Omaha Beach–Bedford Twinning Committee

About sixty people met on Tuesday evening at Trévières City Hall to form the Omaha Beach–Bedford committee, after the signing of the charter linking ten municipalities to this city in Virginia.

The article recalled that twenty-three young soldiers from Bedford had died from the first hour of the landing on the beach of Vierville on June 6, 1944. Jean-Pierre Richard, mayor of Trévières, insisted on the historical nature of the twinning, intended to maintain the memory of these men and the thousands of other deaths on the coast.

Eight municipalities in the canton of Trévières were engaged: Vierville, Colombières, Formigny, Louvières, Cricqueville-en-Bessin, Saint-Laurent, Colleville and Trévières. Asnières-en-Bessin and Englesqueville-la-Percée, from the canton of Isigny, completed the whole.

Philippe Ygouf, first president and deputy mayor of Vierville, explained that the project responded to a request from Bedford, authorized to create a national memorial. The cut announced thirty hectares, a cost of twelve million dollars financed mainly by public donations and an inauguration planned for June 6, 2000, to which a Norman delegation could be invited.

The board included Philippe Ygouf, president; Daniel Lebrec and Marie-Noëlle Auvray, vice-presidents; Patricia Pineau, secretary; Jean-Pierre Chedal-Anglay, deputy secretary; Marcelle Choisnard, treasurer; Jacqueline Moraine, deputy treasurer; and Bernard Mathy, public relations officer. The headquarters was at the town hall of Vierville.

Reconstructed or uncertain passages:
- The number of twenty-three dead soldiers and the calendar of the memorial are the indications given by this old article, without independent historical verification or retroactive update.

Archive image: https://vierville.cordelle.eu/Photos2008/1998-OmahaBedfCreationNov98.jpg