Free The Bedford Boys: One American Town's Ultimate D-day Sacrifice by Alex Kershaw

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
    This book could not have been written without the help and cooperation of many extraordinary people in Bedford. On several visits to this enchanting town below the Peaks of Otter, I was treated with the utmost kindness. It was a great honor to spend so much time trying to commemorate such a wonderful group of men and the families and community that reared them. Bedford represents all that is great and gracious about America.
    I would like to thank the following relatives, veterans, and various experts for providing me with information and photographs, and in some cases enduring several hours of interviews and many, many phone calls over the last three years: Eloise Rogers, Johnny Powers, Earl Boyd Wilson, Dorothy Goode, Hazel Clifton Pierce, Linda Gilley, Carol Tuck-willer of the National D-Day Foundation, John Barnes, Harold Baum-garten, Marcia Apperson, Mitch Yockelson of the National Archives, Elizabeth Teass, Major Jimmy Kilborne of the Staunton Armory, Russell Pickett, Bob Slaughter, Lucille Hoback Boggess, Ellen A. Wandrei and her wonderful staff at the Bedford County Museum, the astonishingly helpful Michael Edwards of the Eisenhower Center, Betty Wilkes Hooper, the outstandingly patient Roy and Helen Stevens, Ray Nance, Eleanor Yowell, Elaine Cockes, Allen Huddleston, the marvelously hospitable Pride and Rebecca Wingfield, Bertie Woodford, Billy Parker, Gamiel Draper, Bob Sales, Jimmy Green, Ivylyn Hardy, Mabel Phelps, Jack Mitchell, Earl and Elva Newcomb, Verona Lipford, Anna Mae Stewart, Billy Parker, Mary Daniel Heilig, staff of the Bedford Bulletin , Beulah Witt, Ellen Quarles, David Draper, Michael Zimmerman, Sibyle Kieth Coleman, Gary Bedingfield, Laura Burnette, Octavia White Sumpter, Kevan Elsby, Judy Monroe, George Gillam, Peter Viemeister, and Linda Gilley.
    The staff of the following institutions provided invaluable help with my research: The New York Public Library, the Sawyer Library at Williams College, Loyola Marymount Library in California, the Imperial War Museum, Bedford County Museum, the National D-Day Museum, the McCullogh Free Library in Bennington, and the Eisenhower Center.
    I have been exceptionally lucky to have had such an astute, skilled, and enthusiastic editor as Robert L. Pigeon of Da Capo Press. I cannot thank him and his team enough for their support for this project. My agent, Derek Johns, once again helped in every way he possibly could. I am enormously grateful to him for his long-standing patience, support, and generosity. My wife, Robin, and son, Felix, once again tolerated my absence and obsession and brought untold joy. I would also like to thank the Loerch family, and of course my own, for their long-standing support.

THE BEDFORD BOYS

Company A:
    Abbott, Leslie C., Sergeant
Broughman, Cedric C., Technician
Carter, Wallace R., Private First Class
Clifton, John D., Private First Class
Coleman, Andrew J., Private First Class
Crouch, George E. Technician
Draper, Jr., Frank P., Sergeant
Edwards, Jr., Robert D., Sergeant
Fellers, Taylor N., Captain
Fizer, Charles W. Private First Class
Gillaspie, Nicholas N., Private First Class
Goode, Robert L., Sergeant
Hoback, Bedford T., Private
Hoback, Raymond S., Sergeant
Huddleston, Allen, Sergeant
Lancaster, James, Private First Class
Lee, Clifton G., Private
Marsico, Robert (Tony) E., Sergeant
Mitchell, Jack, Sergeant
Nance, Elisha R. (Ray), First Lieutenant
Newcomb, Earl R., Sergeant
Overstreet, Glenwood (Dickie) E., Private First Class
Parker, Earl L., Sergeant
Powers, Henry Clyde, Sergeant
Powers, Jack G., Private First Class
Reynolds, John F., Private First Class
Rosazza, Weldon A., Private First Class
Schenk, John B., Sergeant
Stevens, Ray O., Sergeant
Stevens, Roy O., Sergeant
Thurman, Anthony M., Sergeant
Watson, James W., Private First Class
White, Jr., Gordon H., Sergeant
Wilkes, Harold E., Sergeant
Wilkes, John L., Master Sergeant
Wingfield, Pride, Sergeant
Wright, Elmere P., Sergeant
Yopp, Grant C.,