Page 3

- for Cornelius Ryan 2 -

Your name- Roy W. Nickrent

Did you by any chance keep a diary of what happened to you that day?
Not exactly a diary but I did take some personal notes from
the first battalion journal & log.

Were any of your friends killed or wounded either during the landing or
during the day?
See attached sheet
Yes, many of my friends were killed during
the early morning hours and during the day. At dawn I
saw the burnt corpse of my best friend Nick Sherman
still in his chute hanging from a fruit tree.

Do you remember any conversations you had with them before they became
casualties?
Not in any particular case, but some of
the walking wounded, whom I knew, said "It's back
to England & white sheets"

Were you wounded?
No

Do you remember what it was like--that is, do you remember whether you
felt any pain or were you so surprised that you felt nothing?

Do you remember seeing or hearing anything that seems funny now, even
though it did not, of course, seem amusing at the time?
One small incident
concerning myself was after digging a good deep
fox hole near St. Germaine De Verriville and I was called
to 1st. battalion headquarters for about an hour. Then
I returned to my fox hole position when a terrific volume
of German 88's began to come in. I jumped into
my hole & found out I was sharing it with a brown
and yellow ugly looking lizzard about 10 inches
long. We got along O.K.

Do you recall any incident, sad or heroic, or simply memorable, which struck
you more than anything else?
I shall never forget my parachute
entry into Normandy, I slammed into a tree making a lot
of noise and after a great effort I cut myself loose
from my harness & crashed thrrough limbs for about 10 feet
before reaching the ground. I lay real still for some time
finally assembeled my M-1 rifle, at that time realizing that
I was in a shallow ditch. I crawled up the ditch to a break
in the trees only to hear footsteps creeping along, I was
just sure it was a Kraut patrol rounding up the paratroopers
so I lay hardly breathing then in the very poor light I saw 3
what I thought for sure was German helmets outlined against
the sky. I was pretty sure I could kill two of them but figured
the third one would probably get me. Some inner sense
told me to challenge them with my "cricket" which I did & in a
matter of a second or two came back the reply a double snap.