Donald Forest Leonard entered the Army at Fort Lewis WA on August 1943. Sent to Fort Benning Georgia he became a “G” Company man in the new 513rd Parachute Infantry Regiment. After completing jump school he joined the 17th Airborne Division.
He shipped out on August 26, 1944 on the USS Wakefield, arriving in Liverpool England on August 30. They remained in England until the "Battle of the Bulge." Starting on December 16, we were flown across the English Channel on December 25th & 27th in northern France and trucked up close to the front. The weather was extremely cold and snowy. Our orders were to attack on January 4th.
He was wounded crossing the street by shrapnel from artillery fire by the Germans on January 7, 1945 in the small town of Flamierge, Belgium.
He still carries a small piece of shrapnel the size of a nickel in his upper chest. He ended up in a hospital in England, away from his outfit for seven weeks. When returning back to his unit, the Division was planning to jump into Germany across the Rhine River at Wesel, it was to be known as Varsity March 24, 1945.
This was the American 17th Airborne Division, and the British 6th Airborne Division. Their Division jumped from C46’s -(the only time that type of aircraft was used in combat). They jumped from less than 500 feet, and several planes were on fire as they exited the planes. Donald Leonard jumped with a .30 caliber machine gun attached to his chute harness. After his parachute opened he pulled a pin and the gun dropped about 15 feet by way of a nylon strap so that it hit the ground before he did.
They were jumping into 20 millimeter flack that was thick enough to walk on.
“I was hit by a bullet on my way down, and I don’t even remember how I got out of my chute.
I cannot even remember the evacuation. The first thing I remember is being in the hospital.
The doctor was saying “Son, you are so very lucky for had that been a 1/4'” lower, you would have been paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of your life.”
God does work in miraculous ways. Three months later I was whole again and ended up at Camp Lucky Strike on the French Coast and from there boarded the William and Mary Victory Ship and she came back to the states.
As I recall, we were in the middle of the Atlantic on our way home when V.J. day came about.”