The Bedford Boys: One American Town's Ultimate D-day Sacrifice (37 page)
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Authors: Alex Kershaw
11
. Ibid., p.70. Gearing would fight on with Company A until October when he would be evacuated after his legs were crushed by a wall blown away by the Germans during fierce street fighting. He was later awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.
12
. Ibid.
13
. Earl Newcomb, interview with author.
14
. Barnes,
Fragments of My Life
, p. 68.
15
. Ibid., p. 78.
16
. Joseph Ewing,
29 Let’s Go!
(Washington: Infantry Journal Press, 1948), p. 83.
17
. Roy Stevens, interview with author.
18
. Ibid.
19
. Clyde Powers to Mrs. H. B. Powers, August 17, 1944. Private collection, Eloise Rogers. Quoted with permission.
20
. Roy Stevens, interview with author.
21
. Ibid.
22
. Ibid.
23
. Ibid.
24
. Bob Sales, interview with author.
25
. Roy Stevens, interview with author.
26
. Ibid.
27
. Bob Slaughter, interview with author.
28
. Bob Sales, interview with author.
29
. Ibid.
30
. Bob Slaughter, interview with author.
31
. Roy Stevens, interview with author.
32
. Bob Sales, interview with author.
33
. Roy Stevens, interview with author.
34
. Balkoski,
Beyond the Beachhead
, p. 200.
35
. Bob Slaughter, interview with author.
36
. Roy Stevens, interview with author.
37
. Earl Newcomb, interview with author.
38
. Roy Stevens, interview with author.
39
. Ibid.
40
. Ibid.
41
. Brockman survived the war only to die in an industrial accident—he was electrocuted while working on a power line.
42
. Roy Stevens, interview with author.
43
. Ibid.
44
. Ibid.
45
. Ibid.
46
. James Tobin,
Ernie Pyle’s War
(New York: The Free Press, 1997), p. 185.
47
. See Ambrose,
Citizen Soldiers
, pp. 52–53 for further statistics on extent of losses and relative strengths of Germans and Allies.
48
. David C. Isby, editor,
Fighting in Normandy, The German Army from D-Day to
Villers-Bocage
(London: Greenhill Books, 2001), p. 236.
49
. Roy Stevens, interview with author.
50
. Poem composed by Roy Stevens, July 1944.
1
.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
, May 28, 2000.
2
. Ivylyn Hardy, interview with author.
3
.
Bedford Democrat
, June 6, 1994.
4
. Ernie Pyle,
Brave Men
(New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1944), p. 251.
5
.
Bedford Bulletin
, July 27, 1944.
6
.
Bedford Bulletin
, June 6, 1994.
7
. Lucille Hoback Boggess, interview with author.
8
. Lynchburg
News & Advance
, June 3, 2001.
9
. Sibyle Kieth Coleman, interview with author.
10
.
Bedford Bulletin
, July 6, 1944.
11
. Verona Lipford, interview with author.
12
. Elva Newcomb, scrapbook.
13
. Ibid.
14
. Betty Wilkes Hooper, interview with author.
15
. Ibid.
16
. Ibid.
17
. Ibid.
18
. Bertie Woodford, interview with author.
19
. Ibid.
20
. Ibid.
21
.
Bedford Bulletin
, July 8, 1944.
22
. Ibid., July 15, 2002.
23
.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
, May 28, 2000.
1
.
Washington Times
, Weekend Section, June 5–11, 2000.
2
. Lucille Hoback Boggess, interview with author.
3
. Elaine Coffey, interview with author.
4
. Elizabeth Teass, interview with author.
5
. By now some were saying that the 29th Division commander, General Gerhardt, had “a division in the field, a division in the hospital, and a division in the cemetery.” Balkoski,
Beyond the Beachhead
, pp. 253–254.
6
. Earl Newcomb, interview with author.
7
. John Barnes,
Fragments of My Life
(self-published, 2000), pp. 80–83.
8
. Elizabeth Teass, interview with author.
9
. “Uncommon Valor,” Lynchburg
News & Advance,
June 3, 2001.
10
. Ibid.
11
. Elizabeth Teass, interview with author.
12
. Ibid.
13
. Ibid.
14
. Rebecca Wingfield, interview with author.
15
. Elizabeth Teass, interview with author.
16
. Ibid.
17
. Ibid.
18
.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
, May 28, 2000.
19
.
Bedford Democrat
, June 6, 1994.
20
.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
, May 28, 2000.
21
.
Bedford Democrat
, June 6, 1994.
22
. Elizabeth Teass, interview with author.
23
. Elva Newcomb, interview with author.
24
. Bettie Wilkes Hooper, interview with author.
25
.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
, May 28, 2000.
26
. Helen Stevens, interview with author.
27
. “D-Day Widow Recalls Husband’s Sacrifice,”
Bedford Bulletin
, June 6, 2000. Original speech given on May 8, 2000.
