Cornelius Ryan WWII papers, box 008, folder 22: William J. Meddaugh

Dear Don, May 30th, 1958 Just a few lines, to say Hi and to let you know I have had two "505" reunions this month, with a couple of good friends of mine from the 2nd Bn., Ray Faith and Tommy Gore.

On May 6th, which was election day in Indiana, I went to Churchill Downs in Louisville to pick a few winners, and in the next box to mine sat Ray Faith and his wife Jerry, we had a very enjoyable day, and we also cashed a few win tickets. Ray and I are in the Tavern business so by being election day we were closed on May 6th. Ray lives in NEW ALBANY, INDIANA, which is across the river from Louisville and my home is EVANSVILLE, IND., 126 miles away. Ray and his wife are planning to be at the next big Convention in New York.

Last Tuesday night, May 27th, Tommy Gore and his wife Marge were going through Evansville, so they stopped by the house for a couple of hours, I was sure glad to see them again. That was the 4th visit I have had with them since 1945. We always talk about the "505" days.

During the time I was Mess Sgt in the 2nd Bn Tommy was my official Coffee Taster, and Ben Bolick was the official coffee maker. Tom was always first down to the kitchen for coffee, he would have 1/2 gallon down the hatch before the other fellows would get there.

I have traveled some this month, on May 4th I went to St Louis to see my Cardinals play Milwaukee, then on May 6th, as I said, I was in Louisville, on May 18th I was back in St Louis to see the Cardinal- Dodger double-header. The month of June will also be a busy one, on June 8th I will see the Cardinal-Philadelphia double-header, then on the 14th I will go to Cahokia Downs Race track out of East St Louis, they race at night there, the next day, the 15th, it will be the Cardinal-Milwaukee game.

I handle the St Louis Cardinal Ticket sales in Evansville and there is a lot of people from here attend the Cardinal games. Evansville is 172 miles from St Louis.

Well Don, I guess that is about all for this time. I am enclosing some cash to help keep those Poop Sheets coming, I always enjoy them. Best regards, TUDY HAYHURST 1652 John St., Apt A Evansville Indiana

Dear Don, Just a quick note to help erase that operating deficit your latest financial statement indicated.

The weather raised hell with the shrimp fishing during Jan-Feb but things have picked up very well now.

I am expecting to make a rather quick trip to California the latter part of June. Wish I had time to see some of the fellows. Best regards, JACK BAILEY Brewster Florida

June 19, 1958 Dear Don, I hope you will forgive me for not writing sooner and sending something along to help this wonderful missive rolling along. I don't know what could be more enjoyable, in each letter there happens to be someone mentioned that I have some recollection about. It brings back some fine memories along with the bad ones of course. In this one you have a list of men and their addresses. Francis Price is among them. I have to beat him to a letter to you. He owes one to me about 5 years at least. Hi, Frank, hope you are fine. Have a couple of addresses to send you: MEL ROWERT, 137 Payson, Kewanee, Illinois. LEONARD SKOLEK, 514 Fort Street, Ottawa, Illinois Mel lives close to me but we don't see much of each other. I owe him a visit. This letter is getting quite long so I will close with best wishes to the success of the E Co. Poop Sheet and to you who has made it possible. Sincerely, ROBERT H. DUMKE North Champlain St. P.O. Box 363 Ottawa, Illinois 6/19/58 Dear Don, Just a note to let you know how much I have enjoyed the Poop Sheet. Enclosing a small check to help on mailing cost. Keep up the good work. If any of the old members of "F" Company are interested I would surely like to hear from them. I notice Ed Slavin's name among those to be at the Convention in N.Y. so I won't expect a letter from him for some time. Wish I could be there for that one. Maybe some time before we all get too old we can have one out here on the West Coast. By the way, we now have a jumping club starting here in Orange County. Hope I'll be able to get in a jump or two. Had better close for now. Hoping to hear from ex "F" Co. Sincerely, CLIFFORD MAUGHAN 2018 W. Olive, Fullerton, California

6/18/58 Dear Don: Please find enclosed a small stipend. I enjoy the Poop Sheet very much. Please place on your mailing list an ex "I" Co. Man, WILLIAM DUNFEE, 1398 26TH Ave., Columbus, Ohio Sincerely, GEORGE M. PATRICK, D.D.S. 227 Fairway Blvd., Columbus 13, Ohio

6/20/58 Dear Don, I will attend the 82nd A/B Division Convention in New York City. KENNETH RUSSELL 2274 Grand Concourse NEW YORK 57, N. Y.

June 6, 1958 Dear Don: I’ve just finished phoning some of the local gang and you can add the following names to the list of men who intend to make the Reunion in New York: Tony DeMayo Lou Axman Jim Keenan John Keller Tom McClean Jim Coyle I haven’t heard from Bill Meddaugh or Carl Beck yet, but I'm sure they’l be there . John Keller’s wife is expecting a new addition to their family about the 4th of July so there’s a little matter of timing involved but John said he’d make it if he can.

