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Leonard Dziabas

WWII | H Company, 351st Infantry Regiment, 88th Infantry Division

In Algeria, a stray Russian led the Americans to a cafe full of French Legionnaires, complete with great pasta and bawdy waitresses. Leonard Dziabas enjoyed that but he was soon running through the streets, trying to get away from the begging civilians. He did score some great cognac, though, which caused his buddy to wind up in a garbage pit. (8:06)
Soon after moving from North Africa to Italy, Leonard Dziabas was guarding the mess hall overnight when the Captain came in and said, "Wake up the cooks at four. We're going to the front." Struggling through rain and mud, his unit reached the front amid a lot of German fire. As they replaced the troops there, the sight of rigid corpses in the moonlight was eerie. (10:53)
"Anybody speak French?" Machine gunner Leonard Dziabas only had some high school classes but he spoke up and was soon stumbling around in the dark looking for the French troops who were going to reinforce his unit's position. He spotted the right guns among the chain-smoking Allies and after he got them in place, he fell in the ever present mud face down into something terrible. (7:40)
Leonard Dziabas enjoyed his time attached to the elite British Coldstream Guards, but his attempts to get in on the morning rum ration were unsuccessful. Back with his own unit, a hot hose off his own machine gun caused him to to panic momentarily, but he was much more poised than one of the young Lieutenants when the German rounds started flying. (10:53)
Machine gunner Leonard Dziabas reveals why the 88th Infantry Division was known as the Blue Devils. (2:12)
The two main machine gun parts were the tripod and the receiver, which was the main body of the gun. As machine gunner Leonard Dziabas advanced in the assault on the Gustav Line, he and a friend became separated from the unit with only a receiver between them. Trying to find their unit, the two stragglers crawled right into the German lines. Eventually they discovered that their whole outfit had been captured in their absence. (9:32)
Leonard Dziabas had trained on a different mortar but he jumped into the 81mm mortar pit and fired shells all night until he couldn't hear. His hearing returned in a few days as his unit advanced through Italy. During a lull, he spotted something shiny to which he would become attached for the rest of the war, and he intervened when his buddy began beating prisoners. (9:32)
On loan to a French unit, Leonard Dziabas had to sit idle while an Italian village was brutalized, but not by whom you might think. When he got back to his unit, his platoon had not eaten for five days, but the rations brought to him by a friend proved to be a mixed blessing. Moving on, they employed an unusual tactic to fool Bed Check Charlie. (7:45)
After a deadly friendly fire attack from their own planes, the unit got a small reward in the form of a hot shower and then joined a task force to move on Rome. Leonard Dziabas describes the rush to be the first Allies there, including a race with a German motorized column. (8:44)
As he raced toward Rome, machine gunner Leonard Dziabas took out his machete to clear some corn stalks when he startled some German soldiers who cowered at the sight of cold steel. After that heroic capture, which earned him a Bronze Star, he was soon marveling at the sunset glow over the great city as he approached from the hills above. (7:38)