28
.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
, May 28, 2000.
29
. Verona Lipford, interview with author.
30
. Elizabeth Teass, interview with author.
31
. Ivylyn Hardy, interview with author.
32
. Elva Newcomb, interview with author.
33
. “Memorial to Honor a Town’s Sacrifice,”
Baltimore Sun
, June 6, 1998.
34
. Lucille Hoback Boggess, interview with author.
35
. Sibyle Kieth Coleman, interview with author.
36
. Anna Mae Stewart, interview with author.
37
.
Bedford Bulletin
, July 19, 1944.
38
. Eleanor Yowell, letter to “Pinky,” July 25, 1944.
39
. David Draper, interview with author.
40
. Letter, private correspondence, Lucille Hoback Boggess.
41
. Lucille Hoback Boggess, interview with author.
42
. Lynchburg
News & Advance
, June 3, 2001.
43
. Elva Newcomb, private scrapbook.
44
. Lynchburg
News & Advance
, June 3, 2001.
45
.
Washington Times
, June 5–11, 2000.
46
. “In Memoriam,”
Bedford Bulletin
, undated, contained in World War II File, Bedford County Museum.
47
. Lynchburg
News & Advance,
June 3, 2001.
1
. Ivylyn Hardy, interview with author.
2
. Letter from Mr. and Mrs. Frank Draper, and children Verona, David, and Gamiel; from Elva Newcomb’s scrapbook.
3
. Elva Newcomb’s scrapbook. Poem by Kathleen Bradshaw, Quinby, Virginia.
4
. Ibid., poem by Elaine Coffey.
5
.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
, May 28, 2000.
6
. Allen Huddleston, interview with author.
7
. Quoted, Canham biographical information, Staunton Armory Records of 116th Infantry.
8
. Bob Sales, interview with author.
9
. Joseph Ewing,
29 Let’s Go!
(Washington: Infantry Journal Press, 1948), p. 149.
10
. Allen Huddleston, interview with author.
11
. Ibid.
12
. Bob Slaughter, interview with author.
13
. Bob Sales, interview with author.
14
. Huddleston ran his own photography business until retiring in the eighties. The wife he had married in 1942 before going overseas with the Bedford boys died in 1988. He has three sons and in 2003 lived in Bedford’s Elks home with several other relatives of Company A men and played Rook almost as often as he did in the army. His shoulder wound, he said, had recently given him “a lot of trouble.”
15
. Information on casualties provided by Bob Slaughter.
16
. John Barnes,
Fragments of My Life
(self-published, 2000), p. 131.
17
. Ibid.
18
. Ibid.
19
. Elva Newcomb, interview with author.
20
.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
, June 2, 2002.
21
. Bertie Woodford, interview with author.
22
. Ray Nance, interview with author.
23
. Roy Stevens, interview with author.
24
. Ibid.
25
. Ibid.
26
. Ibid.
27
. Eloise Rogers, interview with author.
28
.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
, June 2, 2002.
29
. Elva Newcomb, private scrapbook.
30
. Elva Newcomb, interview with author.
31
.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
, June 2, 2002.
32
. Elva Newcomb, private scrapbook.
33
.
Bedford Bulletin
, August 16, 1945.
34
.
Bedford Bulletin
, December 8, 1947.
35
. Verona Lipford, interview with author.
36
. Ibid.
37
. Ibid.
38
. Roy Stevens, interview with author.
39
. Ibid.
40
. Rebecca Wingfield, interview with author.
41
. Ibid.
42
. Laura Burnette, interview with author.
43
.
Bedford Democrat
, April 29, 1954.
44
. Roy Stevens, interview with author.
45
.
Bedford Bulletin
, June 7, 2000.
46
. Ivylyn Hardy, interview with author.
47
. Ibid.
48
. Bettie Wilkes Hooper, interview with author.
49
.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
, June 2, 2002.
50
. Anna Mae Stewart, interview with author.
51
.
Bedford Bulletin
, June 6, 1994.
52
.
Virginia Pilot
, June 2, 1968.
53
. Ibid.
1
. John Lang, “A town’s gift: The valor of its sons,”
Washington Times
, June 5, 2000.
2
. Billy Parker memoir, Bedford County Museum, World War II File.
3
. Billy Parker, interview with author.
4
. Bedford Museum World War II File. Untitled clipping.
5
.
Bedford Bulletin
, March 25, 1954.
6
. Ibid., June 7, 1954.
7
. Edward Gearing, letter to Kenneth Crouch, September 20, 1954, Bedford County Museum, World War II File.
8
. Mary Daniel Heilig, interview with author.
9
.
Bedford Bulletin
, June 7, 1954.
10
. Ibid.
11
. Ibid.
12
. Ibid.
13
. Ibid.