Four new municipalities join the twinning with Bedford

The visit of a delegation of forty-eight people from Bedford, United States, allowed four additional municipalities to join the twinning of the Omaha Beach area. A year earlier, Colleville, Saint-Laurent, Vierville, Louvières, Trévières and Colombières had already signed a charter with the city of Virginia.

The newspaper recalled the heavy toll paid by Bedford during the Landing, advancing the figure of nearly thirty young people who died in Omaha that day. He indicated that a memorial was under construction in the county and was to give an important place to the area of Omaha.

Welcomed for three days by families from Bessin, the visitors participated in a reception in Trévières on Sunday, discovered the region, and then attended on Monday in Vierville a tribute to the soldiers of the 29th American division.

After the ceremony, Formigny, Asnières, Englesqueville and Cricqueville joined the twinning, bringing the charter to ten municipalities. Jean-Marie Oxéant, mayor of Vierville, inscribed this commitment in the action of the liberators and in the refusal of the domination of man by man. He called for the children to be passed on a memory necessary for peace.

The mayor of Bedford also stressed the preparation of the future of young people. Exchanges between young French and Americans had to be at the heart of the twinning, computer communications making it possible to reduce the obstacles of distance and the ocean.

Reconstructed or uncertain passages:
- The "nearly 30" death figure in Bedford is that of this cut; it differs from other articles of the fund and is not harmonized without historical verification.

Archive image: https://vierville.cordelle.eu/PhDoc10/1998Sept24-Memo.jpg