761st Tank Battalion

Lens of an Infantryman, A World War II Memoir with Photographs from a Hidden Camera by Murray Leff, published by McFarland (Jefferson, North Carolina) 129 photos, index, appendices, 207 pages softcover (7 x 10) 2007, ISBN 978-0-7864-2867-0. Click here to visit the publisher's website.

Murry Leff fought in Europe beside the 784th Tank Battalion while he was part of the 137th Infantry Regiment. After he arrived in Europe he traded his cigarette ration for a 35mm camera. Hiding the camera under his field jacket, he was able to record some of the war’s most heated fighting. Photographs snapped while he crouched in a water-filled ditch show Leff’s rifle squad burying their heads in mud as enemy shells come in. Images show a supporting tank on its arrival and later, smoldering from a direct hit by German fire. These and many more photographs are part of the memoir recording Leff’s World War II experiences from Gremercey Forest through the Battle of the Bulge, the Ruhr Pocket and the fall of Germany. Now the owner of an advertising agency, Murray Leff lives in Bellerose, New York.