Leonard Feinberg, Part 1

Jewish War veteran shares story as WWII POW (PART ONE OF TWO)

By Rebecca Schnitzer, Correspondent


Leonard Feinberg Ph.D., a retired biochemist living in the Forsythia Gate section of Levittown, remembers his first thought when WWII started.

“I wanted to get into something. That’s the only way I can describe it. I wanted to go fight for my country.”

Feinberg, 87, is a member of Jewish War Veterans Post 697 and likes to speak about the time he spent overseas.

He was born in Longbranch, N.J. and graduated from Jefferson High School in Elizabeth, N.J. in 1941. He started college at Rutgers University in Sept. 1941.

“You can imagine trying to tell your parents, ‘Can I go enlist in the Army?’” Feinburg laughed, adding that his parents’ first reaction was, “No way!”

“But they did come around not too long after Pearl Harbor.”

Shortly after the start of his sophomore year at Rutgers, he enlisted in the Enlisted Reserve and went into the Army. When it was time to choose what basic training he went to, Feinberg told his friends, who also enlisted, that he wanted to go into the tanks.

“They said, ‘Nah, we’re all pre-meds. Let’s go into medical.’ So that’s how I ended up as a medic.”

Feinberg had 17 weeks of basic training followed by three months of surgical tech school, after which he was sent to a replacement depot and then to England to join the 134th Infantry Regiment in the 1st Battalion, which was made up of men from the Nebraska National Guard.

“We got to Normandy – not on D-Day,” Feinberg said. “Where we landed was a short walk from Omaha Beach.”

“We came in a couple weeks after D-Day. As the low man on the totem pole, with all my training, I became a litter-bearer. What we littler-bearers did was go right up to the front line, where anybody was wounded and carry them back to the aid station,” Feinberg remembered. “That was fun and games.”

Feinberg said that the Germans would usually avoid shooting medics. “However, that didn’t always fly.

“Our first objective was to liberate the town of Saint-Lô. That was an important town for us to take, because for them (the Germans), it was sort of a message center,” Feinberg recalled.
“In Normandy they had these hedgerows and these things were impenetrable. That’s what Normandy is famous for – their hedgerows. So I devised a way that we could carry a guy on a litter, cross over a hedgerow and hardly miss a beat!”

“I was such a good litter-bearer; I got the first promotion, to corporal!” Feinberg smiled. “And then I became an Aidman – a company aid medic.”

Feinberg’s battalion went on to liberate towns and cities in France all the way to the German border.

“It was so exciting and so great to liberate these cities and these people were so thankful,” he recalled. “That part – that was the fun part of the war.”

After they had taken a big city in France, they crossed over the German border.

“We had taken this little town and they had some hills, all of the sudden. And there was this big hill and the Germans were holding the hill.”

Feinberg’s commanding officer insisted that they take the hill, but it was late in the afternoon. “The officers were on their radios, telling him it was too late. We can’t go and take the hill. But nope, he insisted.”

Feinberg’s battalion came up the side of the hill and took control of part of it. They started having skirmishes with the Germans, who still ‘owned’ the other half of the hill.

“It was just mass confusion. It was dark by the time it got up there. And we didn’t have time to dig-in and get set.”

Feinberg noticed that his company commander was looking for Art, the company runner. The runner would take messages to headquarters when there was no other way to communicate. In the dark, Feinberg and his company commander came down the hill and saw Art. Just as they reached him, a mortar shell hit right behind the company commander, killing him.


“He took the whole blast of it, he was right behind me. I got hit in the back and head.”

Feinberg still has his helmet which boasts two holes made from mortar shells.

That’s when things started to get interesting for Feinberg.

(Continued Next Week)