Page 14

June 24, 1958

Mr. Charles H. Langley
Box 284
Loganville, Georgia

Dear Mr. Langley:

Forgive me for not having thanked you sooner for
your questionnaire and for your D-day diary, as well as for
the thoughtful letter which accompanied them. Mr. Ryan has
gone to Europe for an intensive month of work there: I
hope that he will be able to get down to Georgia to meet
you later in the summer, probably during August. I know,
in any case, that he will be as delighted as I am with your
diary. Our great problem, even with the help of the ques-
tionnaires, is usually that 14 years have dislocated time
sequences. So an on-the-spot record id really invaluable.

This being so, you can imagine that we will guard
your record very carefully. However, if you would like for
any reason to have it back immediately, I can return it to
you without delay—if I may untie its pages just long enough
to make photostatic copies of the section on D-day. This
may be a chronological view of D-day which we will lean on
quite heavily as work progresses. Before we can begin to
use it in earnest, though, we must have your signature on
the enclosed release, so that everyone concerned will be clear
if your thoughts and words get into print.

Our effective use of the diary is also contingent
on a bit of further clarification concerning its nature. I
am not certain, in reading some of the entries, whether this
is strictly your reaction to what was going on, or whether
this is a verbatim recording of reports coming over the CIC
phones on the Nevada. For instance, the entry for 2340 June
5th ("Gun fire reported off our Starboard beam"): this sounds
as if it might have come directly from a report to Combat.
On the other hand, the entry for 0005 June 6th ("Illumination
flares are being dropped over the Channel. We don't know
who is dropping these flares, but it is believed that they
are being dropped by Allied planes with preparations for a
bombing attack.") sounds as if it may be a record of a