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May 8, 1958

SFC Miles L. Allen
Hq Hq & Svc. Co. 52d AIB (Sky Cav)
APO 221, New York, New York

Dear Sergeant Allen:

Thank you very much indeed for your letter of April 8 and for
your willingness to help us with Cornelius Ryan’s book about D-Day. I
hope you will forgive my long delay in replying; we are really deluged
with mail. However, we are far from deluged with mail from former
members of the 101st Airborne, and so we were especially happy to hear
from you. We are very much aware of the historical facts concerning
your division’s achievements, but we are very short of personal recol-
lections, and so we want especially to have your story.

As the Daily Bulletin which informed you of the project may
have stated, this will not be another strategic history, but a story
of the twenty-four hours of D-Day as men lived them and remembered them.
To indicate the sort of material which we are seeking, ve have prepared
the enclosed questionnaire in the hope that it may help to recall some
hazy memories as well as serve us as a basic file of vital statistics.
We should be very grateful if you would complete this record and return
it to me at your earliest convenience. Mr.Ryan will be interviewing
people here and in Europe during the next two or three months, and I
should also like to know when and where you might be available for in-
terview in Europe during that time. If it is impossible for you to see
him in Europe, the questions which we ask will of course be of double
importance to us.

We shall look forward very eagerly to your reply. We really
need your story. Thank you so very much for any help which you can give
us.

Sincerely yours,

Frances Ward
Research Department

FW:LL
Enclosures