213746 Leonard Becker United States Army from:Wynnewood, PA Leonard Becker was the only member of his 12-man squad who hadn't been killed or wounded as enemy tanks shelled the snowy Ardennes forest during the Germans' last-ditch effort to stop the Allies' advance during World War II. He felt the blow to his helmet and was sure his luck had run out. So when Becker removed his helmet and saw the jagged gash through the metal, he sat back and waited to die. He couldn't bring himself to feel the back of his head.
He was pleasantly surprised to find himself still alive 10 minutes after the shell exploded over him. He was evacuated by medics with wounds to his head, face and shoulder.
After his helmet was hit with shrapnel, Becker wondered what he should do. "I remembered that we were instructed to take our sulfa tablets with plenty of water to prevent infection if wounded, so I put several in my mouth and unscrewed my canteen for the water but was frustrated because the water was frozen solid by the extreme cold, I then also remembered that if wounded, we should place a tourniquet between the heart and the wound, so I was going to put one around my neck, but then I realized I might choke."
About that time, two Army medics found him and escorted him to the rear, where an ambulance was waiting to take him to a hospital.
"And there I witnessed a most unusual sight,I stepped into the ambulance and saw three captured wounded German soldiers with the swastikas on their helmets waiting to also go back to our hospital.
Suddenly, the war no longer made any sense to me because if we had encountered each other five minutes earlier, we would have tried to kill each other and now we were exchanging icy glares, I guess that war can make strange bedfellows, but I sure was confused as an 18-year-old Jewish boy from Philly." He donated his shrapnel-torn helmet to the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia. "As a youngster, you can't wait to see the excitement of action but once you're there, it was just no fun to see buddies hit, some killed and captured."
Becker hoped to shoot a camera instead of a rifle when the war broke out. He had been a photographer for magazines and newspapers at Overbrook High School and Temple University and freelanced photos for The Inquirer, so he thought he'd try his hand at it in the Army.
It wasn't to be. The Army needed more foot soldiers, and he eventually found himself in the path of a German onslaught that created a bulge the Allies tried to push back
|