tothose providing funding to help keep
us going.
Thank you to Doug McLiverty,Larry Myers, Patrick Benny, Gale
Cooper, Christy Coates, andCalvin Gifford.
(28:15):
Make sure you hit that followbutton in that podcast player and
we'll talk to you next time.
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Cardiac Cowboys
The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.