BEDFORD, Va. — You can read about it.
You can watch the movies about it, see it on the History Channel.
When you go to the National D-Day Memorial, you experience it.
D-Day.
June 6, 1944.
The largest amphibious landing in the history of the world. A 5,000-ship armada. Eleven thousand planes flying overhead in support.
And 150,000 Allied troops landing on the heavily fortified French coastline to a deadly welcome by Hitler’s army.
A visit to the memorial at once conveys the great loss of lives on D-Day. Perhaps that is because it is located just outside Bedford, the small Virginia town that made such a great sacrifice in the loss of so many of its young sons, more than any other place in America.
For the memorial’s volunteer guides, residents of the area, the memorial is all about loss — and remembrance.
They tell visitors not to forget, knowing that more and more of those who come were not yet born on D-Day.
Remembrance is why the volunteers conduct programs for thousands of schoolchildren who visit each year.
“We used to have World War II veterans doing tours,” one volunteer said, “but we are losing them, you know.”
Throughout the memorial, constructed on about 9 acres in the beautiful rolling foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, symbolism abounds.
The English garden, cultivated in the shield shape of the Allied Supreme Command’s uniform patch, tells visitors about the D-Day planning that took place in Britain by Gen. Dwight Eisenhower and his staff. A bust of each American and Brit who conceived the invasion plan surrounds a larger-than-life statue of Ike, clearly showing his position as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces.
The future president looks across the garden to a wall, where a bronze plaque captures his words to troops about to launch the invasion. Allied fighters first heard the speech broadcast, then received a printed copy.
There is more symbolism on the same wall, found in the shield-shaped patch that D-Day commanders wore.
Its black background represents the dark nature of Hitler and his Nazis. A flaming sword points upward to proclaim victory. A sky-blue swath forecasts peace.
A concrete plaza symbolizes the water of the five D-Day beaches where the landing took place and leads visitors to the heart of the memorial, a granite landing craft with its bow dropping into a pool of water.
In that pool visitors see the life-like statues that tell the human story of D-Day and bring to life the sacrifice made for freedom.
Tour guides need no words to tell this piece of the D-Day story. The memorial says it all.
Sand from Normandy went into the memorial’s “beach” where a single fallen soldier lies, where another solder charges on, where a medic hears the cries of the wounded.
Then there is the wall where Kansas artist Jim Brothers’ sculpture depicts the agony and the determination of those brave men who scaled the steep coastal cliffs to engage the enemy.
The few “Bedford Boys” who survived D-Day and all the other gallant Allied troops who made it across the Normandy beaches and up the cliffs gained a foothold in Europe, fought their way across the continent and brought victory home.
As a project of the National D-Day Memorial, research goes on to identify the names of every American and Allied fighter who participated in the invasion. Those who died are listed on plaques that encircle a portion of the memorial.
Like all the other elements of the memorial, these names tell the story of loss.
A visit to the National D-Day Memorial is a history class worth taking for all who live now with the gift of freedom that those who fought and died on D-Day gave us.
Breakout box1:
Want to visit?
The National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Va., is less than a four-hour drive from Gastonia. It is owned and operated by a nonprofit foundation and receives no government funds. Admission is $8 for adults, $5 for children 6-18 and with a valid college ID. Children under 6 are admitted free. Guided tours are an additional $2 per person. For more information about the memorial, please visit www.dday.org.
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Why Bedford?
Why would a small town in the hills of central Virginia become the site of the National D-Day Memorial?
Congress chose Bedford, Va., for the saddest of reasons:
n Bedford families, proportionally, lost more sons on D-Day than any other place in the U.S. Nineteen died on Omaha Beach in the first hours of the bloody assault. Four more died later in the invasion
n They came from a town of only 3,200 which, like other Virginia communities, sent a company of young men off to battle
n They were young — some just out of high school, all never expecting to go to war as they signed on with the National Guard
n But when duty called, the ‘Bedford Boys’ answered. And most never saw their hometown again