80 years after D-Day, a national memorial in Bedford keeps memories alive

It’s commonly called one of the major turning points of World War II.

On June 6, 1944 — D-Day — more than 150,000 Allied troops crossed the English Channel to storm the beaches of Nazi-occupied Normandy, France, supported by paratroopers and aerial and naval bombardment. Thousands of Allied soldiers died after meeting fierce resistance from German forces, but the operation kicked off the eventual liberation of Western Europe.

The National D-Day Memorial that honors the “valor, fidelity and sacrifice” of D-Day veterans is in Bedford, a site chosen in large part because it’s thought to have suffered the greatest per-capita losses of any American community on that historic day.

“The memorial is truly a living memorial, and this community is a living testament to sacrifice during World War II,” said April Cheek-Messier, president and CEO of the National D-Day Memorial Foundation.

As the memorial prepares to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day and 23 years since its dedication, it’s incorporating newer technology into its exhibits, recovering from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and continuing its mission of honoring veterans even as the number of living D-Day survivors continues to dwindle.

Adapting to change

The National D-Day Memorial sits on just over 50 acres off Burks Hill Road, just north of Bedford Elementary School in the town of Bedford.

Its signature monument is the Overload arch, standing 44 feet, 6 inches tall — a reference to D-Day’s June 6, 1944, date.

Named after the D-Day military operation’s codename, the Overlord arch looms over the memorial’s central exhibit: a plaza that uses sculptures and a reflecting pool to symbolize the Normandy beach landings and the combat that followed. Popping jets of air in the water simulate gunfire.

Surrounding the plaza is a wall with bronze plaques bearing the names of more than 4,400 Allied service members who died on D-Day. The memorial foundation’s research into the dead continues to this day; three new names were added to the wall just this past Memorial Day, and more will be unveiled on Thursday.

“We’re the only institution in the world to research, name by name, every soldier, sailor, airman, Coast Guardsman who died on June 6, 1944,” Cheek-Messier said.

Other exhibits include an English garden that features a statue of Gen. Dwight Eisenhower complemented by busts of key invasion figures and another plaza representing the liberation of France beyond Normandy’s beaches.

When the memorial was dedicated in 2001, there were more than 5 million surviving American veterans of World War II. Veterans were often asked to serve as tour guides at the memorial, providing firsthand lived experience.

Today, just 120,000 of the 16.4 million Americans who served in World War II are still alive, and many are over 100 years old. Ray Nance, the last surviving veteran from Bedford who landed on the beaches of Normandy, died in April 2009 at the age of 94.

“The monument was a way to honor and pay tribute to those veterans who were still with us,” said Cheek-Messier, who began at the memorial as its director of education in 2001 and was named president in 2013. “We certainly relied on those veterans to tell their story, to educate others. Now we’re in a place in time where, because of the passage of time, we don’t have the luxury of those veterans anymore.”

The memorial still offers guided tours, but it has also launched newer efforts to continue teaching visitors about a historical event that now is closer to the end of the Civil War than it is to the present day.

In 2022, the memorial launched a podcast, “Someone Talked!” in which host John McManus, a professor at the Missouri University of Science and Technology, interviews various authors of World War II history.

On the memorial’s website, a virtual gallery of artifacts allows website visitors to see 3D scans of Staff Sgt. John Schenk’s Bible, Technical Sgt. Frank Draper Jr.’s binoculars and Pvt. James Foster’s wristwatch, all of which were recovered from the invasion operation.

And the memorial livestreams events, including its upcoming 80th anniversary commemoration.

“Our mission has always been the same, but I think we’ve really had to continue to adapt to how we teach the history,” Cheek-Messier said.

Future plans include an outdoor amphitheater, a 1940s-style motor pool to house several vehicles and a new education center to help showcase various artifacts in the memorial foundation’s possession, she said.

The memorial has more than 15,000 D-Day-related items. The education center would serve as a museum displaying some of them on a rotating basis, while other pieces might be more useful for research than for public exhibition, Cheek-Messier said.

Building the memorial

The push to create a lasting memorial to commemorate D-Day veterans was spearheaded by Bob Slaughter, who as a 19-year-old Army sergeant and squad leader faced the intense machine-gun and artillery fire at Omaha Beach, one of five beach landing spots during the Normandy invasion.

“I watched my buddies die on D-Day,” Slaughter told The Roanoke Times in 1996. “I can’t go on without making some effort to preserve their memories.”

