On Sunday, 25 June 1944, in Bedford, Virginia, Ivylyn Schenk wrote to her husband John, who was serving with the 29th Infantry Division in Europe, unaware that he had been killed 19 days earlier on D-Day, 6 June 1944, and lay buried on the beaches of Normandy. Her loss reflected the grief felt by families across the country after the invasion. Among the hundreds of thousands gathered off Normandy that morning were 44 soldiers, sailors, and airmen from Bedford town and county, including 31 men of Company A, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Division; others served elsewhere in the 116th, in another division, with the Navy, and in the air during the pre-invasion bombardment. Company A, a National Guard unit with roots in the Civil War's Stonewall Brigade, included a particularly close Bedford contingent who had joined together during the Depression years. Mobilized in late 1941 and sent to England by October 1942 for further training, the company was assigned to land at Dog Green sector of Omaha Beach at 0630 in the first wave, eliminate opposition, and secure the D-1 draw for troops moving toward Vierville. Because heavy cloud cover made targets hard to identify, much Allied fire was directed farther inland, leaving some German beach fortifications almost untouched. Company A landed on target and on time at Dog Green and received the fire meant for a much larger force. Of the 37 Bedford men assigned to Company A, 31 set out for Omaha Beach in the first wave while the rest were on supply details; one landing craft struck an obstacle and sank, leaving dozens stranded far from shore, including five Bedford men. Of the remaining 26 who reached Omaha Beach, 16 were killed and 4 wounded within minutes, and 3 others were later presumed killed in action. Another Bedford man was killed elsewhere on Omaha Beach with Company E, bringing Bedford's D-Day fatalities to 20. Relative to its 1940s population, Bedford suffered the nation's severest per capita D-Day loss.