Leonard Gaj was born in Buffalo [Annotator’s Note: Buffalo, New York] in March 1925. His name, Gaj, is Polish. He had seven brothers and three sisters. His father worked for the Erie Railroad Company. Gaj also worked there for a time until he went into the service. He was the youngest child in the family and everyone took care of him. He liked to play sports as a child, which kept him fit. He spoke Polish, as both of his parents were born in Poland. Gaj was sick with the flu when he heard that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. All of his friends began leaving to go into the service, and he decided to follow in their footsteps when he turned 18 in March [Annotator’s Note: of 1943]. He tried to join the Navy, but he was turned down due to vision problems. He did basic training at Fort Robinson near Little Rock, Arkansas. He graduated after three months and was given the option to join the paratroops. Since paratroops earned 50 more dollars a month, Gaj did not hesitate to join. He then went to Fort Benning, Georgia. The next morning, to show how safe jumping from a plane was, a paratrooper jumped without a reserve chute [Annotator’s Note: parachute]. He ended up being killed because his primary chute did not deploy. They were asked if anyone wanted to leave, but no one did.

After Leonard Gaj made his jumps and went through strenuous training, he was told he would be given a furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. He joined the 507th [Annotator’s Note: 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division] in Alliance, Nebraska and reported to Company F, where he learned there would be no furlough. They were then put on a troop train, and took a Liberty ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship] from New York to Scotland. They then took a ferry to Belfast, Ireland where they were put on trucks and brought to Portrush, Ireland, where they were stationed. They then went to Nottingham, England where they did a lot of training. He made a jump there and nearly landed on a C-47 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft]. They had orders to take Amfreville, France, and to hold it until relieved. They were supposed to jump on 5 June [Annotator’s Note: of 1944], but the weather was bad so the jump was postponed until the following day. When they jumped, they had nearly 100 pounds of equipment on them including ammunition, and M1 rifle [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand], a musette bag with an anti-tank mine, and other supplies. On D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944], it took the C-47s a long time to get into formation. The navigators had no flight experience. They were under orders of radio silence so could not communicate with other planes. [Annotator’s Note: There is a glitch in the video at 13:50:000, part of interview cut out.] When they arrived in Normandy, they got the red light which indicated the paratroopers were to stand up and hook themselves up to a cable. Then the green light came on which meant they had to get out of the plane. Gaj was amazed how quickly he made it to the ground. The planes were flying quite low. He sprained his ankle in the landing. He jumped the hedgerow [Annotator's Note: man-made earthen walls that surround a field that are often overgrown with impenetrable vegetation] and came in contact with another paratroopers. They stayed hidden until they saw their captain coming with ten other paratroopers. The medic looked at Gaj’s ankle and told him to keep his boot on in case it was broken. The captain left Gaj and another soldier behind because they would have slowed them down. The next day, they were attacked by Germans. The paratrooper with Gaj was hit by machine gun fire. They were yelling for them to surrender, which they did. The Germans made them empty the contents of their packs. One of the Germans could speak perfect English, and told Gaj that the war was over for him. Gaj was brought to a barn and there, he met a friend of his from his neighborhood who was serving with the 101st Parachute Infantry [Annotator’s Note: 101st Airborne Division]. His name was Peanuts.

