Qualla: National D-Day Memorial https://qualla.com/national-d-day-memorial en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:15 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/x/k/national-d-day-memorial-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: National D-Day Memorial https://qualla.com/national-d-day-memorial National D-Day Memorial: Introduction https://qualla.com/national-d-day-memorial/ Photo credit General George Marshall, CC BY-SA 4.0. Twins Roy and Ray Stevens enlisted together, trained together, and crossed the English Channel together on the morning of June 6, 1944. Ray was killed within hours of hitting the beach. Roy survived. They were just one of three sets of brothers from the tiny town of Bedford, Virginia who landed at Normandy that day as part of Company A, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division. Of the 34 Bedford men who waded into the surf, 19 died before nightfall. Four more would fall during the weeks that followed. No American community, proportionally, lost more on D-Day -- and it is on a hillside overlooking Bedford, against the backdrop of the Blue Ridge Mountains, that the nation chose to remember them all.

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Image: General George Marshall | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/x/k/national-d-day-memorial-wp/dnxk-national-d-day-memorial-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full National D-Day Memorial: The Town That Gave Everything https://qualla.com/national-d-day-memorial/ Photo credit Bamsb900, CC BY-SA 4.0. Bedford was a small Virginia town of roughly 3,200 people when the war began. Its National Guard unit, Company A of the 116th Infantry, was among the first waves to land on Omaha Beach. The company was decimated within hours. The Bedford Boys, as they came to be known, included t...

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Image: Bamsb900 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/x/k/national-d-day-memorial-wp/dnxk-national-d-day-memorial-the-town-that-gave-everything.mp3 0:06 2 full National D-Day Memorial: Three Plazas, One Timeline https://qualla.com/national-d-day-memorial/ Photo credit Carol M. Highsmith (1946–), Public domain. The memorial unfolds across more than 50 acres as a continuum of three distinct plazas, each corresponding to a phase of the invasion. The first, Reynolds Garden, represents the planning and preparation that preceded D-Day, shaped in the form of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Ex...

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Image: Carol M. Highsmith (1946–) | Public domain

]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/x/k/national-d-day-memorial-wp/dnxk-national-d-day-memorial-three-plazas-one-timeline.mp3 0:06 3 full National D-Day Memorial: The Commanders Cast in Bronze https://qualla.com/national-d-day-memorial/ Photo credit Brigitte Luckett, CC BY-SA 4.0. At the heart of the memorial stands a larger-than-life statue of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force and the man who gave the final order to launch Operation Overlord. Surrounding Eisenhower are portrait busts of the commanders who served und...

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Image: Brigitte Luckett | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/x/k/national-d-day-memorial-wp/dnxk-national-d-day-memorial-the-commanders-cast-in-bronze.mp3 0:06 4 full National D-Day Memorial: A Quarter-Century of Remembrance https://qualla.com/national-d-day-memorial/ Photo credit RebelAt at English Wikipedia, Public domain. The memorial took roughly seven years and $25 million to build. The town of Bedford donated the original land in 1994, the fiftieth anniversary of the invasion -- the first year that serious support for the project materialized. The foundation purchased additional acreage to brin...

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Image: RebelAt at English Wikipedia | Public domain

]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/x/k/national-d-day-memorial-wp/dnxk-national-d-day-memorial-a-quarter-century-of-remembrance.mp3 0:06 5 full National D-Day Memorial: Water, Stone, and Memory https://qualla.com/national-d-day-memorial/ Photo credit RebelAt at English Wikipedia, Public domain. The invasion pool is drained each winter for maintenance, and when it refills in spring, the memorial comes fully alive again -- water erupting around the bronze soldiers, the Higgins craft frozen mid-landing. The memorial hosts commemorative events on Memorial Day, Veterans Day,...

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Image: RebelAt at English Wikipedia | Public domain

]]> Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/x/k/national-d-day-memorial-wp/dnxk-national-d-day-memorial-water-stone-and-memory.mp3 0:06 6 full