The Famed "Bedford Boys"

The Famed "Bedford Boys". . , In February 1941, Co. A of the 116th Regiment, WA National Guard, kissed mothers and girlfriends goodbye and filed onto a waiting train at Bedford's depot. They had been called up for a one-year assignment in the regular army; with the nation still at peace most thought it an exciting adventure. The men accepted it as part inconvenience, part grand adventure. A year of drilling and training - it would all be over soon. Except, it wasn't. By the end of the year, America was at war, and the boys from Bedford were in it for the duration., They were farmers, factory workers, baseball players, hunters. Few were married; most were barely old enough to shave. Generally, they had joined the National Guard for the adventure - and the $30 a month stipend, big money in the days of the Depression. While they understood they could be called up, and sent to war, it had seemed a remote possibility., It wasn't long before the 29th Division found themselves headed for war-torn England. On Bedford's home front, the families of those deployed carried on as best they could. They bore the hardships of rationing, wrote letters to missing loved ones, conducted scrap metal drives, and listened nightly for the news of far-off fighting. Most of all, they endured the terrible uncertainty of knowing any day their sons may be sent into battle. In the aftermath of D-Day, the community would learn the true cost of war. On July 10, over a month after the invasion, Bettie Wilkes was about to enter Green's drugstore on the corner of Main Street, when a woman she knew asked if she had received any news. Tragically, the woman went on to say she had received a letter and it had mentioned that Bettie's husband, John Wilkes, had been killed in action. A week later, the news was official, and Bettie faced the stark reality her husband would not return., Nineteen men from Company A, and another Bedford Boy from Company F, perished on the beaches of Normandy. The loss of 20 young men was the highest per capita loss of any community in the United States., The National D-Day Memorial, standing high on a hill a mile south of town, pays reverent tribute to these men and all 4,413 allied soldiers, sailors and airmen who gave their lives on June 6, 1944 in Normandy., Dedicated in loving memory of Earle (Tom) Messier, former Mayor of Bedford and city councilman for 19 years as well as a founding member of the Bedford International Alamance. Given by Southern Flavoring Company, Inc. for his tireless work and devotion to his community.