Leonard Gaj [Annotator’s Note: captured on D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944, while serving in Company F, 2nd Battalion, 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division] and his fellow prisoners were marched to a monastery that they called “Starvation Hill”. Gaj spent time in several prisoner camps in Chartres, Chalons, Limburg, Stalag 14-B, and finally in the outskirts of Dresden [Annotator’s Note: Chartres and Chalons, France; Stalag IV-B; Limburg and Dresden, Germany]. At the prison camp in Chartres, Gaj was selected as a litter bearer for wounded German soldiers coming from the front. He saw many men with missing limbs and eyes. He kind of felt sorry for them even though they were the enemy. At Chalons, the Germans wanted to know who was with the 82nd Airborne. Gaj was taken to another part of the camp and put in a room by himself for a few days. He was only given turnip soup which tasted like wood pulp and had no nutritional value. He was then interrogated by an officer who gave him some crackers. They discovered that the officer had been to Buffalo [Annotator’s Note: Gaj’s hometown of Buffalo, New York]. From Chalons, the prisoners were crowded into boxcars, packed in like sardines. It was hot and unsanitary. They only had a bucket to relieve themselves. They arrived in Limburg where they stayed in tents and were deloused. They were there for a week or two before being put back into boxcars and brought to Muhlberg, Germany and camp Stalag 14-B. While there, he met some Polish slave laborers who were allowed to go into town to work. Gaj got to know them, and they gave him a piece of bread every so often. They would sometimes go a few days without eating. Twelve men were boarded onto coaches and brought to the outskirts of Dresden. People spit at them. They were brought to a factory to work. After ten hours of working, they refused to keep going. The Germans got fed up and pointed machine guns at them, so then they agreed to work. [Annotator’s Note: Gaj laughs.] Dresden was bombed around this time. After the bombing, the prisoners were brought into Dresden and Gaj saw bodies in trees that had been blown there by the explosions. They came across mangled bodies. Their job was to transport the dead onto wagons. It was a terrible sight. [Annotator’s Note: Gaj becomes emotional.] They found people in basements who had been baked to death.

Leonard Gaj [Annotator’s Note: a prisoner of the Germans] continued to work in a factory. They were evacuated when the Russians came closer. They walked towards Czechoslovakia. One day, the guards just disappeared and the prisoners were on their own. While walking, the Russians open fired on them so they hid in a cellar. There was also a couple there with a young German soldier, just 12 or 13 years old. They told him to take his uniform off so he would be safe in case the Russians found him. The Russians came and knocked on the door. Gaj told them he was a prisoner of the Germans, and the Russian gave him a few cans of meet and left them in the town. A few days later, an American officer and a few soldiers came into the town looking for lost POWs [Annotator’s Note: prisoners of war]. He was interrogated by a Russian to make sure he was not a German. They were put on C-47s [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft] and brought to Camp Lucky Strike [Annotator's Note: one of the transit and rehabilitation camps in France named after popular cigarette brands; Lucky Strike was near Le Havre, France]. They could not tolerate solid food because they had lost so much weight, so they were given yogurt. Gaj went home, arriving first in Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. There were German POWs working in the mess hall. He thought they were well fed compared to the Americans prisoners of the Germans. Gaj then went to Fort Benning, Georgia and then Fort Dix, New Jersey where he was discharged. There were a lot of tears and hugs when he got home.

Leonard Gaj enlisted in March 1943 because he thought it was his duty to protect the United States of America. It was also partly in response to the attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He had initially wanted to join the Navy, but was rejected so he chose the Army. He took a written test at Fort Niagara [Annotator’s Note: in New York] and wound up in the infantry. He was attracted to the Navy because he would not have to walk a lot. [Annotator’s Note: Gaj laughs.] After basic training, he volunteered for airborne training. He qualified as expert on the M1 rifle [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand]. He decided to become a paratrooper for the extra 50 dollar pay each month. The work he did moving bodies in Dresden [Annotator’s Note: Gaj was made to transport bodies following the bombing of Dresden, Germany when he was a prisoner of war of the Germans] was hideous, gruesome work. Sometimes when he picked up a body, an arm would come off. While stationed in England, Gaj and fellow soldiers would go to Nottingham [Annotator’s Note: Nottingham, England] and look for girls. The local people were very cordial and treated them nicely. The Normandy [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] jump was rescheduled at the last minute due to bad weather. They would pray before boarding planes for a jump. On the trip over to France, there was a lot of anti-aircraft fire, but they got through it.

