"'The next guys or tanks you see will be Germans. We dropped a daisy chain of mines across the road. You hold them. We will be back with reinforcements.' Not exactly words to warm the cockles of our hearts. It was not a happy time." (Memoir, page 4)

Leon E. Kent

War: World War, 1939-1945 Branch: Army Unit: 142rd Anti-aircraft Artillery (AAA) Gun Battalion Service Location: Camp Wolters, Texas; European Theater Rank: Captain Place of Birth: NY

Leon Kent's experiences in World War II Europe were marked by luck. His artillery unit arrived on the continent in time for the liberation of Paris, and during the celebration he met his future wife, a Frenchwoman. Several months later, his artillery battery was in Belgium, and they were assigned to move out just before a German offensive nearly wiped out an adjoining company. That was the opening of the Battle of the Bulge, and Kent's memoir of activities in the battle's early days detail how what he described as a lucky shot at an advancing German tank severely hampered the advance of an enemy column; that delaying action bought the Allies precious time to turn the tide of the fighting.