ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, June 12, 1996 TAG: 9606120021
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
THE ALLIED forces that hit the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944, opened a second front against Germany in World War II. The impact, on a world scale, changed the course of the war.
On a human scale, the invasion changed the histories of thousands of families who lost sons, husbands, brothers that day - an impact that reverberated with special intensity in Central and Western Virginia.
It is fitting that, more than half a century later, when a memorial finally is to be raised to those who died in that monumental undertaking, the communities that offered up so many of their young men have united in a show of regional cooperation that too often eludes them.
The memorial, to sit on 20 acres of Bedford countryside, should call attention to the devastating losses that tiny community suffered - 19 dead from Company A of the 116th Infantry Regiment in the first wave to come ashore on Omaha Beach; two more killed later in the day in different units. In Bedford, a community that sent only 35 to war, almost an entire generation of men was wiped out that day.
The 116th Infantry had men from all over the country, but its nucleus was an activated Virginia National Guard unit. Seventeen men died from Roanoke's Company D, which landed in the third wave on Omaha Beach; 16 from Lynchburg's Company B, which came in on the second wave.
The communities that absorbed such losses have honored the memories of these men in their willingness to support the National D-Day Foundation's goal of building a National D-Day Memorial and Education Center.
Pledges from Amherst, Bedford and Roanoke counties, the cities of Lynchburg, Roanoke and Salem and the town of Vinton, plus previous commitments from the city of Bedford and the state and donated professional services, have ensured the foundation's five-year operating budget of $800,000 and generated the first $1 million in an $8 million capital campaign.
Getting allies working together for the success of all is a time-honored and still pressing task.
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