Leonard Gaj hit the ground quickly when he jumped [Annotator's Note: on D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944 while serving in Company F, 2nd Battalion, 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division]. He spent three days in a gully in Normandy because his captain left him behind with another paratrooper because they were wounded [Annotator’s Note: Gaj had seriously sprained his ankle during the jump.] Some Germans attacked and fired on them for about 15 minutes. The paratroopers decided to surrender. The conditions of the camp [Annotator's Note: Stalag IV-B near Muhlberg, Germany] were not too bad. It was probably a German Army barracks before. The prisoners were separated by nationality. A typical day in camp was quite boring. There was nothing to do. Gaj kept a diary to keep his mind going. He was always hoping for the next bowl of turnip soup. The Germans were immaculate about keeping things clean. A POW [Annotator’s Note: prisoner of war] nailed a can to a table as a prank, and a German guard hurt his hand when he tried to swipe it off. Because of this, they were not given food for three or four days. Despite that, it made them laugh and kept morale up. [Annotator’s Note: Gaj laughs.] For some reason, the Germans specifically wanted the 82nd Airborne for a work detail. They were taken to Dresden [Annotator's Note: Dresden, Germany] on a civilian train. The most difficult of daily life as a prisoner was just trying to get something to eat. When you are that weak, doing manual labor was difficult. He sometimes felt like he was going to pass out. They were given just enough food to keep them going. Every so often they would receive a Red Cross [Annotator's Note: Red Cross, an international non-profit humanitarian organization] parcel which was divided among four prisoners. They figured out a way to make a little cake from mixing crackers with milk and jam and cooking it over the stove they had. The parcels also contained cigarettes which were like money. They could trade cigarettes with guards or other laborers in the factory for bread. Gaj traded a chocolate bar for a piece of bread. He did not smoke. [Annotator’s Note: There is a break in the interview to change tapes at 56:55.]

Leonard Gaj describes his feelings towards Germans as a fruit tree. There is some good fruit and some bad fruit. He was pistol whipped for not doing enough work once, but there were some good Germans too. Sometimes he would come across a guard who could speak Polish [Annotator’s Note: Gaj’s parents were both Polish and he could also speak Polish]. He would sometimes give Gaj bread. The prisoners heard quite a bit about what was going on in the war, but they did not know how true the information was. They heard about the Jewish people being incinerated. There was not much to do in the camp [Annotator's Note: Stalag IV-B near Muhlberg, Germany] so they would just walk around. The British part of the camp put on a play and everyone went to see it. In February [Annotator’s Note: of 1945], Gaj was in Dresden [Annotator’s Note: Dresden, Germany]. They lived in a schoolhouse and slept on cots with straw mattresses. They had a furnace or radiator of some kind that kept it warm. Living there was not bad, except for the lack of food. When they got a loaf of bread, it was divided between seven of them. They would write numbers on a piece of paper to determine who got which piece, because some were bigger than others and it was the only fair way to divide it. Gaj kept a diary which he stopped writing in in February when he ran out of space. At Camp Kilmer [Annotator's Note: Camp Kilmer in Piscataway Township, New Jersey and Edison Township, New Jersey], he was served food by German POWs [Annotator's Note: prisoners of war] and he thought about how well fed they were compared to prisoners held by Germans like him. He was discharged from For Dix [Annotator's Note: now Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in Trenton, New Jersey] in December 1945. He was in the States when the Japanese surrendered [Annotator’s Note: 15 August 1945] and celebrated by going to church. He was a PFC [Annotator’s Note: private first class] when discharged. At the time, he felt that the atomic bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945] saved a lot of lives and that it was the right decision to make.

Leonard Gaj did not consider staying in the service, he could not wait to get out. He took advantage of the G.I. Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment] and attended the University of Buffalo [Annotator’s Note: Buffalo, New York] for one semester until he got a job at a bank. He was very thankful for the G.I. Bill. Gaj still suffers from post-traumatic stress. He has nightmares to this day, almost on a nightly basis. He had trouble getting back into civilian life. He drank quite a bit to forget certain things. Later on, he knew that was not the right thing to do and was affecting his health so he cut it out. Gaj’s experience as a prisoner made him appreciate freedom and liberty, and how important a piece of bread is. It was an honor to serve his country. While doing a practice jump in England, Gaj nearly landed on top of a C-47 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft]. He wanted the diary he kept while a prisoner to be preserved and hopes it will have some benefit for future generations. He donated it to the Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana]. It gives him a very good feeling to know his diary is in the museum. He felt it was his duty to protect his country, and he is proud to have served. He did not want any foreign government taking over the United States. The war made him appreciate the freedoms he has.