Company I, 116th Infantry Regiment

Company I, 116th Infantry Regiment. . On 3 February 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a decree calling the 29th Infantry Division into active service for one year, which became five. Responding to that call, National Guardsmen from Frederick County, Virginia, and nearby areas reported for duty at the Company I, 116th Infantry, armory in Winchester, a city that during the Civil War had forged a strong relationship with the regiment's ancestral units in General Thomas Jackson's legendary Stonewall Brigade. After completing intense infantry training at Ft. Meade, Maryland, Company I embarked HMS Queen Mary in October 1942 and sailed for Great Britain. On arrival, the company spent the next twenty months training and rehearsing for the impending amphibious assault on occupied France and the ground battle that would follow. Commanded by Capt. Mifflin Clowe, Company I was one of four lettered companies in the 116th Infantry Regiment's 3rd Battalion under the command of Lt. Col. Lawrence Meeks. His battalion's mission was to land on Omaha Beach in the wake of the 2nd Battalion, mop-up enemy resistance on the coastline, and plunge several miles into the Norman bocage through and beyond St. Laurent-sur-Mer. , , Transported from USS Charles Carroll to the beach by seven U.S. Navy landing craft, vehicle and personnel (LCVP) the men of Company I swarmed ashore on a narrow front between the D-3 and E-l Draws at H+50, 0720, one thousand yards east of their designated landing point in Dog Red sector. The men lunged through the flooding surf and across the open tidal flat to reach the rocky shingle embankment at the high-water line. Though suffering casualties as it crossed the flat, Company I was still intact when it found a large body of disorganized, leaderless soldiers at the embankment. Perceiving the imminent destruction promised by the enemy's bracketing indirect fire, Company I soldiers opened gaps in the barbed wire and, joined by the other men from the embankment, moved up the bluff toward pastures bordered by Normandy's ubiquitous hedgerows. , , Company I and other 3rd Battalion units had uncovered a seam in the enemy's beach defenses, a discovery the Stonewallers exploited. Working around the northwestern side of St. Laurent in early afternoon, small teams of Company I men neutralized several key defensive positions, including a battery of rocket artillery emplaced west of the town. As light gave way to darkness, the company established defensive positions for the night in fields adjacent to the head of the D-3 Draw and prepared to drive westward toward its D-Day objective at daybreak. , , For its distinguished service and vital contributions on Omaha Beach, Company I was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation and the French Croix de Guerre with Palm. , , In remembrance of the valor, fidelity, and sacrifice of Winchester’s citizen-soldiers on D-Day and beyond. Given by Harry Flood Byrd Jr.