SSgt. Raymond S. Hoback-- Part 2

Operation Overlord was the code name for the Battle of Normandy.  On June 6, 1944,  Operation Neptune, commonly known as D-Day, began.

Thirty-two Virginia National Guard troops from Bedford, Va., Company A, 116th Infantry, 29th Division were part of the first wave of more than 160,000 Allied troops that landed on a heavily fortified 50-mile stretch of French coast.

Company A was in on the assault on Omaha Beach where the hottest and most costly action took place.  By the end of the day, nineteen of the thirty-two men from Bedford, Virginia, were dead.

Two more died later in the Normandy Campaign.  Also, two other Bedford men assigned to different units died.

Bedford's population at the time was about 3,200 and proportionately the community suffered the country's highest casualties on D-Day, and for that matter, all of World War II.

--GreGen