missed them. They appeared from nowhere. It lasted minutes. They bombarded the airdrome landing field, firing at the caponiers where the planes were, and disappeared. It didn’t last long. Several men were killed, and several men got wounded. I was among those who got wounded. I wasn’t severely wounded. The surgeon told me that had the shrapnel hit 1 mm wider he wouldn’t know how I would have ended up. I just had a small scratch that gradually healed.”

Leonid was trained as a sniper but transferred to the air force where he served as a engineer, but also went on combat missions as a gunner:

“I went on missions as a gunner. As an armament engineer I used to have in store incendiary bullets. I used them to fire at German planes. I wasn’t a sniper in the war. I went on missions to replace those gunners killed in action. When we were short of personnel, everyone went on missions, subject to the command permission.”

He analyzed intelligence photos leading up to the strategic bombing campaigns around Berlin and was on the ground during The Defense Of Moscow in the winter of 1941-42.

After the war, Leonid immigrated to Israel before eventually settling in Toronto. He did extensive research into Jewish involvement in The Red Army, which he published in a book called “Jewish Heroism At War”.