A Struggle for Collective Memory: Sacrifice, Healing, and the Legacy of D-Day in Bedford, VA

Authors

Richard E. Martin, Virginia Commonwealth UniversityFollow

Abstract

The town of Bedford, Virginia suffered more casualties proportionately than any other American community during the World War II D-Day invasion of June 6^th, 1944, in Normandy, France. Nineteen of thirty-five Bedford residents who served in Company A, 116^th Infantry Regiment, 29^th Division, of the Army National Guard were killed in battle. In the immediate aftermath, the townspeople were devastated, and had to mourn and continue their lives as best they could. As the years and decades passed, the ways in which the survivors dealt with their losses changed. Many of the townspeople never got over their loss. Methods of commemoration changed over the years, when it was done at all, until 2001 with the establishment of the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford. In the years since its establishment, the Memorial has proven to be the most effective tool for the community to utilize to come together in order to heal.

First Page

47

Last Page

60

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Martin, Richard E. (2020) "A Struggle for Collective Memory: Sacrifice, Healing, and the Legacy of D-Day in Bedford, VA," Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History: Vol. 10: Iss. 2, Article 4.
DOI: 10.20429/aujh.2020.100204
Available at: https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/aujh/vol10/iss2/4