ROANOKE, Va. - Elisha Ray Nance, the last survivor of a Virginia National Guard company that had high D-Day losses on Omaha Beach, died Sunday. He was 94.

Nance died in Bedford, said a spokesman at Tharp Funeral Home and Crematory.

He was among 38 National Guardsmen from the close-knit community of Bedford who were in Company A of the 116th Infantry, a spokeswoman at the National D-Day Memorial Foundation said. On June 6, 1944, 19 were killed when they landed on Omaha Beach at the start of the D-Day invasion. Two more died later.

The great loss from a town of 3,200 and its surrounding area led to Bedford's selection as the site of the D-Day Memorial.

Nance went home when he left the Army in 1944 and became a postal carrier, said Shannon Brooks, a spokeswoman for the D-Day foundation who works in the archives.

To honor his fallen brethren, he reorganized Company A of the Virginia National Guard in Bedford and was its first commander after World War II.