Not long after that, we met with Barbara Whitehead, Hubert Mathews daughter, and Allen Shepherd, his nephew, at National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, VA.   There, the names of all those who were killed on D-Day are inscribed on a wall, including both Hubert Mathews and Gene Sellers.  There, Barbara explained how her father and mother met, and the difficulties her mother faced when it was revealed that Hubert, who has survived intense battles in North Africa and Tunisia, would not be returning home.

We then drove to the small, snow-covered town of Cass, West Virginia, where Hubert was born and 
raised.  Though Cass still has some residents, it mostly exists as a state-owned museum of the past.  Numerous unoccupied buildings stand just as they did back in the 30s.  There Barbara led us to the house where Hubert grew up, and the building that was once his junior high school.  We also saw the general store where Hubert’s father worked, and the factory that sustained the town.

While there, we learned that there was a fellow in town by the name of Jim White, a longtime resident of Cass who had been a paratrooper on D-Day, and had worked for Hubert Mathews’ father.  Jim vividly described life as it was back then, and even recalled for us the day that General Eisenhower stopped by the Airborne divisions in the hours leading up to the start of the campaign, stopping to exchange a few words with Jim himself.

Later, we made a stop at Augusta Military Academy, where Hubert spent his high school years.  Now a museum, AMA holds Hubert's hand-written grades from 1927, still preserved in a large ledger.  (Thanks to Ben and everyone there for allowing us to visit on a day when the museum is usually closed.)

We also visited the Quartermaster Museum at Fort Lee, where we had the opportunity to film inside General Eisenhower's private trailer.  It was within those walls that Eisenhower analyzed the final details, deciding to move ahead with the Normandy campaign.

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