45 min
Guided tour
See the entire collection of the Bedford Boys’ personal effects and learn about their childhoods, their schooling and their service in the Virginia National Guard.
Company A, 116th Infantry, 29th Division
Honoring their sacrifice and the legacy they left behind
At 0636 hours on 6 June 1944, Company A landed in the first wave on the Dog Green Sector of Omaha Beach. Nineteen sons of Bedford died that morning. This is the place where their stories are kept.
Service record
- Unit
- Co. A, 1st Bn, 116th Inf. Regt.
- Division
- 29th Infantry Division
- Federalized
- 3 February 1941
- Embarked
- 26 September 1942, RMS Queen Mary
- Landed
- 0636 hrs, 6 June 1944, Omaha Beach
- Hometown
- Bedford, Virginia, pop. 3,200
Rated the number one thing to do in Bedford, Virginia on Tripadvisor
Over 22,000 visitors from all 50 states and 34 countries
The Tribute Center
Walk in their footsteps
Opened June 1, 2019, the Bedford Boys Tribute Center is the nation’s largest and most comprehensive museum devoted to the legacies of the Bedford Boys.
It sits inside Bedford’s historic Green’s Drugstore, the corner soda fountain where these young men worked, played and hung out before they joined the Virginia National Guard. Learn about them growing up, and about the supreme sacrifice that forever teaches us freedom is not free.
About the Tribute CenterPhoto: Green’s Drugstore storefront
What a visit includes
Admission includes a guided tour. Our docent team will take you back to the age of America’s Greatest Generation, and you will leave knowing “the boys you wish you knew.”
VR
Echoes of Bravery: Omaha Beach
The only virtual reality film of the D‑Day invasion, available at just two places in the world: here in Bedford and at the Omaha Beach World War II Museum in Normandy.
Film
We Have Casualties…
A documentary on the morning of July 17, 1944, when the telegrams reached Bedford, shown in our classroom and auditorium.
Open seven days a week in downtown Bedford
Hours and admissionFrom our visitors
Reviews shared on Tripadvisor.
This is wonderfully done. Family members are bringing items in for display so it is honoring their loved ones and sharing history and memories. The tour guide knows the history very well and sharing it is a passion for them. I highly recommend it.
I have studied D‑Day extensively and traveled to Normandy. Rather than a stone memorial in front of the court house, this is the place that tells the stories of the men from Bedford who were lost on D‑Day. Worth a detour.
Latest announcement
Seven years of keeping the doors open
On June 1, 2026 the Tribute Center marked its seventh anniversary. A letter from founders and curators Ken and Linda Parker, and news of the new virtual reality film.
Read the announcementsPhoto: the Tribute Center front door
