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Commander R.W.D.Thomson, R.N. (retd)
Eaglethorpe,House,
Warmington, Peterborough,
Northants.

13th June, 1958.

Dear Commander Thomson,

I am so glad you have seen the notice about the D-Day project
and am very grateful to you for getting in touch with us so promptly.

Our book, a detailed hour--by--hour account of the first twenty
four hours of the Normandy Invasion, is to be written by Mr.
Cornelius Ryan, a former war correspondent. The War Office and Ad-
miralty have been most helpful in making available to us a great
deal of material on the planning and strategy of the Invasion, but
as yet we have very few personal accounts from the men who landed on
June 5th/6th. We are hoping, therefore, to find a number of rep-
resentatives of the participating armies — British, Canadian,
American, etc. — whose actions on that day can be used to bind
and hold the book together.

In this connection, Mr. Ryan has recently been interviewing French
civilians and resistance workers who were in Normandy at the time of
the Invasion. He is planning to return to London shortly, when he
hopes it will be possible to talk to men and women of the British
Forces about their own D-Day experiences.

In the meantime, I wonder if you would very kindly complete the
enclosed questionnaire; I realise that many of the questions it
contains do not apply in your case but it would be useful to have
some of the details to help me plan our itineraries and interviews.

May I say how grateful we should be for any help you are able to
give us in the preparation of this book.

Yours sincerely,

(Joan Ogle Isaacs)
Research Editor.