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April 21, 1958
Miss Frances Ward
Readers Digest
230 Park Avenue
New York, N. Y.

Dear Miss Ward:
I am writing this in response to a notice in the Daily Bulletin
here at Aberdeen Proving Ground in which personnel are asked to contact
you with reference to A History of "D" Day.

At that time I was a 1st Lt in command of the third platoon of
Company A, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82d Airborne Division. I had
been with the 508th and A Company since November of 1942, shortly after
activation of the regiment.

Our mission for the "D" Day invasion was the destruction of a
bridge for which we had an engineer platoon attached. We had trained ex-
tensively for this operation at night while stationed in Ireland and
England.

At our briefing we were told the flight plan, that we could ex-
pect some flak from the Channel Islands, but that it would not reach the
plane, that shortly after reaching the West Coast of Normandy we would get
the red light, and the green jump light over the target.

We took off around midnight 5th June and were scheduled for a
2:22 A.M., 6th June drop time.

Everything went as planned till shortly after we hit the Coast.
I was standing in the door watching the AAA fire from the Islands and it
was falling short. As we hit the Coast, however, the cloud cover caused
the planes to spread out enlarging the formation, then the fire from the
ground began to increase in intensity. The bullets that struck the plane
made a loud bang and went through with a greenish light. As we approached
the drop zone we were all praying for the green light - the sky looked like
a blanket of red tracer bullets. I went out on the green light at about
450 feet elevation. As the ground came up I could see I was landing in
the middle of a small typpcal ( I found out later ) orchard. When I hit
the ground the first thing I could hear 'was a German voice shouting,
followed by shooting. I immediately took the knife out of my boot and cut
my way out of ray harness. Although the Germans were not more than 20 yards
away, they apparently weren’t coming into the field.