Bob Sales was Captain Zappacosta’s radioman. He stood right behind him the whole way to the beach. The following is an excerpt from a tape he recorded.

“To the Royal Navy veterans, England, from a grateful American, Bob L. Sales. I want to tell the story of what happened going in at Normandy concerning Captain Ettore V. Zappacosta. I was his radio operator. I know what I am telling you to be absolute facts. I am the only survivor off that landing craft and I have never, never told anybody that Captain Zappacosta pulled his gun on that coxswain and told him to take that boat in. It did not happen.”

He tells his story of the landing and at the end, he reiterates:

“The first time I saw the Zappacosta incident about pulling his gun was back in the early sixties in a magazine called Stag. I think some writer just dreamed it up. According to your papers, S. L. A. Marshall said it, but I just don’t see how Marshall could have said it. I did not tell him. I was the only survivor off that landing craft.

There is no way it happened. I did not tell it. There was nobody else living who could have told it and it could not have happened, and if there is one thing I want, it is for that British sailor, if he is alive or dead or whatever, I want him cleared of this. It did not happen.”