In the late 1980s, Slaughter, a Roanoke resident who died in 2012, formed a committee to establish a memorial. After several years of unsuccessfully trying to secure a location in Roanoke, the focus turned to Bedford, which offered a compelling connection.

Among the approximately 2,500 Americans who died on June 6, 1944, were 19 soldiers from the Bedford-based Company A, 116th Regiment in the 29th Infantry Division, plus another Bedford native serving in Company F.

Along with other soldiers from the town and county of Bedford who were part of D-Day — including four who died during the Normandy campaign but not on D-Day itself — they are popularly known as “The Bedford Boys,” after the book by author Alex Kershaw.

Such an outsized impact on a single small town of about 3,200 residents helped persuade Congress to authorize the memorial’s establishment in Bedford. Officials broke ground on the site in 1997, and on June 6, 2001, President George W. Bush came to Bedford to dedicate it.

“You have raised a fitting memorial to D-Day, and you have put it in just the right place — not on a battlefield of war, but in a small Virginia town, a place like so many others that were home to the men and women who helped liberate a continent,” Bush said during the dedication ceremony.

Although designated as a national memorial, the National D-Day Memorial is not part of the National Park Service and it receives no federal, state or local funding, instead relying on donations.

The memorial’s early years were marked by financial struggles. Its initial construction cost estimate of $12 million swelled to more than $20 million and its debt deepened. In 2002, the National D-Day Memorial Foundation declared bankruptcy.

Soon after, the foundation’s then-president, Richard Burrow, was accused of fraud — specifically, of lying to banks and the foundation’s board as he raised money for the memorial. Burrow always maintained his innocence and after two mistrials, charges against him were dismissed in 2004.

Within a few years, under the leadership of then-President William McIntosh, the memorial was debt free.

But in 2009, just ahead of D-Day’s 65th anniversary, the site was at risk of closing. The Great Recession had taken its toll on tourism, and reduced donations and visitation revenue couldn’t pay for $2.2 million of yearly expenses. Nearly half of the staff was laid off.

Before he retired in 2010, McIntosh urged Congress to bring the memorial into the fold of the National Park Service, calling the Bedford site a “sacred place” and not merely a destination.

By the time a 2014 park service study outlined several reasons why the memorial did not meet the criteria for park service management, the foundation was back in the black and its management no longer felt that being under the umbrella of the federal agency would be a good fit.

The National Park Service study noted that by that time, the foundation was “adequately protecting the Memorial’s resources” and “[a]lthough budgets have been an ongoing concern, the Memorial has remained open for public enjoyment on a year-round basis.”

The memorial looks to the future

Today, the memorial is seeing visitor numbers approach pre-COVID-19 levels.

In 2023, the site welcomed nearly 45,000 visitors, a figure approaching a pre-pandemic average of 51,000 and coming off a reduction to 38,000 in 2020 and 2021, according to Cheek-Messier. More than half of those visitors are from outside Virginia.

“We’re seeing more normal numbers,” Cheek-Messier said, adding that school program bookings are the highest they’ve been in more than eight years.

The memorial foundation’s financial picture has improved since its earlier years of uncertainty.

The nonprofit has maintained a positive net income for the past four fiscal years, according to tax forms filed with the IRS and available online. Most recently, for the fiscal year ending in June 2023, the memorial foundation reported a net income of just over half a million dollars on approximately $3.4 million in revenue.

And regional officials say the memorial continues to play a key role in the Bedford area’s overall tourism picture.

The memorial saw an uptick in visitors for the 75th anniversary of D-Day in 2019, and officials anticipate a similar bump for the 80th anniversary this year. Such events help draw visitors who then patronize the region’s hotels, restaurants and other destinations.  

“I think that the D-Day Memorial does a great job of continually working to stay relevant and find new ways to reach their audiences,” said Kathryn Lucas, spokesperson for Visit Virginia’s Blue Ridge, which promotes five localities in the Roanoke region.

Other attractions in or around Bedford include Smith Mountain Lake, the Peaks of Otter, Roanoke’s Taubman Museum of Art, and the Bedford Boys Tribute Center, a museum inside Green’s Drugstore in Bedford that focuses on the local soldiers.

Nicole Johnson, Bedford County’s director of tourism, said the memorial’s visitors include people from around the country and around the world — as well as local residents who may be going for the first time.

“Bedford has come to represent all home front communities that loved and lost during the war,” Johnson said. “And today, almost 80 years later, the town continues to honor and pay tribute to its heroes with pride, patriotism and remembrance.”