General Information
===================
 Title:                  The Bedford Boys
 Author:                 Alex Kershaw
 Read By:                William Dufris
 Copyright:              2003
 Audiobook Copyright:    2004
 Genre:                  History-NonFiction-WWII-DDay
 Publisher:              BBC Audiobooks America
 Abridged:               No

Original Media Information
==========================
 Source:                 Library CD's
 Condition:              Very Good

File Information
================
 Number of MP3s:         7
 Total Duration:         8:22:33
 Total MP3 Size:         230.20
 Parity Archive:         YES
 Ripped By:              Indy
 Ripped With:            jetAudio
 Encoded At:             CBR 64 kbit/s 44100 Hz Mono
 ID3 Tags:               Set, v1.1, v2.3

Posting
=======
 Posting Plan:           alt.binaries.mp3.audiobooks

Book Description
================
This accessible and moving group biography portrays the men of Company 
A, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division, who were part of 
the first wave at Omaha Beach in WWII. Initially, 103 of them left the 
small town of Bedford, Va.-now the site of the national D-Day memorial-when 
the local National Guard was called up in 1940; 34 were still with the 
company on D-Day. Of these, 19 died in a matter of minutes and three 
more perished in the Normandy campaign. Men lost ranged from the company 
commander, Captain Taylor N. Fellers, from a wealthy Bedford family, 
to Frank Draper Jr., a fine athlete and soldier from the wrong side 
of the tracks. Long-time National Guardsman John Wilkes died as the 
company's top sergeant, while Earl Parker left behind a daughter he 
never saw. Both Holback brothers and Ray Stevens died, while Ray's twin 
Roy Stevens was one of the handful of survivors. Kershaw (Jack London) 
includes combat sequences that give a vivid private's- eye view of the 
particular hell that was Omaha Beach, while one of the most moving portions 
of the book is the simultaneous arrival in Bedford of nine "We regret 
to inform you..." telegrams. A capsule history of Bedford before the 
war, its role as part of the home front during it and its current place 
as (controversial) memorial site are all covered, but the book's central 
focus is on the town where a good many survivors remain whose memories 
have not faded and whose emotional wounds have not healed.

On June 6, 1944, Allied armies launched their massive invasion of Europe--D-Day-
, in other words. Among the thousands of soldiers headed for France 
were 34 men from the town of Bedford, Virginia, aboard Empire Javelin, 
a British troopship. Nineteen of them were killed in the first minutes 
of combat, when their landing craft dropped them into the water off 
Normandy. Two more were killed later in the day from gunshot wounds. 
No other town in the U.S. endured a greater one-day loss. Kershaw's 
book is more than just another war story; here is an in-depth account 
of this blue-collar town and its 3,000 people. The soldiers included 
three sets of brothers, a pool-hall hustler, husbands, farmers, and 
a couple of "highly successful Lotharios." Kershaw describes in painful 
detail how the next of kin were notified of the soldiers' deaths via 
Western Union telegrams and how the news devastated their lives. Drawing 
on interviews with survivors and relatives, newspaper clippings, letters, 
and diaries, Kershaw has chronicled one community's great sacrifice.

