National D-Day Memorial designed by architect with Salem ties
BEDFORD – Sixty-seven years ago, the Bedford Boys and thousands of other young American men stormed the beaches of Normandy.
Their sacrifices with their blood and their lives on D-Day, June 6, are recalled in bronze, words and stone at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford County. The story of the memorial that almost wasn’t – and which could have wound up in a much-abbreviated form in Salem – is detailed in a new photo book, “The National D-Day Memorial – Evolution of an Idea,” by Byron Dickson. He is a member of the Class of 1957 at Andrew Lewis High School.
Architect Byron Dickson and his firm designed the National D-Day Memorial, including the Beach Head and Overlord arch. Photo courtesy Byron Dickson
He became the architect who helped lay the groundwork for the monument to those who fought and died during the Allied invasion that marked the beginning of the end of Germany’s World War II strength in Europe.
His firm, Dickson Architects & Associates, designed the memorial that next week will mark 10 years since its dedication on June 6, 2001.
Fellow classmate Garnette Helvey Bane, who now lives in Greenville, S.C., was the book’s editor and publicist.
Dickson’s wife, Edwina, chose the best photos out of the more-than 2,000 she cataloged as possibilities for the 108-page softcover book.
Byron Dickson served three years in the Medical Corps during the Vietnam War. He explained his military experience combined with his love of history got him involved in what started out to be a small memorial in Roanoke.
“It’s an interesting story and one not many people are aware of. Bob Slaughter, godfather of the memorial and retired press foreman at the Times-World (now the Roanoke Times), and two other D-Day veterans said, ‘We need a memorial.’ Originally they did not envision it being national,” Dickson said.
Slaughter got Steve Stinson at the Times-World involved, and Stinson wrote some articles. At the time, the men who wanted to see D-Day veterans from the Roanoke Valley were thinking of putting up a little monument, a flagpole, somewhere in the Valley, according to Dickson.
He offered his architectural services pro bono, “for just the honor and privilege of being around some guys that participated in D-Day, to be in the company of these great guys,” Dickson said.
Two attempts didn’t get enough support in the City of Roanoke, according to him. The first idea was to put something on Mill Mountain and the second, at Gateway Fountain near where the O. Winston Link Museum and that famed rail photographer’s collection is now.
After the D-Day memorial idea stalled in committees, he said, the men considered starting a scholarship and a garden at Roanoke College.
Then late Gen. William Rosson, who lived in Salem, got involved. The retired four-star general who had distinguished himself in World War II and Vietnam served on the D-Day committee and then the board when the committee evolved into a foundation.
“He chastised the City of Roanoke for not being more accommodating,” Dickson recalled. “It was because of his speech that the memorial actually came into being.”
Roanoke had lost 20 men out of the almost 10,000 who died on D-Day, but the Town of Bedford had lost the most per capita of any city or town in America during World War II, 22 Bedford Boys during the invasion alone.
Bedford County had some land left over from Bedford Elementary School which local leaders were willing to donate, Dickson said. While looking over that property, he, Gen. Rosson, Slaughter and others stepped over a cattle fence and walked to the crown of a hill, he said, “And lo and behold, there was the most beautiful view of downtown Bedford and the Blue Ridge Mountains.”
That land was owned by two families. The D-Day Foundation was able to acquire the acreage where the memorial is now located.
Mike Shelton, who was then mayor of the City of Bedford, and Lucille Boggess on the Bedford County Board of Supervisors and who had lost two brothers at D-Day, were instrumental in acquiring the property, Dickson said.
In the fall of 1994, the foundation officially voted to locate the memorial there and that decision was announced at a Veterans Day program that year at Northside High School, he said.
Although it includes early drawings for the first proposed memorials, Dickson’s book is chock-full of photographs of models, statues, and details of what people now know as the National D-Day Memorial.
The Dicksons have been married for three years. Both were married before. The former Edwina Sabatini moved to Salem in the late 1960s and her husband Ed Riley was in the insurance business with Charles Lunsford, Byron Dickson said.
Early in his architecture career, he went to work for Kinsey, Shane in Salem for a year, then in the summer of 1971 hung out his own shingle, he remembered.
The 72-year-old whose office is in their home next to Roanoke Country Club and whose only employee is his wife, his office manager, is far from retired.
“I have eight projects going right now. I like to control. All the bad times in my career have come because of my inability to oversee other people,” he added.
Altogether, the couple has five children. Edwina has three who graduated from Salem High School: Eddie Riley, an attorney in Richmond; Sean Riley in Richmond, computer analyst; and Jennifer Mayhall who recently graduated from nursing school at Wake Forest Medical Center after earning degrees in biology and a master’s in business at Virginia Tech.
His children are daughter Gwen Goodman, a hair stylist, and Trey, a maintenance manager at a motel chain in Roanoke. The Dicksons have four grandchildren.
In his leisure time, Dickson teaches watercolor and oils. “I have a full studio that faces the 9th fairway at Roanoke Country Club,” he said. He’s also a fully certified commercial instrument pilot who flies a Piper Cherokee. And Dickson, who was captain of Andrew Lewis High School’s first golf team, plays “a little golf.”
“The National D-Day Memorial” book is available at the memorial in Bedford, at Ram’s Head, Printers Ink and The Roanoker Restaurant, as well as on Amazon.com.