Pete Peterson finally got his girl! I enjoyed reading his letter. My recollections of D day are pretty much the same as his since we were together most of the time. I do recall that on the plane coming over the channel Forsythe got stuck in the door of the Latrine in the tail of the C~47 and we had to pry him out. I was sweating out his 'chute. I expected it to billow all over the plane any minute. To make matters worse for Forsythe he got stuck on the way in ~ he never did make it. My plane must have been right next to Pete's because we came in right over the "T" too. The first man I met on the DZ was Col Vandervoort. He asked me if I had rounded up our Platoon aid man yet, but never mentioned his broken ankle. He was so matter of fact about the thing, it never occured to me that he was hurt. I thought he was trying to locate a medic for someone nearby. He just told me to continue rounding up our platoon. I remember the glider crack-up that Pete mentioned only too well even though it happened 14 years ago tonight. The damn thing nearly killed me! I had just stood up in a ditch when I heard a terrific crash behind me. I looked up and a wheel was coming right at me. I dropped in the ditch and the Horsa hit the road along side of me and slid on top of me. I never got a scratch but I had to crawl the whole length of the wing to get out from under it, and as Pete explained I had to leave my jacket and binoculars behind/. I couldn’t turn around under the wing to get them. The poor devils in the glider were really beat up. I remember Pete, Hoppy, Ken Russell, Popilsky and myself and others whom I can’t recall, worked for what seemed like two hours digging the injured out of the wreckage in the dark, with the artillery really coming in. We must have put about sixteen of them in trenches for the night. The glider was carrying division artillery men. The Lieutenant in command wasn’t hurt and he wanted to stick around and help his injured, naturally, but I promised that we would do what we could for his men if he would take his men who weren’t injured and get the artillery piece out of the other glider nearby and into action. We needed all the artillery support we could get! The only one that I can remember who got hit in the barrage was Benoit. God had his eye on the 1st Platoon that night. I’m looking forward to seeing the men at the Statler. Best regards to all, JIM COYLE 37 Berkshire Rd Hicksville New York

MEMOIRS OF NORMANDY

By Don Lassen

The opening shock from the Jump into Normandy had torn off my helmet and skinned my chin and left me with a pretty good headache which at the moment was the very least of my worries because I was laying on the ground in the pitch darkness not knowing for sure where I was.

As I tip-toed down the hedge-rows of 2 or 3 fields I began to think that this was a one-man invasion despite all the noise and gunfire in the near area.

Suddenly, I heard someone coming, and I hit the dirt. Did just what they had told me to do in training and it worked, too.

Before we left the airfield they had given us "Cracker-jack” crickets. As I lay on my belly listening to the light pad of feet I whipped out my cricket and cricked it once. Instantly the feet stopped. Then I heard a cricket in return. "505?" I whispered. "No, 101st!" came the answer.

I approached them in the darkness and found a group of about 6 101st men looking for some more of their gang. They informed me they had met some 505ers a couple of fields back and so I left the group because I knew that if our gang was anywhere around I should join them in order to carry out our mission as far as possible.

The instructions the 101st Troopers gave me were correct, and I found a group of E Company men very close by. I had gotten there just in time because they were preparing to move out.

Henry Gunn had broken his leg on the jump. The guys had just left him with an ample supply of rations, ammunition and first-aid supplies. There wasn't much we could do for him but leave him hidden as well as possible until an aid station could be set up. The entire area was in a complete state of flux, we had no lines, no fortifications, no headquarters, no aid stations.

There were only a small group of us from E Company who found each other on this DZ. Actually, we were the only 505ers in the area. We were about 10 miles south of our DZ and altho I can't now remember it exactly, whatever our mission was, we were unable to fulfill it. In the darkness we had no way to know exactly where we were and we were completely without any communications.

Among the group I can recall Lt Peddicord, Bouffard, Przyborowski, McCarthy, Golden, Anderson, Arndt, Keenan and Callahan. I know there were more of us in this group but I’m just not sure whom they were.

Alone and isolated in this strange country, unable to establish any contact with any of our forces, Lt Peddicord organized us into a band of raiders and we set out looking for trouble.

It was still pitch dark and as long as it remained so, we could roam pretty freely. The first thing we did was look for the nearest telephone wires and tear them down. There were probably a thousand other breaks in that same line by then but we couldn't take that for granted so we added our touch to it.

CONTINUED OVER

We roamed thru the countryside, but close to the roads, hoping that some of the Nazi forces would come rushing down them. We were very disappointed that we could not find any traffic moving (or attempting to move) down any of the roads that we traversed.

It’s a startling testimony to the great skill of these combat vets that I was with, to relate that in our travels before dawn we had several small fire- fights in which the opposition quickly disappeared. But, just toward dawn, we encountered another wandering group of American Troopers like ourself, and we met them and made contact with them without a shot being fired. They were a group of 101st Troopers looking for their unit, and as we were doing the same thing we wished them luck and moved on.

As daylight came, and we had not yet found anything of our unit, Lt Peddicord deployed us strategically along a curve in what seemed to be a main road. He informed us that we would remain there until we could determine just exactly where in this vast peninsula that we were. In the meantime, we were determined that this piece of road would remain in our possession.

About noon on the 6th of June, we saw figures in the distance coming down our road. We braced ourselves for the inevitable and lay waiting until we could see the whites of their eyes before we opened fire.

As the figures drew closer we recognized them as American Soldiers. They were among the first of the sea-borne invasion forces to pierce the enemy's defenses. They were moving inland according to plan. With them they had several tanks and armored vehicles.

Inasmuch as this was the first organized group we had met, Lt Peddicord attached our group to them. We joined in their column and moved out with them.

Several miles down the road the advance scouts encountered enemy resistance.

At this point some now unknown Colonel with the Infantry decided that there were probably just a few scattered enemy soldiers dug in and that they could easily be flushed out.

He called up a couple of tanks and a couple of armored cars and ordered us to climb atop them. He reasoned that if he sent a small column of armored vehicles down that road with these newly acquired paratroopers and all their armament, that the few enemy would probably turn and skedaddle.

He reasoned wrongly.

When our mighty column of 4 armored vehicles started down that road they were waiting for us.

From out of nowhere 88's began screaming down that road and machineguns were raking at the sides of the tanks.

As you know, those 88 shells could go thru the armor on Sherman Tanks as if they were paper-mache- not to mention the damage they could do to the human anatomy.

CONTINUED NEXT EDITION