home of the brave, The

Southern Living, Jun 2001 by Ford, Gary D

In Bedford, Virginia, a town of war and peace, "the longest day" goes on and on.

That day dawned years before World War II. In the 1930s, Bedford men enlisted in the local National Guard unit, Company A 1st Battalion of the 116th Regiment, "for a dollar a drill and summer camp at Virginia Beach," one veteran remembers. But a fate awaited that would forever tie them and their town to another beach 4,000 miles away.

Early one February morning in 1941, the townspeople of Bedford, about halfway between Lynchburg and Roanoke, gathered at the depot to say goodbye to Company A on its way to war. The men were leaving all they loved in this little town built of red brick with small shops on narrow streets, framed by the high, green rise of the Blue Ridge. "The company is in fine shape, and there has been universal comment upon the splendid appearance the soldiers make in their uniforms," reported the story of their departure in the Bedford Bulletin.

Taylor Fellers, a highway bridge foreman; Frank Draper, the blond, handsome baseball player; twins Roy and Ray Stevens; brothers Bedford and Raymond Hoback; and Boyd Wilson, John Wilkes, and Leslie Abbott all waved from the train windows. Ray Nance also joined the group. In all, 80 young men, many barely older than boys, were bound for the great adventure of their lives.

They were proud to be members of the 116th. The regiment, composed of Virginia guardsmen, traced its lineage from a frontier unit in the Revolutionary War to the famed "Stonewall Brigade" in the Civil War. When their country called, the boys from Bedford always answered. "Ever Forward" was the motto of the 116th.

"The town feels strangely empty," read a story in the Bedford Bulletin after the train pulled away. Life went on there, but the war brought rationing, shortages, victory gardens, and more tearful farewells as hundreds more men of the county were called to duty. Many women joined the services, too, while others took jobs outside the home. Helen Cundiff went to work at Rubatex, a local war industry.

Where is that home? One place is Bedford, Virginia, site of the National D-Day Memorial and a town that paid the supreme sacrifice. Elizabeth Teass served as teletype operator for Western Union in Green's Drug Store.

Then, on June 6, news of the invasion at Normandy came crackling over the radio. That night the Bedford Presbyterian Church opened its doors for a service to pray for the soldiers embarking on this great crusade.

Annie Fellers, Taylor's mother, kept a scrapbook of news clippings about all Bedford soldiers. That night, she wrote her son after the church service: "I am helpless to help you now. I watched over you through baby and childhood. Now all I can do is pray and hope the Lord will watch over you."

She could not know that at 6:30 a.m. that day, the 116th, with her son and 35 men from Bedford in the first 6 assault boats, spearheaded the attack on "Dog Green Sector" of Omaha Beach. Taylor was riding in a British landing craft commanded by Royal Navy Lt. George "Jimmy" Green. According to Jimmy, he "crunched bottom" 30 yards from shoreline and dropped the landing ramp. The last thing he saw before returning to the ship was Taylor and his men wading into the surf.

As soon as the ramps dropped, the Germans opened fire on the boys from Company A with artillery, mortars, and machine guns. Soldiers fell in the boats or were shot in the surf and sand.

Roy Stevens nearly drowned under the weight of his equipment. Ray Nance, hit three times, remembers the cold water with death all around him. "It looked to me there just wasn't any chance I'd make it," Ray recalled years later, his eyes brimming at the memory. "Then I looked up. I didn't see anything but sky. But then the most comforting, warming sensation went over my body."

The news about the boys was slow in reaching Bedford. Early on July 19, Elizabeth Teass sat down at her teletype in the drug store and tapped out her usual first message to the telegraph office in Roanoke: "Good morning. Bedford. Go ahead." Elizabeth remembers: "The message came back. Three words. 'I have casualties.'"

At first, she didn't know how to get messages to the families confidentially. Then Roy Israel, who owned a taxi, volunteered to deliver the telegrams. For the rest of the war, families with servicemen watched in terror as Roy's taxi approached, not knowing if it carried a passenger or a telegram.

On June 6, 1944, Taylor Fellers was killed in action at Normandy. So was Ray Stevens, Roy's twin, along with Frank Draper, John Wilkes, Leslie Abbott, and on and on. Each casualty carved a deeper sorrow into Bedford.

Lucille Boggess, then 15, remembers dressing for Sunday school when a telegram arrived at her home. Bedford Hoback, her brother, was dead. The whole church came over to console the family. The next day, a second message arrived. Raymond was missing. His body would never be found. Shortly after D-Day, a soldier walking on the beach found Raymond's Bible, which likely had fallen from his pack, and mailed it to the family.