Moyen, Leon

Leon Moyen was born November 9, 1930 in Luxembourg.  His teenage years were spent under German occupation, and he witnessed firsthand the German Ardennes offensive of 1944 – the Battle of the Bulge.  Leon and his family were consequently twice liberated by the Americans!  The country was not in a good position after the war, and Leon found that he had very few opportunities available to him, so he opted to join the army when he was 16. The Korean War began in June 1950, and to Leon it represented a way to get out of Luxembourg and to start a new life for himself.  He and the other Luxembourgeois completed infantry and paratrooper training and ended up going to Korea as part of a Belgian battalion. When Leon first arrived in Korea, his main task was to do patrols. Eventually he was given a different job – to act as a double crosser. This required crossing over enemy lines to do difficult commando operations and to gather intel. Leon saw intense combat during his time in Korea, and he was wounded on several occasions when fighting against North Korean and Chinese forces. On one of his behind-the-lines missions he suffered a grievous leg wound and was a POW for several weeks until he managed to get away.  He went on to spend 4 months at the 155 Station Hospital in Yokohama, where doctors considered amputating his leg.  The medical personnel wanted to send him home, but Leon demanded to be returned to “his buddies”, which he did.  When his one year tour was over, Leon rejoined and went to Korea a second time, and during that time he remembers a more stationary war. After the war he chose to leave the military life and to focus on family, emigrating to Canada in 1955, where he settled in Montreal for a time before coming to Toronto.  A young woman he met in Luxembourg joined him a year later, and the two married and built their life together in postwar Canada.  Leon has visited us a number of times at Crestwood, and he has attended several Remembrance Day assemblies.  Most recently he was visited in his home in Toronto by Scott Masters and Zach Dunn, both of whom interviewed him in March 2025, and that interview can be seen here.