Dear Mr. Barrett,

I am writing to inform about a member of the 517th PRCT - Cpl. Tom Weil - HQ Co / 3rd Bn. and of G Company. Mr. Weil was a member of the 517th from 1942 -1945. He was awarded the bronze star, and wounded several times in combat. At present Mr. Weil, who is in his mid-80's,  is struggling with some health problems.

I am a high school librarian at the HS of Telecommunication in Brooklyn, New York and have always been fascinated with history, in particular with WWII. Back in 2005, I learned from Mr. Weil' son, a teacher in our school, that his father Cpl. Tom Weil  had been a paratrooper and had taken part in the Normandy (training to be a Pathfinder) and Southern France invasions in 1944. I brought Mr. Weil to our school and presented to the students a PBS documentary about paratroopers titled, "D-Day: Down to Earth - Return of the 507th ". Afterwards, Mr. Weil gave a talk about his WWII experience. We held the event on June 5, 2005 in commemoration of the 61st anniversary of the D-D landing.  It was very successful and the students were very responsive to Mr. Weil's presentation.   After this event, I had the opportunity to sit and interview Mr. Weil on two occasions for 6 hours of video. To prepare myself for the project, I read a number of accounts about the 517th, including Gerald Astor's work titled "Battling Buzzards". I worked many hours on turning the footage into an amateur documentary about Mr. Weil's experience with the 517th. ( I used some copyrighted video footage from WWII documentaries to enhance my documentary.)  When I was researching other WWII documentaries, I came across some footage about "Operation Dragoon" that I believe came from the War Department and maybe in the National Archives. I used this footage in the documentary.  Over the last several years,  I have shared the documentary with our history teachers to show to our students when they cover WWII in the classroom.

I recently learned through the 517th website that a professional documentary is in the works about the unit. ( I never submitted my documentary to the 517th organization due to the fact that I used some copyrighted footage in my project of Mr. Weil).  I do not know if the current project about the 517th   is still being edited or if it is finished. Since I have interview footage of a member of the unit,  I was wondering if it would be possible to use Mr. Weil in your 517th film project.  My footage is not high-definition but it is still a record of a 517th member's experience.  If you care to see my amateur documentary about Mr. Weil and the "Battling Buzzards", it would be my pleasure to send you a DVD. I apologize for the lengthy email.  I am looking forward to the the 517th film.

Sincerely,

William Daniel

Librarian

HS of Telecommunication,

Arts & Technology

718.759.3405

WDaniel4@schools.nyc.gov

Howard Hensleigh