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- for Cornelius Ryan 3
Your name Francis L. Simeone

In times of great crisis, people generally show either great ingenuity or
self-reliance; others do incredibly stupid things. Do you remember
examples of either? Yes. - Our assault section landed wrong by a
short distance (meaning the whole of G Co. ) and we had to
justify the mistake. By going parallel along the beach taking
cover as best we could about seven of us move along with our
section officer to our proper area. Everything and everybody being a
a confused state just stayed where they landed. After a while we
worked our way up the bluff and started inland. We marked
our way carefully since mines were in the area. The Lieutenant
explained the situation and selected two of us to gather our Co.
together so we can correct the error in a body to our objective.
I ended up going myself. Leaveing my equipment on the bluff
I started back down to the beach and had to go through the whole
area about a thousand yards rounding up the company or whoever
wanted to come along. The heavy firing was going on more at the this time
and had a couple of close calls on the beach once again after going
through it one already. Everything turned out alright.

Where were you at midnight on June 5, 1944? Anchored off of the
Normandy Coast watching our Airborne troops
flying to jump inland. German flack guns lighting up the interior.

Where were you at midnight on June 6, 1944? On my first out post
dug in at a crossroad somewhere in the
Vierville area Normandy.

Do you know of anybody else who landed within those 24 hours (midnight
June 5 to midnight June 6) as infantry, glider or airborne troops, or
who took part in the air and sea operations, whom should we write to?
Yes. A paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne-
Stan Cleaver [crossed out] [illegible] [end crossed out] Whethersfield, Conn.
Louis Schmidt- Altoma, Pa. of one of our
assualt sections on the landing.

PLEASE LET US HAVE THIS QUESTIONNAIRE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, SO THAT WE CAN
INCLUDE YOUR EXPERIENCES IN THE BOOK, WE HOPE THAT YOU WILL CONTINUE YOUR
STORY ON SEPARATE SHEETS IF WE HAVE NOT LEFT SUFFICIENT ROOM. FULL
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT WILL BE GIVEN III A CHAPTER CALLED "WHERE THEY ARE NOW;
YOUR NAME AND VOCATION OR OCCUPATION WILL BE LISTED.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP.

Cornelius Ryan

Frances Ward
Research, The Reader's Digest