Cornelius Ryan WWII papers, box 015, folder 18: Nichola Dokichs, Jr.

Dokich, Nicholas Jr. Tm 3/c Penna. Motorpedoe boats - Sqd.2 CORRY Excerpt

Check with Franny Ward, Reader's Digest for rest of material

Box 15, #18

MOTORTORPEDO BOAT 71

OPERATED WITH THE AUGUSTA

JOB To lay smoke screen, escort mine sweeps, do courier runs

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1/ Nicholas Dokich Jr. Tm 3/c Navel Air Station Willow Grove, Penna, c/o Air Craft Maintence July 5, 1958 Dear Miss Ward This letter is in regards to an article I read in the "Aviation News" concerning "D day" on Normandy Beach Previous to the Invasion I was sent from Mollville, Rhode Island I was a torpedo man on A "PT-Boat" our other wise known as Motor Torpedo Boats. I was in a three boat Squadron , the first of this type of boats that were American to operate in the European theatre. My boat was No. 71 + Flag boat of Squadron 2" the Squadron was commanded by the Faamous Commder Buckley who brought Gen. MacArthur out of the Phillipines. At ^that time we were sent to Europe to get information from the French underground we operated under the "O.S.S." under very strict securety we were not even allowed

2/ to discuss operations between ourselves that is the crew members. We where also not allowed any libertey. You can belive me that was pretty tough to take. Our job was to make landings on different beaches of France + meet the French underground at times we brought maney of these people back to England for a couple of Day's we keep them aboard a English yacht the "KLORN" our they may be rushed of to London before we returned them, some of these people were known as guides. sometimes we just made contact with the underground on the beaches + got packets of information our gave them the same we many times brought back carrier pigions + even whole families of French people. It was said that much of the information that was gotten + given by our operations with the underground. Made the Normandy Invasion possible which I can believe Because so many of these landeing where made so soon before the Invasion Our Boats were Re outfitted when we arrived in England- they did not look in any way like any outher PT-Boats that

3/ I have ever seen An at the End of the War with the Japs I would estimate 575 to 650 of these boats had been built We operated as highly trained teams each boat indirnaly we had two landing teams to each boat 2 enlisted men that rowed + 1 officer to each boat these were small row boats about 17 feet long + every man abord each PT-Boat crew could do any outher mans dib to bringing the boat back to home port almost by himself which happend allready. At the time of the Invasion D-Day there were 33 American PT-Boats in this theater includding our own. the outher 30 did not do this type of duty they where used for Patrol Duty + Dareing the invasion were used as intercepter type craft in a picket line around the beach heads all though my boat was still considered the flag boat. Our three boats each left England with a different task group to Normandy my boat "71" operated with the "Cruiser Augusta" that was the flag ship for the whole fleet under the command of "Rear Admiral Stark" at that time.

4/ "General Omher Bradley" had his staff aboard the "Augusta" + operated from there I would say about to weeks Our duties at this time were many we layed smoke screen, escorted mine sweeps to sweep the beaches + took the General in to the beaches so he could closer observe the Haror Generally makeing two our 3 trips our more dailey to each of the beach head's many times Admeral Stark Had us take him thrue the fleet + the beach head for Re grouping purposes. We did a lot of courier tuns often time all night long runing thrue the fleet. None of us liked this because many times we came close to getting blown out of the water by our own boats and ships takeing us for German E-Boats which is a veresion of the American PT-Boat On the 7th Day after D-Day my boat had the houner of takeing "General Esenhower" "General Marshell" at that time Head of the Air force + "Admiral King" head of the Navy at that time, an many outher lesser brass. On a tour of the beachhead's + the whole fleet incudeing the English beachheads We took them off the "Augusta" + put them